“However, I recall that you have spoken to the dead in your dreams. Correct?”

Helen was truly one of the few individuals with whom I could discuss these things without being looked upon with a jaundiced eye, as evidenced by what she had just said to me. I suppose it was her Native American heritage that made her so open to the idea that I really did communicate with those who had departed this realm.

The truth is, I sometimes had trouble believing it myself. Witches aren’t what you read about in fairy tales or Shakespearean plays. Practicing magick and following a Pagan religious path, while an alternative to the societal norm, didn’t automatically make you some kind of psychic medium. In fact just about any other Pagan could tell you that I, and those like me, were an anomaly. While the mental exercises that come with the territory may have enhanced some type of latent ability I had always possessed, Witches, in general, simply didn’t go around talking to dead people.

Why did I get to be so lucky? Who knows? All I can say is that “why me” had become a personal mantra over the past few years.

I gave Helen a shallow nod after considering her response to my explanation. “Yeah, but I’m obviously not doing a lot of speaking to anybody in this one.”

“This is true.”

I waited a moment then added. “Well, there is one thing I know for sure, and that’s what I’m praying for.”

“And, that would be?”

“I’m ashamed to admit it, but what I’m praying for is that this time it won’t be me. As selfish as that sounds, I want her to hurt someone else and not me.”

“Her?” Helen asked, cocking her head to the side once again and raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t know,” I replied with a shrug then dug into my pocket for a lighter. “It’s like the arousal and callousness with the footsteps. I just have this overwhelming sense of a female presence in connection with the terror and pain. There’s definitely a woman at the root of it, but I couldn’t begin to tell you who she is.”