Rising Darkness (Game of Shadows #1)(12)

She explained, “I’ve never done this before. I don’t know why I’m nervous.”

Gretchen grinned and shrugged. “Blind date jitters. I think it’s a typical reaction. We don’t know each other, and you have no idea how this is going to go. Would you like a drink? I’ve got Diet Coke, or I could make tea or coffee.”

Mary forced herself to smile back. The muscles in her face felt stiff, the smile false, and she rubbed the back of her neck. Apparently she had left her social skills in the hall closet along with her winter coat. Her headache wouldn’t budge no matter how she ODed on caffeine, but never call her a quitter. “A Diet Coke would be nice, thank you.”

“My pleasure. I’ll be right back.”

The older woman was as good as her word. She left Mary just enough time to shrug out of her jacket before returning with two cans of Diet Coke and glasses filled with ice. Gretchen didn’t want to lose her unexpected fee. Mary’s smile turned wry. She accepted the drink with a murmured thanks.

“So,” Gretchen said. “You have never done this before.” Mary shook her head, pouring soda into her glass. “Well, perhaps you can tell me what you’re looking for and we can figure out where to go from there.”

“I’m . . . not sure.” Mary sipped at her fizzy drink. She bet she knew what was coming in this next part. This was where Gretchen pumped her for information then regurgitated it back for money. She suggested, “Why don’t you tell me what your, er, specialty is. Perhaps we should try that. Is it tarot readings?”

The older woman frowned. Strong sunshine fell through the window on the back of her head and on one round shoulder, throwing most of Gretchen’s face into shadow. The unforgiving light showed a thin strip of gray – and mouse-colored hair at the roots of a vivacious butterscotch rinse from L’Oréal. “Actually, I tend to pick the medium from instinct depending on the client and what questions he or she might have.”

This was supposed to be for entertainment purposes only, but they hadn’t reached the entertaining part yet. Mary looked at the front door, already half regretting her impulse to stop. She was a fool.

“Usually,” Gretchen continued in a quiet voice, “people come in with some kind of question on their minds, even if they’re skeptics and it’s just a frivolous question. Do you have a question, or are you one of those rare people that doesn’t?”

Keeping her gaze fixed on the front door, Mary asked, “What do you think dreams are?”

A pause. Then Gretchen said, “I believe dreams are our minds freed from the definitions placed upon us by our physical bodies.”

Mary’s gaze turned to the other woman. She leaned forward. “What do you mean?”

She heard a rustle of clothing as the other woman shifted. “I mean that when we dream, we are able to use our minds while being free of our bodies. We could dream of something we imagine, dream to relieve stress, or we could dream of our past. We could dream of our past lives and we could dream of our futures, or of other worlds, other realities. We can travel and speak to people we know who are alive, or to those who are dead. Or maybe we can speak to people who were never alive in any sense that you and I understand that word. Maybe we can even sometimes speak to those creatures that aren’t people.”

The other woman fell silent, and Mary laughed. “That covers a lot of ground.”

Gretchen smiled. “Yes. That’s what the dream world allows us to do.”

“You believe we can dream of the future.”

“Absolutely.”

“How can that be when it hasn’t happened yet?”

“Well I’m no genius scientist, but I do think we perceive reality through the limitations of our human senses and brains. Our actual reality is a lot bigger than we are. In our dreams we aren’t subject to a linear existence, which is how we experience time in our physical bodies. Why not dream of the future, or of the past? All times are now.”

Mary looked into her dark bubbling drink and struggled with that concept. She had never been all that good at understanding quantum physics either. She muttered, “Sometimes I have dreams that come true.”

“Do you? I do too,” said the other woman. “I always wished I could turn it into something useful, but usually for me it’s nothing more than my hairdresser getting sick, or my cat running away. Once I did dream what my tax return was going to be. This was before all the fancy software programs that calculate what your return will be before you file. In my dream, my return was more than I thought it would be, so I kept rereading the check in disbelief. Turns out I was correct, right down to the penny, but of course you can’t gamble on things like that, in case you’re wrong and you just had a dream of imagination or wishful thinking.”

Mary stared and then chuckled. She had made one of the hardest confessions she’d ever made to another person, but it was clear Gretchen was not very impressed. “How mystical and yet pragmatic.”

“I think you just described my cultural heritage,” said Gretchen with a twinkle. “I am part German and part Yugoslavian.”

Mary was still processing what Gretchen had said earlier. She said, “You mentioned past lives, so you believe in reincarnation.”

“Yes, I do,” Gretchen replied, sipping her drink. “At least I believe that some form of it exists. A more Greek version of reincarnation is to ‘transmigrate,’ or to pass from one body at death, drink forgetfulness from the river Lethe and then pass into another body. Or something like that, anyway. My memory is a bit fuzzy on the details.”