Nora Kinkaid: The New Version

Normalcy

Normal was something Nora Kinkaid never quite was. She was typical in many ways. She appeared normal from the outside but deep down she knew, no, she felt that she was somehow always different from everyone else. She'd been that way since she was a child. When she'd go to sleep at night she would open her eyes right before she drifted off into her dreams and sure enough, she'd see the dark swirls above her bed. They weren't scary. She knew what they were. The remnants of ghosts or spirits or whatever she decided to call them at that age, coming down for a visit. She recalled being no more than seven or eight, running downstairs the morning after a visit and explaining to her parents that grandma and grandpa has come for a visit. Her mom looked at her quizzically. Surely her daughter couldn't also see ghosts? Her father met her with gentle understanding, even a hint of curiosity.

"That's great Nora. I bet they were just coming to say hi." Mr. Kinkaid had lost his parents young and had become accustomed to talking to them before he fell asleep at night. He had yet to see them in any form but he understood that presences could be felt even if there was no logical explanation. Besides, he had married his wife. Within that union, he had learned over time that there was more to the that woman than met the eye.

Each night after that, Nora would go to bed and dutifully say goodnight to the black floating mass she now named her grandparents. Whether or not they were was beside the point. She had become ritualistic overnight and suddenly a once regular Nora had adapted synchronicities likened to a child with OCD. Her parents kept a careful eye over her. As her anxieties grew, so did her musings.

She needed the door shut just so. She would check and recheck the volume of her radio alarm before she went to bed. She explained frequently to her mother's worry and her father's nonchalance that objects in her room were being moved. One object in particular, her dead grandmother's music box, always seemed to find a new area on the shelf within a cabinet she never opened.

All of these things became so routine in Nora's life that she never stopped to wonder if they were in fact, normal, for everyone else. Her siblings didn't see things. Her parents never let on to any connection to another world. But every day without fail, Nora would experience something unexplainable and each time she did, her mother grew more and more fretful.

"She's gifted Joanna." Martin Kinkaid whispered to his wife in bed one night.

"Shh, go to bed." Joanna rolled over, deliberately ignoring the pit in her stomach.

"It's getting worse. We have to do something." She could feel her husband tossing back and forth, disrupting her not quite tranquil sleep.

"It's not getting worse. You're making too much of this." Joanna rolled onto her back looking up at the familiar ceiling, taking silent note of the black swirl above her bed and a new one that had popped up in the corner of their bedroom.

"She's going to grow out of it." Joanna continued. She had to grow out of it. Having a gifted child was not on Joanna Kinkaid's bingo card. Besides, growing up as one had been hard enough. She didn't want Nora to suffer the same way she had.

"You've been saying that for months. What if she doesn't? She sees things just like you. Isn't that a good thing?" Ah bless her husband. Joanna had married Martin because of his twinkling eyes and his kind heart. He was the optimist. She had learned how to be a pessimist and up until now that dynamic had suited them both well.

"Martin, not everyone is meant to grow into their gifts. Let's just wait and see what happens. It's not fair for us to put expectations on her this early. She's only eight. If it keeps going, we can talk to her about it. But let's not doing anything until we know more for sure okay?" Martin murmured his half-hearted consent. His approach had always been to grab life with both hands. If his daughter had half the intuitive abilities his wife had, they should seize the opportunity to cultivate her talents and build her confidence. But if Joanna said no, he had to respect that. She was the only one who understood what it meant to live with something outside of this world. His awareness was one tenth compared to hers. So he would listen to her and wait to see how it played out.

--

A few months after she turned ten, Nora started to feel something near her at all times. When she was alone, she would feel the presence of something standing over her shoulder. It wasn't friendly or unfriendly. It was just there. Sometimes she would talk to it and as she got older, she began to conceptualize it both as her guardian angel and her potential future husband. Looking back she was never quite sure where she got the concept from. But when she grew into a pre-teen and started learning about love, she always imagined that somehow, the spirit she felt on her shoulder would materialize into her real life husband. What a beautiful story it would make. Nora imagined her wedding, whispering this story to her husband on their wedding night. She'd say something along the lines of "the moment I met you, I knew you were the one. Because I had felt a presence like you for so many years and once I finally met you, it all came true."

In this dream, her husband would embrace her quirky sense of self. He would be happy and not weirded out in any way that his now wife had dreamed of him for years before they finally met. He would celebrate her idiosyncrasies and they'd live happily ever after. That's how Nora intended it. But one day out of nowhere, around fourteen she woke up and her gifts were gone.

"They're gone mom." Nora sat at the breakfast table, trying to scarf down a bowl of frosted flakes before the bus showed up.

"Who's gone?" Her mom was wiping crumbs from counter, still bleary eyed and in her bathrobe at 7 am.

"Grandma and Grandpa. I woke up and they're gone." Nora took another bite of her cereal. She said it so matter of fact that Joanna breathed a sigh of relief

"I guess their time was done." Joanna sipped her coffee, tentatively waiting for Nora's reaction.

"Yep, I guess so. Oh well." Joanna watched as her now almost teenage daughter stood up from the table. She was growing into a beautiful young woman. With captivating eyes and a quick wit, Nora had no clue how magnetizing she was. She had an uncanny knack for drawing out the best in people. She simply didn't know it yet.

"Have a good day." Nora plucked a kiss on her mother's warm cheek and dashed out the front door. Joanna stood there for a long while against the kitchen counter sipping her coffee wondering what happens next. She had secretly hoped Nora would grow out of her gifts and live a normal life just like her other children. She hadn't expected the gifts to disappear one day. In all of her time as an intuitive she had never seen gifts up and leave. They typically ebbed and flowed to the point where the person chose to continue them or not. But for Nora's gifts to be taken away, that had to mean something right? And the possibility of it meaning something food was very unlikely.