Free Harvest by Steve Merrifield

I’m not here to dispute the facts. I’m here
to give some insight if I can.” She draped a comforting arm around
Claire, which she hoped went some way in softening the impact of
her non-commitment towards Claire’s belief.
    “ Why don’t you show me
where Emily used to sleep,” Rachel said, hoping to escape the
obstacle before them. “That’s the last place you saw her, yes?
Tucked up in bed?”
    Claire nodded and pointed to
the bare mattress. “The police took the sheets and covers. I can’t
bring myself to remake it.”
    Rachel glanced around the
pink room scattered with dolls and fluffy toys. She looked back to
the bed. The little girl who had slept there should have still been
there, sleeping her dreams, playing with her toys. She should be
with her family, not missing, not away
from the family and the mother who loves her and misses her and
wants her. Not taken from her bed. The empathy welled within her
and she coughed gently to clear her throat.
    Rachel looked up from the bed
into the eyes of an old woman in a purple polyester housecoat
sitting on the edge of the opposite bed. She was in her late
sixties, with tightly curled grey hair and large glasses. She held
a bunch of white roses out before her. She looked at Rachel and
then pointed to a spot in the middle of the floor with grim
concern. As Rachel looked back to the woman she found she had
gone.
    “ Brian’s mother is still
with you, isn’t she..? I mean she is still alive.” Rachel barely
waited for Claire to agree. “You named Emily after your mother,
didn’t you? She died before the twins were born.” Claire nodded,
perplexed and speechless. Brian appeared in the doorway, his eyes
red and raw from his crying, listening stoically to Rachel’s words.
“Your mother is looking after the family, you know that, Claire?
She loves you both and she has brought you some white roses. She
said you like them.” Tears ran down Claire’s face and she nodded in
acceptance of what had been said. “For some reason she indicated
that point on the floor.”
    Claire struggled to
concentrate on the present, and focussed on the carpet. She coughed
to clear her throat. “Amy was pointing to that spot when I found
Emily had gone. I don’t know why – or what she
saw. ”
    Rachel got up and surveyed her
surroundings. Even without the guidance of a spirit there was a
sense of loss in the room. The emotion hung in the atmosphere like
mist. Her ability did not bring her total recall of events from the
past, but she had found she could sense empathic feelings from
things. She could glimpse the past from sensing the strong emotions
and thoughts that anchored a moment or an event in space. Things
that could help identify what had happened in this room, and who it
was that might have been involved.
    “ Did Emily have a
favourite toy?”
    Claire picked up a large doll
from a chair by the door. “Miss Daisy. They both played with
it.”
    Rachel was glad to be back on
track in her involvement but her mood plummeted at the thought of
sensing if Emily actually had passed. She hated the thought of
being burdened with that knowledge. She reached out for the doll
and took hold of it.
    An overwhelming sensation of
nothingness swept through Rachel’s senses, as if her mind’s eye had
suddenly rushed through a maze into a dead end. She turned away
from Claire, uncomfortable with her desperately searching stare.
The doll had a past connection with Emily, she could sense how it
was valued and cherished by the girls, but the connection felt
cold.
    It signalled an ending.
    Curiosity suddenly rushed into
her, but it felt displaced, not her own emotion: as if she could
observe the sensation outside of experiencing it. The feeling was
quickly replaced with terror and this time Rachel did experience
the emotion. The feelings weren’t coming from the doll. She looked
down to her feet and found she had wandered into the middle of the
room where the apparition had pointed to and she