Page 4 of Chasing Dreams
Maya watched her with a look of apprehension...and something more. Sympathy. Fear. A look Shaine couldn’t acknowledge. It was the same way her mother had always looked at her.
Chapter 2
Jack needed his hair washed and cut. He needed someone to pick him up and hug him, hold him. He was alone. Frightened Hungry. So hungry, his stomach hurt.
A yellowed decal, a swan among faded water lilies, was peeling from green plastic tiles. The bird was a peach color with a black bill. A rusty metal cabinet sat on peeling linoleum.
Jack’s lip hurt.
Somewhere, as if in the distance, music played. A disembodied voice blended with the music, one minute in indistinct speech, the next in weary crying. Sometimes he slept through it; sometimes the pitch changed and woke him. Sometimes he cried. If he wasn’t too tired. Or too hungry.
Shaine shot straight up in bed. Thin shafts of light striped her bedcovers. She pressed the backs of her fingers against her heated cheeks. Somewhere, within the billions of cells and tissues and bits of DNA and protoplasm that made up Shaine Richards, was a place of knowing. No rationalization or scientific theory could explain away the fact that she knew what she knew at any given time. She trembled with the knowledge of her dream.
Jack needed help.
She reached for her phone. Though he’d officially retired from the institute, Tom Stempson still kept a hand in several of the research projects. Taking an interest in Shaine, he’d given her his home number, along with his permission to call anytime day or night. And Lord help her, she had.
“Tom,” she said when he answered.
“Shaine? How are you doing?”
“Not so good.” She explained the dream and what had happened with the Deets boy that day.
“That’s incredible. Won’t you consider coming back to the institute for a while? I could work with you full-time.”
She hugged a pillow to her stomach. “I can’t, Tom. I hate it there. I just don’t fit in.”
“But you’re so gifted. We could learn so much from you—from each other.”
She leaned back on the bed, weary with the weight of this burden he called a gift. “I just can’t.”
“If you were here, we’d have an opportunity to explore how far-reaching this thing is.”
“But can you show me how to use it? Can you help me with the dreams about Jack?”
“No, Shaine. Everyone’s ability is so different. It’s something that takes time to define.”
“I don’t have time. I tried it your way once—”
“Once, and a month wasn’t enough time—”
“A month was way too long for Jack. I can’t do it again. We didn’t get anywhere. We’re still not getting anywhere. Today proved it to me. What happened with that little boy validated everything I’ve been going through. Tom, I saw that child.”
“I know,” he said softly.
“I knew exactly where he was and I told the police.”
“I know,” he said again.
“I can see Jack, too. And I know where he is.” She covered her eyes with her hand for a minute. “I mean—I-I can see him—see exactly where he is and what he’s doing. I just don’t have the—the coordinates,” she said for lack of a better explanation. “I need help figuring that out. I know it’s possible, I just don’t know how. I’m at the end of my rope, here, Tom.”
He was silent for a long minute, and when he finally spoke, his voice held a note of apprehension. “You’ve gone beyond me, Shaine,” he said.
“Yeah.” She’d known it before he had. “I don’t think anyone who hasn’t experienced this himself would know how to help me,” she said. “You’ve spared my sanity, Tom. I couldn’t have survived these months without you. I appreciate that, believe me I do, but I can’t come back there.”
“I guess I knew that.” He released a breath. “Do you have any idea how old I am?”
The odd question made her think a minute. “No. You’re semi-retired. Sixtyish?”
