True Vision by Joyce Lamb Page B

out-of-body experience.”
    AnnaCoreen pursed her lips and began to rock again. When she said nothing for a long moment, Charlie asked, “Have you heard of anything like it before?”
    “Never,” AnnaCoreen said, her blue eyes dancing in the afternoon light. She seemed more excited than perplexed, like a scientist who’s realized she’s on the cusp of discovering the cure for cancer. “You say this woman who was killed, Laurette Atkins, resembled you?”
    “I believe she was my cousin, but getting that verified isn’t as easy as it should be.”
    “Yes, Lily mentioned your family situation to me when we met.”
    When they met? Why would Charlie’s family situation have even come up when they met? “How exactly did you know my grandmother?”
    AnnaCoreen began to rock again, a slow, even rhythm. “Lily came to me shortly before she died. She wanted to make sure you and your sisters had someone to turn to concerning your empathic abilities.”
    “You mean, my sisters . . .”
    “Possibly. Lily knew only about you for certain. She explained that you come from a background of deep denial, that you and your sisters had been raised to reject such gifts.”
    “How could we be raised to reject something we didn’t even know about?”
    AnnaCoreen’s smile didn’t falter. “Let me rephrase. You weren’t raised to embrace your gift.”
    “I’m not sure how Nana even knew I was sensitive,” Charlie said. “She just asked me one day.”
    “She mentioned your mother’s ability.”
    Charlie felt a moment of shock. Her mother was empathic?
    “Lily suspected, yes,” AnnaCoreen said. “She didn’t know for sure, though.”
    Charlie gaped at the older woman. “Are you reading my mind?”
    AnnaCoreen’s smile deepened. “Mostly, I’m reading your face. It’s very expressive.”
    Charlie forced her shoulders to relax. “So what would Laurette and I being related have to do with what’s happened?”
    “It’s highly possible she also was empathic. Death is an incredibly powerful experience. Because you were holding her hand when she passed on, her energy could have mingled with yours to, as you so creatively put it earlier, supercharge your ability.”
    Charlie had only one concern. “Will it go away?”
    “It’s more likely that it will grow stronger with time.”
    So not what Charlie wanted to hear. “Can you explain why I’m tapping into these particular events? I mean, why aren’t I just getting a . . . flash, or whatever it is, of them brushing their teeth or eating lunch?”
    AnnaCoreen rose out of the rocking chair and walked over to the porch railing. “I’m not an expert in empathic phenomena, so please keep in mind that what I’m about to say is only conjecture. I could be wrong. Very wrong.”
    “All right,” Charlie said with a slow nod.
    “Each of us is surrounded by an energy field, or in mystical terms, an aura. Sometimes it’s negative and sometimes positive. The average empathic person can walk into a room and feel the energy, or current mood, of a particular person or several people at once. In the level of empathy that you’re describing, it appears that the act of physically touching another person, skin-on-skin, actually breaches the energy field, gaining you access to that person’s most intensely emotional memories. You’re tapping into residual energy, rather than what that person’s feeling at the moment, and absorbing it into yourself as if it’s your own.”
    “Physical stuff is affecting me, too. I felt Laurette Atkins get hit by the car, and later I felt my sister bump her head.”
    “Each intense event, emotional or physical, carries residual energy,” AnnaCoreen said. “That’s why brushing one’s teeth wouldn’t affect you, because it wasn’t intense. And why you might not feel something every time you touch someone. It’s likely you’ll feel only traumatic events.”
    Charlie had to laugh. It was either that or cry. She’d never felt so overwhelmed.