After I left the search-and-rescue camp, I went straight to my mom’s house. I had to tell her about the vision I’d just had. Maybe she could help me figure out what to do. “Claire!” Mom said as she opened the door. “What a nice surprise.” Mom was sixty-something but still fit. Yoga was her thing. She made a living teaching classes in her living room. In her black T-shirt and yoga pants, she appeared a lot younger than she was.
She waved me into the kitchen. “Didn’t you have a date tonight?” she asked.
“I never made it to the restaurant,” I said.
I swung my camera bag onto the kitchen table. Mom ran her business from here. This table was her desk. I shifted her laptop computer over a little and sat.
“You stood Trevor up again?” Mom asked. “For heaven’s sake, Claire. He’s the only man who’s asked you out in a year. I do want grandchildren, you know.”
“I know, I know. Now I’m afraid to phone him.”
“You didn’t let Trevor know you weren’t coming?”
“No. I meant to, and then all this shit happened.” Mom eyed me primly. I was thirty-one, and she still gave me hell for swearing. “All this stuff happened,” I corrected myself.
“It’s a wonder he didn’t call you,” Mom said.
“Yeah,” I said, growing angry. “Why didn’t Trevor call me?” I searched my camera bag for my phone to see if he had. Maybe in the confusion of the evening, I had simply missed his call. Then I realized I had left my cell plugged in and charging at home.
“Interesting,” Mom said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You ‘forget’ to call Trevor. You leave your phone at home so he can’t call you. You clearly don’t want Trevor to reach you.”
“I like Trevor,” I said.
“I’m just saying maybe there’s a reason you stand him up so often.”
I pointed at the camera bag sitting on the table between us. “My job is the problem,” I said. “If I see news, I have to get the story. I’m simply busy, that’s all.”
“Trevor is a volunteer firefighter, Claire. He runs his own car-repair shop. He’s busy. Yet he always turns up for your dates.”
I thought for a moment. Mom was probably right. I did keep avoiding my dates with Trevor. But why? Trevor was good-looking, kind and a firefighter.
“So why didn’t you get to your date with Trevor this time?” Mom asked. “What was the big news story?”
I told Mom about the gut feeling that led me to that burning car. Then I explained how I ended up at the search-and-rescue camp. I told her about my visions of Amber and my trip up the mountain with Matt. “I know what I saw in those visions was real,” I said. “I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you when you told me about your visions.”
She patted my hand. “That’s okay, dear. No one else believed me either. You have to experience the visions yourself to understand.”
“That’s just the thing,” I said. “Matt doesn’t believe me. Who will?” I cradled my head in my hands. “I know Amber will die if I don’t find her. The question is, what do I do now?”
“You haven’t eaten anything this evening, have you?”
“No,” I said.
“You can’t think on an empty stomach. I’ll make you something.”
I mulled over the events of the evening as she threw together a cheese sandwich. “The vision scared me,” I said.
“You feel like you’re not in control of your own mind,” Mom said.
“Yes!”
“I know. You will get used to it, over time.”
“Why is this happening to me? Why now?”
Mom shrugged. “Who knows? Your grandmother had visions. So did your aunt May. All the women on my side of the family had the gift.”
“It doesn’t feel like a gift,” I said. “I know it’s selfish to think about it right now, but I’m afraid my reputation is ruined. Matt thinks I’m crazy. The whole town will hear about my visions now. Everyone will think I’m a flake.”
“Like me,” Mom said.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” She handed me the sandwich. “In any case, I don’t think you have to worry about your reputation. I knew Matt’s father. He hated gossips. I suspect Matt is a lot like him. Matt has never told anyone about the visions I had.”
“He told me. He said he wouldn’t take your calls anymore.”
“Well, he damn well should. I knew where that Evans boy ran off to last month. I knew where that awful man hid that little girl in 2011—well, at least before he moved her. I knew where that teenager drowned during the summer of 2012.”
“Matt didn’t find the body where you said it would be.”
Mom crossed her arms. “I said I knew where she drowned, not where her body ended up, downriver.”
I pushed the sandwich away. I didn’t feel like eating now. “Matt didn’t believe you any of those times. He still doesn’t.”
“People rarely do. You’ll find you can’t stop yourself from trying to help anyway. You’ll feel driven to.”
“Like I do right now,” I said.
Mom patted my hand. “You need to go. You must find that girl.”
“I can’t go back to the search-and-rescue camp. Matt won’t listen. I’ll only embarrass myself even more.”
“You can’t let this go,” Mom said. “A girl’s life is at stake.” She paused. “And you have a chance here to prove that neither of us is crazy.”
She was right. My mother’s honor was also on the line, not just my own. If my vision helped me find Amber, maybe Matt and the rest of the town would take our visions seriously. But all of that didn’t matter now. I just wanted to find Amber.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said. “Matt kicked me out of the camp.”
“So don’t go back there—at least, not right away.”
I shook my head. “I don’t follow.”
“You said Amber’s mom was at home. Stop in on her. Ask for a personal item that might trigger another vision. Choose something Amber wears a lot. That works best.”
I laughed. This all sounded so unlikely. Here I was, talking with my mom about how to spark a vision. “Any more tips?” I asked, making a joke of it.
Mom wasn’t in a joking mood. “You can’t force yourself to have a vision,” she told me. “You must be relaxed. Hold the personal item. Then breathe deeply and allow your mind to take you where you need to go.”
“You’re asking me to meditate on the object?”
“Well, yes.”
“Helen will definitely think I’m crazy,” I said.
“Of course she will,” said Mom. “You’ll just have to find a way to convince her you’re not.”