Gaia Dreams (Gaiaverse Book 1) (29 page)

"What is it, honey?" Jessica asked.

"--a lotta people are gonna be hurt and dead and
stuff--people smashed, burned, cut up, arms, legs everywhere, mostly drowned,
sunk in the water, can't breathe, can't breathe, can't breathe--"

Jessica grabbed her daughter in horror and
called, "Samantha!"

Her mother's touch appeared to bring Sam back
from wherever she had been as she opened her eyes and took a shuddering breath.

Walking Sam across the room, Jessica sat in the
rocker and lifted Sam into her lap and began rocking slowly. Still shocked to
know what her daughter was capable of seeing, she said, "I'm so sorry for
asking you to do that. I didn't know--I didn't know you would see things like
that."

She continued rocking, running her hand gently
over Sam's hair and listening to the child's breathing return to normal. "Are
you back here now, honey, all the way back with me now?" she asked.

Samantha nodded slowly and said in a small quiet
voice, "It was like one of the big dreams, only it went out for a long way."

"Out for a long way?"

"Yeah--like I could see really far, far away if I
kept going. But I think maybe
I
was going far, far away too. So maybe
that wasn't so good."

Jessica laughed a bit shakily. "Yeah, kiddo, I
think maybe that wasn't so good." Then she continued, "These things you can do,
the things you can see--I think we have to find out what you can do and how to
keep you safe. Sometimes maybe we are going to need information, but I don't
want you going far, far away like that again, okay?"

"Okay, Mommy," Sam said. "But the dreams take me
far away and you can't stop that."

"No, no, I can't stop the dreams."

Sam slid off her lap and smiled wanly, saying, "It's
okay, Mommy. I'm just gonna go for a walk with Harry now," as Harry came
bounding up to the back door, barking and whining.

"What's wrong with Harry?" Jessica asked,
unsettled by the dog's behavior after her experience with Sam.

Sam replied, "He knew what I saw, but he was
over at Mrs. Philpott's. He was scared. He'll be okay now." She knelt down to
hug the dog and then walked out with him.

Jessica watched them through the screen door,
stunned. The levels at which her daughter interacted with Harry and--well, just
what was her daughter interacting with? Visions of the future? Nature? Some
kind of consciousness? How changed was Samantha now? What was she changing
into?

There is no way for me to protect my daughter
from the horrors happening in the world now--and in fact, Jessica thought, I
might be one of the very people who call on Sam to use her powers to look at
even more difficult images in the future. Although what could be more difficult
than today would be hard to imagine. Still, Samantha needed a buffer. And as
her mother that was Jessica's job to guard her daughter from any threat. The
unknown around them loomed, and the unknown inside of Samantha beckoned, but
Jessica would find a way to help her daughter through this. Sam would not be
alone.

The Train, Chicago, Illinois

Rachel walked into the train's dining car and
sat down across the table from her mother. Grace Samuels was, as usual,
immaculately dressed in her favorite Chanel suit, hair and make-up done, pearls
at her throat. Rachel, without the benefit of a first cup of coffee, felt
immediately inadequate. She tugged uselessly at her brown hair with its golden
highlights, which was curling madly in the short cut she preferred, all over
the top of her head.

"Rachel, stop pulling at your hair," Gracie said
calmly. Everyone called her Gracie. Except Rachel.

"Yes, Mother," Rachel said obediently, thinking
how quickly she reverted to childhood habits when she was around Gracie. Here
she was, a successful ad executive, and Gracie could reduce her to ten years
old in the span of two minutes!

Gulping at her coffee and burning her tongue,
Rachel swore vehemently as Gracie looked on with one perfectly drawn, raised
eyebrow. "Whatever is the problem with you today, Rachel?" she asked her
daughter.

"The problem," Rachel said distinctly, "is that
I should never have agreed to come on this trip with you. I had a lousy night's
sleep--woke up with a nightmare of all things, and I blame it on being on this
train! I should have stayed in New York and worked. Or seen my friends. Gone to
a few plays. Anything else. But, no, I'm not doing those things. I'm sitting on
a train, taking forever to get to some godforsaken town in the middle of
nowhere in Missouri!"

"Dear," Gracie said. "Perhaps you're forgetting
why we're doing this? To visit your niece who's been terribly ill? She could
have
died
, Rachel. And," continuing firmly when Rachel moved to
interrupt, "you and I don't spend enough time together! We live in the same
city and I never see you. When you agreed to this trip, I told you that it
would be a chance for us to spend some quality time together." Gracie paused
and then said delicately, "After all, dear, we don't really know just how much
time I have left."

Rachel looked stricken, thoughtful, and then
curious. "Mother, the last I heard you were in perfect health. Has anything
changed in that regard? Have you received some bad news medically?"

"Well, no, dear, but you just never really know
now, do you?" Gracie replied.

Rachel shook her head and reluctantly smiled. "You're
terrible, do you know that?"

Gracie smiled warmly at her daughter and said, "I
have to be, to deal with you, sweetheart."

Rachel burst out laughing. "Oh, Mother, I know
we never see each other. You're probably right--I do need a break. And it will
be great to see John and Jessica and little Samantha again." She looked out the
window and said, "Hey, now that I've decided I want to be on this trip, why aren't
we moving?"

Gracie said, "While you were sleeping in we
pulled into Chicago. I think we're taking on passengers and then it's only
about six more hours to St. Louis."

Sonoran Desert, Arizona

Into the silence of Margaret's revelation that
she knew what was behind the disasters, Maria suddenly jumped up. "Didn't you
try to warn them at least? The pilots?" she demanded of Margaret.

Margaret looked up at her and shook her head
slowly. "No, I didn't try. I knew they wouldn't believe me. Why should they?
Why would anyone believe that all those planes would fall from the sky at the
same time? Would even you have believed me, if I'd told you? Honestly?"

Maria just stood there, quivering with
frustration and shock. Finally with a little cry of rage, she threw herself
onto the couch, saying "I don't know! Okay? Maybe I would have believed
you...maybe not. But all those people!"

"Yes?" Margaret replied, questioning. "All those
people? What about the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, yes, millions
that have already died? This was a drop in the bucket, believe me."

"How can you say that?" Maria answered back,
horrified.

Margaret paced back and forth in front of them. "I
can say that because I've been living with this far longer than you. I've been
dealing with realities you can't begin to comprehend! You've been going from
one disaster to another, only recently entertaining the idea that these weren't
individual events. I've known they were all connected from the beginning. I
tried warning people, to no effect. I've shed so many tears for all those who
would die that I can't cry anymore. I've lived with the dreams from day one. So
don't look at me like I'm the monster. I'm not causing this!" She ended on a
defiant note, facing them.

At the mention of the dreams, Zack looked
startled and now said, "What dreams?"

Margaret looked at him intently for a moment and
then smiled sadly, "Oh, so you know what I'm talking about, Zack. You've been
having the dreams too."

Maria glanced back and forth between them and
asked, "What's going on? What do you mean?"

"Your next on-air assignment, Maria," Margaret
said. "You're going to tell the world how some people have started having
dreams about the disasters before they happen and how those dreams are coming
true. It's the only way we can hope to save anyone. The people having dreams
will perhaps get to places of safety."

Zack's face paled as he said, "But the dream
last night--that means--oh, my god! The flood!"

"Yes," Margaret said, pulling her fingers
through her hair as if to yank it out of her head. "Yes, it's true. That flood
is going to happen--and soon."

Maria stood up again, saying, "Now just hold on!
Dreams? Psychic dreams? Is that what we're talking about here? And we're just
supposed to believe you, right? I think we all need to just step back a minute
and think about what's being said. This is nuts!" She stood face to face with
Margaret, pointing a finger at her chest and said, "Where are you getting your
information? What 'voice of God' is telling you that all this is connected? Why
should we believe you?"

Margaret took a deep breath and said calmly, "It's
not a voice of God. It's the voice of the Earth, of the planet itself." At
Maria's skeptical look, Margaret smiled and said, "I see you are going to need
more evidence than just my say-so. Hmmm, would this help?" And with that, she
made a clicking sound with her tongue against her teeth, as if, Maria thought,
she were calling an animal.

A large tabby cat walked into the room and
jumped up into Margaret's arms. "I believe you know who this is, Maria,"
Margaret said, smiling broadly. "That voice of the planet I was talking about
just now? Well, it led this cat to me, knowing that you would eventually be
here, to be reunited."

Tears streamed from Maria's eyes as she gathered
the cat in her arms and said reverently, "Cleo!"

Zack said softly, "Impressive!"

The Train, Between Chicago and St. Louis

"You'd think since we got money out of the ATM
from both our accounts we could have afforded better accommodations," griped
Alex.

Nathan sighed. Alex appeared to be recovering
from the effects of the dreams of last night and her psychic premonition about
the airplane this morning, and was getting back to her old self. "Like I tried
to tell you before--the train's first class compartments were all full so we had
to take what we could get, which were these coach seats, or whatever they call
them on a train." He continued, "It's not for that long, only six hours to St.
Louis, and then we can rent a car and drive the rest of the way."

As Nathan unfolded a map of Missouri he'd bought
at the train station, Alex stated, "I'm doing the driving. If you drive, it'll
take us forever to get there!"

Nathan groaned and then pointed to the map and
said, "Look, I think we need to take a route that gets us clear of the river as
soon as possible. We don't know when the flooding will start, but we know we
want to be as far away from it as possible."

"Yeah," she replied, "definitely need to be out
of the vicinity when that begins." She leaned back in her seat and then said
tentatively, "Nathan?"

"Hmm?" he replied, calculating distances on the
map.

"You know I didn't really make the pilot land
the plane, right?"

Nathan turned to look at her and said, "Alex, we've
been over this--at the airport we found out that all those planes were called
back, landing wherever the nearest airport was, because of all the others that
went down. It wasn't you."

"Yeah, I guess so." She paused, and then said, "So
you don't think I had anything to do with those planes crashing, do you?"

Nathan looked completely surprised. He wanted to
shake her, because, really, sometimes she could be...but then, looking at her
more closely, he saw the fear in her eyes. "No, Alex," he said distinctly, "you
were not the cause. You just had a feeling about it--like the dream. That's all
it was. You did not cause it."

She seemed to relax a bit and said, "Okay, I was
just checking. It's kind of a weird situation we're in, you know. Sometimes,
well, it's a little hard to figure out just what the hell is going on!" she
finished up defiantly.

Nathan laughed shortly and said, "A little hard
to figure out? I'd say we're way outside the range of normal here, heading into
the realm of bizarre and having jumped right over strange in the process."

"Yeah, bizarre," said Alex, leaning back in her
seat. "You figure out the map. I'm going to sleep." And placing her baseball
cap over her face, she appeared to do just that.

Jonesboro, Arkansas

Andy was nervous. As he strode toward the camper
truck with Lisanne hanging on his arm, he wondered for the umpteenth time why
he'd gone along with this charade. Army boots, khakis and aviator sunglasses
weren't enough to convince this guy they were meeting he was the real thing and
Andy knew it. He stopped and pulled Lisanne close to him.

"What are you doing?" she whispered.

"I think we should call this off--turn around and
get the hell out of here," he said.

"We can't now, look, no--" She grabbed his face
and reached up to suddenly kiss him.

As Andy's world tilted slightly, he saw the door
of the camper opening out of the corner of his eye. Lisanne's lips released his
and whispered, "See? It's too late now. You can do this--just be your dad."

Just be my dad?
Andy's emotions dove for
cover as Lisanne draped herself over his arm, pressing close. Her scent and the
pressure of her lithe body next to his banished all other thought. He watched
the approach of the camper owner and decided that more than anything he wanted
out of here. Marching forward, he raised a hand and said, "Name's Andy. Heard
you might be able to help me out."

The man standing by the camper was dressed in
all black. A face worn by sun and wind and dark as black ink showed no
expression. Deep set eyes swept over Lisanne at a glance and settled on Andy.
Full lips parted over bright white teeth and a voice like a scratchy record
said, "Does she have to be here?"