Mary-Sue Poots always knew too much and the nuns never let her forget it.
Whenever she made a comment about something, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant, they would demand for her reveal how she knows that. She always tried to tell them the truth, but they'd quiet her before she could, and told her to stop spying on the conversations they had. The had this look in their eyes Mary couldn't quite place until she was sent to the Brody's.
The Brody's were a nice family. The mother always asked how Mary's day went, the father allowed her to play on the family computer a little longer than she was suppose to, and their son was nicer than most boys his age. Mary tried really hard to be nice and normal for them. She thought she was doing well too. She had been lucky until that moment. They hadn't caught her spacing off, something that got her in trouble in other families and at the orphanage. But that luck was not here to stay.
It happened in the middle of the mall, her second shopping trip with the mother. One moment Mary was in the clothing department, and the next she was in a town. She saw a mother chasing her son down the street. Looking farther she could see some men on horseback galloping through the city, drawing crowds of people. They wore helmets she remembered from a school trip, and carried banners with lions on it.
It wasn't long before someone was shaking her shoulders, and her view changed. She saw Mrs. Brody holding the hands of her son, who was years younger than Mary knew him, both with tears running down their face. They were standing over the casket which held an old man.
Mary only recognized what happened when she came back. She spaced out again, to the place that held the knowledge she never wanted, never needed to know. Mary tried to keep quiet. Tried to forget what she saw. Tried to not let her new knowledge slip.
But it did. It slipped when she let her guard down, when she forgot to forget. When she was too tired to filter her words; to not let the thoughts in her head escape with her voice. The look on Mrs. Brody's face when she heard, Mary figured out the look in the nun's eyes. Fear
They knew, just as Mrs. Brody knew now, just as Mary always knew. Mary could see into the past, and it scared them.
Needless to say, she didn't stick around there for long.
So Mary sat, in the bushes at the edge of the small outdoor area the orphanage calls a playground. She was looking out at the world beyond the fence as she hummed a song she never knew, wishing she could have done better, been better, known less.
Darcy Ann Lewis didn't know enough and her mother's death proved it.
Darcy was always a strange child, even when children were supposed to be strange. She would run to the phone in the hallway before it rang, say when visitors were coming over, and know what gifts there would be before gifts were even bought. It was strange for sure, but her parents loved her, and her siblings enjoyed learning of their gifts beforehand, so no one mentioned the oddities about her. No one in the household would tell the outside world either.
Why would they? She was just a smart kid. One who could make connections that most kids her age would would miss. Their family was so normal, so average it really wasn't a stretch for her to be smart enough to guess that her brother would get that book series he had been asking for months before hand, or her sister would get the chemistry set she saw in the store a few weeks before her birthday happened. It wasn't too hard for them to believe she overhears them when they are talking about who's coming to visit within the next week and remember.
Darcy never overheard her parents, never knew it was almost a birthday nor that there would be shopping happening. She always saw these things happening before they did. She'd see her sister playing with the chemistry set or her brother throwing one of the books across the yard after a particularly emotional part, her parents picking up a phone call wearing the same clothes they were wearing that day, or the next.
But nobody wants to believe she can see the future.
Which is why nobody listened to her when she begged them not to send her mother into the surgery. It's a routine operation they said patting her shoulder. Many people go through it all the time they said as they waved their hands over the shoulder. She'll be fine her father says to Darcy as tears ran down her face.
She wasn't. Darcy's father sat her and her siblings down, and Darcy went numb. The words he said, she had already heard them. They weren't as echoey as in the visions, they were all too real. This time it wasn't just that her mother was gone though. This time there was more information, stuff that could have helped her convince them not to go through with it. But she didn't know. Her mother died, and she couldn't stop it.
So Darcy sat, curled under a mountain of blankets she collected in the back of her closet, trying to block out the sounds of her brother and father fighting downstairs. Darcy covered her head with more blankets, singing a song she thinks her mother would have liked under her breath, wishing she could have done more, known more.
Valerie Dove Wilson doesn't care how much she knows as long as she knows her brother is safe.
A few months ago she could see her brother by casually throwing her senses around town. Now she could only see him when she sat, when she listened and waited. She could only see him when she turned on the music, and stretched out her senses beyond the town. She sent them far and wide to find her brother.
She didn't ever find him quickly, if she found them him at all. Her searching was easily thrown off the rails if she became distracted. She had seen many things when she throughout her sense, many of which were interesting, some beautiful, some terrifying, but none of it was her brother.
Her brother, Sam, did send her letters. She sent hers back with the drawings she made. Drawings of their parents, of his friends who stayed behind, of her friend. She would send drawings of the parades and games in the town that he missed. Valerie would send him any drawings she could, but only the best. She also sent him a drawing of him in his new uniform, just so she was sure he knew she didn't forget him. She hoped he wouldn't forget her.
Valerie disliked being ten years younger than her brother. It meant they couldn't do everything together. They use to, back when she was five. Her brother would take her everywhere and they would have fun together. But now she was nine, and he was gone, off to join the army where she couldn't go because she was too young. All Valerie could do was be left behind.
So Valerie sat, hunched over her brothers desk in his room. She sang a song she'd heard hundreds of times before as she drew new pictures to send to him. She didn't care that she could see further than anyone else. As long as she knew her brother was alive, she knew enough.