Kat’s world and her mental state began to unravel as thoughts of losing Big Crow, even though that eventuality was months in the future. The attraction of him being in her life started as an unwelcome presence. Now, it began to evolve as he finally shared details of what powers she possessed because of her bloodline, but she never had knowledge of any of them until she discovered one by accident. The relationship between them, as unlikely as it might have been in the beginning, changed unexpectedly.
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Chapter #20 – Instincts
For the remainder of the week, Kat floundered at work, distracted by the prospects of losing Big Crow with Little Feet in her life. What was wrong with her? The prospect of his leaving her to return to the spirit realm frightened her, even though it would be months before that happened. Why was she so anxious now? The thought of losing contact with him hung like a cloud over her ability to concentrate on anything else. He had promised to be with her always. But…was his promise only during the pregnancy, or did it imply it would all end when the baby was born? Answers did not come, and she sat with her head in her hands, ignoring a new project plan spreadsheet displayed on her monitor, waiting patiently for her to engage.
“Kat?” asked Cassie, walking into her cubicle and laying her hands on Kat’s shoulders.
The light touch caused Kat to flinch, “Jeez, Cassie,” sitting upright abruptly.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I just wanted to check on you because you’ve been here physically, but at the same time, you’ve been someplace else. You’ve got me worried, sweet friend. Let’s go and grab a coffee and move to my office, okay? If whatever is stressing you is none of my business, you can tell me to back off, and I will.”
Cassie was a comfortable friend. She never pressed, but she didn’t let things that concerned her slide by without trying to find out what was at the root of the problem. Kat leaned back in her chair and looked over her shoulder at Cassie, “Coffee would be great, but what I can tell you, even behind closed doors, can go no further. I may have already lost my sister in the middle of this bizarre mess I’m in.”
After closing her office door, Cassie sat silently at the round table in the corner of her office across from Kat and focused on the curl of steam rising from her coffee. She did not lift her eyes when she spoke, “You are too good of a friend for me not to respond when I see you in distress. From a business perspective, you are my best Senior Project Manager, but you are so much more as a friend.” She lifted her eyes to connect with Kat, “If you want to share anything, I will not judge you. I hope you know that.”
Kat knew that her boss and close friend, was sincere. How deep could she go…should she go…with sharing and still show up as capable of doing her job? Where was the line? Cassie had already heard part of her crazy story but knew no details of the spirits trying to end her pregnancy. Kat knew she would blow Cassie’s mind with more information and bizarre spiritual implications that affected no one but her, so she stopped and looked at Cassie, “Do you think I’m crazy?”
Cassie looked at Kat and said, “That’s not for me to decide. This has all happened to you, and nobody but you can decide if this is crazy or not. I know you well enough, Kat, to know you would not fall for some scam or false pretenses to drag you into all of this. If you need time off, take it. If you need to work at your job to better focus away from all of this turmoil, do it. I will help as I can, but be strong, and I trust you to decide how to handle this best.”
Cassie did not have to say what Kat did not want to hear about what would happen if she did not handle it best. It may have been her imagination, but it sounded like it was time to get her shit together. The stress from her boss not saying what needed to be told because she was a friend was still there and still real. What she got from her sister was not much better. How many times does one get an indication that a different decision, a different choice, is necessary? Questions pummeled her brain, but did the answers even matter?
They talked for an hour, and neither walked away feeling like they got what they needed from their time together. Back in her cubicle, Kat looked into her monitor, saw nothing of interest, and closed her eyes. Taking Cassie’s advice, she shut down the computer, pulled the laptop out of the docking station, stuffed it into her backpack, and headed to the sanctuary of the limo and some blues. When she walked by Cassie’s office, she waved, said, “Don’t ask,” and kept walking.
Slamming the heavy door as she slipped behind the wheel, her mind drifted, “What am I to do with the chaos of my life? I can’t do this for nine months. Crow, are you listening?”
His smokey scent announced his arrival in the backseat. “Hello, Katherine. Talk to me.”
“I can’t do this for nine months, Crow,” she repeated instead of greeting him.
“I do not want this for you either,” he responded, “Tell me your concerns.”
“I wish I could tell you,” She paused, “My role as birth mother is clear to me. Nature will run its course, but it seems like there is more to this story that I don’t know about, and I feel unprepared.”
“You sense things correctly, Katherine, and it’s good that you are because the intervention by Dew on Flowers to remove the connections to the evil spirits plotting against the birth of your son was not completely successful.
“Oh great, so I am defenseless and on my own with spirits I cannot see that want to kill me and my baby. Is that where we are, Crow?” her volume increasing along with her concern.
“Hear me, Katherine, you are not defenseless. There are powers you have not used that will protect you. Listen to me. Remember the thugs that grabbed you in the stairwell? They were evil spirits, and you had the power to neutralize them, but you were rendered unconscious and could not fight back. At that time, you did not know how to put your powers into practice. This is all moving so fast that I did not have the chance to help you with the powers you already have.”
For the first time in their relationship, it did not appear that Big Crow, with Little Feet had his ducks in a row, and Kat fired broadside with sarcastic accusation. “That’s good to know, Crow, but it’s a little bit late to the party, isn’t it?”
He did not respond immediately and said, “We have much to discuss, but not here, not now.” When she glanced into the rearview mirror for an explanation, he was gone, and a tendril of smoke curled and evaporated into thin air.
“Damn you, Crow. Stop disappearing like that.” She fired the engine and headed home with Lucinda Williams blues singing of her own set of woes.
She only had one backpack strap over her shoulder, but she tugged on it as she walked toward the exit from her condo’s parking deck. Her heels clacked on the concrete as she reached the fourth-floor exit to the stairwell. A tall man stood between her and the stairs leading down when she pushed open the steel door. “We have a problem, Katherine,” as he approached her.
A confrontation was not what she needed to settle her concerns and only served to ignite her anger. “Who the fuck are you?” she demanded, taking several steps back from his advance.
“Who I am doesn’t matter, he said and reached out, grabbing her by the shoulders. Her reaction was instantaneous, and she shoved him with both hands in the center of his chest. His body flew backward down the stairs, not touching a single step, and slammed into the concrete wall at the bottom. Kat put one hand over her mouth, not believing what she had done. Hesitating to continue down the stairs, she looked at the unconscious man crumpled on the floor. About halfway to the third-floor landing, she watched in awe as the man melted into smoke and disappeared.
“Crow?” she pleaded, “I need you.”
“Nicely done,” came his smokey reply as he manifested beside her.
“Nicely done? Is that all you can say?” She snapped, still vibrating with anger and adrenalin. “What just happened? Who was that man?”
“That was no man. He was an evil spirit, and you’ve just discovered a power you did not know about. You’ve always had this extraordinary strength, but it took a rush of adrenaline for the fight-or-flight instinct to kick in. Katherine, you are not a runner; you are a fighter, and you called upon your power of superhuman strength to protect yourself and your baby.”
“So I can turn into superwoman if I’m pissed off enough? Was that little nugget of knowledge something you decided I could learn about on my own? He could have killed me.”
“I would never let that happen. You need to learn by the instincts impacted by the blood running through your veins,” he said.
Big Crow put a hand on her shoulder, and a calming influence flooded through her, diffusing her rage. Her heart rate decreased immediately, as did her anger. The calming effect of his touch shifted her momentum, and her voice came down to a normal level. “Is this how you and Dew on Flowers plan to teach me about my powers…after the fact?”
“No,” he said, “but this moment is a starting point for you to recalibrate your instincts. How you react to certain stimuli must be learned through experience, not just words. My instinct just now was to reach out and touch your shoulder to calm you. You have that same power but did not know it was part of your gifts. It had to be instinctual for me to use the power. It’s like not knowing you had superhuman strength until you had the instinctive action to trigger it by pushing that evil spirit into oblivion.”
Kat wasn’t sure if searching for anger was the correct posture since Crow had finally begun to teach.
“There’s more to your powers than physical actions. The most important knowledge you can possess is how to use your powers, and this may seem counterintuitive, but calling on a specific power only gets triggered by your instinctive abilities. Mastering your power will come over time. Remember when you asked me earlier in our journey, ‘Why me?’ Your pureness of heart and instinctual awareness were a couple of reasons I chose you to fulfill the prophecy.
Here’s another example to consider…remember when you tried to walk around me at the Hardee’s restaurant to continue your journey? Do you recall how your movement felt constrained?”
“Yes,” she said, thinking back, “I remember, and I also remember Dew of Flowers doing the same thing when I tried to move away from her, and she had me restrained in my bed on her first visit.”
He continued. “In both situations, you needed to hear something important, but you had to stop thinking for yourself and listen to hear the message. The reason you felt restrained came from our power to limit your mobility long enough for you to hear what needed to be said. We got your attention by restraining your movement which caused you to look at me and Dew of Flowers with a level of concentration that made listening effective. You already have some of that power now because of the ability to reason and speak the truth in your project work. That’s another reason I chose you to be my duwit chonah mowna jawneek. You persistently strive to speak the truth.”
“Okay, Crow, how many other powers do I know nothing about? Are they all triggered by crisis moments?”
“Not all,” he smiled; there are too many that you must learn about when there is a subconscious reaction to any situation where you draw upon the instincts you already rely upon. Your thought processes will be strengthened, giving you an advantage over humans who do not have the power in your blood. Your son will have these powers, too, and it will be up to you to teach by example.”
Kat’s head spun with the implications of these discoveries. What was next? When they reached the second-floor landing, Crow turned to Kat, wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her into an unsolicited embrace. “Trust me, Katherine.”
Her arms suddenly went empty and closed around a wisp of smoke.
“Damn you, Crow, she complained, “You may not realize it, but you hugged me without making a request. You reached out and embraced me; then you did what you do too many times…you blew away into the wind. Please, don’t start something you can’t finish, Crow.”
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I hope you enjoyed chapter #20! The story keeps coming, and I’m still writing, so this story in progress may become a book one day. I’ll continue to share each chapter as I tire of editing, so keep checking back. I would love to know your thoughts so far at gdogwise@live.com
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