Free Unraveled Visions (A Shaman Mystery) by Nina Milton Page A

back.
    Don’t look back , I thought, please, please , but his whole body was jerking now, his head twitching, as if the temptation to turn had become irresistible.
    “Don’t look back!” I hadn’t meant to call aloud. I had interrupted his resolve. He looked back. His eyes fell on the woman, the beautiful, slender creature with her deep brown hair coiled on top of her head like a sleeping snake.
    “DON’T LOOK BACK!”
    _____
    I woke with a shout and a snort, my tongue half in my throat, my eyes gritty. The candle was guttering. I might have been asleep for about half an hour. Beside me, Mirela had curled onto her side on the floor cushions and was even more deeply asleep than I’d been, breathing slow and regular.
    I unpicked the silk from my wrist but left it tied to hers. In the kitchen, I wrote down my dream, although I didn’t think it signified anything at all. It was the product of my most recent thoughts before I’d slept … Orpheus and his wife. Eurydice—that was her name, I remembered now.
    Mirela hadn’t moved a muscle. It seemed stupid to wake her and send her to a cold dampish room, so I threw the second fleece over her, snuffed the candle, and left her there.
    I was halfway up the stairs when my callous, suspicious underbelly sounded an alarm. I slipped back down and carried my mobile and laptop up to bed with me.

six
    Even a minuscule chink of light coming through the curtains is enough to wake me at dawn nowadays. It must be something to do with growing up. I groaned and pulled the duvet over my head. Five minutes later, my mobile chirped a wake-up call. It was Sunday, and my diary was crammed with therapy appointments. It was Sunday; I’d had my late shift at the Egg and got home to find Mirela.
    My eyes opened with a ping. Would she still be downstairs or would she be gone?
    Mirela was curled on the floor cushions. Under the fleece, her body was as spare as a stripped twig. It looked as if she hadn’t moved since I last saw her. She was a teenager, so naturally she could sleep for England.
    Or in this case, Bulgaria.
    She thought I had second sight. That was the trust between us. But it had been her sister who told my fortune, and, even taking her intent with a massive pinch of salt, she’d got a lot of things right. She’d spoken of a fortune, which I’d already won and lost, and warned me off no-good boyfriends, of which I’d had my fill.
    She’d forecast death. A man had raced past her on his way to his death. She’d forecast danger; I’d seen fear in her eyes. And now she was missing.
    _____
    In the chicken coop were five eggs, two as big as a child’s fist. Ginger and Melissa didn’t lay all that often now, but when they did, their eggs were as full as bombs. I thought Mirela deserved an eggie breakfast before I sent her on her way. I took her in a mint tea and shook her gently.
    She moaned low and sweet. “Mmm?”
    “Mirela, hi there.”
    “Oh!”
    I could see that she’d forgotten where she’d slept for a moment, but she sat up like a child and sipped the hot tea. “What you see?”
    “See?”
    “Last night. With …” She demonstrated the way I’d tied us together. “You have gift to tell where my sister is?”
    “No.” I shook my head. “I have nothing for you.”
    “Oh.”
    “Unless the legend of Orpheus in the underworld means anything.”
    “Who?”
    I hadn’t held out much hope. Her people were Roma. Orpheus was nothing to do with them. It had just been a dream. “I will try again, Mirela. In a day or two. Do you have anything of your sister’s I could use? To help me find her otherworld?”
    She reached for her shoulder bag and brought out a zipped, plastic makeup case, stained with lipstick smears. From this she pulled a piece of shiny card. At first I thought it was a large postage stamp, but when she handed it to me I could see that it was a reproduction of an icon—the Virgin Mary in summer blue with a golden halo. I turned it over. On the back