Miraculous: Tales of the Unknown (16 page)

"That Spring, Jonas' wife
delivered a strapping baby boy. And the following winter, a set of
twin boys. The labor was difficult but she was beaming at her
babies when she held them in her arms. When the boys were just old
enough to start working the fields, I believe they were 9 and 10,
Jonas passed on.

And you would think that
was the end of the story. But the faery left out a crucial piece of
information. When you are indebted to the fae, that obligation is
carried down the line. There is no escaping it. But in the same
regard, the benefits of the bargain carry down, as well, and for
many, many generations now there have been no girls born to our
line. Every Baxter has born only strong, healthy, strapping young
men.

Anyway, so, this faery
woman comes to Jackson in a dream and tells him all about the
bargain. Apparently, the favor the faery had wanted in return was
for our family to be gifted with the ability to
See
. Sight comes with great
responsibility because, from time to time, what we see will need to
be effected, altered. So we get visions in our dreams, of events
and occurrences effecting those around us and sometimes that path
needs to be changed to avoid disaster of some sort. That’s the bulk
of the story, anyway, as I have come to understand it."

"I think I understand but
what does this have to do with Gram?"

"Well, evidently, ours was
not the only family to make a similar misguided bargain. Your
grams' ancestors had made a bargain as well, although I never got
the full details from Gram before I passed. Your grandmother also
had Sight. It was most likely what had drawn us together and bonded
us for the lifetime that we shared.

But the night she died,
she had had a vision. It was what had woken her up so early in the
morning. Gram was never an early riser; she enjoyed her sleep far
too much for that. But she had a very compelling vision and it was
one that required a course to be altered. Gram had run into a young
woman at work who was very depressed. She had been kind to the girl
whenever possible although few others were. Gram had a vision that
the young woman was going to kill herself. She was racing out to
the woman’s home that morning. The young woman had already set her
plan into motion. She had consumed large quantities of alcohol and
gotten into her car. It was she whose car struck your grandmother
that fateful morning"

"So gram did not do what
she needed to do."

"Oh, but she did. That
young woman has completely turned her life around and found a
purpose. That day saved her life. I hesitate to tell you this but
you know her. She is one of your therapists. I will not say which,
because that is your first vision to carry out. You have to figure
out who she is and tell her she is forgiven. You will know her when
you look at her. If you are really looking. And you must. So many
lives depend on it. You will know when the time is right because
your life is going to change. It is going to be considered a result
of her work with you. It could be when you wake this morning. That
is hard to say. I do not control these things. But I will be here
to guide you for a time."

"The, the woman who killed
my grandmother has been in my house, has been close to me? How
dare–"

"Stop, Jacob," Joseph
pleaded.

"This is as it should be.
It is the way the Universe intended. Your grandmother knew what she
was running off to but she did it for you. She could see what this
woman would become if she had a second chance. If only she could
see she could have a purpose. Your grandmother knew it could cost
her life but she had to do it to help you."

Jacob put his head in his
hands, trying to process everything his grandfather had told him.
How could any of this be real? This was just a crazy dream, wasn't
it? It had to be. When he woke in the morning, he would not
remember any of this and it would not haunt him the way he felt it
was at this moment.

He thought about the
therapists he had over the years. He had gotten close to each of
them, as much as a boy with autism could make connections, but over
the last couple of years it had seemed different. He was really
starting to feel like he could connect with people, like he
understood. He felt like his life was changing. He felt, well…he
felt almost normal, whatever that really meant.

But this was surely too
much for him. Had he really just snapped, completely gone crazy?
Was he going to wake up to find that he was in a padded room in a
straightjacket? Or was there even the glimmer of the possibility
that any of this could be real?

"No, I don't get it," came
the words from Jacob's mouth and he stopped. He had only thought he
had thought the words. They were not intended for anyone else to
hear.

"Jacob, don't you think it
is strange that you are able to speak and understand, when you have
never spoken aloud before?" Joseph posed.

"I, I don't know, " Jacob
stammered.

"And with each time you do
speak, the stutter eases and the words flow more
easily?"

Jacob’s mouth popped open
in an "o". He had been wondering all of this himself and he still
did not understand it.

"Things are changing,
Jakey. You are changing. When you wake in the morning, you will not
be the same timid boy who went to sleep. You are going to find your
voice. It will be almost as if you were never afflicted with the
autism. Remember what I said earlier? That the Baxter family had
nothing but strong, strapping young men who were the picture of
health? You have been the one exception to that rule. And the error
is going to be set to rights."

Jacob stared intently at
his grandfather, a look of disbelief coloring his
features.

"Oh, don't look at me so
incredulously. Everyone will consider it a miracle. They will say
that the therapies have worked, you have made a marvelous turn, and
are finally improving after your parents have poured hundreds upon
thousands of dollars into experimental therapies. I wish I could
say it was coincidence but it was most probably by design. There
needed to be a logical explanation. There needed to be a reason for
this young woman to come into your life or everything that happened
to your grandmother would have been for naught."

Jacob stood and started
pacing the clearing. Joseph let him. He knew that his grandson
needed time to process everything that was happening. If he tried
to interrupt or intervene now, the situation could become volatile
and everything would fail.

What he never explained to
the boy was who all of these other people were in the clearing. And
that would have to be an explanation for another time. The sky was
darkening. In the dream world, things are the opposite. Night is
day and day is night. The darkening of the sky meant that the boy
would have to wake soon and their conversation would have to come
to an end.

As Jacob paced, he picked
at the seams on his pajamas, slowly unraveling the thin thread in
his clothing. This was typical for Jacob, one of his coping
mechanisms when he was overwhelmed. It was possibly more habit than
anything else at this stage of the game but in his mind it helped
him to focus, to think. And he needed to focus now. He needed to
wrap his mind around all that was happening.

The bottom line is he
could choose to accept what he was being told or he could choose to
ignore it, blow it off as just a crazy dream. It would not change
the outcome much but the latter option would ultimately drive him
mad. Joseph knew this because he had tried to fight the gift he had
been given for so many years, until it nearly destroyed him at 18,
and he had no choice but to accept it. He could not make these
decisions for his grandson, as much as it pained him to see him
suffering through this right now.

**********

Jacob stopped pacing again
directly before his grandfather.

"Say I believe you and go
along with all of this. Then what?"

"For right now," Joseph
began, "nothing really is going to change. You will remember this
dream when you awake, vividly. But there is a caveat. You cannot
tell anyone. Not even your mother. If you tell her, she will not
understand and she may even be frightened. This has to be your
secret, your burden to bear and yours alone. At least for now. When
you meet the woman you are intended to, then you will be able to
share this with her. But for now, if you speak of this dream and
the things I have told you, you will find yourself tongue-tied and
unable to continue."

"But that is metaphorical,
right?" Jacob asked. "I don't speak to anyone. I have never heard
my own voice other than in my head, outside of this … Whatever this
is, wherever I am. "

With a grin, Joseph looked
at his grandson. "Things are going to change, Jakey, in ways you
could never have imagined. It is hard to say when but they are
going to change."

A thrumming began in the
distance and Joseph looked to the sky. "It looks like we are
running out of time, my boy. Your mother is on her way to your room
to wake you for school. When you wake, you will feel rested, so do
not be concerned with that."

"You mean, I have been
here that long?"

“Only in spirit,” said
Joseph. "Your body is still back in your bed. In many ways, this is
just a dream. But it is also very, very real and you cannot ignore
it. The time will come, Jacob. And it may be sooner than you
think."

His surroundings began to
fade away.

*******

Bang, bang bang
came the sound from the closed door.

"Jacob Allen, why in the
world is this door locked! It is time to get up. You are going to
be late for school if you do not get up and get dressed this
instant. And if you wait much longer, you will be going on an empty
stomach!"

Oh man, mom sounds really
mad. I better get going,
Jake
thought.

But why was the door
locked? Jacob never locks his door. Everything seems so very
strange.

Jacob got dressed in a
rush, trying not to incur the wrath of his mother.

He rushed down the stairs
and nearly ran into his mother at the bottom.

"Where's the fire, Jake?"
Leeanne asked, startled.

Jacob was never this
abrupt and in a hurry. Jacob was a very laid back kid as long as
you didn’t mess with his routine. He thrived on routine, as most
autistic children do, and Jacob's was very structured, very rigid.
That is why the locked door and the difficulty waking up seemed so
out of place to Leeanne.

"What's for
breakfast?"

Leeanne's jaw popped open
and in that instant Jacob knew why. He had just spoken to his
mother for the first time in, well, ever.

"Jacob?" Leeanne mouthed,
clearly very confused by what was happening.

"Hi, mom," Jacob
smiled.

"Oh! Oh!" Leanne was
shouting enough to wake the dead, and her husband came running out
of his home office.

"What in the world is
going on in here?" Jeremy Baxter asked his wife.

"It's happened! The
miracle we have been hoping and praying for! All of the thousands
of dollars we have spent and everyone telling us we were crazy, we
needed to just accept things for what they were. It has happened.
Jacob just asked me what was for breakfast, and then said 'hi
mom!'"

Jeremy looked skeptically
at his wife. "Is it possible?"

"Dad?" Jacob said
hesitantly, as much trying out his new voice as to get his father’s
attention.

Jeremy and Leeanne
converged on their once-silent child, reveling in this miraculous
moment, and savoring it for all it was worth.

It was now that their
lives would begin. And Jacob's too. Because he had a purpose, a
destiny to fulfill. And he had a voice. He felt different, stronger
somehow.

He really had no idea what
life had in store for him or what the future held. But he did know
that he would embrace it. He would live his life and finally be
free.

Something

By: DL Kelly

© 2013 by DL
Kelly

Chapter 1

It was the day before
Halloween and Agnes expected something. She wasn’t exactly sure
what—just… something. Wasn’t Halloween her favorite holiday? Didn’t
she decorate the whole house for Halloween, including the
bathrooms? She had a Halloween shower curtain and black rugs, a
paper cup holder with a graveyard scene on it, and her collection
of witches on the shelf over the radiator. Didn’t she wear
Halloween clothing starting on October first, the first day of
Halloween in her opinion? She had a sweater with pumpkins on it, a
turtleneck with little black cats all over it and many sweatshirts.
Even a pair of orange-painted tennies with black bats. She sent
Halloween cards and played Halloween music. People might think she
was obsessed, and truthfully, she was! She admitted it. It was the
best time of the year.

Sure, she decorated for
the other holidays, but not as much. Well, except for
Christmas--she knocked herself out decorating for Christmas. The
difference was the feeling of scary, mysterious events tied to
Halloween. She loved ghost stories that sent chills down her spine.
Agnes loved the delicious uneasy feeling a haunted house gave her.
She didn’t go to these “scare palaces” set up in October. Give her
a real-live haunted house and she was a happy lady.