Free In the Blink of an Eye by Wendy Corsi Staub

voices whisper, “Bless you.”
    Julia tunes out the distractions. Lucas. Lucas. What are you trying to tell me?
    â€œ Are you having trouble with your hand?” she asks finally, and the woman gasps.
    â€œIs that what he told you?”
    â€œI’m not sure. I’m getting something about a hand, and I’m feeling his concern for you.”
    â€œMy wrist has been bothering me for days,” the woman tells her, waving her left arm in the air. “I don’t know why. I thought maybe it was just the damp weather.”
    Julia shakes her head, feeling Lucas’s urgency. “You need to have it checked out,” she says firmly. “It could be something more serious.”
    Alarm crosses the woman’s face. “Is there something really wrong with me? Is that what he told you? Is it like a warning?”
    â€œJust know that he’s concerned and you should have it looked at.”
    â€œWhat else is he saying? Is he all right where he is?”
    In the decade Julia’s been doing readings, she has come to understand that this is the most important information she can give to someone whose loved one has passed to spirit. People need to be reassured not just that their relative still exists someplace, but that the person is at peace.
    â€œKnow that he’s just fine,” she tells the woman with a smile.
    â€œIs that what he said?”
    Julia nods. It’s easier than trying to explain the intangible.
    People tend to assume that the messages she gets from the other side come through with the clarity of a long-distance telephone call. The reality is that most of the time communicating with the spirit world is like talking on a cell phone during a terrible storm, with a poor connection that keeps fading in and out and static that almost drowns out the few things that do come through.
    Thanks to years of experience, Julia can usually interpret the merest whisperings of information. She knows instinctively when a spirit is troubled and when it’s at peace.
    Luckily Lucas falls into the latter category. They don’t always.
    She jostles that thought away, hearing something else. “Do you know somebody by the name of Carla or Charlotte or . . .” She pauses, listening. “Or Charlie?”
    â€œThat’s him. He’s our son!” the woman blurts, grabbing his arm.
    â€œCharlie, your father has a message for you,” Julia says. “It means nothing to me, but it might mean something to you. He’s saying . . .” Another pause. Then, certain she’s got it right, she says, “He’s saying something about the swing. He’s saying ‘sorry for the swing’ or ‘sorry about the swing.’ Does that make sense?”
    The mother cries out. Tears stream down her cheeks.
    Charlie’s face is ashen. His gaping stare is all the evidence Julia needs to know that she’s hit home.
    â€œDaddy was pushing Charlie on a tire swing when we were kids,” his sister speaks up emotionally, her hand clasped against her heart. “He was pushing him really high, and Charlie started screaming for him to stop. Then he fell off and broke his leg. Daddy always felt real bad about that.”
    â€œI can’t believe this,” the mother says, clinging to her son’s arm. “This is just . . . is there anything else?”
    Julia shakes her head, feeling the energy starting to pull back. “Just know that he’s okay and that he comes to you with love.”
    She redirects her attention to the white-haired old woman in the middle of the room.
    â€œI need to come to the lady there in the pink sweater . . . no,” she says to a hopeful, similar-looking woman in the row ahead, whose sweater is really more of a peach shade. “No, the lady right there, in the glasses. Your husband has gone to spirit, hasn’t he?”
    The woman’s jaw drops. “Yes, he has. How did you