Free Dark Visions by Jonas Saul Page A

walked to the door and opened it.
"Are you aware of the hour?"
    "I know and I'm sorry to bother you. It's
just, this girl." The guard turned and Esmerelda could hear him ask
what her name was again. "Mary, here, says that she has information
for you about your daughter. She says it's urgent."
    Esmerelda looked past the guard and into
Mary's eyes. "How do you know my daughter?"
    "I don't know her. I just have something to
tell you about her."
    "Okay, like what?"
    "Maybe we should talk in your trailer."
    Esmerelda shook her head. "You can't come
here at this hour, get me to let you into my trailer just to tell
me where my daughter may be living or some other trivial piece of
information. Whatever you have to say, you can say it out
here."
    "Sarah sent me. She's the one who told me to
come to you about Denise Hall, your daughter."
    Esmerelda stepped back. Her fingers gripped
the door frame. No one even knew her daughter's name. After their
falling out when her husband died, she stopped talking about Denise
to anyone. It pained her too much to discuss the love of her life
and how it had been destroyed. Most of her current friends weren't
aware she even had a daughter.
    The security guard turned to Mary. "Wait a
second. You don't mean the same Sarah who broke in here this
afternoon, do you?"
    "I wouldn't know anything about that," Mary
shook her head.
    Esmerelda cut in. "It's okay." She edged
past the guard and gripped Mary's arm. "Come in inside so we can
talk."
    Before shutting the trailer door, she
thanked the security guard and bade him good night.
    Esmerelda motioned for Mary to take a seat.
She flicked on a table lamp beside the couch and looked back at her
guest.
    "Can I get you anything?"
    "No, thank you."
    Esmerelda came around and sat in her
armchair, opposite Mary. "Where do you want to start?"
    "I think Sarah is in trouble."
    Esmeralda tried to rub the sleep from her
eyes. "I know that. I tried to warn her when she came to see
me."
    "It's not just her though. She said that
Denise might get hurt too."
    Esmerelda sat back and raised a hand to her
lips where she absently started nibbling on a nail. "How would she
know about Denise? How could my daughter be involved with
Sarah?"
    "I'm not exactly sure how it works. All I
know is she gets told things about people. It's usually bad stuff.
Things she has a chance to avert. Like when I met her. She saved me
from being kidnapped."
    Esmerelda sprung forward. "She saved you?
Are you saying she gets these messages and changes the future? She
actually does something about it. That could be risky, even
dangerous."
    Mary went on to tell her about how Sarah
intervened six months ago and saved her from a certain kidnapping.
How she offered Sarah her phone number, with a promise to repay her
in any way. But Sarah didn't use the number until yesterday when
she called for help.
    "Sarah was on her way to stop another
kidnapping tonight. She knew it would be late before she got home
and wondered if I would text her parents saying she was sleeping
over. That way she could return home after midnight and say to her
mom that we fought so she decided not to stay out."
    "Did you send the text?"
    Mary nodded her head.
    Esmerelda got up and grabbed the hands free
phone. "We have to call the police. We've got to tell them what we
know."
    "Wait, no. Sarah asked explicitly to not get
the police involved."
    Esmerelda's thumb hovered. "Why? They're
already investigating a hit and run on Birk Street. A witness said
it was Sarah Roberts who drove the car."
    "How do you know that?"
    "It was on the news a few hours ago."
    "Sarah said she wouldn't be as effective if
everyone knew who she was. She said that helping people had given
her purpose after a number of years of depression. She doesn't want
to stop."
    "Wow, she told you a lot."
    "She admitted that. She said she never
really trusted anyone before, but recently felt nervous for her own
safety. She said you might be able to help. She also told me to
tell