Wren glanced at the fox who was now gazing at her as if watching her reaction. Her stomach turned. She had only met Amie once before during an awful accidental encounter. Wren’s mother had taken her to a restaurant to celebrate her birthday and just as their food was arriving she’d looked up to see Wil and Amie being seated at the next table with their son, looking for all the world like a happy little family. Wil had glanced over to see Wren staring at him and had blurted out, “Oh, hi!” in stunned surprise.
The meal had been awkward and interminable, Wren unable to eat much at all and trying desperately not to show her mother or Wil how upset and devastated she was. Wil had texted her later, assuring her that his son had begged for a family dinner out, that he and Amie put on a good front for him and were trying to make things as pleasant for him as possible while they extricated themselves from each others’ lives.
Wren reluctantly accepted it, trying not to remember how Amie had touched Wil’s hands a few times or how Wil’s son kept talking about a movie they’d all watched the night before, the night that Wil had said he could not visit her as a birthday gift because he was busy with work. She tried not to remember the evasive (dismissive?) manner in which he’d introduced her as ‘someone I knew in university’ the many times it returned to her mind over the next week.
She grimly reflected how convenient it would have been to have had her new capabilities that night. Wren made her way to one of the chairs across the square from Amie and once again pulled out her phone while she tried to collect her thoughts.
She faced the idea of combing through Amie’s mind to discover what she knew about last Friday night; a whole week ago. She found to her surprise that the reality of invading someone’s thoughts so completely continued to make her uncomfortable. Something in her balked at the prospect of taking away a person’s privacy like that. She’d hate the idea of someone in her own head after all…
She glanced at the fox who had sat down again and it gazed back, its mouth opening in a panting grin. Get out of my head, she thought at it sharply and it jumped up and barked at her, then dropped back into a mischievous play bow. Next up: Figuring out how to shield my own mind, she thought firmly. The fox sat back down and looked away with great nonchalance. She was sure it would have shrugged if it could.
She frowned at it and peeked back at Amie who was still flicking through her magazine. She looked as though she were waiting for someone to arrive. Wren figured if she were going to do something she should do it soon before she lost the opportunity her fox friend had led her to.
She reached out to feel the other woman’s presence. There she was; a static-y shape of sorts. Now what? she asked herself. Just look a tiny bit, enough to get a sense of her mood. You don’t have to go further. Just a teensy peek into her emotions to get the general idea of what’s going on inside.
Tags: Chapter Four