Into the Shadows
Authors: Karly Kirkpatrick
Tags: #paranormal, #magic, #secrets, #ya, #special powers
Copyright © 2010 by Karly Kirkpatrick
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and incidents are either products of the author’s
imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All
rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
without permission in writing from the author or publisher.
Smashwords Edition: October 2010
Sweet Dreams
Five years ago…
Streams of sunlight shone brightly through
the car window as shadows of the passing trees flickered across
Paivi Anderson’s face. Next to her sat a woman she knew well, but
as she glanced around she was slightly confused. Looking over her
shoulder into the back seat she was surprised to see that Michaela
wasn’t in the car. Though they had been friends forever it was rare
that Paivi was in the car with Michaela’s mother by herself. Mrs.
Brown, an older version of her daughter and sporting the same long,
dark hair, hummed along with a song on the radio. She seemed
unaware of Paivi sitting next to her.
In an instant the car slammed to a violent
stop and Paivi pitched forward in her seat. Glass shattered — small
pieces rained down on her and she could hear the horrible sound of
crunching metal. Mrs. Brown screamed as rivers of blood ran down
her face, which had been sliced by the flying glass. An oily smoke
filled the car, surging through the vents. Paivi’s lungs burned as
she gasped for air, choking and sputtering. She looked down to see
flames licking at her feet from under the dashboard. She was
frozen, unable to move as the scorching heat raced up her legs. A
deafening explosion shook them, rocking the car.
Paivi screamed and thrashed in pain, trying
to free herself from the flaming wreckage tangled around her. She
didn’t want to open her eyes, terrified of what she would see. Cool
hands grasped her arms and in the distance she heard a familiar
voice.
“She’s having another dream, John!” Mrs.
Anderson’s voice was panicked as she wrestled with the tangled mass
before her.
Paivi opened an eye and saw her room.
“Help me! No, no, no!” she screamed, fighting
against the damp sheet that had woven itself around her limbs and
clung to her body. Her pajamas were soaked with sweat and she could
still feel the heat from the fire, despite being aware she was no
longer in it.
Mrs. Anderson frantically attempted to
untangle the sheet from around Paivi’s thin frame.
“Sweetheart, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“No, Mom, I don’t know, it’s Mrs. Brown.”
Paivi was rambling — unable collect her thoughts. Finally able to
sit up, she gulped hungrily at the air, struggling to find her
breath. Mrs. Anderson put her arms around Paivi, and smoothed her
sweaty hair back from her forehead. “I saw her in my dream. There
was some kind of accident. In the car. But I don’t think she’s
okay. You have to do something!” she pleaded.
Mr. and Mrs. Anderson exchange concerned
looks.
This wasn’t the first time their young
daughter had experienced such a vivid dream. It became difficult
for Mr. and Mrs. Anderson to stop Paivi from making connections as
she got older. Her ‘dreams’ came true all too often. She often
shared them with her parents, but she had never envisioned such a
tragic event. Mostly they were trivial things, such as finding a
lost bike or watching herself earn an A on an upcoming test.
Mr. and Mrs. Anderson supported Paivi’s
visions and never made her feel different. Little did she know it
was because they were comforted by the thought that other adults
would merely look upon her as a precocious child with an
over-active imagination. This would keep her secret safe from the
citizens of St. Andrew, Illinois. Besides, Paivi was, in most
respects, a normal little girl from a happy family and that’s all
anyone really needed to know.
Mrs. Anderson spoke softly, “I don’t know if
there is much we can do.”
“What do you mean Mom? Dad, you’re a
policeman. Please do something! We have to call them! I have to
call Michaela!” Paivi screamed hysterically. She fought against her
mom’s arms with no success. Mrs. Anderson only held her
tighter.
“Paivi, I am so sorry,” Mr. Anderson said.
“Sometimes we see things we wish we couldn’t, but there is nothing
we can do. When the time is right, your Mom and I will explain this
all to you. But right now you need to trust us. You’ll need to be
there for Michaela. And you have to promise us that you won’t tell
anyone about your dream tonight.”
Mr. Anderson knelt down beside her and took
her hand. Paivi was sobbing so hard that she could not respond.
Gulps and shudders were now the only sounds she could manage.
“Okay,” she whispered.
Paivi sat up crying for a few more hours
before falling asleep, exhausted, in her mother’s arms.
Mrs. Anderson called her out of school the
next day.
“The library books can wait until tomorrow,
I’m sure they don’t mind,” she said as she pulled a tray of Paivi’s
favorite chocolate chip cookies out of the oven. “Miss Nelson said
she hoped you feel better,” she offered, referring to the head
librarian at the St. Andrew Public Library, where she worked.
Paivi shoved the cookies away,
uninterested.
Every thing in the house reminded her of
Michaela and Mrs. Brown. Commercials showing a mother and daughter
running together in the park and the plot of her mom’s soap opera
wouldn’t allow her to block the thoughts from her mind. She spent
most of the day curled up next to her mom on the couch. She
shivered as her mom stroked her long, blond hair and held her
close, wondering if Michaela would get a chance to do the same with
her mom again.
In the afternoon she asked her mom calmly,
her green eyes shining with hope, “Mom, are you sure there anything
we can do? Can’t we call someone?”
“Honey, I promise you, if there was any way
to change what you saw, I would do it for you and for Mrs. Brown.
But sometimes there are things we can’t change. When you’re a
little older, you’ll understand this better.” She attempted a
bitter half-smile, which was meant more for herself than for Paivi.
Dark circles floated under her sky blue eyes. “Not that it makes it
any easier. Just know that you are special and we love you very
much.”
She kissed Paivi on the head.
And so they waited. Paivi’s stomach churned
as she thought about having to face Michaela. She was able to dodge
her phone call after school but she knew there would be no escaping
her the next day.
The phone call came that evening, from Mr.
Anderson himself. Mrs. Anderson answered, her voice muted. She
turned back to Paivi, who sat anxiously at the kitchen table,
shredding a paper napkin.
“That was your Daddy. Mrs. Brown had an
accident today. She was taken to St. Andrew Medical. She is still
alive, but very badly injured,” Mrs. Anderson paused, wiping away a
tear as it trickled down her cheek, “they’re not sure if she’ll
make it.”
This time Paivi did not cry. Mrs. Brown was
alive, and for right now that was enough for her.
Despite the best efforts of her doctors and
weeks in the hospital, Mrs. Brown wasn’t getting any better. She
had been badly burned in the explosion and was forced to endure
numerous surgeries. Paivi was unable to avoid Michaela for long, as
the Andersons had kindly offered to take care of Michaela and her
little sister Marissa while Mr. Brown tended to his ailing wife. At
first, things were awkward. Paivi worried that Michaela would
somehow figure out the truth — that she had known about the
accident. She felt like it was written in red letters across her
forehead.
“Paivi,” Michaela said one night as she and
Paivi settled in for their fourth sleepover that week. She twisted
in her sleeping bag and turned towards Paivi, trying to keep from
waking Marissa who was asleep at her feet. “I’m scared. I mean,
Marissa isn’t because she’s so little, but I’ve heard my dad
talking on the phone. I don’t want my mom to die, Paivi.”
Paivi could see her wipe away tears in the
light of the night-light. She felt her own eyes overflow; tears
spilled silently down her cheeks. She reached out and grabbed
Michaela’s hand.
“I don’t want her to die either,” she
whispered, wishing that her words were enough to change what she
knew would happen.
On a beautiful spring day, Mrs. Brown passed
away. Guilt oozed out of every pore as Paivi trudged across the
graveyard towards the waiting crowd dressed in black. She clasped
her mom’s hand, hoping that it would be over quickly. She couldn’t
bear looking at the life, now over, sitting on the dais in front of
them. Michaela had taken it better than Paivi, something that she
struggled to comprehend. She wondered how her friend could be so
strong.
Paivi returned home after Mrs. Brown’s
funeral, ran straight up the stairs to her room and threw herself
down on the bed. Curled up into a ball, she rocked back and forth,
holding her knees.
No more dreams, she swore to herself. I don’t
want to see anything ever again.
She pulled a picture off the wall next to her
bed, gazing at her best friend’s smiling face. She couldn’t imagine
what would happen if Michaela ever found out that she had known
what would happen to her mother. Losing her best friend was not a
risk she was willing to take, if she could help it.
And so she tried. Every night before she went
to sleep, she would clear her mind. If she had a dream, she would
try to forget it the minute she woke up, drowning the images in
everyday things and pushing them into the farthest corners of her
mind. Every day she would remember less and less. She was winning
the battle.
Sometimes she would be concentrating so hard
on chasing the images away, with her eyes scrunched closed and her
hands balled up in fists at her sides, that she wouldn’t notice the
odd things that were happening around her.
It started slowly at first — it was hardly
noticeable. Paivi was so focused on getting rid of the dreams that
she didn’t notice a small horse figurine inch slightly across the
top of her dresser. She didn’t see the book sliding ever so gently
towards the edge of the bookshelf, where it stopped just before
falling.
One day, however, as she was concentrating
ever so hard on pushing a particularly happy vision from her mind,
she couldn’t help but notice.
Maybe it wasn’t so bad to have visions, she
thought to herself as she lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling
after a particularly entertaining vision that occurred while she
slept.
Sometimes her visions were good, really good.
She closed her eyes, trying to remember the face of the boy she was
kissing in her dream.
Paivi then thought back to Mrs. Brown’s
funeral. Trees with budding leaves framed the scene in the
cemetery, softening the harsh gray of the gravestones. Bright
sunlight reflected off of the pearly casket as it sat over the
large hole dug in the fresh earth. The scene was almost beautiful,
if it wasn’t for the tragedy that lay beneath the mountain of
blood-red roses that dripped red rivulets across the white lid.
Paivi felt a surge of anger push through all
of her anguish. Her brain was on fire and the heat coursed through
her, pulsing through her veins from her fingers to her toes. She
clenched her fists and squeezed her eyes shut. She cried out in
pain, unable to keep the rush of energy inside her body. It burst
out through her fingertips, whipping around her. The sound of a
loud crash brought her back into the room. She opened her eyes to
see books flying across the room from the shelves and slamming into
the wall opposite. They fell to the floor in a heap, open with
pages and covers bent. Figurines of horses and unicorns as well as
dolls were flying from the top of her dresser and smashing into the
walls. Shards of porcelain rained down on the floor.