Insight (Web of Hearts and Souls #1)(12)

With those last words, I held my breath. I was born in November, and I guess you could say that I could feel the souls of others. As his eyes continued to search over my face, it was easy to see that he was looking at his little girl, not the young woman that I’d become.

“Over time, Ashten managed to learn how to navigate through the storms. He found your mother and me just after your sixth birthday. We knew that you could feel emotions. We were living in one of the largest dimensions in the smallest town, hundreds of miles from any real doorway. We thought if we stayed here, you’d never be found by anyone from Esterious,” my father finished.

I let his story replay in my mind as I tried to understand why I was connected to that little boy. I was beginning to think that my nightmares were connected to him. My mind replayed the last nightmare that I’d had; the memory of the suffocating pain on my chest and the burn made itself known across my face.

“Willow, are you okay?”

“I just don’t understand…why was some kid in another dimension looking for me?” I said as I rubbed my fingers across the star branded on my skin.

“You are a direct descendant of the first recorded people in our dimension. Livingston believes they are trying to control a prophecy first made millions of years ago.”

“What prophecy?” I asked with wide eyes, wanting to know what they were protecting me from, what evil they had been shielding me from.

“Don’t worry about it,” my father said quietly. I could feel him struggling with a mix of emotions. Fear was there, and that was not helping me feel reassured at all.

“Then why are you worried about it?”

He grimaced. “You have to understand, they not only predicted your birth month, they predicted the day, hour, and the very minute.”

I continued to stare forward. My stomach was turning. The thought that I’d have to face that figure one day was terrifying. I didn’t understand what I had done to deserve this.

“Willow, the stars can be read a million different ways. They do not state our lives. I wanted to shield you from this in order for you to live a normal life.”

I looked at him like he was crazy. Did he really think I had a normal life?

“Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to grow up not knowing any of this? I mean, you could have at least told me I wasn’t insane. Do you know how hard it is for me to be in a large room with everyone’s emotions hitting me like a ton of bricks? Try and imagine puberty with my friends. That was not awesome. Not to mention the fact that people would appear out of nowhere, needing my help. Do you know I was convinced they were ghosts until I was like eleven?”

“I never realized that you were struggling,” he said as a surge of regret came over him.

I nodded and closed my eyes for a moment. I knew it didn’t matter how angry I was. It wouldn’t change the past.

That was the one good thing about this sixth sense of mine. I always knew when someone’s emotions were punishing them more than my words could. So, I let my anger go, sighed, and slowly opened my eyes. Finding the will to face my fear once again.

“My nightmare is the reason you’re telling me this, isn’t it?” I stated, looking down at my tattoo with the star inside the loop of the Ankh.

My father reached over and gently grasped my wrist, looking intently at the star as he spoke.

“It was predicted that on the Blue Moon of your eighteenth birth year, all those who seek you would find you.”

“All?” I questioned.

My father nodded as he gently moved his finger across the star.

“I assumed that prediction meant that your gift would be magnified and that you would be able to help more people. When I saw this mark, I realized that the prediction meant that the child would finally find you.”

“What do you mean, ‘Blue Moon’?” I asked.

He gently let go of my wrist and looked me in the eye.

“A Blue Moon is the second full moon in a month. It’s not very common.” He glanced down, and I sensed his anxiety growing. “We only have eleven days remaining until the Blue Moon will rise, and I want you safe in Chara when that night comes,” he said, looking back at me.

Eleven days. As far as I knew I had eleven days to live. That was enough to kick me into shock. To suspend the emotions and see this in black and white, I needed to know the problem and how to fix it. “When did you plan to tell me all of this? What if I did not have that nightmare?”

“When you were twenty, when it would be time for you to find your soul mate,” he answered, feeling relieved that he could talk openly with me.

“Who decided that twenty was the magic number?” I bit out, realizing that meant another two years before I would find my blue-eyed boy, if he were even real. If I made it past this eleven day mark.

“No one did. That’s just when we get this urge. It’s undeniable…it’s all you think about,” he said, leaning back and smiling.

“How do you know where to go? People can’t find each other in one dimension, much less several,” I argued with dismay.

He stretched his legs out on the steps and looked at me.

“Travelers can see several passages, but the others who don’t travel on a daily basis can only see one. The passage they see leads them to their soul mates. Once in the passage, they follow a feeling. The other person is usually looking for them as well. It really is a beautiful thing to witness.”