Nia's World
One
“The vision comes with the last snowfall of spring.”
It sounded
ridiculous. I knew that. But if I didn’t at least try and explain the creepy
things going on in my life I’d never get any help. And I needed help.
Desperately.
Dr. Cautell sat
across from me. Perched on the edge of her chair and protected by the expanse
of her heavy oak desk, she clicked her pen. Twice. Three times. The sound
echoed in the silence and skittered along my nerves. Probably one of those
torture devices psychiatrists use to make people talk.
It worked.
“Look, this is
North Dakota not California. I’m not prone to—” I flapped my hands in the air—
“flights of fancy.”
“Tell me more about
the visions, Ms. De’brie.” Dr. Cautell looked like someone’s grandmother—not
mine. Her gray hair was cut pixie style and still held remnants of faded blond.
Her eyes, a clear piercing blue, tried to probe into my soul.
“They’ve come every
year for the past three years. Wake me up in the middle of the night. I get a
clear picture of a murder. Some murder, somewhere.” I licked my lips and wished
for a bottle of water. Make that a dirty martini with bleu-cheese stuffed
olives.
She inclined her
head for me to continue.
“I don’t see the
killer. Just the murder. But I know
what’s happening. Through his eyes, his hands.” I shuddered, all three visions
hovering at the edge of my mind.
“Dreams can seem
real.” Her voice was soft, soothing, and lightly laced with slow vowels that
carried a touch of lament. The Dakota accent. It didn’t put me at ease.
“Nope. Not a dream.
I dream all the time. Never remember a thing, well, rarely. This is different.
I’m there. It’s like looking through his mind, knowing he’s going to kill.
Watching him kill. Feeling him
kill.”
A martini was
definitely in my future, ten o’clock in the morning or not.
“And your
understanding is that the murders have happened.” Her face was smooth, not a
trace of expression. The woman was the consummate psychiatrist. Could probably
win awards for not leading the witness.
“Yes. CNN has
confirmed all three of my visions. Usually within a week or two after the
snowstorm.” I crossed my legs and my skin prickled against the denim fabric of
my blue jeans.
Silence. She was
definitely one of those therapists who don’t talk. A real pain in the butt,
that. I was here for help. Maybe a question would trick her into offering an
opinion—or something, anything other than silence. “What’s the matter with me?”
“Is there something
the matter with you?”
I slid to the front
of the chair, levered my elbows on my knees and glared. “What do you think? How
normal is it to have visions of murders while they happen? And connected to the
last snowstorm of spring? It’s loony. I want it to stop. I’m here so you can make it stop.”
How dense could the
woman be?
She inclined her
head again. Big help.
“In May. When it’s
time for the snow thing to happen. I get obsessed with the weather station.
Listen every few hours. It’s. Not. Normal.”
I slid back in my
chair and folded my hands in my lap. Capable hands, strong fingers, short nails
without polish. I come from Haitian ancestry. Latte skin, black spiral curls,
black eyes, full lips, curvy body, and totally out of place around the
Scandinavian population of Minot, North Dakota. I stand out. Probably look
crazy just on general principle. Dr. Cautell was doing her best. It wasn’t her
fault I’d been born to black beans and fried plantains rather than lutefisk and
krumkake. No wonder she didn’t know what to do with me.
“And this last
dream?”
“Vision. Dreams are
a whole different thing. I think the reason the visions happen when I’m asleep
is that my guard is down. Anyway, this year’s vision hasn’t happened yet.
They’re predicting snow in forty-eight hours. I. Need. Help. Now.”
She tapped her pen
on the pad in front of her and caught her bottom lip between her teeth.
Definitely not a
confidence builder.
“I can prescribe a
sleeping medication, but no one can keep you from dreaming.”
She couldn’t seem
to get off the dreaming kick. I rolled my eyes. Not very adult, but there you
go. “Of course not. This is a curse. I’d make an appointment with the local
witchdoctor but they’re all in Haiti. At least the ones connected to my
family.”
“You have a
practicing witchdoctor in your family?” She reached for a bright red coffee
mug, gripped it with white fingers.
Damn, I hate when
people don’t get my humor.
“Not that I know of.
I’ve never been there and neither have my parents. Papa is an accountant and
Maman is a baker. Fancy wedding cakes. Wins prizes.”
She set the mug
down, placing it just so on her desk. “I recommend you take a short vacation.
Visit your family.”
“My family lives in
New York. It snows there.”
She reached for her
prescription pad. “Take one of these every night for the next month. We can
continue with this discussion at your next appointment.”
I nodded, stood,
tucked my handbag under my arm, accepted the proffered slip of paper, and
glanced at it with professional curiosity. Exactly what I would have prescribed
for myself if I thought there was a chance in hell it would help. A sleeping
pill wasn’t the answer. I stuffed the script in my pocket and tried to think of
something to say, but came up blank. I’d already told her everything that
mattered.
I stepped out of
her office and the wind whipped around me, sharp and ominous as I unlocked my
car and slid behind the wheel. When I started the engine, the bouncy notes of
the weatherman’s prediction blasted into the silence. “A cold front is moving
in from the north, bringing cooler temperatures and an eighty percent chance of
precipitation.”
I flicked the radio
off. There was something wrong about a perfectly modulated, cheerful voice
predicting the end of someone’s life—even if he didn’t know it. Even if no one
knew it but me. I’m apparently a wuss and subject to the whims of impossible
demons who’ve made it their mission to curse my life. I needed to find some kind
of cure in the next few hours.
I wandered around
the house and thought about working, even opened my laptop. No deal. The blank
TV screen stared at me, dared me to turn it on. I grabbed the remote. Sure
enough, cheery weather guy pointed to the low-pressure area hovering overhead.
I glanced out the window at the clouds moving in—threatening as all hell with
their fake, white, billowy innocence.
He’s gonna kill.
He’s gonna kill. He’s gonna kill. The
ugly, little mantra chanted in the back of my mind like a song that wouldn’t
quit. It interfered with rational thought and was insistent enough to get me
pacing. Maybe the storm would blow over. My skin crawled, my right eye
twitched, and the weatherman blathered on about the low-pressure area.
Not what I wanted
to hear. I clicked the TV off, tossed the remote on a chair, and faced the pile
of work sitting on my desk. Sheer determination had me plowing through the case
I was working on, and several hours later my report was complete and emailed to
my client. I have a doctorate in nursing (the management part, not the patient
care part) and decipher medical charts for attorneys and insurance
companies—whoever has a pesky medical question that needs to be answered.
I stood and
stretched, flicked the curtain back and looked out the window. No snow. I sent
up a quick prayer to the gods, goddesses, and non-existent family witchdoctor
that it stay that way.
I wasn’t hungry so
I made myself a martini with precisely seven bleu-cheese olives. I have a
weakness for green olives when they’re steeped in the essence of a good
martini. And if I do say so, I make an excellent martini. Then I tumbled into
bed and drifted into a restless sleep.
I’d made the
decision to keep the weather channel humming in the background because I
figured if they said anything about snow, it would wake me up.
Wrong.
Several hours later
I shuddered awake from a deep sleep. Sweat beaded on my upper lip and forehead.
I grabbed for the bottle of water sitting next to the bed, downed it in single gulp.
I closed my eyes and let my attention zero-in on the horror of the vision that
woke me.
Damn it.
I stumbled out of
bed and jerked the blinds open. No snow.
This couldn’t be
happening. It wasn’t my normal vision of a murder. Oh, no. Nothing normal like that. This was the killer all right, but he was doing prep
work. Who knew killers did prep work? Not me. At least not until a few minutes
ago. This murder was going to be a stabbing. I let the images run through my
mind again, watched him fondle the knife as I looked for a clue. Something,
anything that would help someone in authority catch the guy. Hopefully, stop
him before he could carry out his plan. I watched him run his finger along the
edge of the knife. Felt his anticipation. And even worse, I could smell the
sour dampness emanating from his body.
No way could I stay
here and wait for it to snow, not with this new kind of vision taking over my
crazy, mixed-up, and obviously very sick mind. My skin was clammy, my stomach
had knots the size of Texas and the weather guy had upped his prediction of
snow from an eighty to ninety percent chance within a few hours. How many hours
was anyone’s guess.
The clock read
three a.m. There are three flights in and out of Minot every day and all of
them go to Minneapolis. Good to know when you’re hell-bent on making an escape.
The first one left before dawn, and that suited me just fine. I got online,
paid my fare and selected a seat. It’d be easier to decide on my final
destination when I got to Minneapolis and had time to peruse the options. As it
was, I only had a scant half hour to get to the airport. I called a cab, walked
through the shower, pulled on some jeans and a long-sleeved white tee, tossed
my toothbrush, mouthwash and makeup in a zip lock bag, stuffed the baggie and a
pair of pink thongs in my handbag, grabbed a sweater, my cell and computer and
locked the door behind me just as the cab pulled up—an oversized white van.
The driver jumped
out, got the door for me. “Goin’ to the airport, Cookie?”
Cookie? Where
did this guy come from? Could have
been anywhere. Gray hair, gray eyes, pale skin, beer belly. Normal. A perfectly
normal cab driver. No reason to panic.
“Yep. The airport
it is.”
The wind kicked up,
tossed my chin-length spiral curls around and tore at the edges of my sweater.
A chill raced down my spine and I slipped into the van.
Death and wind in
Minot.
Both unavoidable.
I kept my nose to
the window and watched for any change in the weather. I shuddered with cold and
wiped at the condensation on the glass. The glow from the streetlamps wasn’t
picking up any sparkly, white flakes.
“How’d ya come to
be in Minot? Lookin’ like you do, you can’t be from around here. Betcha it was
the Air Force.”
Of all mornings,
this one came with a talkative cab driver.
“You got it. I
followed the wrong man from the Stewart base in New York, and ended up tossing
him but keeping my house.”
He wrinkled his
forehead and caught a quick glance at me in the rearview mirror. “Most people
would’ve moved back to New York.”
Four in the morning
was not the time to be discussing
my failures in life, especially those involving an intimate relationship with
the wrong man that still left a raw spot in my heart five long years later.
Guess it was time to get over it and move on.
Just not right this
minute.
I had to give the
cabbie credit, though. It only took him about two minutes to uncover the bad
juju in my love life. I’m betting it will take Dr. Cautell longer to home in on
whatever is hidden underneath the visions—if I make another appointment. Maybe,
with luck, this whole vision curse thing can be solved with a short vacation
every spring—no need for a psychiatrist to poke and probe into my psyche.
I crossed my
fingers.
On both hands.
The rest of the
trip to the airport was uneventful. Well, considering we picked up a family of
five on Sixteenth Street. Two kids, elementary school age, both hyperactive.
One sullen, pierced, gothic teenager of indeterminate gender and a couple of
harried parents. It was enough to insure the meticulous use of condoms—if I
ever had sex again. Their odd normalcy made a sharp contrast to the vision that
woke me and grated against my already raw nerves.
I fled the cab,
leaving the driver with a wave and a big tip, wrapped my sweater tight to my
body, and fought the wind as it sliced through my clothes and tugged at my bag.
