Read Online Leaving Time: A Novel by Jodi Picoult - Free Book Online
Authors: Jodi Picoult
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clients want to hear. That way they don’t get hurt, and neither do I, when I find myself reaching into the next world and getting no response, just crushing frustration. In a way, I think it would have been easier if I’d never had a Gift. That way, I wouldn’t know what I am missing.
And then along came someone who couldn’t remember what she’d lost.
I don’t know what it was about Jenna Metcalf that rattled me so badly. Maybe her eyes, which were a pale sea green under the shaggy red fringe of her hair—supernatural, arresting. Maybe the way her cuticles had been bitten down to the quick. Or maybe how she seemed to shrink, like Alice in Wonderland, when I told her I wouldn’t help her. That’s the only explanation I can offer as to why I answered when she asked if her mother was dead.
I wanted my psychic abilities back so badly in that moment that I tried; I tried in a way I’d given up trying years ago, because disappointment feels like slamming into a brick wall.
I closed my eyes and attempted to rebuild the bridge between me and my spirit guides, to hear anything—a whisper, a sneer, a hitch of breath.
Instead, there was utter silence.
And so, for Jenna Metcalf, I did exactly what I swore never to do again: I opened up that door of possibility, knowing damn well she’d step into the slice of sunshine it provided. I told her that her mother wasn’t dead.
When what I
really
meant was: I have no idea.
When Jenna Metcalf leaves, I take a Xanax. If anything qualifies as a reason to break out the antianxiety medication, it’s this—a girl who hasn’t just made me think of the past but has cracked it over my head like a two-by-four. By three o’clock, I am blissfully unconscious on the couch.
I should tell you that I haven’t dreamed in years. Dreaming is the closest the average human gets to the paranormal plane; it’s the time when the mind lets down its guard and the walls get thin enough for there to be glimpses to the other side. That’s why, after sleeping, so many people report a visit from someone who’s passed. But not me, not since Desmond and Lucinda left.
Today, though, when I fall asleep, my mind is a kaleidoscope of color. I see a flag, whipping across my field of vision, but then realize it’s not a flag—it’s a blue scarf, wound around the neck of a woman whose face I can’t see. She is lying on her back near a sugar maple, immobile, being trampled by an elephant. At second glance I realize maybe she
isn’t
being trampled; the elephant is going out of its way to
not
step on her, lifting one of its back feet and moving it over the woman’s body without touching it. As the elephant reaches out its trunk and tugs at the scarf, the woman doesn’t move. The elephant’s trunk strokes her cheek, her throat, her forehead, before slipping the scarf free and lifting it, so that the wind carries it off like a rumor.
The elephant reaches down for something leather-bound I cannot quite make out, which is tucked beneath the woman’s hip—a book? An ID badge holder? I’m amazed at the dexterity the animal has, flipping it open. Then it places its trunk on the woman’s chest again, almost like a stethoscope, before slipping silently into the forest.
I wake up with a start, disoriented and surprised to be thinking of elephants, wondering at the storm that still seems to be filling my head. But it’s not thunder, it’s someone banging on the front door.
I already know who it’s going to be as I get up to open it.
“Before you freak out, I’m not here to try to convince you to find my mother,” Jenna Metcalf announces, pushing past me into my apartment. “It’s just that I left something behind. Something really important …”
I close the front door, rolling my eyes when I see that ridiculous bicycle parked in my foyer again. Jenna starts looking around the space where we had been sitting a few hours ago, ducking beneath the coffee table and poking around under the
And then along came someone who couldn’t remember what she’d lost.
I don’t know what it was about Jenna Metcalf that rattled me so badly. Maybe her eyes, which were a pale sea green under the shaggy red fringe of her hair—supernatural, arresting. Maybe the way her cuticles had been bitten down to the quick. Or maybe how she seemed to shrink, like Alice in Wonderland, when I told her I wouldn’t help her. That’s the only explanation I can offer as to why I answered when she asked if her mother was dead.
I wanted my psychic abilities back so badly in that moment that I tried; I tried in a way I’d given up trying years ago, because disappointment feels like slamming into a brick wall.
I closed my eyes and attempted to rebuild the bridge between me and my spirit guides, to hear anything—a whisper, a sneer, a hitch of breath.
Instead, there was utter silence.
And so, for Jenna Metcalf, I did exactly what I swore never to do again: I opened up that door of possibility, knowing damn well she’d step into the slice of sunshine it provided. I told her that her mother wasn’t dead.
When what I
really
meant was: I have no idea.
When Jenna Metcalf leaves, I take a Xanax. If anything qualifies as a reason to break out the antianxiety medication, it’s this—a girl who hasn’t just made me think of the past but has cracked it over my head like a two-by-four. By three o’clock, I am blissfully unconscious on the couch.
I should tell you that I haven’t dreamed in years. Dreaming is the closest the average human gets to the paranormal plane; it’s the time when the mind lets down its guard and the walls get thin enough for there to be glimpses to the other side. That’s why, after sleeping, so many people report a visit from someone who’s passed. But not me, not since Desmond and Lucinda left.
Today, though, when I fall asleep, my mind is a kaleidoscope of color. I see a flag, whipping across my field of vision, but then realize it’s not a flag—it’s a blue scarf, wound around the neck of a woman whose face I can’t see. She is lying on her back near a sugar maple, immobile, being trampled by an elephant. At second glance I realize maybe she
isn’t
being trampled; the elephant is going out of its way to
not
step on her, lifting one of its back feet and moving it over the woman’s body without touching it. As the elephant reaches out its trunk and tugs at the scarf, the woman doesn’t move. The elephant’s trunk strokes her cheek, her throat, her forehead, before slipping the scarf free and lifting it, so that the wind carries it off like a rumor.
The elephant reaches down for something leather-bound I cannot quite make out, which is tucked beneath the woman’s hip—a book? An ID badge holder? I’m amazed at the dexterity the animal has, flipping it open. Then it places its trunk on the woman’s chest again, almost like a stethoscope, before slipping silently into the forest.
I wake up with a start, disoriented and surprised to be thinking of elephants, wondering at the storm that still seems to be filling my head. But it’s not thunder, it’s someone banging on the front door.
I already know who it’s going to be as I get up to open it.
“Before you freak out, I’m not here to try to convince you to find my mother,” Jenna Metcalf announces, pushing past me into my apartment. “It’s just that I left something behind. Something really important …”
I close the front door, rolling my eyes when I see that ridiculous bicycle parked in my foyer again. Jenna starts looking around the space where we had been sitting a few hours ago, ducking beneath the coffee table and poking around under the
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