Mirai

-----

I woke up when the sun shone high in the sky. Tamah was already awake. She seemed subdued, as if the sadness hadn't completely ebbed away. But that wasn't surprising. It would have been more surprising if she had been all fine. But even so, she seemed lighter and happier as we got up to return to the house, and for the first time, I thought it might really and truly be possible. That I might have time to help her heal enough so she'd be fine once my countdown reached zero.

The rest of the day was spent in calmness. A board game appeared and we played it together with Dad. And I lost, though it felt as if I had won.

When we began playing, Tamah only talked to Dad when he directed a question to her. But at some point, they decided to gang up on me, though how they communicated that plan was beyond me. Suddenly, I was the focus of both of their attacks and rather quickly lost. Tamah then proceeded to win, though I got the distinct feeling of that Dad purposely lost.

When the game was over, I suggested a movie and Tamah suggested in return that we'd watch it on the TV in the living room, a TV that hadn't been there when we had started playing the game.

Dad made some popcorn and then settled down to watch with us.

I was happy and all felt good, and though Dad had said that both me and Tamah ought to find lives outside of this world, that day it felt like the lives we had in the world were more than enough.

Before me and Tamah went to bed, I checked how the morning would be. That became a happy surprise. There were no indications of that Tamah would have any type of nightmare.

I was about to return away from the visions when I felt something pull on my mind. Before I had time to do more than register it, a series of other visions played in my mind. All about Mom.

I saw her as a child, being trained in a similar way that I had been. She made more progress than I had, but far from the amount expected of her. I saw her mom, my grandma whom I had never met, only heard of, complain about her poor progress. The complaints and sneers plagued her just like I had been plagued by the taunts from others.

I saw how Mom left the coven for a few years, tried to make it on her own. Saw how she suffered, how she was unable to provide for herself, how others tricked her and used her. People had asked for her money and promised things in return, but the things had never come. People had acted kindly and convinced her to help them with various things, only to leave her when it all went wrong.

She had trusted time and time again and seemed unable to tell the genuine from the wicked. As if her abilities were strong enough to show her the beginnings of what would happen, but not the end result of her and others' actions.

And then I saw how the Priestess was kind and sympathetic when she returned.

"Mirai!" Tamah's voice brought me out of the visions. She held onto my hands and her eyes searched mine.

I shook my head a bit to dispel the remnants of the visions. Then I smiled at her. "I'm all good," I said. "I just had a vision."

"Your body started trembling," she pointed out, though from my perspective her body was the one that trembled.

I pulled her to me. Hugged her with one hand around her waist and the other between her shoulder blades. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you," I whispered to her in the hopes of calming her down.

"I called your name several times before you responded," she went on and her voice shook a bit as she spoke.

"I'm sorry," I repeated. "It must have been scary."

She nodded against my shoulder and I felt her hands fisting the fabric of my top over my back.

"How can I make it up to you?" I asked next and drew circles on her back.

"By never doing it again," she said, and I suppressed the sigh that almost left me. That was the one thing I couldn't promise her.

"Anything else?"

She shook her head. I pressed my lips to the side of her head and felt disappointed over that she hadn't asked for anything else. Hadn't asked for something I could actually give her.

I let her calm down a bit more before we laid down to sleep. As always, I hugged her. It felt so natural and obvious to do. It felt safe to have her in my arms. Holding her like that made me certain she wouldn't disappear from me, but also that I wouldn't disappear from her. Her proximity centered me. And I needed that, especially that night.

Those visions of Mom were the first I had gotten that I had no control over. I had gotten pretty good at checking things in the future to help guide me to make the right decision. But all of that had always been me controlling the vision. I had always decided when I wanted to see something and what.

I had been pulled into the visions of Mom without any means of stopping it. Hadn't felt any control over what I saw. I had calmed Tamah as much to calm her as to calm myself.

Would that be what it would be like when the countdown reached zero? Would my mind be pulled from vision to vision without me having any means to stop it? Would Tamah end up calling my name over and over to never get a response?

I shuddered at the thought and my hold on her became harder. If only there was a viable way to stop it from happening.