"Hey guys!" I greeted them. Charlie had put on his disguise, which consisted of my sunglasses, a brown wig, and dad's golfing hat, a few minutes before. "Where's Elizabeth and Hope?"
"They'll be coming soon" she promised me and turned to Charlie. "You must be Rick."
"That's me..." Charlie replied in a hoarse, deep voice. Then he said. "I'm getting impressions of New York?"
"I lived there until I was five!" one of Antha's companions, Harry, told us.
"Do you work with the DA?" Antha asked. She wore white paint on her face, with black lipstick, her shirt was black, with a nasty looking skeleton on it.
"Yeah...I help out with Jury selection" my brother said, deftly holding his cane the way a blind person would. He had picked up that skill pretty quickly.
"He mostly works with law enforcement." I added.
Just then, Hope and Elizabeth came in and everyone said their hellos.
"I'm sensing a...forgotten diary.." Charlie said suddenly to my annoyance. He was supposed to mention it later.
"That would be me!" Elizabeth said.
"You left it in a closet?"
"yeah!"
"Can you talk to the dead?" the teenager asked.
"I mostly get snapshots or impressions, no direct dead person chit chat I'm afraid." Charlie explained with a smile. I had anticipated this question, and knew that since Charlie couldn't read people very well, we'd better stick to 'impressions'.
Soon, we were all seated in a circle on the floor.
Antha piped up."Do you get dreams?"
"Sometimes"
"He dreamed about my eye injury before it happened!" I told them somberly, laying some groundwork.
"I didn't get all the details, unfortunately" Charlie told them. "All I saw was Don at the hospital, wearing an eye patch..." He stopped there, as if the memory still affected him.
"You can't control what you see and don't see" I said with true brotherly affection.
"Can you see auras?" Antha asked.
"Auras?" Charlie repeated, and gave me a discreet look.
"What's mine look like?" Trixie, another cult member piped up.
"I don't see auras as much as I sense them." Charlie began. "Here's how it works, I focus on the person, and in my mind I see a color"
"Do mine!" Antha requested and came closer to Charlie. "I'm Antha, by the way."
"Uh….sure..." He , rubbed his temples with his index fingers, and said "Your aura is rose colored"
"Is that...good?"
"I sense that it is..." Charlie smiled.
He did the same thing for everyone, but me, as I told them at the end that my aura was green. Whatever the hell that meant.
The evening progressed, with Charlie being able to 'know' lots of things about everyone.
"Were you born with your abilities?" Trixie asked.
"In college, I was hit hard with a baseball hat by a mugger, causing brain damage and blindness . That was around the time I discovered my abilities." he repeated the story I told him to say.
"Who wants pizza?" I offered, after a while. By then, Charlie had really impressed everyone even more as he chatted with the group. He had adjusted to this role excellently.
Everyone called out in agreement, and I called in a delivery. As everyone talked among themselves, I took Charlie aside.
"Great job buddy! You've helped set the stage for stage two" I patted him on the back.
"What's stage two?" Charlie's asked in a puzzled voice.
"You're gonna visit Elizabeth very early in the morning. telling her you had a dream."
TBC