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“Truthfully?” I laughed.
He laughed with me. “Let’s start with that, sure.” A warm breeze blew against us, and I leaned my head back.
“I was thinking about all the things that I don’t understand, the ones for which I’ve never found the answers.”
He whistled, which tickled my ear and made me grin again. “That’s a daunting task to think about. I wouldn’t want to contemplate all of the things I don’t understand.”
“Can the mothman be tracked to his nest or wherever he lives, and could they all just be handled at once?”
He squeezed me gently. “If you want to have a vision that shows us where they live, I would be more than happy to do that when I’m healed.”
Oh, I saw the problem. They were beholden to visions from their wives. And there were so few of us left. This year’s ritual had added a large number of us, but who knew if any of them were really powerful in their gifts? I certainly seemed to be frustratingly limited…
“Got it.” I frowned. “Maybe someday, I will. Where is everyone else?”
“Well.” He put his chin on my shoulder, which made me even more cozy. “Freddie got lost in your stables. He doesn’t like how the stable boy is doing things. Horses are his passion, even if I’m a better rider. He wants to take you out later, so he’s in there taking care of all of the horses on the estate.” That might be fifty horses. What was Joe, the stable boy, doing wrong? I should ask. It could be corrected. “True stormed off a bit ago after kissing you. He told me about that, by the way. Made a bit of a mess of it, I think. Maybe it’s why you have that dazed look in your eyes. He knows he screwed up. And Ollie went walking west and has not come back yet. You are not the only one who can get lost in your head. Something has caught his attention, but he’ll be back.”
Interesting. I squeezed Charlie’s hand. “And what would you be doing, if you weren’t stuck on this blanket?”
“Trying to get stuck on a blanket with you.”
I laughed, and so did he, which was sort of wonderful. “Sloane…”
Whatever he would have said was lost to me as a vision struck me, nearly doubling me over, but then his arms were around me. His voice saying my name echoed in my ears, while reality fled away.
I stood in Hawkseye, right outside of the manor where I had stayed during the ritual.
I looked around fast. It was nighttime, but the sound of laughter filled my ears. People were gathered, a large number of them. Who was it? Sound was different for me, it was new. My visions had been silent until then. I recognized people. Jayne and her husbands were there. She wore all black, a new look for her, and she smiled at something Matthew said to her. Then she shook her head. Whatever she was denying made him shyly smile. It was cute, but I wasn’t having a vision because Jayne was making Matthew smile. Pascal took a bite of a green fruit and then laughed at something someone said.
Hannah walked past my vision. Her husbands trailed after her, trying to keep up, while Caroline sang and her husbands gazed lovingly at her. But then they all looked up and horror crossed the crowd. I followed their gaze, forcing my vision upward when it wanted to stay where it was. I had to learn to control the vision better. In the sky, beasts appeared again, but bigger, darker, angry. They weren’t there to mess with the crowd. They were angry.
Pascal shouted something, but then they all were burned as flames erupted from the creatures’ mouths. All of the people were dead, smoldering corpses laid out before me.
I screamed, reaching for them, and then I was thrust back into my body. Pain assaulted me. I might as well have been burned, too, and every muscle ached. Charlie stayed still, the vision moving over him for a second, but then he jolted back to life.
“Okay.” He pulled me around so we were chest-to-chest, holding me in a strong hug. “That is over. It must hurt. It must be awful. How did you see that so clearly?” I shook against him as he whispered the words to me. I couldn’t stop, and my tears flowed through me as though they would never end. “I’ve got you. I’m here. Look at me.” I tried to, and then Charlie kissed me, the sweetest joining of our lips. He kissed me again and again, and with each caress, the pain of the vision that had taken over and destroyed my body lessened. My tears continued to flow until they tapered off, too.
Finally, he pulled back, holding my cheeks. “It’s over. You did such a good job with that vision. I don’t know how you did that. I mean it.”
I hardly did anything. I just looked at things. My body still shook, and hands came down all over my back. All three of the other guys were there.
“So strong.” Freddie stroked my hair. “So vivid. I didn’t know visions could be as clear as yours are.”
“But look what they do to her.” Truett kissed my cheek before he rubbed my shoulders.
“You’ve saved all those people. You did that.” Oliver ran a hand down my back.
I shouldn’t lean on Charlie, but it was as though all of my energy was gone. He didn’t seem to mind, holding me as if I wasn’t too heavy or too much in that moment. “You are the real thing, Sloane. You are what they meant when they talked about women having this gift. Just rest. You are so powerful.”
The shakes didn’t stop, and maybe that was normal, because they just kept touching me and saying things like that.
“So different,” Freddie spoke in a low voice. “So much more intense than I could have imagined it could be.”
Eventually, I closed my eyes.
“Sloane.” Oliver lifted me up. “I’ve got you. You’re going to ride with me. We need to leave for Hawkseye and ride all night. Those banners you saw?” Had there been banners? Yes, I remembered them. It was a good thing they saw the visions with me, because I hadn’t focused on decorations. Just the monsters and the fire. “Those are the banners they put up when the ceremonies are over. The Warriors are leaving after that. That’s why they were all there.”
It made sense. I rubbed my eyes. I was still against Charlie, who rose when Freddie lifted me up. “That is in two days. We need to get there quickly, so I can’t let you sleep all night, which we would’ve preferred. Your mom packed us some dinner.” I made a face, and he laughed. “Maybe we’ll let you cook next time we’re going to travel.”
