Chapter 1
Whisper
My head hurts from the brightness of the sun. I grab the side of my head in pain as peoplew walkpast me. I notice stares at me, and tears fall from the corners of my eyes. I stop in my tracksn and grab the other side of my head as my vision goes so white that I can’t see anything. When my vision comes into focus, I can see it is sunset, there is an older lady right in front of me.
Someone dressed in all black pushes this woman to the ground and rips her purse from her frail hands She hits the ground hard and the thief runs towards me, actually runs through me. Like I am not there.
Suddenly the pain is gone, I reach for the woman and my vision is white again. Now I see thesame street I was in before the whiteness. What just happened? I don’t see the woman on the ground in front of me, I quickly turn around and the thief is not there. This doesn’t make any sense I take a deep breath and try to calm down. Whatever I saw is not real, it can’t be. I start to walk again; I have to go to work at the pawn shop. It is only a couple buildings away.
There must be a strange look on my face when I walk through the door because Maximus stares at me. He finishes up with the customer then turns to me.
“What is wrong birthday girl? You should be smiling from ear to ear?”
“Nothing,” I respond.
“No. Something is wrong. I can tell. Tell me what it is?”
“It is nothing,” I say as I walk to the back of the shop to put my bag away.
“Did you forget, I raised you? I can tell when you are lying to me.” Maximus says as he follows me to the back.
“You know I won’t stop till you tell me.” I take a deep breath and put my hands on the sorting table.
“I don’t know okay. I can’t tell you because I don’t know what is wrong, but something is not right. My head hurts so much today, Uncle Maximus.” He looks at me a long time, I can see the genuine concern on his face.
“How about we close up early, go upstairs and have some tea and talk?” He doesn’t wait for my response before he goes out to the front of the shop. I follow him to the door as I see him flip the 'open’ sign to ‘close’ and locks the front door. On his way back, he turns off all the lights.
“You never close down early,” I say as he gets back to me.
“This is more important. Come on. Let’s go upstairs.” He walks past me into the back and grabs my bag. He slings my bag over his shoulder and uses his other hand to open the door to the stairs. I go towards him and start up the stairs. I walk right into his living room from the stairs and head for the kitchen. I know this place like the back of my hand because, until last year this was my house. I take a seat at the island as Maximus drops my bag on the other side of the island. He grabs the teapot from the stove and takes it to the sink to fill it.
“Start from the beginning.” He says as the water fills. Something tells me that he knows what I am going to tell him, but how could he? I don’t even understand what happened. I take a deep breath.
“I wonder if I just have a bad headache or maybe I ate something that was laced with,” I pause not knowing what I to say. Maximus turns the water off and puts the teapot back on the stove. The ticking of the gasoline igniting is a noise that I will never forget as the flame starts up a brilliant blue. He puts the teapot on the burner and then goes to get a couple cups out of the cabinet. He puts the cups on the island, one in front of me and the other in front of himself. He grabs spoons from one drawer on the island and two tea bags from the other.
“Ok, tell me what you have done since you left work two days ago.” We sit there in conversation for I don’t know how long. It makes me feel better to talk with him and he must have known. That’s when we both hear the sirens. I turn to the closest window and the sky is a rosy red, the sun is setting. We can see the blue and red lights through the window, but the sirens turn off. I get off the chair and head to the window. It’s her.
I see the woman from earlier today, she is with a police officer. She is obviously in some distress. Before I know what to do, I run down the stairs. I grab the keys and run outside the store door. Now I can hear her, she just had her purse stolen.
“What is going on Whisper? What is it?” Maximus asks from behind me; I can’t get my words. How do I say it? How do I tell him I witnessed this happen earlier? Like déjà vu? I don’t know how to.
“You saw it. That is what was bothering you when you came in. Right?” Maximus said as he stood next to me and wraps his arm around my shoulders. I nod. Words still escaped me.
“Come on. I need to show you something.” Maximus leads me inside and back upstairs. I can’t comprehend what is going on. My mind goes blank.
