He wears that half-smile he often does when I’m being argumentative. “But you felt it first.”
True.
“Just like you felt your boyfriend’s anger before you heard him or saw him.”
I replay that moment in the O-Chi kitchen. It’s hazy now, but I think Leo may be right. I wasn’t startled by Zander’s shouting, I was already bracing for it.
I free my amethyst from my coat. “Once I charge this, will I not feel that kind of stuff anymore?” Please, please say yes.
Unfortunately, Leo shakes his head. “You will. But not as strongly and not for as long.”
Okay, so the amethyst will just take the edge off, like ibuprofen dulls a headache. That’s something, at least.
Leo leans in to study the stone up close, twisting it between his finger and thumb. “Your psychic ability is a gift, Betts. You don’t want to make it go away.”
“But…” I turn away from his dark eyes. They see too much.
“But what?” he urges softly.
I shake my head. Buteverything.
He sweeps back the curtain of hair I’m trying to hide behind.
“Why can’t I feel good things?” I sigh. “Why is it always rage and fear and stuff like that? Why not happiness and love and…peacefulness…and…” Shit, what other good feelings are there? I don’t even know.
“Maybe you do feel them,” Leo thoughtfully replies. “But I think, like everyone else, you’re a lot more likely to take those good feelings for granted.”
And to hardly notice them. What a sad commentary on the human condition.
I think he can tell I need a change of subject, because he slides to the ground and hands me his backpack. In a blink, he’s up on the tree again, offering me a bottle of water. He also unpacks trail mix and, of course, the animal crackers.
I stash my gloves in my coat pockets and pour a handful of the trail mix into my palm. It’s the good kind, the kind that’s more of a treat than a health food. I eat the nuts first and save the chocolate chips for dessert.
While we enjoy our picnic, I ask him to tell me more about the Lost Colony.
His eyes brighten and he sits a little straighter. “Did you know there were Europeans out here in the mid 1500s, before the English came to Roanoke?”
“Out here where?”
“Here.” He waves a hand at our surroundings.
“Out here in the mountains?” No way.
When Leo nods, I ask, “Why?” They would’ve landed on thecoast, almost five hundred miles away. Why make the effort to come this far inland? It’s not as though it’s easy terrain to traverse.
“It was the Spanish. They thought Mexico was just on the other side.” He points west.
I giggle as I crunch a peanut. “So they thought the Appalachians were the Rockies?”
“Yep.” He laughs with me. “And they wanted to build a line of outposts from coast to coast. To keep out the French.”
“Did they actually build any?”
“Six of them. And about ten years ago, archeologists found one. In Morganton.”
“Really?” I’m shocked. Morganton is only about an hour east of Asheville. “Why does no one know this?” I don’t remember learning about it in school.
Leo shrugs as he unfolds his legs and straddles the tree. “The forts didn’t last long. Only about a year and a half.”
