Page 51 of Mountain Man’s Mystic Touch

She wraps both hands around it and closes her eyes as the steam rises toward her face.

I sit at the opposite end of the sofa, leaving space between us. For several minutes, the cabin remains quiet.

The radio on the kitchen table reports normal operations. A vehicle requires assistance near the north entrance. Two teenagers are arguing near the stage. My team handles both without escalation.

Loralee drinks half the tea. I notice she’s stopped shivering.

“What do you normally do after a vision like that?” I ask.

“I’ve never had one exactly like that.”

“What makes this different?”

“The force of it. The physical sensations. Usually, I receive images, emotions, or fragments of knowledge. This felt as though I was inside something that had already happened.”

“But you believe it hasn’t.”

“You’re sitting beside me without bleeding.”

“Valid point.”

“Visions aren’t always literal,” she continues. “I know that. Symbols overlap with ordinary things. The red flash could be my candle vessel. The smoke could come from a grill. The child may cry because she drops an ice cream.”

“And the blood?”

Her fingers tighten around the mug.

“I don’t know.”

I feel the stone in my pocket again. “Could it belong to someone else?”

“I knew it was yours.”

“How?”

“The same way I knew you were the man in my dream before I saw your face.”

The certainty in her answer should irritate me. It doesn’t. That may be more concerning than the stone in my pocket.

Loralee sets the mug on the table and leans back against the sofa. Her eyes close for several seconds, then open again.

“You need to rest.”

“I am resting.”

“You’re fighting sleep.”

“I don’t know this place.”

“You know me.”

The words leave my mouth before I think about it. Loralee looks at me.

We have known each other for three days. She knows my name, my profession, the location of an old injury, and fragments of an accident I did not describe.

I know the scents she puts into autumn candles, how many readings she can perform before becoming depleted, and the precise sound of her laughter when she thinks I am being unreasonable.

That is not enough to justify what I said. It feels true anyway.