Walker, page 10
She looked at it and shook her head. “No.” She reached out a hand to touch it, and he realized, as she brought it up closer to her eyes, that her eyesight was severely compromised.
“You don’t see very well, do you?”
She shook her head. “No, not for many, many years now,” she whispered, “but I don’t know whose scarf that is.”
“That’s fine. Do you mind if I take it with me?” She hesitated again. He smiled and added, “I just want to give it back to the rightful owner.”
She shrugged. “It’s not mine.”
“Has your great-granddaughter been here at all?”
She nodded. “She was here a couple of days ago. She does try to keep in touch as much as she can,” she explained, her tone turning warm and gentle.
“What about Ashley? Has she been here?”
“Ashley who?” the woman asked again.
There didn’t appear to be any guile in her tone, which surprised Walker even more. But then again, maybe Ashley knew more than she was telling him too. “Ashley Henkell. She’s the healer this young man came to see.”
“Ah, I heard a healer was in town. I was happy to hear it,” she murmured. “I can’t do it anymore.”
“Is that the work you used to do?”
She gave a hard laugh. “I used to do many things back then,” she said, “but not for a very long time.”
He hesitated, wondering how much he could ask her about the type of healing she did.
“I need to go in and lie down if you’re done,” she simply said, with a pointed politeness that made him realize they had overstayed their welcome.
He stepped out of the house, smiled at her, and nodded. “Thank you.”
She nodded and slowly closed the door on them.
As they walked back to the car, Calum asked, “What’s with the scarf?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Walker replied, “but I picked it up and got all kinds of visions of Ashley. I don’t know why, don’t know how, but, according to this woman, Ashley has never even been here, and the older woman doesn’t know who she is. So that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Then again, she has no vision to speak of, so what are the chances that somebody was in that house and she didn’t know it?”
“While she’s sleeping, it’s quite likely, but the great-granddaughter could easily have been there too.”
“So how do we talk to the great-granddaughter?”
He looked at Calum and replied, “Very carefully because I did see Ashley when I touched this scarf. I also saw her healing the young man, and he was alive but not doing very well at all. And I definitely got a sense … that he’s not alone.”
“Meaning?”
“I don’t think he’s the only person who needs healing in that group.”
“Group?” Calum repeated, stopping at the car and looking at Walker in shock.
“Yes, group. When I say something weird is going on, I mean weird. I’m not just getting the energy of one person who’s injured or hurting. I’m getting energy from several.”
Chapter 7
Ashley looked out the window, hearing a vehicle in the distance. She wasn’t surprised when Calum and Walker pulled up out front. As they walked inside her home, she frowned at them, and Walker frowned right back. Her lips twitched. “Can’t say I ever expected somebody as cranky as you to walk into my life,” she muttered.
“Ditto,” he replied.
She glared at him, and he just smiled, walked over, and gave her a hug. She stood stiff in his arms, wondering how long it had been since somebody had held her.
He looked down at her and said, “It won’t be this way always.”
“Says you,” she muttered, with a shrug. “I’m still not prepared to change my life.”
“We’ll see about that,” he added, with another smile. He looked over at Calum. “You want to bring her up-to-date, or shall I?”
Calum snorted. “Nope, I sure don’t. You’re the one who picked up on that weird precog and all, so you should. I can’t even begin to explain it.”
She looked up at him, staring intently. “What did you find out at that address?”
“I didn’t find anything concrete,” he shared. “However, we did have an interesting visit at that house.”
“Who was there? I kept getting weird energy about it all afternoon.”
“Which is also interesting because I picked up your energy there.”
“I’ve never been there,” she said, looking at him.
“That’s good to know. That was one of the questions I wanted to ask.”
“You’re not making a whole lot of sense. Come on in, sit down, and relax. Obviously the heat has gotten to you.” She looked at him crossly.
“What heat? It’s freezing out there.”
She laughed. “This is nothing for Finland. Besides, it helps keep us isolated. Honestly, we’re happy to be loners.”
“I’ve heard that,” he muttered, “but anything can be taken too far, you know?”
She shrugged. “I’ll put on the coffee.” She made the statement as if it were a very magnanimous gesture.
He laughed. “Thank you.”
After she put on the coffee, she returned to the living room and sat down on the only unoccupied chair. “Now, tell me what you’re talking about.”
“I never really got clear-cut information on anything,” he muttered. “We were there, met the former healer, and I found a scarf.”
When he held it out for her, she looked at it with trepidation, as if it were a snake. “I don’t touch things very often,” she noted, with a shrug, refusing to take it from Walker.
He stared at her, then glanced at Calum, who studied her reaction with interest. “Why is that?” Walker asked.
She glared at him. “None of your business.”
“Obviously it’s connected to the work that you do,” Walker replied, “so it would be nice if we had an explanation.”
“It would be nice if I had an explanation too,” she snapped, “but I don’t, so it is what it is.”
Hiding his smile, he went on. “I think it belongs to Frank, the young man who was supposed to see you.”
“Frank?” she asked, as she looked down at the scarf. “What was it doing there?”
“We’re not sure about that, but, when I picked this up, I got a vision of you working to heal a young man who was suffering physically.”
“That could be possible. I mean, I am working with Frank, and you know that I was working on his system remotely. Was he there at the address when you visited?” she asked, suddenly frowning at Walker.
“No, not that we could sense. I don’t believe he was there. However, the great-granddaughter had been there, and she is a waitress at the restaurant. The older lady did say that she had seen Frank at the restaurant but had no idea why her great-granddaughter wouldn’t have acknowledged it, except that apparently some people in town don’t like it if the locals talk to strangers.”
Ashley blanched, then slowly nodded. “Yes, that’s quite true. We are a community of strangers, and we like to keep it that way.”
“That’s fine, but then when somebody comes to your community, do you not help them when they get into trouble?”
“In an ideal world,” she replied smoothly, “they would never get into trouble.”
“Obviously something is going on in this town that’s far from ideal,” Walker snapped. “Remember? Frank is a family member of a friend, and we’re over here trying to find out what happened.”
She nodded. “I am far more concerned about his health than I am about why you’re here.”
At that, Calum looked over at Walker and suggested, “You should tell her the rest.”
Walker hesitated, but she eyed him quizzically.
“You picked up more?”
He nodded. “But again, it has to be taken with a grain of salt.”
“That’s fine,” she murmured, “although I’ve always thought that to be one of the most bizarre phrases I’ve ever heard. I do understand what you’re trying to say, however.”
“Good, then maybe you’ll understand this.” He took a deep breath. “It appeared from the vision that I had, or from the energy, the reading, whatever,” he clarified, with a wave of his hand, stumbling over the exact words. “From the way it appeared in my vision, it’s possible that Frank’s not alone.”
“Of course he’s not alone,” she stated, staring at him. “If he is being held for some nefarious reason, yet to be revealed, he’s not alone, so that’s hardly shocking news.”
He nodded. “I get that too, but this is different. I also got the impression that he wasn’t the only one needing healing, that whoever he’s with, and I don’t know whether it’s one, two, or however many are also injured, sick, or dying. So the question I have is, when you were doing the remote healing, were you healing Frank or were you healing somebody else as well?”
His words floored her, and she sank back into her chair and just stared at him.
“From the expression on your face, I can see that we have completely surprised you,” Calum noted.
“Absolutely. … I don’t know how my face looks, but, if it’s anything other than shocked, that would be a surprise to me.”
“There is an element of shock, but there is also an acknowledgment of sorts,” Calum shared. “Even I can see it.”
“I’m not saying you’re right, and I’m not saying you’re wrong—because I don’t know. I was struggling with something, something I hadn’t done before, at least not in a very long time,” she corrected. “I’m not used to doing healings from a distance, unlike other people in your group, I guess. And I know that when I’m hands-on, I’m much more powerful but …” She stopped and winced.
“What?” Walker asked.
“This will sound terrible, but I was really shocked at how poorly I performed. At how much my energy was drained and how much was … I don’t want to say siphoned off because, of course, in healing you’re giving it away, and you send it out with love, knowing that it will come back to you but in a completely different way. So, I’m not trying to say that anybody was stealing the energy or that I was up against something along that line.”
She fidgeted before continuing. “However, it seemed to drain from me at a much faster rate than I expected, and I was beyond exhausted and worn out at the end of it. And that was really disturbing because it was such an unusual state of affairs.”
“So, that in itself bothered you, I presume?” Calum asked.
“Yes, of course,” she replied, facing Calum. “Wouldn’t it have bothered you?”
“If it’s new, different for you, you wouldn’t know what to expect,” Calum added.
“Yet, in the past, I’ve done it,” she repeated, “and, when I do heal, it’s not as if I haven’t been working on various aspects of healing over time. It’s just that this time it seemed to be really … I don’t know.” She shrugged and shook her head. “All I know is that it was different, very different this time, and the drain was … taxing.”
“What are the chances that it was because more than one sick or injured person was there?”
She looked up at him. “I’m wondering that now, if it was because more than one sick person was present. I was just sending out the energy, wrapping up whoever it was in my arms and trying to infuse as much healing energy as I could, trying to tap their minds, so that they would accept more and more and more, because I know that’s part of the problem in something like this. Without the mind of the recipient being in full agreement, without the mind believing and being part of the process, it doesn’t matter how much I do. He, they, it, … whatever person we’re talking about here just won’t heal,” she stated simply.
“They may feel somewhat better, but true healing? … That takes much more effort. So, when I came back out from that, I was distressed at the fatigue I felt, but I was also wondering what had happened and why,” she shared. “I didn’t say anything because I figured it was just me, not used to a remote healing session. I figured I didn’t have my normal healing abilities because I was upset. I hate to say it, but being a healer means coming from a space of complete and whole oneness with the world around you, and I haven’t had an easy couple of days,” she murmured.
“So, that session makes better sense then, if you weren’t operating as you usually do, both remotely and involving more than one patient, plus the added distress in your life,” Walker shared.
She frowned at Walker. “While I was coming to terms with the idea that it was me and my upset detracting from the healing session, now you’re suggesting it may not have been me at all, and it might very well have been that I was trying to heal more than one person simultaneously, without even knowing it.”
*
Walker studied Ashley’s face for a moment. “I guess another question we need to ask then is whether anybody else has gone missing recently.”
Startled, the two stared at him, as Calum nodded. “I guess that’s another avenue we haven’t explored. Maybe this isn’t so much about Frank and his condition. Maybe it’s about the fact that he’s come to see a healer.”
Walker looked over at her. “Have you had any other clients who didn’t show up?”
“No, I don’t think so,” she said. “I don’t take on very many, as you know. They find their way to me.”
“That’s fine, and maybe they did find their way to you but didn’t get this far,” Walker suggested. “Maybe somebody is interfering in your pipeline.”
She just stared at him blankly, but Calum nodded. “Right, you know we’ve certainly seen some crazy reasons why people do things,” Calum began. “So, this could be jealousy. It could be wanting to stop something or along the lines of evil even. It could be anything, if we’re considering all angles now. The problem is, we just don’t have enough information.”
“Right,” Walker added. “So how would we find out if anybody else has gone missing in this town, particularly recently?”
She shook her head. “I honestly don’t know because I keep to myself. I don’t even follow the local news.”
Walker shook his head. “Do you have a news source where the townsfolk would announce or publish something like that if they aren’t going to the sheriff’s office with this? It sounds more likely that you guys are all about keeping to yourselves and not letting the world know if there is a problem. I mean, potentially you could have a half-dozen people who have gone missing. In fact, the older woman—the former healer at that address you gave us—said as much.”
Ashley winced. “That would not be good.”
“Ya think?” Walker asked in astonishment. “Friends, families, loved ones, all are waiting for people to come home.”
Calum frowned. “Yet you would think, if that were the case and if other visitors have gone missing from this town, there would be some sort of investigation on a much larger scale. Family members would have reached out, trying to find them.”
“Maybe it’s just not time yet. Maybe these are all more dropped through the cracks type of people,” Walker noted.
Calum shook his head. “All of that seems a bit much, considering that these missing people might also then be people who need healing,” he acknowledged. “Regardless, it’s something that we need to explore though. I’ll contact Terkel, see if an honest lawman is in town,” Calum announced, getting up and stepping outside.
At that, Walker turned and looked back at Ashley, to see an odd light in her gaze. “What are you thinking?”
She was disoriented and lost, yet her mind was working on overdrive. “You just brought up something I hadn’t even considered, and I’m trying to access the energy work I was doing remotely to see if it’s even possible that I was healing more than one person,” she replied. “Terkel pushed me to try this, to reach out to find Frank from a distance. So my methodology was different than when I’m working with somebody up close, so it’s possible I guess.”
Walker added, “It’s also possible that it could have been somebody who knew you would go looking for this guy and needed the healing energy for himself.”
She frowned at him and then shook her head. “I think you’re hitting the realm of fantasy at this point.”
“That could be,” he admitted, giving her a ghost of a smile. “However, to ignore the possibility won’t help any of us.”
She winced at that. “Fine,” she muttered. “You do you. I’m still stuck on trying to consider the possibility of more than one person being there when I was healing remotely.”
“It could certainly be more than one. Maybe two or more prisoners are involved, and somebody was trying to help them, and they all ended up in trouble,” Walker suggested. “Just because they’re missing doesn’t mean that it’s potentially nefarious.”
At that, she gave a broken laugh. “In my world, when people go missing, that’s usually enough to know that trouble’s afoot.”
“You’re also coming from memories of working in a very broken world,” Walker pointed out. “From a place where people did horrible things to each other, and you haven’t had a chance to find other people who are here to help.”
He left it at that, knowing she wasn’t ready to hear anything else. He also understood part of what she was saying because, when you’re doing the kind of work she was doing—what Terkel was doing before—you saw the worst of humanity. Walker had seen way too much himself to become complacent, and just enough was going on in the world right now that he wasn’t sure he wanted to get too involved in this kind of work again. That would be one of the reasons why he wouldn’t want to work with Terkel, except the whole community aspect that Calum described was definitely appealing.
When you had spent a lifetime alone with these kinds of abilities, you really did want to know if you could do more. It was intriguing to think what kinds of things Walker could do with the chance to work with somebody like Terk, who understood. Walker believed his development would be much faster under Terk, plus Walker could learn from Terk and his team, while they could learn from Walker. Not that he felt as if he had much to offer in terms of others learning from him, but it was hard to say. Calum had mentioned that being together had made them all progress in different ways.
