I Have a Secret

It’s real, you know. All the woo-woo new age stuff they talk about. The psychic abilities, your intuition, your higher self, and your guides, all that stuff is true.

Those smooth TV psychics look so comfortable scribbling circles on pieces of paper as they channel someone’s dead loved one for the camera. They make it look like the most normal thing in the world to babble on about things they shouldn’t know.

I had a dream once when I was in my mid-twenties. It was a vivid dream. The kind that feels like you’re living it. But when you wake, you know it wasn’t real. And it can’t be a memory, because it never happened.

In my dream, my mother, brother, and I visited a family my mother knew. Their faces were blurred, as if someone used a dirty eraser and smeared their features. But I knew it was a woman, her husband, and their son. We entered the house through the kitchen with a yellowed linoleum floor and hanging brown box-cabinets. We passed through the dining room marked by its yellow and white daisy wallpaper, and sat down in the living room on sofas and chairs snuggly set into the long brown shag carpet.

After some conversation, my mother’s friend pulled out a purple velvet box with a large shiny key nestled into soft satin. She told us how they flew their farm-raised elk to South Korea for sale, and in return, they received a key to South Korea.

My mother passed the box to me, saying, “Look Sara, they gave them a key to Korea.”

Being previously annoyed with my mother, I responded in a tone that dripped in condescension, “No, Mom, they don’t give a key to a country; they give a key to a city.” My voice echoed in the silent room, with all eyes on me. I looked like a complete asshole. End dream.

A day later, I was on the phone with my grandmother, Ella, discussing my husband’s and my arrival date for their 50th anniversary party in a few weeks. It was a big event for our small, Midwest farming town. Everyone was invited. After our details were settled, I mentioned my weird dream and asked what she thought it meant. She chalked it up to the anticipated stress of dealing with my mother and brother. She knew we didn’t get along. I figured she was right and dismissed the whole thing from my mind.

***

The anniversary party was huge. The dance floor was mixed with couples that hopped and bobbed to polka music alongside grandparents who held dainty toddler hands as they stomped their tiny feet to the beat. Everyone was there.

My mother waved from across the hall and caught my eye. Smiling from ear to ear, she practically bounced over to me through the crowd with another middle-aged woman in tow. “Sara, I want you to meet my best friend from high school, Jean.”

“Hello, Jean. It’s nice to meet you,” I smiled and extended my hand for the soft, limp handshake that was so common to women of her generation.

“Jean’s invited us out to their farm tomorrow. Me, you, and your brother are going to meet up at the house around noon, and I’ll drive us out. Sound good?”

My heart sank at the thought of being trapped for the afternoon with my mother and brother. Both of them possessed a wickedly sharp sense of humor, and I was always the straight man to their comedy act. I wasn’t looking forward to it at all, but I didn’t want to be rude to Jean and her sincere invitation. “Sure, that sounds great.”

***

The next day, thirty miles and twenty jokes later, down a long dirt road in the middle of nowhere-prairie, we drove through the gates to Jean’s elk farm and pulled up to the back door of the house. Upon exiting the car, Jean introduced us to her husband and son and led us up the steps into the house.

We walked into the kitchen with yellow linoleum floor, passed the hanging brown box-cabinets, through the dining room with its yellow and white daisy wallpaper, and finally sat down in the living room, the sofas and chairs snuggly set into the long brown shag carpet.

I still didn’t recall the dream until Jean pulled out the purple velvet box.

My mind exploded with shock. Panicked, I assessed my surroundings. Everything was the same. Not one thing was different, except now I could see their faces. It was surreal. I knew what was going to happen next.

As expected, my mother handed me the purple velvet box. The fur felt stiff in my hands and the key glinted in my eye. “Look, Sara, they gave them a key to Korea,” she said.

But I remembered my gaff from the dream, so I looked up at everyone, smiled and said, “That’s really nice. It’s very pretty.” Gaff averted.

Confused and stunned, I sat silent as the play around me continued. Soft like a whisper, the sensation of floating crept over me. I felt disconnected, like a kite with no tether. I was there, but not there, present but not present. It was as if what glued my soul to my body had somehow loosened. My rational side grasped at the thin slivers of coincidence to anchor my soul. But that explanation didn’t fit the experience that sat in front of me.

After a bit, we said our goodbyes and headed home. Still feeling disembodied, the familiar smell of old gas and the cold backseat Naugahyde grounded me somewhat. As my mother and brother happily bantered in the front seat, I was shaken back to reality with every jolt from a pothole or rut. I rolled the incident, large and heavy, around in my mind. Back and forth, like a boulder, I looked for any crack that might rationally explain what happened.

To center myself, I listed the knowns. Fact 1: I dreamt a full visit with people I didn’t know before it happened. Fact 2: I told my grandmother about my dream before it came true, which means it’s not all in my head, and she is an outside verifier. Fact 3: I changed my response. Instead of looking like an asshole I accepted what my mother said and was done with it. That means the future is a possibility, not set in stone, and we have free will.

At dinner, my mind was ablaze with questions. My fork felt heavy and cold in my hand. I looked at my family around the table and absently chewed my food. Nothing’s different. Did this really happen? How is it possible for this to happen? Am I crazy? Do I have superpowers? Am I psychic? I don’t feel psychic. Why is this happening to me? No one else in the family can do this. Wow, if Mom knew about this, she’d be so jealous. Don’t tell Mom. Don’t tell anyone.

As I lay in bed, my mind continued to spew thoughts. People aren’t supposed to know the future – but if I can know it, then it’s already happened. That means time isn’t linear. If that’s true, then everything I’ve been taught in school, at home, and what society says ISN’T TRUE! What is this place? What am I living in? This continued long into the night until I finally fell asleep.

***

The next morning, my beautiful, strong, stubborn mind pushed all thoughts of my psychic event out of my mind. It had more important things to think about, like where I would take my husband for a good burger - the bowling alley, or the truck stop diner at the edge of town. It was over, done was done. Dismissed.

I walked into the kitchen for a cup of late morning coffee. Ella stood by the sink, her usual station, and gazed out the window. She looked concerned and stared at me as I stretched tall to reach a cup from the upper cabinet.

“Sit,” she said, and motioned to the vinyl-covered chair at the kitchen table. I sat.

With her gnarled hand, she grabbed the half-empty coffee pot off its burner and poured the hot black liquid into my cup. The rivulets of steam smelled of old coffee and burn. No cream or sugar was offered; we weren’t that kind of family.

“Listen,” she started, and sat down in the other chair. “Your mother, your aunt, and me have booked you an appointment to see a woman in the city.”

“O.K. For what?” My hands curled around the hot cup and soaked up the heat.

“She’s a psychic. She said she could see you today.” Ella sat a little straighter in her chair and her dishwater-blue eyes met my brown ones. “I think you should go,” her bony finger struck the plastic table cover for emphasis.

“Why?”

“I told your mom and aunt about your dream, and we all know it happened. Maybe she can tell you some things.”

“Like what? And when did you tell Mom?” I forgot that my family was a tell-one, tell-all unit.

“A couple of days after we talked. I asked your mother what she thought of your dream. You know how she’s into all of that astrology and woo-woo stuff. She didn’t know, though.”

I hated that about my mother. She, never once, had any kind of psychic experience herself, but was always telling people about her crazy notions of past lives and psychic energy. I saw the quiet disdain on people's faces when she talked about auras and spirit guides and the latest things she’d read about. She was so frustrating.

“Mom knew the dream before we went, which means Ken knew too. Great.” My brother, Ken, recorded our visit to the ranch. I thought it was for my mom’s sake, but he turned the camera on me for the last half of our visit. Now I understand why. They both knew what was going to happen at the elk farm. “Fine, I’ll go, but I’m not psychic.” A displaced sense of anger bubbled up inside of me, not quite rage but something close.

***

Later that afternoon, I walked into a very normal, brightly lit house with white walls and tan carpet. The open floor plan moved from living room to kitchen seamlessly. There I was greeted by a pleasant older woman in her sixties. She wore tan shorts and a short-sleeved shirt with reddish hair stuffed neat into a topknot bun. There was no tie-dyed anything to be seen, no icons, no incense, nothing. I could have been in my own grandmother’s kitchen, with all the macrame and commemorative spoons on display.

“Welcome. Please sit. I’m Maevis.” Her smile was genuine. “Can I get you some tea?”

“Yes, thank you.” I pulled out the kitchen chair and noticed the tiny red embroidered roses on her white linen tablecloth. Pretty.

“I heard you’ve been having some experiences,” she said as she put the tea leaves into the teapot and brought it to the table with a flowery teacup and saucer.

“No, not really. I just had a dream that came true.”

She sat down on the chair next to mine. “Oh, I see.” She nodded like she understood. “Let me see your hands.”

I sat up straight and placed them palm up on the table, as if I were ready for a test. She stared at my hands for some time and let her fingertips stroke and trace my lines. Finally, she patted my hands and reached for the teapot. Without looking up, she poured hot tea into my cup and casually said, “You know you’re psychic, right?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

She nodded her head and continued, “You can do naturally what I’ve practiced for years to do.” Her eyes lifted to mine, and she smiled as she placed the teapot back on the table.

I shook my head, smirked, and pulled my hands down to my lap.

“Watch, I’ll prove it to you.” She took off her ring, placed it in my hand, and pressed my fingers closed around it. “This is called psychometry. See what impressions you get from the ring.” She held my other hand in hers. “Close your eyes. Take three deep breaths and tell me what you see.”

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, I responded, “I don’t see anything, just the backs of my eyelids.”

“Give it a minute.”

In the darkness of my mind's eye, a lake formed. “I see a lake,” I told her. “No, a body of water. Large, like an ocean. Pine trees. Big pine trees, really big. A boat, following the shore. Are you going on a cruise to Alaska?” I asked.

“Yes, I just booked the trip before you got here.” She smiled wide and moved to get her notepad that sat by the wall phone. She brought it over to show me her notes. Juneau was written bold and large on the page. “See, you’re a natural.”

I couldn’t deny it any longer. I waited for the shock and the disembodied feeling, but they didn’t come. Nothing happened. It was very anticlimactic, very normal.

The drive home was normal, too. I had time to think about what I wanted and didn’t want.

“What’d she say?” Ella asked when I walked in the door. She stood at her station and peeled potatoes over the sink.

“Nothing much. She said I’m psychic.” My tone was bland as I passed by her on my way to the sofa.

Ella looked up at me from the potatoes. Her face was unreadable, but her voice was soft, almost in awe. “Well, whataya gonna do with that? Anything?”

“Nope.” My tone was bland and final. I flopped on the sofa and grabbed the magazine left open on the cushion. “I don’t want to be weird like Mom.”

“Okay then.” She turned back to the sink and continued to peel potatoes. “If that’s what you want. Seems a shame though.”

She never spoke about it again, and neither did anyone else.

Epilogue

The people who know this story can be counted on two hands, and now you, the reader. This wasn't the last of my psychic escapades, but it was the first. I truly believe in my heart of hearts that psychic abilities are natural human abilities we all possess to different degrees. And, with a little practice, you might surprise yourself.