"All right," Jack said. He and Babe were sitting across from each other now. "I want you to think of a pleasant memory, one that you feel a strong connection with."
"But not one that involves me getting naked," I added.
"To be on the safe side," Jack said, "why don't you pick a time from before you met Sunny?"
A flash of my husband with the evil dead, aka Sheila Murphy, the woman who used to boff him and who tried to kill me, made me cringe. "Pick a time before you came to Peculiar," I told Babe. I gave him a tight smile with lots of teeth.
He winked at me. "I've chosen my moment."
"When you're ready, I'm going to touch your hand. Just relax into the memory," Jack said.
Babe shook his hands and arms, cracked his neck and took a couple of deep breaths. "Ready."
"For a rumble," Willy said.
Ruth giggled.
Babe curled his lip. "Let's just get this over with."
"Are you having second thoughts?" I asked.
Hesitantly, he said, "No. Maybe some third or fourth thoughts, but no second ones."
Chav gave him a nudge. "It doesn't hurt, baby bro. You know, in case you were worried." She held up her hands. "See. No bruises."
Babe slid his hand, palm up across the table to Jack. "Do it."
Jack, like with Chav, stretched out a finger and made just the slightest contact with Babe's skin. He jerked again, his eyes rolling back. It reminded me of the pre-vision seizures I had sometimes.
"Is it working?" Willy asked.
Ruth hushed her. "Give them a minute."
Babe's blue eyes closed. His lids began to flutter.
"He's in it now," Chav said.
His face was serene, the muscles relaxed. "I wonder where he chose to go?" I asked.
Chav tilted her head as she studied her brother. "He's probably reliving some touchdown he scored on the football field in high school. Mom and Dad used to brag about his games all the time."
Chav was six years older than Babe, so she wasn't around when he was in high school, but I imagined he was a great athlete, and not just because he was a shifter. My dude had some serious hand-eye coordination that I'm sure translated to sports. He and Chav had grown up as integrators, therians who lived among humans. The freedom the shifters had in Peculiar didn't translate to the real world.
I asked him once if it was hard to constantly hide who he was, and he said, "I hid my nature, not who I am. There's a difference."
I never really understood, though. I spent a lifetime hiding who and what I was from everyone. Except Chav. Even now, I had a core group of friends in Peculiar who knew I was human and not a shifter, but I still had to hide a part of myself from everyone else around here. The Tri-state council, the head shifter mucky-mucks, wouldn't take kindly to a human living in a therian town. We'd already survived one investigation, but it had been tough. If I'd been found out, Babe and I would have been forced to leave town, and he would have had to return to integration. I wondered if Babe would have been happier to return to the human world. He had a degree in public relations, and before his brother and sister's disappearances brought him to Peculiar, he had lined up a job in Kansas City.
Since I never wanted to leave Peculiar, I didn't ask him. Did I think I was being a coward? Absolutely. But I'd learned a long time ago not to ask questions when I wasn't sure I'd like the answer.
"Is he crying?" Ruth asked.
A tear fell down Babe's cheek. What in the world could he be experiencing that would upset him enough to cry? And why wasn't Jack bringing them back?
"Jack, stop this." Alarm and a fierce protectiveness rushed through me. "Babe. Wake up."
Neither of them moved. My heart picked up the pace. Instinctually, I grabbed Babe's hand to break the contact, but when my fingers connected, my skin warmed as my country-style kitchen disappeared and was replaced with an Old World style kitchen with dark, carved wood cabinets that went all the way to the ceiling, a granite-topped center island, and bisque-colored tiles. A bounty of food including turkey, stuffing, gelatin salads, mashed potatoes, gravy, yams with marshmallows, and all the other traditional Thanksgiving fixings covered every ounce of counter space.
My mother-in-law Celia was stirring a crockpot of green beans and a young boy, about the age of ten sat at the end of a breakfast bar eating celery packed with peanut butter. He smiled at his mom, his blue eyes sparkling. He hopped down and quietly made his way to the turkey, but before he could even lay one finger on the bird, Celia whipped around and said, "Don't you dare, young man." Her own smile took the harshness out of her words. "Why don't you take the salads to the dining room table?" Then she looked up, and yelled, "Jude! Chav! Come help your brother set the table. It's that time!"
"My gosh. That's Babe," I said.
Jack said, "It is."
"Can he see you?"
"No. I haven't been able to interact with him. Not like with you and Chavvah. This is nice, though."
"Did something bad happen? He's upset."
Jack chuckled. "He isn't upset. He's happy."
A brown-haired teenaged boy, who I realized was his older brother Jude, rushed into the room. He was tall but hadn't quite grown into his lank yet. He put Babe in a headlock and rubbed Babe's scalp with his knuckles.
"Mom!" Babe said.
"You boys quit roughhousing," Celia told them. "Get the food moving in the right direction before I sick Aunt Erma Jean on you."
They both made shows of dramatic dismay. Celia laughed.
"You two need to quit being so annoying," a young Chavvah said as she trailed into the kitchen.
Jude released Babe, and both boys gave each other a knowing look, before shouting, "Tickle torture!" and tackling their sister to the ground.
They were laughing and loving and being a family, and I suddenly understood why Babe had gotten emotional.
"I'm tired," Jack said. "Time passes quickly in these memory quests, and I don't think I can sustain this one much longer."
"He really does look happy," I said, watching my husband relive what had to be a favorite childhood memory. "They all do." The Trimmels had suffered such a great loss when Jude died. I didn't realize just how big until now.
"You have to let go, Sunny. I think your contact is keeping us here. The same thing happened in your memory. I couldn't bring us out of it. You have to be the one."
"Okay." The Old-World kitchen disappeared, and I was once again sitting at the table in my own cozy space.
Babe looked dazed. "That was...unsettling."
"What happened?" Chav asked.
"Yeah, spill," Willy added.
Ruth didn't say anything, but she looked eager.
"I was thinking about Thanksgiving when I was a kid, and bam, I was there," Babe said.
"Was Aunt Erma Jean complaining about the noise? Was Dad passed out on the couch? He never lasted more than a few minutes once the meal was over."
Babe forced a slight smile. "I didn't get that far."
"Jude was there," I said. "And you, Chav. You guys were having a tickle fight."
"Tickle torture." She grimaced. Her eyes grew melancholy. "Jude and Babe used to get me all the time. Which Thanksgiving?" she asked her brother.
"The last one before you moved to California. The last one we were all together."
"Oh." She smiled sadly. "That was a good Thanksgiving."
"The best," he agreed.
I patted my husband's hand. "Your mom really knew how to cook for an army."
He was quiet for a moment then said, "Wait. How do you know? And how did you know about the tickle fight?"
"When I touched you to try and break the memory link with Jack, I was somehow pulled in. Did you see either Jack or me when you were in the kitchen with your mom?"
"I didn't. It was all very clear. Really like I was there, that it was happening right then and not twenty years ago." Babe laced his fingers with mine. "It was nice seeing my brother again. Experiencing my family before we'd lost each other."
"I could see Jack when we visited my wedding. What's the difference between Babe and me?"
"I have a theory," I told them. "Remember when we connected psychically because of Brother Wolf when those psychos were stalking you?"
"You guys have colorful lives around here," Jack said.
"You don't even know," Willy agreed.
Chavvah nodded. "I remember. Brother Wolf showed you and me, through your vision, my past and my present."
My throat felt thick as I thought about her spirit guide showing me Chav, beaten and broken, lying on the ground. She'd been tortured all for the pleasure of hunters. I shook the image from my mind. "He allowed you to see my vision, to share it with me. Maybe when that door opened, it stayed open."
"And maybe because you and Jack share the same psychic bloodline, you got to share his vision!" Ruth said enthusiastically.
I pointed at her. "Give that girl a cookie."
Ruth rubbed her hands together. "You know I love a good cookie."
"A fortune cookie," Willy said. "Get it, because you guys are psychic. Fortune telling."
"We get it, girl." I shook my head. "It's just not that funny."
"Yes, it was," she said on a giggle.
I smirked. "The teensiest bit."
"Okay, Jack. We've done your experiment. Now, it's time for you to answer my question. What are you doing here? Why come find me?"
Ruth's phone vibrated on the counter. She checked it. "Ed wants to know if we are still having dinner here today. If not, he'll take the kids to the Blonde Bear."
"We are eating here," I snapped. I pointed at all the food in crockpots. "Crap, the stuffing is in the fridge still. It needs to go in the oven."
"Do you want the guys to bring the children back?" Ruth gestured to my brother. "I mean, you already told Jack about us."
"Fine." I sighed then glared at Jack. "Don’t freak out if our kids go furry and run around on four legs."
"Is that something that happens a lot?"
"Yep."
Chav opened the fridge and pulled out a foil-covered pan. "I'll get the stuffing going. Willy can take care of the mashed potatoes, and Ruth will do the gravy."
"We need to get the turkey out of the cooler and get it heated up, too," I said.
"We'll handle it," Chav told me. "You and Jack have a lot to talk about. So, you go do that, and we'll do this." She turned the oven on to get it preheated. "Go. Talk to your brother."