Dagger Magic

"Very good," Adam whispered, sitting forward in his chair. "I'm clasping your left wrist now, as I did yesterday, so you'll know that I'm with you, that you've no reason to be afraid. However frightening it may seem, to relive what happened that night, you're perfectly safe - and remember, you're going to stop the tape just before you can be hit; you don't have to relive the actual accident. Are you ready to give it a try?"

Again she nodded.

"Good. Now, on my signal, I want you to push the Reverse button, so that the tape begins rewinding, going back to that night of the accident, starting - now. Watch the screen flicker, too quickly for you to see anything, but you'll know when you've reached that point, right after you and John left the pub. Let the flicker of the screen take you more and more deeply focused, so that you'll know exactly when to push the button…. And when you've gone back far enough, push the Freeze-frame button…."

He watched for nearly a minute as her eyelids flickered, watching the screen he had constructed in her mind. Then, all at once, lips pressed firmly together in concentration, she stabbed at an imaginary button with her right forefinger.

"Good," Adam whispered, giving her other wrist a reassuring squeeze. "Now tell me what you see, frozen there. Describe the scene in as much detail as you can."

Her lips parted, her eyes moving behind her closed eyelids as if surveying what she saw.

"It's the Lanark Road, not far from our house," she murmured. "It's the way we always come back from the pub on Wednesday nights. It's a mild night for May; it isn't even raining. There's a three-quarter moon, so we can see the road quite clearly. It's two lanes here, with a gravel footpath on the side where we're walking - the north side - and a gorse hedge grown up along a barbwire fence that marks the edge of an open meadow. There's a little burn running just the other side of the hedge. I can hear it chuckling over the stones, it's so quiet this time of night. No traffic; just the gurgle of the burn and our footsteps crunching on the gravel…"

"Go on," Adam said quietly, when she did not speak for several seconds. "Tell me about yourself, and John."

"We're walking with our arms around one another's waists. We're very happy; it's been a good evening. I can smell his aftershave, and the smoke from the pub clinging to our clothes, and just a hint of beer on his breath… and the scent of gorse mixed with petrol fumes…."

She smiled faintly. "He's just teased me that soon I won't be able to see my feet anymore. We're so excited about the baby. The doctor told us just last week that it's a girl; we wanted to know. John is secretly pleased, even though everyone says that men are supposed to want sons first. He told me before we were even married that he always wanted a little daughter. We think we might call her Heather, or maybe Alison. We've got plenty of time to decide, though. She won't arrive for a couple more months…."

"It's time to go into that Claire now," Adam prompted softly, when she wound down again. "A part of you remains aloof, fingers poised on the Slow-motion and Pause buttons, but you're walking along that road now, and headlights are approaching. Tell me what you see."

As he spoke, he commended his soul to the protection of the Light and let himself reach out to perceive what he could of what she was experiencing, once again lowering the psychic barriers between them. Though he did not close his eyes, all his own bodily sensations faded, save for the point of contact where his hand still clasped Claire's passive wrist. For an instant he floated dizzily outside himself, momentarily blind and disoriented. Then suddenly he was in the scene Claire had been describing.

A host of new sensations burst in on him from all sides - the gurgle of the waters in the burn, the cool touch of the night breeze, the scent of gorse mixed with a hint of petrol. Even as these sensations registered, a set of headlamps appeared ahead in the distance.

"There're headlights coming," Claire murmured. "They converge like a set of flares. We can hear the roar of the engine, and John grabs me by the sleeve and starts to push me out of the way."

" That bloke's going too bloody fast!' " she said urgently, mimicking her husband's words. " 'We'd better move back.'

"He pulls me away from the verge, but we can't go far because of the gorse hedge. We can hear the engine noise redoubled as the car bears down on us - it's weaving back and forth across the center line - the guy must be drunk! Squealing brakes - it swerves and ploughs right into the verge!

" 'Jesus, he's heading right for us!' " The tone made it clear that again, these were John Crawford's words.

"He pushes me behind him, trying to shield me," she went on, breathing hard, "but there's no place to go! I can feel the gorse tearing at my legs, and the fence behind it hard against my waist, but we're pinned like moths against a win-dowpane, caught in his headlights - "