When He Calls (Moons of Nibiru - Book #1)

chpt - 30: the blessed girl

WREN PINES WAS FOND OF BIRDS as a child. She would wake up every morning at 5am and crank open her window just to hear — or hopefully see — the birds tweeting before the sun came up. Her father used to entertain her fascination and took her bird-watching during the weekends. They would drive out to this beautiful resort and look over a lake far cleaner than the Loch. They would stand in this tree-house-like building and use binoculars to spot the flying creatures.

Unfortunately, birds became scarce to find. Wren's father told her one weekend that they would no longer be bird-watching, seeing as the birds refused to come out of hiding. But Wren urged and urged and pleaded and pleaded for one more weekend. Her father, though a stubborn man, gave in to the pleas of his little girl and took her bird-watching one final time. It was that following weekend that something odd happened: birds seemed to have come out of hiding like bees in springtime. Everywhere Wren and her father pointed their binoculars they would see a bird or two, even three. And so bird-watching became a thing again — their thing. Her father talked about it at work once — he was a mechanic — and was shocked to hear his customers whom also fancied themselves a weekend of bird-watching found it extremely difficult to spot even one bird during the first two hours.

That was the second time Wren used her abilities. The first time she used them unknowingly. It was during her visit to Nan that she hugged her father goodbye and was greeted with a horrific vision: one where her father died in a car accident. At the time she didn't know what it meant — nor did she realize the irony — all she knew was that her father would die soon, so she had to make every minute with him count.

A week before her ninth birthday her mother got a phone call which left the woman Wren saw as the most powerful being in the world to crumble to the floor and sob uncontrollably. Her father had died in a car accident, and from the details Wren overheard her mother and aunt talk about she was glad he died immediately when the other car struck his.

At the funeral Wren was afraid to walk up to the open casket and see her father's face, but she had to. She just had to. When she walked up to the black casket and saw her father's frozen and lifeless body she never felt more sorrowful than she did that moment. With tears in her eyes, Wren kissed her father on his forehead and was immediately struck with more visions the second her lips touched his cold skin. She saw her father's mangled body dangling upside-down in the smoking Volkswagen. She saw his bloodshot eyes staring at her with confusion, asking: What just happened? Why did this happen? And she felt the fear and pain her father's body underwent seconds after his brain died.

Wren couldn't remember much, other than her causing a scene and had to be escorted outside. Her Nan rushed to her aid and shooed her uncles away. Wren, the child she was, told her Nan about the visions. She didn't care whether her Nan would believe her or not; she was still a child, after all. To her delight, her Nan hugged her and whispered the words, "I know, Little Dove, I know."

Wren's Nan took her from the funeral — her mother was furious that her grandmother took her away minutes before her father was to be lowered into the ground — and they went for cake and juice, because for some reason Wren despised ice-cream. It was at a small diner that Nan told Wren about the Bless.

"Not many people have it, and fewer even know they do." said Nan. Her makeup hid the hundreds of wrinkles, but Wren thought she was beautiful even without the foundation and purple lips and rosy cheeks. "I've only met three others in my life, and they all call it the Bless. It's a rare ability where the person can touch the Other Plane. Inside this Other Plane are spirits and knowledge and all kinds of things. With the Bless you can access it all."

"Is that why I could see those things when I touched Daddy?" asked Young Wren.

Her Nan nodded. "When you touch someone, you can access their soul and read it. You can feel what they're feeling and see things from their past and even their future. Time is nonexistent in the Other Plane."