A Deep and Dark December(22)

“Hmm. Well, there was this one time—”

“Yeah?”

“You know I can’t delve into people’s brains. I can only overhear what they’re thinking at the time.”

“I know.”

“Well… about a week ago I was in Goldman’s Drugs buying some cream for this rash on my side that the doctor can’t seem to find the cause of, and two aisles over in personal products I caught the threads of some very interesting thoughts. So I moseyed on over an aisle and listened in, which was quite difficult because I found myself in the incontinence aisle. That is not an aisle you want to be seen in.”

“No. Of course not. Who was it?”

“Greg Lasiter. He was buying condoms. Only he hadn’t bought them in awhile so he was debating what kind to buy. As if there’s a choice,” Aunt Cerie scoffed. “You buy the lubricated, ribbed for her pleasure ones. Everybody knows that.”

Erin dropped her head into her hand and suppressed a groan.

“Anyhoo,” Cerie continued, “there he was, wondering if he should buy the magnum size to impress even though he worried they were too big and would slide off, you know… in the act. And then in the middle of his debate, he gets angry that he has to buy them at all.

“He’s ticked off good that his wife’s dumped him. Only he’s not just mad, he’s sad, too. He really loved her and she threw him over all of a sudden. Out of the blue. And he’s thinking she’s got someone else. He knows she’s got someone else. Then he picks up two packs of magnum condoms because he’s going to burn through them like he’s at a college frat party. He’s thinking he’s going to nail every woman in sight. Every woman who will have him. He runs through several images in his mind. He wasn’t very imaginative, but he did have some very complementary thoughts about your cleavage.”

“Ugh. You could’ve left that last part out.” But it did confirm what she’d seen in her visions. So her ability wasn’t totally on the fritz. She had a hard time figuring out if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

“That’s about it, really,” Aunt Cerie finished.

“What about Deidre Lasiter?”

“Hmm, well, she was a tricky one. I didn’t see her all that often, but when I did, her thoughts ran to household things. Grocery lists and the like. If she thought anything about anyone, she never did it around me.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, chicken. Ask me anything.”

“When your ability went on the blink as you put it, what did it feel like?”

“Here’s the strange thing,” Aunt Cerie said. “At first it just felt like someone flipping a light switch off and on. Then my ability stayed off for longer periods of time, but it came with a sharp pain in my head, like a hammer to the temples.”

“How long has it been happening?”

“The off and on thing continued for most of the day, but there was no pattern to it. I didn’t think anything of it at first. But it got progressively worse. Then right before you called me, Donald told me he’d been having issues, too. I naturally assumed you might be, as well. I was worried.”

“Is that why you told Graham about my ability?” She wasn’t sure if she should be angry or relieved about her aunt’s meddling. There was something frightening yet freeing about sharing her secret with Graham.

“Yes. And no.”

“What does that mean?”

“I didn’t want to worry anyone. Especially you.”

“I know you.” While her aunt collected gossip, she never started it. Something was off here. “What’s the real reason?”

Aunt Cerie huffed out a breath. “My mother, your grandmother had some… issues with her ability shortly before she died.”

“What kind of issues?”

“I never told you because I didn’t want to worry you. A few months before her death her abilities started shorting out. Very much like what’s been happening to us today. She was never the same after that. I always worried I might fall into the same kind of madness that eventually took her life.”

“Do you think what happened to your mother might be happening to us?

“I don’t know. Tell me exactly what’s been happening to you.”

“Normally I have to concentrate to put my ability in action, but today, all of a sudden, the visions starting coming to me without me calling them up. That hasn’t happened since I first came into my ability, before I learned to control them. And there was that pain you described.”

“This is going to sound strange, but does it feel deliberate to you?”

“What do you mean, deliberate?”

“Like someone is actively messing with your abilities, trying to control them.”

It felt exactly like that. Like someone or something shoving the visions at her. But that was impossible. Outside of the December family, she didn’t know anyone else in San Rey who had abilities.

“Auntie, could there be—” Keith knocked on Erin’s bedroom door. She never discussed her and her family’s abilities with Keith or anyone else who wasn’t a December. Never. “I’ve got to go,” she told her aunt. “But I think there’s a possibility here we haven’t discussed.”