Insight (Web of Hearts and Souls #1)(72)

“So, little Libby mentioned that she saw the two of you in her room last night,” Rose said. She had a proud smile on her face as she measured our response. We looked at each other with guilty smiles on our faces until the realization that our secret was no more suddenly set in.

“The others won’t learn what you can do from me,” she reassured us. “It is your gift. All I want to do is help you with it.”

“Do you know how she could see us?” I asked, knowing that Landen was just as grateful for her confidence.

“Libby is connected to the both of you. The only vision she has directly involves the two of you, or your surroundings. It makes sense that she can see you when others can’t.”

I stared at Landen. Both of us had deep concern coming from us. We felt protective over her. We didn’t want her to see anything as dark as we’d seen that day.

“When your father told me of the way you dream, I was sure that you did meet soul-to-soul. Your bodies are only vessels,” Rose said proudly. “That’s why I agreed with the decision to keep Willow in Infante. I knew you two were never really apart.” Her eyes looked over Landen and me carefully. “Have you learned to use each other’s insight as one yet?”

I nodded once, telling Landen to reveal our latest accomplishment.

“If you mean that I can feel emotions and she can see intent, then yes.”

Rose gave off an emotion of surprise, meaning that wasn’t what she meant.

“You now have both,” she said, trying to hold down her excitement.

“We’re just now learning our new ones. It can easily be overlooked because our own is so familiar to us.”

“In a way, your gifts are the same. Together, they should intensify. Landen, you could almost certainly assume someone’s mood or emotion by their intent, and Willow, knowing how someone feels would make you able to assume short-term intent,” Rose said. “You both should try to intensify your primary gift.”

“How do you mean?” Landen asked.

“Try seeing intent further away or changing emotions with a touch to those that are here. Don’t push it, or you could hinder your progress. Let it come to you.”

“Can you change emotions?” I asked.

Landen looked fleetingly at me, astonished, then back to Rose. “No wonder you always understood me,” Landen muttered under his breath as he jokingly glared at Rose.

Rose grinned. “Someone needed to walk in your shoes with you for a while,” she said, hugging him. She then looked at me as she let Landen go and said, “We all have the power to change the emotions of the ones around us. A kind word could make someone’s day, just as a harsh one will bring pain. The secret is to know your own energy and use it to fill the room around you. By being connected the way the two of you are, I can only imagine the energy you could find as one.”

It was just after noon in our dimension, and it had already been a long day. I explained to Olivia that she needed to tell her aunt and uncle that she was safe. She agreed, and we handed her a blank page. She told them that she’d met someone and was going to see the world before she went to school, explaining that the line was busy each time she’d tried to call. We enclosed a snap shot of Chrispin and Olivia using the sun as a backdrop, covering her eyes with sunglasses.

My father had given Jessica and Hannah the herb Relm that would take their short-term memory away, and it would soon take effect. The girls hugged Olivia goodbye, and Hannah argued one last time through Jessica with Olivia to come home, but her words went unheeded.

Chrispin stayed behind with Olivia, and Ashten and my father joined us as we walked back to the string. Landen led us. We were going to use the new paths he’d discovered, avoiding Esterious all together. Jessica and Hannah held their eyes down as we led them, and I could feel their anger toward their position. As we walked, their eyes grew heavy, and eventually Marc and Brady carried them as they drifted off to sleep.

Landen found a passage that was on the roof of the only hospital in Franklin. The street lights started to blink yellow, meaning it was past midnight. My father had worked in the hospital for close to twenty years, and he knew everything there was to know about it. He went in to put the girls names in the computer and assigned them a room. When he returned, he had two beds with him. Brady and Marc laid the girls down, and Ashten went with my father to take them to their rooms.

Taking advantage of the time that they were gone, I walked to the edge of the roof and gazed toward the town. The streets were empty, but my memory took me back to so many happy days that I’d spent growing up within a four-block radius. Landen came to my side, smiling as if they were his memories as well.

The walk home was quiet, the mood complacent. No one wanted to comment on what had happened to the girls, or where we’d found them. Talking seemed to confuse the issue more. We made two stops on the way back, one in the Florida Keys to mail Olivia’s letter, and one in New York to mail letters my mother had prepared for her friends that she’d left behind. Sharon’s letter was on top.

Landen and I had agreed to return to Franklin that night while our bodies slept. It would be daylight soon, and the girls would be awake, and we could see if forgetting had healed their hearing and voice. Once home, everyone departed to dress for the celebration. My father and Ashten lingered behind the others. Worried glances came from Aubrey as she helped Olivia into the car.