Perception

LXXXI

It seemed like they had run forever when they reached a small clearing in the woods and Eli tripped over a tree root, his hand slipping out of hers as he slammed into the sand.
She crouched down quickly and picked him up, holding him tight against her, wiping the sand off his face and mouth. 
"Tell me what happened." she whispered vehemently.
She held his head against her chest, feeling the labouring of his breath.
"Are you okay?"
She felt him nod and then he looked up at her.
"I don't know how you can see where you're going in this fucking forest, it's pitch black." he grunted.
"Neither do I, really. I seem to just be able to hear and see better than normal."
He nodded again and sighed.
"Okay. So... I went to the toilet when we'd been asleep for a little while. And then suddenly there was a little Jeep on the path ahead, so I stopped. A woman got out and I was just opening my mouth to ask her if she was okay, when I got slugged on the head and everything went black. By the time I woke up I was tied up and... well, you know the rest."
"Oh my God." she whispered. She ran her hands over his hair until she found the large bump on the back of his head. He winced.
"You must have a concussion."
"Nah, I don't think so. My noggin's pretty hard. But.... Anna..." his voice was suddenly even softer, and full of something that made her heart squeeze in fear again. "There... there was someone else in the basement when she brought me in, I think. I wasn't really conscious, but I remember shards. A voice, someone sobbing. I think she must have taken whoever it was somewhere else, and just as she was gone to do that you came into the window."

"Be very, very careful, Anna, she's looking for you, but I'm shielding you. Follow your sense."
The voice came out of nowhere, as it always did, but it was so clear again that it made her jump.
"What?" he asked.
"It's the voice. She said she's shielding me, and that I should follow the Bernard sense."
She couldn't see but she knew he was scrunching up his eyes.
"'She'?"
Suddenly the moment was pregnant with the unspoken words that were waiting, had always been waiting. Anna halted for a long moment before she said them, these words that would make real what somewhere deep down she must have known all along. She inhaled raggedly.
"I'm pretty sure it's my mother, Eli, the voice. The feathers... it must be the memory from when I was a baby, I think. She's been guiding me all along."
He stilled in her arms. "Whoa." he breathed then, and she nodded. Yeah. Whoa was a good way to describe it, really. "She... she died, years ago."
She nodded again. "Yes. I guess... I guess this seer stuff must run in the family."
"Whoa." he said again, and he sat up now, supporting his own full weight once again. "That... that's really something else."
"Yeah. I know."
They were quiet for a long while, and now that she'd told him, now that she'd said the words out loud, she was even more sure that she was right.
My mother.

"So... hang on a second." he said softly, his tone different now. "She called it 'Bernard sense'?"
She smiled suddenly, despite everything. His irony really was an unstoppable force.
"No. But maybe she should, hey? Can you walk on, do you think?"
He nodded. "Yeah. Sitting down for a moment's helped, I think. I can walk."
"Okay. We'll have to be very, very quiet though."
She stood up and held out her arm to him, so he could lean on her as he too got on his feet. Then she took his hand automatically, almost to stop him vanishing on her again, and waited. She closed her eyes tight, willing the sense to come online.
Come on then. she thought with all her might. Show me, then.
And just like that, from somewhere deep outside, deep in the dark, dense forest, came the slightest bit of a pull.
"Okay, we are going this way."