Standard Disclaimer:
Trixie Belden® is a registered trademark of Western Publishing (Golden Books), now part of Random House. These pages are not affiliated with Random House. They are not for profit. I’m making no money from this, so please do not sue me as I do not have anything anyone wants in the first place. I do not have permission to use these wonderful Trixie Belden® characters, but I’m taking them out to play for a while anyway. I promise to put them back neatly (and before curfew) when I’m done. I do not have permission to use the song "Could I Have This Dance", but it’s a beautiful song and I’m using it in a fun and polite manner so I’m gonna anyway. Once again please don’t sue me, I have nothing. Any characters not owned by Random House are made up from my own scary imagination – it was very dark and spooky in there so I had to let some of them out.
This is from the CWP#5, and is the continuation of "The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship". The required elements are: A ‘see-crud’, pecan pie, auction, changing a tire, shattered glass, a personal paper that’s missing, a storm, a broken heart, a song: "Could I Have This Dance" by Anne Murray, a carryover from ANY CWP - a bouquet of dead flowers from CWP #2. I sincerely hope you enjoy reading as much as I’ve enjoyed writing this story!
Chapter 2
Jarrod Riley was nervous and agitated, and he didn’t like it one bit. He felt exactly like the proverbial long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. "Are you absolutely certain the girls are up to this?" he asked his father for the hundredth time.
He, his wife Joyce and their 14-month-old son Shaun, his parents Patrick and Louise Riley, and his two youngest sisters Kyla and Maureen were making a trip to Saratoga Springs, New York. A horse breeding stable in Saratoga had recently purchased one of the Riley Farm’s prized stallions in hopes of rejuvenating the bloodlines of their race horses. The trip to deliver the stallion had been planned for weeks with just Jarrod and his father going, when his wife and his mother decided to make it a family trip and bring the younger members of their family. They now were going to attend an auction the stables were having to sell some of their smaller ponies and show horses.
Then Joyce had called their longtime college friend Peter Belden at his office at the Sleepyside Bank in Sleepyside-on-the-Hudson, New York and arranged to drop in for a long overdue visit. Peter and his wife Helen had four children, nine year old Brian, eight year old Mart, seven year old Trixie, and two month old Bobby. Since their ages closely matched those of his youngest sisters, Mom and Dad decided to come along and bring Kyla and Maureen to meet the Belden’s rather than be dropped off at the double suite they’d booked at the Sleepyside Inn.
"Yes, Jarrod; I’m certain. Kyla’s in second grade now, and has had no problems whatsoever. Maureen’s adjusted to kindergarten quite well too, all things considered." Patrick Riley smiled at his eldest son’s unconvinced expression. In truth, except for the eyes, it was like going back in time and looking at himself in the mirror. Jarrod had inherited the Blackwolf family’s intense, black Cherokee eyes from his mother Louise. Maureen, Patrick’s youngest, was the only one of his and Louise’s children to have his own cobalt blue eyes.
"I know, Dad. I know. I just can’t help worrying……" Jarrod raked a hand through his longish wavy black hair, his only outward sign of agitation. He sighed, lifted an ancient autoharp from its worn leather case, and without thinking began strumming an old familiar folk song. Music always calmed his soul, helped him to focus.
"Peter and Helen Belden are two of my closest friends; if it weren’t for them I would never have made it through my last two years of college. They were my support-system away from home, and we’ve been through a lot together. Their little boy, Brian, is such a great little guy. He still calls me ‘Uncle Jarrod’ and Joyce is ‘Aunt Joyce’ as far as he’s concerned." A smile spread across his aquiline features and lit the depths of his glittering black eyes. "If Mart and little Trixie are anything like him, then Kyla and Maureen will have a blast." Sighing again, he muttered, "I just hope………."
"They’ll be fine, son. Your mother and I have been through this a few times; six to be exact." Idly picking out the counter-melody on his old Premier hollow-box electric guitar, Patrick chuckled to himself. Over the years, the Good Lord had seen fit to bless him and his wife Louise with six children. Worry was an old, familiar companion.
"What if it’s too much for them? What if they can’t handle the stress?"
"We’ll all be right there, Jarrod. Your mother, Joyce, you, and me. We’re bringing along every stringed instrument we own to give Kyla and Maureen something to do IF necessary. Joyce alone on her worst day could handle things IF something goes awry….which…it…won’t." Pat carefully enunciated the last words for emphasis. "Your wife is a practicing psychologist, and is well aware – bless her heart! - of the special talents and needs of this family."
Special talents and needs, indeed.
Six children and every single one of them gifted from birth with the combined psychic talents of their mother and father. All were telepathic with each other and blood members of their family, and each possessed special gifts of their own.
Patrick shook his head slightly in wonder and smiled indulgently. Where did the time go? The Irish proclivity for procreation was certainly no stranger to him and Louise, his wife of thirty years. The fact that Jarrod came ‘just a wee bit early’ had been a source of much teasing for quite some time. Then the wide span of years between the subsequent births of their children, rather than how quickly the eldest had been born, had become the favorite family joke.
It seemed like it was just yesterday that Jarrod was five years old and begging for a horse – not a pony – of his own so he could ride with the annual cattle roundup with the hired hands. Pat shook his head slightly in wonder. He was still somewhat amazed that this thirty-year-old/ex-Navy Seal/bundle of intensity and intelligence/happily married/FATHER of a 14-month-old baby boy was his son.
Jarrod was a gifted telepath, blessed with the ability to slip in and out of most people’s minds undetected. However, he possessed of a strict code of honor taught to him practically from the cradle to respect others’ privacy. As a Seal with the USN, he was lethal force personified. Now, as a successful attorney and businessman, he turned his intense personality toward furthering the family business.
The fraternal twins Rhiannon and Donovan had come eight years after Jarrod, both having dark brown eyes and gold-shot chestnut hair. Rhiannon was a natural healer, as was her mother, and was in medical school with plans to specialize in orthopedics. Donovan had an astounding affinity with animals and was studying to become a veterinarian, although he longed to become more involved with the family horse ranching business.
Five years later, Eileen had come along, with amber eyes and a curling mass of auburn hair so dark it was nearly black. She had a pure, sweet voice from the moment she could carry a note, and had turned their family’s love of music into a thriving side-business. Her physic gift was that of a "finder"; anything lost didn’t stay lost if Eileen was on the search. The gift wasn’t confined to inanimate objects, and the local police had learned not to question the young teen’s "hunches".
Kyla’s birth had been seven years afterward, and while she shared the same amber eyes of her sister Eileen, the blue-black hair she had at birth quickly changed to a rich cinnamon color, and was as straight as her sister’s was curly. Her telepathic gift was as strong as her brother Jarrod’s, and showed every possibility of becoming stronger as she matured. She could also read auras, the color spectrum energy given off by all living things, almost before she knew the actual names of the colors themselves. Much to her mother’s dismay, she appeared to share Jarrod’s love of all the martial arts and would pester him to death until he would teach her a ‘new move’. Louise knew without a doubt that hand-to-hand combat training was in her daughter’s future.
When Maureen arrived two years later, her bright cobalt blue eyes didn’t fade or darken, and the red-gold of her hair was an exact match for Louise’s Swedish-born mother. It quickly became apparent that her gift was one of empathy, since she was always very vocal about the emotional signals she received. Discretion had been a difficult concept for the youngest Riley, but she caught on quickly.
Each child had, in turn, been taught by their parents and grandparents the basic steps of shielding their minds from the bombardment of unwanted psychic energies. Those shields were the foundation of stronger mental barriers, which allowed them to voluntarily either mute or block out their gifts for extended periods of time, but still be able to communicate with each other if necessary.
First contact was always the hardest, and Louise and Patrick had quickly realized each of their children’s gifts were so intrinsic to the individual that it was necessary to let each child build their own protection barriers with as little help as possible. In short, it allowed them to just be children and cope with the outside world as children on their own terms. And, just like watching a baby take its’ first steps, they held their breath and stayed close enough to catch them while at the same time trying NOT to hover.
However, due to the strength of their gifts, Kyla and Maureen had had the most difficult time of them all. Headaches were common and sometimes debilitating, and more often than not, one would slip and discuss their gifts in public. While it was easy to explain a headache, and a child’s indiscretion could be put down to overactive imagination, both of the youngest Riley children also displayed a physical manifestation to their psychic exertions. Whenever stressed, Kyla’s yellow-amber eyes would darken to a glittering obsidian, and Maureen’s cobalt blue eyes would flash to fiery green. And there was absolutely no way in the world to explain the phenomenon away to unsuspecting friends.
Which was why Jarrod was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs.
Shaking himself from his reverie, Patrick heard his son say, "Okay, then. I’ll call Peter now and let him know we’ll be stopping by."
Chapter 3
Seven-year-old Trixie Belden was so excited she could hardly stand it. Today, some friends of Daddy and Moms’ were coming to visit. And last night at dinner, Daddy said there would be two little girls about her age with them! Kyla was eight, like Mart, and Maureen was almost six. Trixie wanted to make a good first impression, so she had cleaned her room and put her stuffed toys carefully on her bed to make it look nice. At the last minute, she decided to set aside some of her favorite toys so she and the girls could play as soon as they arrived.
Trixie had overheard Moms on the kitchen phone earlier talking to someone named Jarrod, and knew it just had to be the ‘Uncle Jarrod’ that Brian kept talking about since last night. She was still rather confused how ‘Uncle Jarrod’ could be as grown-up as Moms and Daddy but have SISTERS the same ages as her and Mart, but decided not to worry about it. It was enough that there would be some GIRLS to play with for a change!
"Are you certain we won’t be imposing?" Trixie had heard a man’s deep voice ask over the phone. "There’ll be seven of us, including the baby."
"Imposing?" Moms had exclaimed with a smile. "You just try to sneak past us, Jarrod Riley, and we’ll hunt you down! It’s been ages since we’ve seen Pat and Lou, and our kids are begging to meet your sisters. And of course, I simply MUST hold your cutie pie son, Shaun! Joyce and I have already discussed this, and it’s settled. After you get checked in to the Sleepyside Inn, you will come here to Crabapple Farm for the rest of the day; we have so much to catch up on! Right, Peter?"
From the extension phone in the den, Daddy had laughed fondly at Moms’ exuberance. "Absolutely!" he agreed. "And besides," he half joked, "Kyla and Maureen are the only thing standing between life and death by boredom for Trixie! She’s feeling a little outnumbered by all the boys around here. Seriously though," he continued, "we’d love for you all come and stay as long as you can."
That had been HOURS ago!
"Where are they, Daddy? Are they still coming? Are the little girls coming, too?" Trixie asked in rapid-fire fashion for the fifth time in thirty minutes.
Peter Belden carefully swept the shattered remains of a crystal vase and faded flower petals from a now dead Easter bouquet into a dustpan, tossing the mess into the trash. The family’s new pet Reddy had treated them all to a fine display of Irish setter impishness and partially pulled the tablecloth off the dining room table. The pup’s Houdini act had caused a vase in the middle of the table to tip and crash to the floor, scattering wilted lilies, glass shards, and slightly green water in every direction.
The clay heart Brian had made for his mother in first grade for Valentine’s day had tumbled from its perch beside the vase and broken in half, and was now being quickly and surreptitiously glued by its’ original recipient in the kitchen. Peter had Brian and Mart busy helping make sure all the glass and water were mopped up to give Helen more time to mend the broken heart.
"Remember, Pumpkin? Uncle Jarrod called to say they’d had a flat tire, and would be on the way as soon as they changed it. His sisters are just as anxious to meet you, too."
What Peter didn’t tell his children was that Jarrod and his family had taken a well-known back road to avoid an approaching thunderstorm, but had managed to pick up a nail in one of the tires. The stroke of bad luck had put them behind by about an hour, and he could hear two little girl voices over Jarrod’s cell phone chanting "Are we there yet?"
"They’ll be here just as soon as they can, dear." Helen called from the kitchen. "Can you take the hot pads out of the drawer here, Trixie? The pecan pies are just about done and I need a place to let them cool." She looked into the kitchen and gave her husband the thumbs-up sign, signaling Mission Accomplished with Operation Mend-A-Broken-Heart and that the kitchen was once again ‘all clear’.
"Coming, Moms!" Trixie scampered off into the kitchen, eager to help.
Chapter 4
"Alright, girls," Louise Riley gently instructed as they entered Sleepyside Town Limits, "The people we’re going to visit don’t speak to each other in their minds like we do, but like Jarrod told you before we left home, they’re very sensitive and can sometimes feel it if you use your talents too strongly. So let’s review the rules. Rule Number One?"
"Our gifts and talents are a see-crud," chorused two little girl voices from the back seat of the black Ford Expedition, followed by a toddlers enthusiastic gurgle of agreement.
"And who do we tell this ‘see-crud’?" Louise gently teased her daughters by mimicking their pronunciation of ‘secret’. From the driver’s seat, her husband Patrick chuckled silently as he tried to drive, keep his eyes on the road, and quickly riffle through the contents of the center console as if looking for something.
"NO ONE!" Kyla and Maureen Riley sang out. Their fourteen-month-old nephew Shaun gurgled happily once again from his car seat.
"Okay, Rule Number Two?"
"Keep your hands, and minds, and thoughts to yourself," the girls sang again.
"Why did that sound like they were singing a line from the song ‘Money Makes the World Go Around’?" Patrick asked along the family’s shared mental path as he braked at first of the town’s three traffic lights. He took the opportunity to surreptitiously examine the map pocket in the driver’s side door.
"Because they are. Singing seems to help them remember ‘The Rules’ for keeping their gifts under control and not accidentally invading other people’s privacy," she went on. "Don’t knock it, darlin’. It works like a charm!"
"I’m teaching them tunes from Credence Clearwater Revival, The Eagles, and The Steve Miller Band," Jarrod chimed in, automatically connecting telepathically and sharing the conversation with his wife Joyce.
"And dear," Louise went on, " the bill of sale from the horses we just sold this morning that you’ve been not-so-secretly trying to find for the last three miles is in the lock box in the false bottom of the center console – where you put it for safe keeping," she finished with a cheeky grin.
Joyce chuckled at her father-in-law’s thunderstruck expression, but refrained from commenting; her and Jarrod’s son Shaun was giggling again as if he understood every word both spoken and unspoken. Privately she wondered which Patrick found more disconcerting – the fact that his son was teaching his daughters classic rock tunes without his knowledge or that his wife knew him so well that neither verbal nor telepathic communication was necessary for complete understanding.
"And Rule Number Three?" Louise asked Kyla and Maureen.
"Build extra barriers if the first ones don’t do the trick!"
""What? No song?" Patrick asked with wide-eyed innocence.
"We couldn’t find one that fit," Louise shot back, then added with an evil grin, "Yet."
At that moment, "Could I Have This Dance" by Anne Murray came on the radio. With an evil grin of his own Patrick began softly singing along with the artist’s smooth alto. In his rich baritone he somehow managed to substitute ‘Build extra barriers if the first ones don’t do the trick!’ for the first line of the song, eliciting groans and snickers from the adults in the vehicle.
"Okay, you know what to do. Pretend you’re building a beautiful house… build your foundations first…okay?"
"Okay, Mama!"
"Got them done, Mama!"
"And now, what’s next?"
"Build the walls!" the little girls piped from the back seat.
"That’s right! And what are the walls?"
"Barriers!" Kyla chirped before Maureen could answer. Not to be outdone, she echoed, "Yep! Barriers!"
"Okay, builders; hop to it!"
Kyla and Maureen loved this game. In their minds they pictured themselves building a house, starting with the strong stone floor for the foundation, and tall thick wall for the shields. They only had to decide if they wanted a skylight in the roof or a closed one, which was their way of creating the barriers regulating how much of their abilities were utilized or concealed.
The ‘extra barriers’ their father taught them were pictured differently by each child. Kyla imagined hers as aluminum siding and storm windows like the kind Grandma Runningwolf had put on her house last year. Maureen pictured her extra barriers as a tall wrought iron fence with spiky points on top and a huge heavy gate that needed a big motor to open – just like the one Daddy’s brother Uncle Nolan had around his house in North Florida.
Patrick swiftly scanned his daughter’s minds, and found their shields and barriers flawless. "Great job, ladies! Top rate as always!" he praised.
Jarrod pointed out different sights along the way in an effort to relax. "I can’t believe Mr. Lytell still has his old store! He’s been crabbing for years to everyone who’ll listen that he’s going to sell out and move to White Plains."
"Maybe he just hasn’t packed yet?" Joyce joked. When her husband failed to respond, she squeezed his hand reassuringly. "Everything will be fine, love. Trust your parents; trust me. Your baby sisters are stronger than you think."
Soon, they were passing a dreary-looking old estate home, its tired paint faded and beginning to peel. The sign hanging below the roadside mailbox proclaimed the property as "Ten Acres", the name on the mailbox itself simply "Frayne".
"Hey, look! It’s a haunted house!" Maureen shouted, bouncing on the seat in glee.
"Can we go explore later?" Kyla craned her neck to see around her bobbing sister.
"It’s not haunted; it’s just a very old style house,’ their father explained. Censoring his thoughts, he commented directly to his wife’s mind "But it sure does LOOK haunted, doesn’t it?"
"I remember Peter saying the elderly man who lives there lost his wife to a copperhead bite a few years ago, and has been in a deep depression ever since." Jarrod sighed. "It was such a tragedy. I met the Fraynes once when Peter and Helen first moved to Crabapple Farm from the city. They were the quintessential ‘happily married for life’ couple."
"Where’s the redheaded boy?" Maureen demanded.
Dead silence reigned for several moments before her mother carefully spoke. "What redheaded boy do you mean, Maureen?"
"The one who lives THERE!" She pointed back to the neglected old house, her nose pressed to the window. Kyla looked thoughtfully at the house receding in the distance, and then nodded in agreement.
"Sweetie, no one lives there but poor old Mr. Frayne, all by himself. They didn’t have any children," Jarrod interjected.
The little girl turned to her brother with an exasperated huff. "Well, a redheaded boy is GONNA live there! And a very bad man is gonna be lookin’ for him, too."
"Just not today," Kyla added.
Dead silence once again reigned in the vehicle. Patrick arched an eyebrow at his wife.
"Don’t even SAY it!" she shot back to her husband along their shared mental pathway.
"Well," he drawled in her head, "precognition DOES run in YOUR side of the family, not MINE!" Broadening the link to include his son, Patrick continued. "We knew at least one of you kids would probably develop precognition, we just never figured on it being the Chatterbox Congeniality Twins!"
Jarrod relayed the comment to his wife along their own private mental link; while they were able to communicate telepathically with one another; his wife was unable to ‘connect’ with the rest of his family. Laughing aloud, Joyce replied, "They COULD have been triplets, you know. Then we’d be having some SERIOUS fun!"
Her silliness had the desired effect, eliciting snickers from her in-laws and breaking the tension Jarrod was trying so valiantly to hide. They pulled into the driveway of Crabapple Farm and parked in front of the white two story frame house.
Chapter 5
Piling out of the Expedition, the little girls ‘oohed’ and ‘ahhed’ over the charming farmhouse with it’s wide front porch and cobblestone walkways. Just then there was a shriek of "They’re here! They’re here!" and a little girl with blond curly hair rocketed through the front door. Close on her heel were a little boy of about the same age whose blond hair was clipped short, and an older black-haired boy with a similar haircut.
"The black-haired boy is Brian," Jarrod murmured as he lifted his giggling son from his car seat. "Mart and Trixie are the blond boy and girl, and the baby’s name is Bobby."
"We know, we know," Kyla began, then stopped suddenly in mid-sentence. The vibrant colors given off by the auras of the three approaching children were nearly blinding in their intensity. Kyla instinctively toned down the cascading hues and touched her sisters’ mind to see how she was fairing. Unfortunately, Mo was on overload as usual. "We have to use the extra barriers like Daddy taught us," she spoke directly to Maureen’s mind. "C’mon, you can do it!"
Maureen grabbed the familiar mental path like the lifeline it was, and together the girls built and memorized the protective barriers they’d need for extended contact with these unique children.
Meanwhile, they were ushered inside the cozy house by a nice looking black-haired man and a pretty blonde woman who introduced himself as Uncle Peter and Aunt Helen. With their mental barriers firmly in place, Kyla and Maureen waded into the joyous fray of hugs, kisses and handshakes. While the adults greeted one another and cooed over the babies, the two boys and the little girl introduced themselves.
Even with the extra protection, Kyla couldn’t ignore the bright, beautiful ‘colors’ the whole Belden family displayed. It was easy to see Brian, Mart, Trixie, and even little two-month-old Bobby, were truly good kids. Their ‘colors’ fairly shouted out their complex and wonderful characters even at such a young age.
With the instant bonding so unique to children, Trixie jumped forward and impulsively hugged first Kyla, and then Maureen. "I’m SO glad you’re here! C’mon! Let’s go up to my room and play," she cried, quickly hauling her two new friends upstairs.
Soon the sounds of happy children at play drifted back downstairs, and Jarrod visibly relaxed.
At first the girls closed ranks and presented a united front, "Us Against the Boys". But Trixie was so excited, so ready to jump in and have FUN, that at one point the three girls decided to "allow" Brian and Mart into their little circle. After a full hour of whispering and giggling they took pity on them, trooped across the upstairs hall to the boys’ room and announced in unison, "The war is over, you can come out now."
"Good to know! C’mon in, we’re playing cars," Brian called from the midst of an elaborate Hot Wheels® track he was setting up on the floor. Due to several broken stoplights and jammed track joints, Brian had given Mart the job of ‘helping’ him select which cars to use.
The girls filed in, sat on the floor, and for the next thirty minutes they all happily played with the colorful miniature cars. Trixie explained why there were some pieces of track hand drawn on paper, while Brian and Mart pointed out some of the more recent additions. Maureen fell over laughing at the 14-inch tall PVC model of King Kong towering over car was setup with a tiny Volkswagen Beetle in its mouth.
"This is a really neat setup," Maureen exclaimed. "I like the paper track you drew, Mart. It’s WAY cooler than the plastic stuff!"
Mart flushed with pride, mumbling, "Thanks. Wait a minute," he said as he remembered. "You’re only five years old! How come you talk like a grown-up?"
"’Cause we’re surrounded by ‘em!" Maureen gasped in a dramatic squeak then fell over laughing again. The other children laughed at her antics as well.
While they played, talked, and got acquainted, Kyla noted that while Brian was carefully gliding his cars along the toy highway, Mart was merrily wreaking havoc, occasionally banging cars together at intersections and creating traffic jams in blind corners. Trixie would sail her car over the tangle in her best ‘Bo Duke’ from "The Dukes of Hazzard" imitation without batting an eye.
"Mart and I share the buildings and play-sets, but we each have our own cars we pool together. Trixie has a few, too." Brian explained as he shined the hood of mini Ford Roadster with the hem of his T-shirt.
Kyla and Maureen shared a glance. It was easy to see whose cars were whose.
"Besides," Mart said while admiring a tiny candy apple red ’66 Mustang Coupe, "Brian’s got all the cool Hot Wheels cars, and he won’t let me even LOOK at them unless he’s in the room! An’ Trix pouts if I’m playing and she’s not," he teased his sister.
"DO NOT!" Trixie shouted her china blue eyes stormy.
"DO TOO!" Mart mimicked back.
Brian heaved a sigh as his brother and sister started bickering. Leave it to his two siblings to fight in front of company. Catching Kyla’s glance, he shrugged and smiled apologetically. To his everlasting relief she returned his smile with and understanding one of her own.
Just as Trixie drew breath to start yelling in earnest, Brian broke in "Hey, you guys wanna come see the new baby chicks out back? They just hatched yesterday."
"Sure, lets’ go!" Kyla agreed. "It’s okay," she whispered to him conspiratorially. "We come from a loud family, too!" Even with her gifts shielded, she could sense the black-haired boy’s embarrassment over his younger brother and sister’s behavior. She privately thought that it was a little weird for him to be embarrassed about them acting like kids, since he was just a kid himself, but chalked it up to being protective of his family and wanting to make a good impression. She could most definitely relate to that!
Meanwhile, Maureen was smothering a giggle behind her hand, watching the blond kids toss insults back and forth like a tennis match. "If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather watch Trixie and Mart fuss an’ fight," she piped up.
At the mention of the new baby chicks, Trixie and Mart immediately forgot their argument and perked up. "You’ve just gotta see them! C’mon!" They lead the way back downstairs, through the kitchen, and out the back door. As it slammed shut and the adults cringed, Mart hollered back, "Sorry, Moms!"
Chapter 6
Later that evening, after their baths were done and their teeth were brushed, Kyla climbed sleepily into her twin bed at the Sleepyside Inn. Maureen was still chattering like a magpie about all the fun they’d had exploring Crabapple Farm with their new friends Brian, Mart, and Trixie; the wonderful dinner made by Mama, Joyce, and Aunt Helen; and the funny stories Daddy, Jarrod and Uncle Peter had told.
Louise came in to tuck them in, smiling warmly at Maureen’s enthusiasm.
"Mama," Kyla broke in as her sister paused to take a breath. "I sure hope we come back here a lot to visit. I just love Trixie! She’s the BEST! And Brian and Mart are so cool! Maybe they can come visit us, too? That would be so much fun! When their baby gets bigger, he and Shaun can play together, too!"
"We’ll be coming through this area on business from time to time; I’m sure we’ll be stopping by to see the Beldens quite a bit. But you know," their mother continued as she kissed each girl on the forehead, "you can always draw pictures and write letters to each other, and perhaps call on the phone sometimes. Or you could record cassette tapes or make home movies for each other and send them back and forth. Wouldn’t that be fun?"
Both children happily agreed, and began making plans for their first letters and tapes to send to their new friends.
Just as Louise turned out the light, Kyla softly called out, "Mama?"
"Yes, dear?"
"Did you notice the little tiny humming noise around Trixie, like soft music? I thought the barriers kept out all the bright flashes and noise, but Trixie’s different. Not different like us, but just a little bit different. Right, Mama?"
Before the astonished mother could reply, her youngest child added in her singsong five-year-old voice, "She’s not like us, but she’s a good puzzler and a fixer. That is gonna be a good thing, too! I can tell."
Gathering her composure, Louise gently brushed the minds of her two youngest children with her own gifts and smiled at the innocent joy she found there. "Yes, that is ‘gonna be a good thing’. I can tell, too."
The End
Circle Writing Project #5
Required Elements: