Hunter's Moon

Chapter 13

            Ed finished the last of his meal and looked over at his friend. She was looking a lot better, “What? Did you skip breakfast again?”

            “Uh . . . does an extra hot skinny half-caf latte and a pack of peanut butter M&Ms count?” Juli said sheepishly.

            “No, of course not. Jules you've got to take better care of yourself.” Ed reprimanded her. “But I'm not going to get mad.”

            He was still concerned about her incident from last night. People can have vivid imaginations, but for the girl he knew Juli to be . . . this was from far, far left field.

            “Now, I know you don't want to talk about it, but I need to know. That vision you saw. How did it begin? Do you have any idea?”

            “It was weird. When we made eye contact, the world seemed to freeze into place and then it kinda just happened.”

            “Eye contact? Really? I wonder what you'd see in my eyes.”

            “Eddy, really? I don't really want a repe–“ She absentmindedly looked him in the eye mid-word and the world appeared to slow to a crawl. Ed felt like he was trapped within his own body, not able to move, not able to speak. The constant chatter from the crowd of people at the tables around them was still there, but it was as if the noise had been placed on pause, just a low monotonous buzz.

            He saw something in her eye, he saw the image of a girl . . . It was Juli, but it also wasn't at the same time. The girl was in a nurse’s outfit, an old nurses outfit, from around the time of World War I, colors dulled, greyscale maybe. He saw a name on her nametag, “J. Hartley.” Juli was moving from bedside to bedside in an army tent checking on wounded soldiers. Every once in a while she would place a hand on one, close her eyes, and a warm yellow light would emit from her hand and into the chest, head, or stomach of the soldier. Ed knew somehow that she was healing them. Not instantly, and not one hundred percent healed, but enough that once the doctors got there, they'd find their work easier and it could mean life rather than death for the soldiers in question.

            What was this? Was this Juli in a past life? Was she performing magic? Was this vision like what she saw last night? Why was he seeing it? Just what was happening?!

            And then, suddenly it was all over. Sound started up again and Ed was free from the trance.

            “eet of last ni-- oh my God!” Juli covered her mouth and nose and started to giggle. The giggle turned into chuckle; the chuckle into a laugh.

            Oh, now Ed was upset. He had to assume that if he saw little Miss Florence Nightingale in his friend, she had seen something too. “What? What is it? Why are you laughing? What's so funny?”

            “Ed . . . oh, Ed . . .” she said, trying to catch her breath, “It's just that . . . I didn't mean to . . . I saw another . . .”

            “Uh, huh. Somehow when you make eye contact it causes visions. I saw something too.”

            Juli took a moment to compose herself and then said, “I think I saw you in a past life. I mean, I knew it was you I was looking at, but not you,” a chuckle snuck back in, “Definitely not you.”

            “What do you mean, not me?”

            “I think it was around the 1920's, maybe the teens. I saw you as a woman . . . the star of a burlesque show!”