"Does that mean they won’t come at all?”
She laughed a little, “No my dear, this just allows you a small way to start dealing with them. Remember the door that you left open? We haven’t addressed that yet, have we?”
I shook my head. “So, you don’t think I am crazy?”
“Not at all. I think you are very gifted, and I think you have never been given tools to work with your gifts. Has your mom never told you about these gifts? Usually it travels in the mother’s side,” Dr. Eyebright questioned with a small smile.
My face fell. I hadn’t expected that one. “My mom passed a while ago. I live with my grandparents.”
She smiled knowingly, “Ah, that makes sense. How long have you been visited, my dear?”
“I was much younger when I could see them, but I tried as hard as possible to ignore them, keep them away,” I twisted my hands in my lap, “I guess it was this year when I started to actually hear them. Or maybe listening is a better way to put it. I have always heard low voices, but I worked so hard to close it off, to ignore it. Just make it go away.”
“Did you used to be very good at keeping your emotions tightly tucked away? And since coming to college, things have opened up a bit for you?”
I nodded. I couldn’t meet her gaze.
“You must have made some good friends here,” she fumbled with a few papers on her desk, moving them casually. Was this for her comfort, or to make things seem more nonchalant for me? She caught my attention as I had lifted my head to notice the paper moving.
Ah, so that was her reason. My focus locked on her. The thin skin around her eyes crinkled with age. Her full face fell slightly relaxed from years of knowledge that it had taken in. “Do you have some good friends here? Maybe someone who knows your gifts?”
“I have two.”
“And is one a boy?” She prompted.
“Yes, my boyfriend knows.”
She nodded like it all made sense. “There you have it. You have tasted love and it has sparked the deeper parts of your emotions. This is likely why you are having such a wave of experiences currently.”
I laughed, “You could say that.” My cheeks deepened with the blush, “I mean the wave of experiences, not the tasting love thing.”
"Ok, next part. You will need to get some sea salt. It isn’t as difficult to find as at used to be, but...”
“Is this for my door?”
Her lips pursed while her head tilted. “I thought you said you didn’t have any guidance?”
“I don’t, I just found it in a book a long time ago. It seemed to work, so I kept doing it.”
She nodded again, “So these spirits aren’t coming while you sleep?”
I shook my head, “No, not in my room. I have been dreaming about them, but I don’t think they are actually there. The dreams are more all over the place, not really like the spirits are in my head.” I thought back to my room being unprotected while The Creeper was able to sneak in. I swallowed and continued, “I think I have that secure, I guess. It’s when I am on campus at other buildings, or not in my room.”
“And you see them? In full form?”
I got nervous. “Yeah. Like they look like you, standing there.”
“Oh my, you are much more gifted than I had first thought.” She turned to reach to a bookshelf behind her. The book was not marked as anything special. An old leather-bound spine that appeared it hadn’t been opened in sometime. She thumbed through the dried pages, looking for something specific.
“Here it is,” her finger traced the words as she read:
"The one will be pure of heart, and free of envy. She will appear young, but her soul will be ancient. Her talents will be raw but drenched in experience. She will be pale, and yet darkened with pain. Fire will make her recognizable and hidden. But this will be the true Medium to bring peace.’
Her finger remained on the page, as she met my eyes. “I think we will need to meet a bit more regularly.”
Dr. Eyebright sent me home with some chants, some exercises, and a large bear hug I had not expected.
We planned to meet every other day until I could get a better grasp on my gifts. I would just be happy if I could get my days handled so I wasn’t being followed by random spirits in all my classes.
I didn’t buy the book talking about me, but she felt it was a definite possibility.
The problem was, it talked about some ancient evil and the tribe and some other stuff that had nothing to do with this modern world. But if that was what it would take for her to help me, I wasn’t in a position to argue with her. I would let her speculate on the possibilities and continue to work to control this sight and learn how to shut the dang door.
The chants out of the ancient book she taught me I repeated over and over in my head. Not that they were difficult. Honestly, they were rather basic.
Leave me alone, you are not welcome, I banish you from my space, sayings that I should have been able to come up with on my own if I’d actually given it enough thought.
“Savanah, I’ve been calling you,” Tyler’s hand on my shoulder sent my heart leaping tall buildings. “You ok?”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t hear you. I guess I was really zoned out.” He wove his fingers through mine. Even as the cold bit at my skin, I smiled in the pure warmth I
