"Daddy, I'm bored," I leaned on his arm, "What're you doing?"
It seemed like we had been at the library for hours. I had read almost all of a Nancy Drew book, and then I got tired of reading about her. I didn't care who stole the pearl necklace from the museum, I just wanted to go play on a playground or go get something to eat!
Daddy glanced at me. "We'll be done soon," he said, "Just a little bit longer, okay?"
I folded my arms. "Nooo," I whined, "It's not okay! I'm hungry! I'm tired of sitting here! I'm boooored!"
"Charlie," Daddy said sternly, "cool it."
I sighed and scuffed my feet on the ground.
Uncle Sam and Grandpa John came over to us. Grandpa John had gone to print something out from the computers.
"I've got the tables printed out, we can take them back and look at them in the room," he said.
"Can we eat dinner? I'm hungry," I said.
"Yeah, we can order a pizza when we get to the hotel," Daddy said.
"Can't we go out? I'm tired of going back to the room every night," I complained.
"Charlie, we're working on something important," Daddy told me, "We need to keep working on it." He stood up and gathered the pad and pen he'd been using. Uncle Sam took them and put them in his laptop bag.
"What is it?" I asked, standing up.
"You don't need to worry about that," Daddy said.
"I hate when you say that," I grumbled as we walked to the car. It wasn't fair that they never talked to me about the stuff that they were doing!
I got an idea. As we stepped off the curb, I took Daddy's hand, and then I tried to see, on purpose, what was in Daddy's mind. It felt like I was pushing something with my head.
I saw a man, sitting in a chair, with ropes tied around him, and someone threw water on him, which smoked and sizzled when it landed on his skin. He raised his head and growled, showing his teeth, and his eyes were completely black.
I pulled my hand out of Daddy's with a gasp. He glanced down at me. "What?" he asked.
"N-nothing," I said, as I climbed into the back of the car. Then I realized- the man had black empty eyes, just like the people I had used to see in my dreams when I was a kid, and Mary would come to me! Did that mean that there were people with no eyes out there? Were they bad people? Why was one tied to a chair, and why did water get all steamy when it hit him?
Uncle Sam and Grandpa John went into their room, and Daddy opened the door so we could go into our room.
"Daddy," I said hesitantly, "who are the people with black eyes?"
He stopped walking across the room and turned to me. "What do you mean?" he demanded, "How do you know about them? Did you see something?" He came over to me quickly.
"Well, I-" I squirmed, looking down at my feet, "when I held your hand I looked and saw-"
Daddy raked his hand through his hair. "Dammit," he said under his breath. "Charlie, I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking-" he stopped, "Wait, did you say you looked? You looked and saw? What does that mean?"
I felt my face get red. "I, uhh..." I toed the floor in front of me, and then he put his finger under my chin and made me raise my head to look at his face.
"What- do- you- mean?" he asked firmly.
"I, uh, I was curious, I wanted to know...I get annoyed that you're always telling me not to worry about it or that it's nothing I need to think about!" I burst out, "It's not fair!"
"No, little girl, this has nothing to do with fair, there are things that are for grown-ups only, and hunting is one of those things. You actually were able to look in my mind and see something?" he asked angrily.
I gulped, and then nodded.
"I cannot believe this!" he snapped, and he reached out and took my wrist, leading me over to the bed. He sat down on the end and took my arms, holding me in the V of his legs.
"You do NOT look in people's minds for information, Charlie! That's like eavesdropping on someone's conversation! That- that's worse than eavesdropping! I don't ever want to hear of you doing that ever again, little girl!" he was frowning angrily at me, and he started to pull me towards him like he was going to turn me over his knee.
"Daddy, I'm sorry!" I stepped backwards, trying to squirm out of his grasp, "I didn't mean-"
"Don't tell me you didn't mean to, you gonna start lying now?" he snapped, pulling me forward.
In one quick movement I was over his knees, and then his hand fell for the first time and I yelped. He laid several stinging swats down on my bottom and I started to cry.
"You need to understand something, little girl," he said in a hard voice, "You are not an adult, you don't need to know everything that adults are doing."
He stopped spanking me, resting his hand on my back, and said, "I know that your relationship with your mother was different, you were friends and she shared everything with you, but that's not the way it is now. I am the adult and you are the child, and you don't need to be involved in every little thing. And you will not be involved in hunting or any aspect of that at all," he lifted his hand and began to spank me again. I began to squirm on his lap, trying to get away from his hard hand and whimpering.
"And I'm disappointed in you that you would try to go into my mind. You will not spy or eavesdrop on people at all. That is not the kind of little girl I want you to be! You will not do something like that again, am I clear?"
It hurt that he said he was disappointed in me, and I started to cry harder. "Yes, Daddy, I w-won't do that e-ever a-again!" I exclaimed, "I'm sorryyyyyy!"
He landed a couple of swats on the lowest part of my butt and then it was over and he was lifting me up to sit in his lap.
I clutched at his flannel and sobbed, "M'sorry, Daddy, I don't want you to be dis-disappointed with me."
He put his arms around me. "You do the right thing, and don't look into people's minds, and I won't be."
There was a knock on the door, and then Uncle Sam came into the room. "Pizza's on its way," he told us, "Everything okay?" he raised his eyebrows.
"Little Miss Charlie here decided to try and see if she could look into my mind, and she was successful." Daddy said.
"She was? Oh wow, that's- we need to tell Missouri."
"Oh, I'm going to, believe me." Daddy said, "I'm curious as to what she's going to say about it. In the meantime, Charlie knows that she's not to do that again, because it's like spying on someone, right?"
"Yes, Daddy," I sniffled.
"Go get changed into your pajamas, you're going to bed right after dinner," Daddy patted my back.
I slid off of his lap, feeling chastened. "Yes, Daddy," I said, and I went to get my pajamas out of my duffle.
Uncle Sam set his laptop up at the table, and Grandpa John came in with a stack of papers. They leaned over them, talking quietly.
Daddy shushed me when I tried to talk to him, and told me to find something to do, because he had to help them. I played my 3DS until the pizza got there, and they ate while they worked.
When I finished eating, I got up to throw my trash away and then walked over to Uncle Sam to say goodnight.
"Give him and extra hug, we're going to be leaving in the morning," Grandpa John said.
"Where are you going?" I asked.
"We're going to look for something," Grandpa John said, "And hopefully we find it this time."
Uncle Sam leaned down and hugged me tightly, picking me up off the ground for a moment.
"Be careful, I'll miss you," I said.
He kissed the top of my head. "I'll miss you too, be good."
I walked over to hug Grandpa John. "Behave yourself, little one," he patted my bottom and kissed my forehead. Daddy walked over to my bed and tucked me in.
"I'm sorry I spied on you," I said quietly, "Are you still mad?"
He leaned down and hugged me. "No, sweetheart, I'm not."
"I love you, Daddy," I hugged him back.
"I love you too, baby," he kissed my cheek and pulled the covers up.
In the morning it was just me and Daddy for breakfast. After we ate, he took me over to Missouri's house. I was nervous that she was going to scold me too. Daddy told her he wanted to talk privately for a few minutes, and they went into the kitchen.
Missouri came back into the room and sat next to me on the sofa, looking at me seriously.
"Now, this is something I didn't think we were going to have to deal with yet, but your abilities are stronger than I originally thought. Your mama taught you to be a good person, right? To be kind, and not be a bully, and do the right thing?"
I nodded.
"Well, with your abilities, it goes both ways, Not only can you get information from touching people, you can go into their minds and look for things. But like your Daddy said, that's worse than eavesdropping. Can you tell me why?"
I looked down at my lap, feeling myself blush. "Because, uh, I'm spying on their private thoughts that are inside their heads."
"Right. And the person has no idea that you're doing that, and so they don't know to put up a defense. Just like you don't read someone's diary, or eavesdrop on a conversation, you don't go into people's minds to find things out. And there may be times when you're tempted to, like if you want to find out what grade you got on a test, or what your birthday present is, but you can't do that. Why not?"
"Because it's not the right thing to do," I said.
"Good," she nodded, "you make sure you keep doin' the right thing, and you don't use your abilities to get information from people."
"I won't," I agreed, "Missouri, who are the people with black eyes? That's what I saw yesterday, and I-I dreamed about them when I was little."
She sat very still for a long moment, and then looked at me again. "They're people with evil inside them, child, and that's all I'm gonna say. The less you know about it, the better."
"But why-"
She held her hand up. "No, you need to put it out of your mind, now. Let's do some more work on trying to build that wall."
I tried to imagine a wall in my head, but I still couldn't make it work. Every time I touched Missouri's shawl, I saw things. I started to get frustrated with myself.
"All right, take a deep breath," she said, "No use getting all upset."
"But I can't do it!" I gritted out, clenching my fists, "Why can't I do this?"
"Some skills are harder for people to master than others," she said, "You have to have patience with yourself. Take another deep breath."
I did, and imagined a wall again.
"Try this, maybe using a different object will help," Missouri handed me a small metal thimble. I held it in my hand, and then I felt an overwhelming sadness. I looked down and saw my hands sewing something, a long white cloth, and I saw tears drip down onto the fabric. Then I raised my eyes and saw a man laying on a table. His eyes were closed and the skin around his neck was all puffy and torn up. It was Big Luke, and I knew that he was dead.
I opened my eyes and burst into tears, throwing the thimble down on the coffee table. "Big Luke died!" I exclaimed, looking at Missouri, "Something was wrong with his neck! And I saw someone sewing a blanket and crying!"
Missouri pressed her lips together. "Oh, honey, I'm so sorry you had to see that," she pulled me to her and hugged me tightly.
"Wh-what happened?" I asked.
"Well, I told you that things didn't go well after the missus passed, right? Unfortunately, Big Luke got in the way one too many times, and they- they hanged him. What you saw was my GranGran sewing his burial shroud."
"You said you didn't know what happened to him!"
"I didn't want to share that with you, child, it's not something I like to think about. It was a very hard time for all my GranGran's folk."
Daddy came into the living room. "What's going on? Why is Charlie crying?" He had been in the kitchen drinking coffee.
"She saw something unhappy, when my GranGran was sewing a burial shroud for big Luke."
"Oh geez," Daddy said, coming over to us. He sat down next to me and I climbed onto his lap and threw my arms around him.
"She's having a time trying to put up a wall inside her mind, I think we're going to have to try a different technique," Missouri said, "However, today I want you to take her out. She's had enough now, and you need to take her out and do something fun, let her just be a kid."
"All right, what do you want to do, Charlie?" Daddy asked.
"I dunno," I sniffled.
"There's a zoo in the city, and an aquarium," she told us.
"How about the aquarium?" Daddy looked down at me, "Have you ever been to one?"
I shook my head.
"Let's go there then." Daddy patted my back. I got up, wiping my eyes. "We'll be back tomorrow," he told Missouri.
She hugged me again. "You try to enjoy yourself today, put all this out of your mind for now."
"Okay, Missouri," I hugged her back.
Daddy and I spent a long time at the Aquarium. There was a touchpool where you could touch some of the animals, like a horseshoe crab and a fish called a moon jelly. We watched a movie about coral reefs and then went through the exhibit and tried to find as many of the creatures they had mentioned in the movie as we could. There was a tropical rainforest exhibit too, and we walked through it and a butterfly landed on my arm. By the time we left, I was tired, and I fell asleep in the car on the way back to the hotel.
In the morning, I woke up to Uncle Sam and Grandpa John coming into the room. I hopped out of bed and ran to them, and Uncle Sam swung me up in his arms.
"I didn't think you'd be back so soon!" I said happily, kissing his cheek.
"We got it," Grandpa John said with satisfaction.
Uncle Sam put me down on the floor and I went over to hug Grandpa John. He squeezed my shoulders and let me go.
"Well, let's see it," Daddy said.
Grandpa John put his duffle on the table and opened it up, pulling something out. It was a large piece of leather all wrapped up. He put it on the table and unwrapped it, and in the middle of it was an old-looking gun. It had a star in a circle on the wooden handle.
"That's it, huh?" Daddy said, "This is the gun that can kill anything?"
I couldn't control myself, I felt pulled to the gun, and even though I knew I wasn't supposed to be touching a weapon and I was going to be in big trouble, I felt myself reaching for it, and I picked it up, and I saw-
A man making bullets for the gun and dipping them in a bowl of water. He was dressed like someone from a cowboy movie, wearing a big cowboy hat and a vest. The cowboy-man walked into a room where a man was bent over a woman, and he yelled something, and then the man stood up. He had blood around his mouth and there was blood pouring down the woman's neck. The cowboy- man shot the gun and it went right into the other man's forehead, and he fell down onto the floor and then disintegrated. Then the scene changed and the cowboy-man was in a forest, and there was a growling and barking coming from nearby, and a big wolf-like creature jumped at him, and he shot it with the gun, and it died.
"CHARLIE!" Daddy yelled, yanking the gun out of my hands, "STOP!"
I looked up at him, and then I felt pain in my head like someone was stabbing me. I gasped, and grabbed my head.
"What's wrong?" Daddy asked, looking at me with concern.
"Hurts-" I moaned, as the pain worsened. It felt like there was a metal band around my brain, tightening painfully, and I began to see little flashes of light in my vision.
"Stars," I murmured, "seeing stars," and I felt dizzy suddenly. Daddy caught me as I started to fall, and picked me up. He carried me over to the bed, and laid me down.
"Get Missouri on the phone!" I heard him say, and then I got even dizzier, and everything went black.