Chapter 18
It was after midnight when James Chisholm finished answering questions and dismissed us to bed. The crowd started dissipating and the fire was left to die down. The little ones had retired hours ago, leaving the rest of us to ask more in-depth questions about the dark side.
“So what'd you think?” Nick asked, breaking the silence.
“It was good,” was all I could think of to say at the moment.
“He sure knows a lot, doesn't he?” Rachel said.
“That's why they call him the Mighty Counsellor,” Claudia laughed.
“What is his gift?” I asked, turning to face Nick and Claudia.
Nick grinned. “James has all of the gifts, actually.”
“What?” Noah gasped. “I didn't know that was even possible.”
“It’s not, really,” Claudia clarified. “He’s the only one who has all eight.”
I hadn’t seen that one coming. I knew he had some special powers because he was able to mind read and imitate voices, but I had no idea he could do everything else too. This created a newfound respect for the man.
As I thought about this, the tall, mid-fifties healer got up from his bench and announced to his friends that he was heading to bed.
“Nick, do you know him?” I asked quietly, nodding toward the man.
“Not really,” he said, “but I know he keeps to himself a lot and that he's one heck of a healer.”
“Really? How do you know that?”
“He's often summoned all over the world when one of the Gifted Ones gets injured. He's done some pretty amazing stuff.”
I was excited to get on with my training the following day. I was sure I was going to do well. I'd just keep Anna on my mind and imagine myself healing her. Just like I did at the ski hill.
“Okay,” Noah began as he turned to face Nick and Claudia, “so you guys are gifted with Discernment.”
“The both of you? How did that happen?” Rachel asked.
“Well, we met here at camp a few years ago,” Claudia began. “We got to know each other because we were in the same group. Nick was living in Toronto at the time, but convinced his mother to move to Nova Scotia so we could be together.” Claudia looked dreamily at Nick.
“Best move I ever made.” Nick gave her a soft kiss on her lips.
I looked away uncomfortably. It brought back a painful reminder of how I couldn’t be with Anna.
“So, how did you discover you were gifted?” I asked.
Claudia nodded to Nick for him to go ahead, but he wouldn’t have it. “You go,” he said.
“Well, I was sort of born into it. Both of my parents are gifted with Discernment. My dad is a police officer and my mom is a judge, which are great professions for people who can instantly tell if someone is good or bad or telling the truth or not. But I was about thirteen when we discovered that I was gifted too. I was on a three-month exchange student program in Australia. I was excited to go, had talked to the host family before I left and they supposedly had a daughter my age, so I was really looking forward to it. But then when I got there, I just didn’t feel right about the situation. I was sick to my stomach, which I figured was either food poisoning or really bad jet lag. Anyway, Dad called later that day to see how I was making out, and I told him how I was feeling. He immediately got Interpol involved and did an intense background check on the family. Apparently, they used fake names for the mandatory criminal checks. They didn’t have a daughter after all, and when Interpol busted into their house, they found a thirteen-year-old girl tied up in their basement, almost dead. It was a girl they had kidnapped and used to pretend to be their daughter. Anyway, I’m still not sure what they were planning on doing to me, but I’m just glad that my gift kicked in when it did.”
“Holy crap,” Noah blurted. “That’s insane. And I was actually thinking about doing an exchange program.”
“Don’t get me wrong. They are completely fun and really rewarding. I’ve done a half dozen or more since then. I would totally recommend it,” Claudia assured him. “Interpol will be checking out any family you go with now anyway, so no worries there.”
“What about you, Nick?” I asked.
“I came about my gift a bit differently,” Nick began. “I was always a people person. I loved reading people. I sometimes felt really judgmental because I would meet someone and instantly not like them, but I couldn't explain why, so I'd find something about them physically that I could use as an excuse or reason. It was hard because my mom would bring home her boyfriends to meet me and sometimes I'd get this really bad vibe about them and for as long as she'd date that guy, I would act out. I guess it was my way of standing up for her.
“Anyway, there was this one time when I was thirteen, my mom was dating this guy who I hadn't met yet. She was telling me all about how great he was, how he was a pilot in the air force, and so on. I liked the sound of him. I thought he would make a great dad and I was really excited. They were dating for a few months, so she decided to invite him over for dinner so that we could meet. Before he got there, I started feeling sick. I chalked it up to being nerves, and when the knock came at the door, I ran ahead to get it. Before I opened the door, this feeling of disgust came over me. I couldn't explain it but I knew I already hated this man. I slowly opened the door and he stood in front of me looking nothing like the pictures of the distinguished man my mother had shown me. He looked like a monster. A sick, twisted monster. I just froze there, staring at him while everything inside me told me to run. He reached out his hand to shake mine and . . . well, that's when I threw up all over his shoes.”
Rachel gasped and covered her mouth. I just stared, captivated by the story.
“Yeah, it was pretty bad. Mom thought I had the flu so she sent her boyfriend home and spent the night nursing me back to health, although I felt a hundred percent better the minute he left our apartment.
“The next day, I went down to the police station and started asking how I could check on someone’s history. They turned me away, telling me there wasn’t anything they could do, but before I left, I gave a picture of this guy to one of the officers and told him his name, and left my cell number. I got a call two hours later from a Constable Henderson—Claudia’s dad. Turned out my mom’s boyfriend was wanted in Nova Scotia on sexual assault charges. Claudia’s dad was on the case in Nova Scotia and when he read the report about how I was acting on just a hunch that I had for this guy, we got to talking and I confided in him about the weird things that happen to me when I meet someone that I don't like. He was the one who recognized my gift and got me in contact with a local Seeker. And he was the one who introduced me to Claudia that first year of camp. Crazy, eh?”
We all stared at Nick, mouths open. Claudia held his hand and gave it a little squeeze. She was proud of him.
“Man, what a story,” I finally said.
“Yeah, well, I gotta say, I'm really glad my gift was finally recognized by someone. It really sucked to think I was so different from everyone. Like a freak.”
“I wouldn't say that you're not,” Claudia teased. Nick reciprocated with a forceful kiss on her forehead, nearly knocking her off the bench.
“Well, Noah and I don't have cool stories like that. Rachel and Ms. Peters sort of just cornered us.” I laughed as I nudged Rachel.
“But did you have any idea that you were gifted before you found out?” Nick asked.
Noah answered first, “Not really. I was in French immersion since kindergarten, so that explained my knowledge of French. And I was never around any other languages, so I never had a chance to figure it out.”
“Bor-ing!” Nick teased before turning to me. “Jake?”
“Other than never having had any broken bones, which I think is pretty normal, right?” I looked to the others for consensus.
“I’ve had broken bones,” Noah said.
“Me too,” Rachel added. “These three fingers.”
“I broke my leg when I was ten,” Nick s
aid.
“My arm when I was eight.” Claudia nodded.
“Okay then. So apparently it’s not that common. But anyway, I never put much thought into it. But it makes sense now. I never bleed profusely. I don’t scar. I guess it should’ve been more obvious.”
“Well, if you don’t know what you’re looking for, it’s hard to find it,” Claudia pointed out.
“Rachel, what's your story?” Noah asked, turning his attention to Rachel.
“It's not that interesting, actually,” Rachel said.
“I'm sure it is,” Noah pried, sounding a bit too obvious about his feelings toward her.
“Okay.” Rachel crossed her legs and got comfortable on the bench. I feared it was going to be a long one. “So I grew up around gifts. My mom is gifted with Wisdom and has been a Seeker ever since I can remember. She often had me tested for the various gifts, assuming I would follow in her footsteps. I knew she was getting disappointed that I wasn't showing any signs of anything. Then, just a few months back, I woke up in the middle of the night screaming. My mom came running into my room and I told her about the nightmare I had—we were driving along the highway that we took every morning to get me to school, and just as we were approaching an overpass, chunks of concrete began falling from it. We weren’t able to stop in time, and the overpass collapsed on top of our car, killing us both. It was horrible.
“Anyway, I cried in my mom’s arms and begged her to let me stay home from school the next morning. She thought it was a manoeuvre to get out of my math test, so she didn't buy it. We left that morning for school, but were a few minutes late because of my stall tactics. Anyway, when we started approaching the overpass, I saw it. It happened right before our eyes. The whole freaking thing collapsed, crushing, like, a dozen vehicles underneath it. Mom was able to stop and pull over in time to avoid the massive pileup that followed. We both sat there staring at the mess in front of us. At a time when you'd expect someone to scream or cry, Mom just sat there with a silly grin on her face as she turned to me and said, ‘You're gifted with Prophesy!’
“So it was like that. For the most part, my visions come to me in dreams, but I have been working with a trainer to be able to see things while I'm awake too. But mostly I only see glimpses of things. Still learning,” Rachel finished.
“Wow. That's a great story, Rachel,” Claudia said. “So you really had no idea up until that day?”
“Not really. I mean, looking back now, I used to have those sick feelings about stuff before they happened. Like, I remember one time I was in the cafeteria eating lunch with my friends, and I got this really nervous, sick feeling like something bad was going to happen. I didn’t want to go out on the playground, but my friend, Becky, begged me to go with her. So we went and when we rounded the side of the building, there was a big group of people standing around. We knew it was a fight, so we walked over to see who was fighting. And there was Amanda Moore, waiting for me in the centre of the ring,” Rachel finished with a shudder.
“That’s awful. Funny how you had that feeling though,” Noah commented.
“Yeah, stuff like that used to happen to me all the time,” Rachel said.
“So the real question is,” I interrupted, “who won the fight?”
Claudia kicked me. “Jake!”
“What? I was just curious.” I laughed.
Rachel snickered, “Did you have any doubt? Look at these pipes.” She flexed her arms as we all laughed.
“Oh!” Rachel jumped in her seat. “You know what I just learned recently? You know when you get déjà vu? Like, you know what you’re going through has happened before?”
We all nodded in unison, waiting for the secret to finally be unveiled.
“Well, my personal trainer told me the other day that the reason you feel like something already happened is because you’ve already dreamed about it,” Rachel said excitedly.
“Come again?” I asked, feeling my forehead crease.
Rachel continued, “Okay, so on average, you have around thirty dreams each night, whether you remember them or not. And the dreams that you don’t remember are premonitions of your future. Things that are meant to happen.” She looked around for some sign of understanding.
Claudia spoke first, “So when you have déjà vu, it means that things are unfolding as they should?”
“Exactly!” Rachel exclaimed.
“That’s a neat theory,” Nick said.
“Yeah, kind of makes a lot of sense actually,” Noah agreed.
“Where did you say you were from, Rachel?” Nick asked.
“Irvine, California. We just moved here recently after I had a dream about Jake and Noah.”
“Yeah, about that,” Noah said. “What exactly did you see in your dream about us?”
Rachel looked down at her hands and I noticed that she chose her words carefully, “I saw that there were Gifted Ones in Halifax and that they were vital to our cause. That's all, really. Mom decided we needed a change and it all worked out well for timing.”
“Did you leave any family behind?” I asked.
“Not really. I'm an only child and my father lives in Brazil.”
“Your mom said you had a boyfriend or something?” I asked, deliberately, for Noah's benefit.
“She did?” Rachel looked annoyed and concerned at the same time.
“Well, sort of. She just said that you had a boyfriend who took it kind of bad when you broke up with him.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Rachel was obviously not going to give any more than that.
“What about you, Jake?” Claudia asked, changing the focus. “You don't have a girlfriend?”
“No girlfriend.”
“Why'd you ask James that question then?” Nick asked.
“Because there was a girl, but I can't be with her, so there is no girlfriend.” I thought it was obvious. Apparently it wasn't. Why did they keep talking about it?
“Sorry to hear that,” Claudia sympathized.
“Yeah. She's something else. But I'd rather her be safe, so I had to let her go.” I fought back the lump forming in my throat.
“Smart,” Nick added as he stretched and yawned. “I'm beat. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow, boys. Let's hit the sack.”
We got up, stretched, and slowly walked back to our cabins for a short, but good night's sleep. It wasn’t until the early hours of the morning that my body sat up straight in my bunk, nearly smashing my head on the roof rafters. It was that horrible nightmare. I shook my head to try to rid it of the black headless horse and the perfect angel being swallowed by darkness. I had a sickening feeling that it was Anna in my dream. I took a deep breath and convinced myself that she was fine. I wasn't a prophet. It wasn't a vision. It was just a dream.