Excerpt: Crazy, Daisy

“What have you done with me, Alex? Tell me what the hell this is all about.” She couldn’t sort out the jumble of mixed feelings that were stirring inside of her like some sort of wicked emotional brew, but right now, confusion and fear were at the top of her steaming internal cauldron. She thought she could detect some curiosity and a little bit of fluttering from somewhere down deep…but really, she just wanted to understand what was happening to her. “Where the hell am I?”

“Okay, Samantha, let me explain.” He paused for a minute. “I’m trying to figure out where to start. I’ll bet you want to know where you are, huh?”

“Umm…yeah. Good start.”

“Well, the truth is that I don’t know much about this place. I don’t know how I got here, or how long I’ve been here, or how long I’ll have to stay. What I have figured out is that it seems to be some kind of holding place for people with…unfinished business, I guess. Like where you go when you still have so many things you want to do with your life, but you seem to have run out of time for most of them.” She could see remorse, sorrow, and loneliness flash across cross his face. “So I’m trying to figure out a way to do some of the things I never got to do, and that’s why you’re here.”

“Are you telling me that one of the things you never got to do is kill someone, so you’re going to trap me here with you?” She was still confused, and more than a little angry.

“No, no. You’re still fine. You’re still Samantha. But I had to find a way to bring you here, into my consciousness, so I could talk to you.” That still didn’t sound promising. She glared at him, but allowed him to continue to explain. “Everyone here has different ways of reaching out to people who they need to communicate with. I figured out after a while that my ability has to do with transport. I don’t know what they call it, but some of the others here have it too. We can transport people to and from here without harming them, just so we can see them and talk to them. Oh, Samantha, I’ve been trying to talk to you for so long. I can’t believe you’re here.” His eyes were actually getting misty.

Samantha shuddered, closed her eyes, tried to shake off those deeper feelings that were threatening to bubble up to the surface. She still had too many questions for him and she didn’t want to let her rising emotions cast a cloud over her thoughts. “So you transported me here? I’m not quite sure I get that. And where are these others you’re talking about? I don’t see anyone else.”

“Well, to be honest, I don’t quite think I understand the transport thing myself. It’s something very intuitive. I had to put a lot of energy out to reach you, but that’s the best way I can explain it. And yes, there are other people here, but you don’t need to meet them right now. I wanted to be alone to see if I could get you here.” He paused again, gave her that adoring look that was threatening to warm her from within. She remembered that look. “You can meet them later. I really wanted to see how this would work first. I still can’t believe I did it!” Suddenly, he had that excited puppy dog face again.

“So, Alex, you brought me here to talk to me? So talk, and then send me back, if you can actually do that.” Her hackles were going up again. She didn’t like being kidnapped—or was it bodynapped? Brainnapped? She had no idea, but she felt trapped here by his choosing, and she didn’t like that lack of control. “I have a son, Alex. And two daughters, and a husband, and my best friend is waiting for me at the coffee shop—I need to go home. What do you want with me?”

“I know all about your family, Samantha. Your children are beautiful. Really. Becca has your eyes, and Sarah has your smile. And Josh has your spunk.” He smiled at her. Damn, she really wished he would stop looking at her like that! He was stripping her of all of her resolve to be angry at him.

“Alex! How do you know about my family? Are you spying on me or something? Are you, like, watching me? ‘Cause that’s kind of creepy, dude.” She was pretty sure she didn’t like the idea of an invisible former boyfriend lurking in the corners of her living room. Or her bedroom, for that matter.

“No, it’s nothing like that, Samantha. I can’t even tell you how I know, but from here, I just know. I know that you were on your way to meet Jessica for coffee. I know you had a dream about following a cat, and I knew that when you saw that cat today, you would follow it. I knew that your mind would be more open to the energy I was sending you if I didn’t just appear to you out of the blue, so that’s why the cat was necessary. I had to find some way to connect with your mind and let you know you weren’t just imagining it when you thought you saw me those other times.”

Samantha felt her blood run cold. “So that was you before! And the cat, that was you too?”

“No, the cat wasn’t me, exactly, but—well, let’s just say I knew I needed help. And now here you are. Samantha, here. Touch my hand.” Alex took a step towards her and reached his hand out.