Free Next History: The Girl Who Hacked Tomorrow by Lee Baldwin Page A

play all the parts. So, when you see someone else in a dream, this can show your response to aspects of yourself. If the demon is eating you, perhaps you see yourself as desirable.”
    “I don’t like it.”
    “It?”
    “Being the center of attention. I prefer to stay on the side of things.” Still, in Tharcia’s heart of hearts, she holds a mental image of herself at center stage, able to command a room, happy within herself.
    “Thank you. Did you feel fear in the dream?”
    “ No. It was like a movie. I only got emotional when I woke up.”
    “ Emotional about what?”
    “ It was my mom. It was like she had been processed there before. She wasn’t in the dream but I was trying to find her. I cry about her easily. I defend against it by being super mean sometimes.” Tharcia’s own words surprise her. Never before has she articulated the thought. Knows she’s purposely difficult for other people.
    “ Mean to who, Tharcia?”
    “ People. Friends.” She speaks the name almost grudgingly, in a small voice. “Clay.”
    To the psychologist it looks like Tharcia has for the moment shrunk to the size of a small girl abandoned on a busy street, waiting for her father to take her safe home. She has said little about the man she lives with, was close-mouthed about the relationship except that it is non-sexual, an old friend of her mother’s. Possibly this Clay is the father, but he is never the issue, always kind, supportive, always taken for granted, a known quantity that is safe but not central to her search.
    Dr. Novak wants to talk about her sexuality, interested in the fact that the girl has loved only females since becoming sexual in mid-teens, no sex with males. Wants to examine why she separated from her girlfriend. Novak senses an even larger truth kept from view, but the girl maintains stubborn focus on anger toward her mom.
    Tharcia’s overpowering conscious desire is to know where her mom is, which must be hell, all the bad things she did. To her, to Clay, and others. Tharcia is certain her mom is a demon by now. There are spells to summon demons. She is getting closer.
    If that doesn’t work she has another plan. It fills her with fear. She believes she will see her mother when she herself dies. Deeply fascinated about the other side of death, at dark moments she wills it to be soon. She can’t tell the shrink she thinks of killing herself, for that or any reason. The doctor is bound by law to report any patient who claims they might hurt themselves or someone else, and Tharcia is not up for anyone meddling in her life. In that moment she senses deep the hollow void within her, where her mother once lived. She’d watched through weeks and months as her mom’s memory grew small with distance, until it fit completely inside her head. Horror unreal. Locked in iron bars of unforgiving anger, Tharcia’s shoulders clench. The doctor comforts her with soft words.
    “I can tell you about my twin dream,” Tharcia says.
    “Our hour is almost up. We’ll cover that next week.”
    “Mm. It’ s short.”
    “Okay, then tell me.”
    “I am walking toward a mirror and see myself. I do all the stuff people do to check out it’s a reflection, like wave, move my head. I get to the mirror and step toward the edge. What comes out behind the mirror is me.”
    “Is it another reflection?”
    “No. She has different hair, a different face. She talks to me. She says I’m her secret…”
    “Interesting. However I have an emergency call. I’ll make a note to start with that next time.”
    Tharcia has a shopping list. Leaving the psychologist’s office, she stops off at the Sacred Grove bookstore on Soquel before heading up the hill. Although the place is billed as a metaphysical bookstore, she’s on the hunt for ritual items. Specially-dressed, custom-poured beeswax candles, local incense, oils, chemical powders. She is keen on tracking down crystals and spiritual altar pieces. She’d also ordered a grimoire,