Free Echoes from My Past Lives (Spell Weaver) by Bill Hiatt Page B

seeing my death some time in the future? By this point “I,” or the person under attack, whoever that might be, was on the verge of passing out, so I wouldn’t be able to get any more information this time.
    The “episode” ended as soon as it had begun. For some reason I never quite died in them, so I guess I should count my blessings, but the jolt of returning to reality wasn’t exactly easy to take.
    I could hear Stan calling my name insistently. I opened my eyes, and he was reaching for the nurse call button.
    “Stan! Don’t call anyone!” I rasped harshly. Stan froze, torn between his desire to do what I wanted and his feeling that I needed help.
    “Tal, you were…shaking, and gasping for breath. I was afraid…”
    “No, I’m fine,” I said, managing a little more than my usual whisper, much to my surprise.
    “But…”
    I nodded my head in the direction of the monitors. “See, my oxygen saturation’s normal, my pulse is normal, and my heart rate is normal.” No twelve-year-old should know how to read those monitors, but I did. Lucky me.
    “They weren’t a minute ago. I’m surprised the nurse didn’t come in on her own. The heart rate one in particular was all over the place.”
    “Chalk it up to old equipment. I’m sure the nurses know that some of the rapid changes don’t really mean anything.”
    Stan looked skeptical, especially since the hospital was well-funded and didn’t have old equipment, but somehow my manner reassured him. I could see him visibly relax back into his chair.
    I was evidently getting better at covering up just how much pain I was in during these experiences. I guess practice makes perfect.
    “Taliesin! Let me in!”
    Despite myself, I jumped a little, and Stan was instantly back on high alert. I swear he reacted faster to this kind of thing than even my own mother did.
    I tried to wave him back into his chair, but the voice kept yelling for me to let him—or it—in. Oh, good. Full-blown hallucinations of painful death were not the only treat in store for me. No, I got to have plain, old-fashioned voices in my head too. There was clearly no end to my luck.
    Shut the hell up! I shouted back to the voice in my head. To my surprise, it did—but who knew how long that would last?
    “You’re shaking again,” said Stan in a “please let me call the nurse,” voice.
    “I’m fine,” I insisted in as firm a voice as I could manage, but my tone wasn’t convincing, even to me. Then the voice in my head started in again, even louder this time.
    “Tal, you’re crying now,” said Stan, obviously shocked. Great. Now all I needed to do to really trash what was left of my male ego was wet myself. Then I could truly call it a day.
    “I am not…” I began, though at this point I knew Stan would call the nurse regardless of what I said. However, before I could finish the sentence, the world around me disappeared as abruptly as changing a TV channel. Gone was the institutional white of the hospital room, the hum of the monitors, Stan’s alarmed face.
    Instead, I found myself sitting in a bright green meadow next to a large lake that, judging by the darkness of its water, must have been nearly as deep as it was wide. Farther away, the meadow was bordered on every side by what appeared to be dense forest. Farther away still were tall mountains, most of them snow-capped. Well, at least this was a more pleasant hallucination than my usual ones—or would have been, but for one thing.
    I was not alone.

Part 2: Me, Myself, and I
     
    The stranger, who I immediately assumed must be the visual equivalent of the voice in my head, was dressed in a long green tunic that reminded me of pictures I had seen in King Arthur books. He was older than I, but not old—I guessed twenty-five. His hair was quite a bit lighter than my dark brown, but not quite blond. He had a well-trimmed beard and the most piercing blue eyes I had ever seen, but his face, though unsmiling, was not unfriendly.