Chapter 3 Saturday, 8:00 a.m. The Richards residence Brule, Ohio Truth be told my mornings were always a slow start. Some folks professed a slow start, but mine was a notch wonkier than most. It’s a good thing the routine of making morning coffee didn’t vary. Water in a pot, turn the stove burner on, bring to a boil. Put coffee grounds in a reusable filter that sits on the thermos. Pour water over coffee grounds to drip into the thermos. Just my luck, the new can of coffee didn’t make it into my shopping cart to bring home. This glitch interrupted my morning routine along with nostalgic thoughts of the girls’ father. After a night of dreaming of him, it took a little extra to focus on my life this morning. Now, I looked for a substitute, preferably a soda pop with some fizz. My two adorable daughters owned a habit of not closing bottles tightly, which left the soda flat. I held the refrigerator door open when a kaleidoscope of shiny giant foil and brightly colored helium balloons filled the sky and drifted up above the store roof line, up past the electrical lines, carried by the light breeze into the cloudless sky. The startled young blonde woman whimpered, “Don’t hurt me,” and she stifled a giggle. Her friends had never gone to such lengths before to pull off a surprise birthday party. The scene unfolded similar to a dream when you are someone you aren’t. I could see more than she could of her situation, while I experienced it happening to her. A man grabbed and shoved her into a white cargo van with rust forming about the wheel-wells. She landed next to something rolled up in a sheet. I could see another man, clean cut, sitting in the driver’s seat. The body stench from the actual physical abductor made it difficult to breathe. He groped her with dirty hands. I felt her attitude shift, she no longer sensed this was part of a birthday surprise. Her thoughts deflected quickly. It might be something to do with going to the university. The scene repeated, and I saw the kaleidoscope of shiny giant foil and brightly colored helium balloons all over again. The ring of the telephone tried to pull me out of the vision, but I ignored it and forced myself to stay focused. Finally, the continuous ring faded into the background with determination to recall all the details, and it continued to replay the same scene in my mind. I withdrew my journal from the corner drawer of the breakfast bar. A recognition of the young woman from my zoning episode yesterday, solidified the cry for my attention. Usually, I knew the person personally when I received more than one vision about their situation. This time the young girl was a complete stranger. The location of the incident remained a mystery. A vision with the same person twice in a twenty-four-hour time frame, meant I needed to pay attention to insignificant subtle details. This psychic cry for help escalated the plea to be noticed. The key to the young girl’s recovery demanded specifics. Sometimes it made no sense at all how the messages, visions, or knowing would show up. Often, I would get all the information and times like now, only half the information seeped through. It made for a disheartened and confused vision aftermath. The image of the girl faded and the drone of the telephone’s ring continued to nag my consciousness. I placed my pen down and looked at the caller I.D. The town marshal wanted my attention and I needed to answer the call because he would continue to call until I answered. My day seemed rushed. I needed a shower and still had nothing for my caffeine boost. “What?” I answered the phone rather rudely. Not fully coherent and a little loud, my psychic insight left me fuzzy, disoriented and without manners. “Tracy?” Mike Kimball, marshal of the local law enforcement department, asked in a very serious tone. I did my best to muster a most cheerful voice while shutting the refrigerator door with my foot. “Marshal, good morning.” Being chipper right after a vision and before ingesting coffee required hard work. I pushed the door to the refrigerator again with my foot to make sure it closed and walked into the living room to sit in my comfortable overstuffed rocker. “Marshal, how may I help you?” “Is it possible for you to come to the office? Detective Borinski from up north is here on a case,” the Marshal cleared his throat, “that you can help clear some things up for us.” “Ok.” I paused. “I guess I could come in. I need to stop by Moose and Molly’s for coffee. Want a doughnut?” I laughed. Marshal Mike is the only cop I knew who didn’t like doughnuts, but offer him an apple caramel empanada, and he’d eat a dozen. “Be here sooner than later. And thanks.” Marshal Mike hung up the phone right away before I could badger him more. “That sounds like a demand.” Well darn it, that fell on silent ears. The morning rise and shine look left me with spiked hair on the right side of my head and flat hair on the left, and never sure how to explain the front area other than scary. Bits and pieces of the vision returned while I rummaged through my so-called dresser, created from old plastic milk crates, stacked in a triangle along the wall next to my closet. My full-sized bed had no headboard, two of the girls’ out grown twin sized comforters decorated with little ponies and masked superheroes. I tossed the blankets across it and straightened them up. Princess pillow shams and cartoon flat sheets added to my eclectic bedroom theme. No danger of romance happening in my bedroom or it being referred to as romantic. It stayed clean, tidy and organized. One inherited Victorian era magazine table and the other nightstand an old fruit lug box. I hauled the wooden crate out of the grocery dumpster, scrubbed clean and sat on end. The girls gave me their Ferris wheel night lamp to sit on it. Wall decorations were nil, except for my one and only high school graduation picture that hung between my dresser and the doorway to the hall. A calmer sensation came over me after walking into the bathroom, across the hall from my bedroom. The bath décor presented a sharp contrast to my bedroom. Ruffled navy-blue sheer curtains dressed up the solid gold linen shower curtain. The rolled navy blue and gold bath sheets stacked on the shelves hung between the shower and medicine cabinet mirror as an accent, gave me a sense of pride. I pulled the decor together with homemade candles and the boutique soap dispenser held homemade essential oil liquid soap. I didn’t make the candles, but the sign on the box where I purchased them said they were genuine homemade. The liquid soap had a scent of orange blossom and rose. The walls remained white because I continued to be indecisive on the color I wanted. So many options danced through my mind when I thought about painting it. Maybe two tones using more gold and navy. I wrinkled my nose at that thought, deciding that expressed way too much gold. Might try a sand or maybe sand and burgundy, again too many colors in a small space. White it remained. The Farmer’s Market had a lot of crafted items for the home. Though, the best part of the entire bathroom was its warmth and the fact it remained uncluttered by the girls. I felt lucky they considered this bath my domain and used the one attached to their room only. Their friends also used their bathroom, instead of mine. I had double good luck. The shower woke not only my physical body up, but enhanced the message control center. Today, nothing came through the psychic command center. Silence remained, and no name or location sifted through my thoughts. After blow drying my hair, I applied makeup. You know when you get that little wiggle in your gut and know you would regret not looking your best, well that was me with makeup today. I chose my darkest jeans, which were not all that dark and a white tank top with an unbuttoned tan cotton shirt to finish the ensemble. I checked my appearance twice in the full-length mirror on the girls’ bedroom door. I looked very attractive, if I must say so myself. Then headed for the minivan. Bits and pieces of the earlier vision floated through my mind’s eye, refocused on the van, specific areas of rust. The grubby man and his dirty blue work shirt. A driver clean cut compared to the other. The contrast between the two men. I had more questions after comparing the men and their differences. When aiming to make a good impression on someone, arriving in my little gray van was not the ideal visual impact to give another person. I had bumper stickers galore, all over it. Not because I was pro anything. I would collect democrat, republican, and independent bumper stickers to place over rust holes, hold on bumpers, and cover other imperfections my van developed because of its age. You can bet if you found a National Rifle Association sticker, you would find one close to it for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. My favorites were the presidential ones. At first it was a joke. Then I tried to remove one and couldn’t because of the hardy glue and they stayed stuck. Now, we have Stop the Turbines and Pro-wind stickers to cover the door trim that fell off. My chances of pissing off someone who sees my van are relatively high. They won’t see it for the nonsense it represents. Plus, the stickers are free and they do a good job holding the van’s body together. Overall, the townsfolk seem to have adjusted to my van decor. Anyone from the sixties probably considered me confused, and others might believe I am trying to capture the essence of the sixties by being a hippy psychic lady. Common knowledge, the school kids had tagged it with additional bumper stickers just for the heck of it. The well-worn dusty blue interior remained clean and between the front seats sat a small trash can to collect our family litter. I wanted to get seat covers decorated with mermaids. The girls wanted butterfly embroidery on the seat covers. So far, the seats remained uncovered. With the two bench seats in the rear of the van that flipped and faced each other, or folded flat for a short bed, the van met all of our town needs and camping needs when we visited my sister, Cady in Kentucky. Today my gut told me to dress up and my attention span demanded coffee, my gray rust bucket of nuts and bolts had me arriving in a questionable style. After turning the ignition key, the engine started right up. It impressed me. I felt as if good things were in store for me. How often did the van start without a lot of fussing on my part, umm never. Along with the gut feeling for myself, the universe continued to send messages. It wanted to prepare me for the relatively near future. Three facts that were fairly common knowledge about me. My radio didn’t work when I bought the van and it still did not work. The CD player didn’t play louder than a two on a scale of ten. And I had lost my Whitesnake CD a few years ago. Then weirdness happened. The van started without a hiccup and the stereo blared a favored song from my favorite lost CD, ‘Here, I go again’. Book Blurb: Welcome to Brule, Ohio, where the lost is misplaced, the grocery store is more accurate than a newspaper, and the home of online psychic, Tracy Richards, who is a single mother of two high-school daughters. She finds misplaced items for the police department and her neighbors. Her track record for finding the misplaced has earned her the respect and cooperation of the local law enforcement officers and town residents. Sylvester DeGroff re-enters her life, only to learn history repeats itself. Despite their past, Tracy agrees to help after she learns his deceased brother’s only child is missing. Using her psychic abilities in a capacity she has never done before, she sets off on a course to find her daughters’ only cousin. Tracy is driven to save the girl and try to redeem her confidence in lieu of the life she couldn’t save. Will Tracy only recover a deceased body, yet again? Or will she actually be able to complete a rescue? Note from the Author: Thank you for reading about me, the blurb and excerpt from my book Small Bit of Justice. If you would like to follow me on facebook, Like my page: https://www.facebook.com/CynthiaCarverAuthor and join the new group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2288977811411335/ Small Bit of Justice (https://amzn.to/3g8dENT) is a fiction story written about an online psychic doing cold case work for the local police department. This story falls into the genre of Psychic Mysteries and is for 18+ mature readers. About the Author: Cynthia Carver, born to Métis parents and a veteran of the US Navy, puts a paranormal spin on everything she does whether it is ghost hunting or camping. Often the photos she takes and shares on her website have images of other-dimensional beings. Her failure in life is cooking. The family requests her to bring items such as paper plates, napkins, and utensils to family picnics. She tops the get-togethers off with fun or embarrassing stories about the parents of her grandchildren. After her tour in the US Navy, she became a stay at home mom and in the mid-80s when the internet waltzed into the American living room, Peter Deep of PsychicChat hired her to work the first psychic chat service available to the American public. She retired as an online psychic in 2018 and devotes her time to telling stories. Small Bit of Justice is written in first person. Don’t let that fool you, this is strictly a fictional story. If you like psychic mysteries, and want to get inside the head space of a psychic, this story will thrill you. Next month, look for the in-between Seance Series first novella The Missing Locket. |
Copyright © 1998 - 2024 Mystic Living Today All rights, including copyright, in the content of these Mystic Living Today web pages are owned or controlled for these purposes by Planet Starz, Inc. Terms of Service Disclaimer and Legal Information For questions or comment, contact Starzcast@mysticlivingtoday.com. Reproduction of this page in any form is not allowed without permission of the author and the owner of this site. All material on this web site, including text, photographs, graphics, code and/or software, are protected by international copyright and trademark laws. Unauthorized use is not permitted. You may not modify, copy, reproduce, republish, upload, post, transmit or distribute, in any manner, the material on this web site. Unless permissions is granted. If you have any questions or problems regarding this site, please e-mail Webmaster. Web site design by: Creative Net FX |