Chapter 42

When Amanda’s fingers touched Sara’s cheek, her vision became blurry and everything took on a strange sort of glow. It reminded her of the way that people spoke of how auras looked. She’d never really believed such a thing could actually be seen, but everything seemed to glow faintly. Sara, her own hands, Sara’s stomach even glowed, but that glow was smaller and of a different color than the majority of the rest of her body.

A faint but rapid thump, thump, thump sounded in Amanda’s ears. She could hear her own heartbeat, strong and steady as well as Sara’s and Daniel’s even when he came around to open the back of the van to let her out. She counted three heartbeats from three people and then that much softer and much faster but undeniably she heard it.

Her hand jerked away quickly and both of them moved to cover her mouth. “Oh!” She whispered in shock and pleasure. “Oh, Sara! I could have hurt you when you dragged me into the van! You shouldn’t be doing things like that in your condition. What if I—” Amanda’s words trailed off as she noticed the confused way that both Daniel and Sara were staring at her.

“I—I mean—Uh. Nothing, never mind. Ignore everything I just said. I’m totally crazy. I’m sorry.” She said and turned, hurrying to scramble out of the van and hide her embarrassment from the both of them. What if what she’d seen was just some sort of hallucination and the sounds were just something that happened when normal people went crazy? She began to pace and wring her hands with worry. What if they believed what she’d said and then find out that she’d been wrong. They might be heartbroken by something like that.

Daniel came around the side of the van carrying the exhausted Sara in his arms like she weighed little more than a feather. Both of them were looking straight at her and Daniel walked up to her and came to a halt in front of her. He didn’t speak a word.

Sara, on the other hand, was not nearly so silent though her voice remained soft and deferential and she continued to keep her eyes somewhere around Amanda’s collarbone. “Amanda? What did you see exactly?”

Amanda groaned softly and shook her head. “Look I don’t even know what I was saying back there. I think maybe just the stress has gotten to me and it’s all just adding up and making me a little crazy right now. It wasn’t anything to worry about.”

Sara finally lifted her eyes and she stared right into Amanda’s eyes. “Explain to me what you saw. How did it look? How did it feel? Please, this is very important, Amanda.”

“Geez, you guys. If I tell you what I saw and I was wrong, you both might just hate me forever.” Amanda looked between the two of them pleadingly. Both of their faces were as set and unchanging as stone. “Alright, fine, but I warned you. Don’t hate me if it was just an emotionally fed bout of the crazies.” She tried again, hoping that would dissuade them.

Daniel and Sara both shook their heads and said in unison “We won’t.”

Amanda sighed heavily and began to explain what she had seen and heard to the two of them. The more she spoke, the more excited the two of them looked. Sara even began to cry and Daniel held her tighter against his chest. Though he tried to hide it, Amanda could see the tears shimmering in the corners of his eyes as well.