A Spirited Gift

While Marissa tried to get everyone settled down, I went to the ballroom to lock the door so none of the children could wander in and get cut on the broken glass from the shattered window.

The room was a wreck—but the emergency lighting was working. Once the window had broken, torrents of rain had flooded the beautiful wood floor. All kinds of debris had followed, including some confused seagulls that were flapping their wet wings and trying to fly.

I grabbed some towels from the kitchen and managed to get the birds back outside before they caused too much damage. It was still going to be a mess to clean up. I didn’t want to think what that big window would cost to replace.

As I was sloshing through the water to reach the door (in my good shoes—there was glass on the floor, so I couldn’t go barefoot), something caught my attention. It glittered in the water with the sand and tree limbs, like pirate treasure. I stooped down—it was a diamond and ruby ring. Fear flooded through me.

She’d meant to have the ring sized—it had always been too big. When the rain broke into the ballroom, it had slipped from her finger. She walked through the water looking for it, finally finding it. She dropped it when she saw the gun pointed at her.

“Dae? Are you all right?” Nancy shook me and broke the emotional tie that bound me to the ring. “What are you doing in here? You could get hurt on all this glass.”

I took a deep breath and released the feelings from the ring. Kevin had taught me that. After all the years I’d had a gift of finding things, I didn’t think there was anything else to learn. I was wrong.

“I know,” I answered her, putting the ring on my thumb—it was still too big even for that digit. “I was trying to close off the room so no one would get hurt. But there were birds in here. I didn’t want Kevin to have to clean that up too.”

“Well, you’ve done your good deed for the day.” She smiled and hugged me. “Let’s get out of here. Thank goodness the kitchen is still in one piece and there are leftovers that don’t need to be cooked. Something about living through storms makes everyone hungry. I’m thinking a buffet in the lobby. What do you think?”

It was hard for me to think about anything after touching the ring. It seemed to me like I should look for its owner—she was in trouble.

But there was so much to do to take care of almost a hundred people—I couldn’t just abandon Nancy, Marissa and the other two women I’d asked to be here.

While I put out cups and plates, and located forks and knives for the buffet, I hoped that what I’d felt wasn’t as bad as it had seemed.

Sometimes my gift exaggerated things—made the emotions or events tied to them seem bigger or more important than they were. Sometimes the things I saw were unclear. They made sense only later, after I’d found out what had really happened. But deciphering my visions that way was confusing.

The fear I’d felt from the ring still made me shiver. The images chased around in my head as I smiled and asked people if they wanted a wheat or white roll. I believed someone might need help—but where or how, or even when, was hard to say.

That thought made me begin watching the faces as they went by the serving table heaping food on plates and filling cups with tea or coffee. Was anyone missing?

There were too many people. I tried to get a head count, but everyone was wandering around, sitting in spots on the stairs and in the lobby eating their food. How could I find out if anyone was missing without drawing too much attention to the fact?

I finally came up with an idea and got some paper and a clipboard from behind the check-in desk. I asked everyone to write down their names and home contact numbers.

“We might need to contact you later for insurance purposes,” I explained in what I hoped was a rational way. I didn’t want to cause a panic.

Apparently my request made sense—or people just didn’t want to argue about it. They scribbled their names and numbers on the paper. I kept looking around, trying to see if I could spot anyone who should’ve been there and wasn’t.

“What’s up?” Marissa asked when I got to her.

I didn’t tell her about the ring I’d found in the ballroom. She was new to Duck—it would require too much explanation. “I’m worried someone might have wandered off. Just trying to keep up with everyone.”

“Great! And we just got them calmed down with food.” She sighed. “Well, let me give you a hand. It will look more natural if we both do it.”

I had about fifty people on my list. Marissa was getting the names of the people in the lobby. I walked across the foyer toward the bar and looked back.