Psycher Chronicles

Chapter 6

What Not To Do When Getting Stopped By Cops.

Blaring siren.

No sooner had Andrea launched the cursed black card from her purse, than her actions had apparently been spotted by a patrol car that had been following behind.

Whi-woo-whi-woo.

“AH!” Misha cried out, her hands going to cover her head.

Clop.

Her hands struck at the bike helmet that her mother still wished for her to wear, despite apparently not needing to anymore, whatever that meant.

“Stop, stop, stop. Make it stop.” Misha cried out, just as she used to when the microwave was running when she was a baby nestled tightly in her arms. Now she was crying out again, but this time there was something extra to her screams.

“STOP!” Misha shouted.

Sonic boom.

There was a weight and a power to her words.

Andrea swore she could feel the power held within her words spread out in a wave around her. The burst went into and then through Andrea’s body before exiting and leaving behind a mild tingling sensation.

Whoosh.

Tingling.

The sensation almost felt impossible to describe accurately. It was as if a vibrating wave of sensation pulsed into her and then quickly sped off through her. But not just her, a part of Andrea could recognize that the wave of energy spread out in all directions.

VROOOM!

Just as the wave of energy left her, there was a sudden increase in speed and power available to her engine. Suddenly, the engine of her tiny Camry roared to life as if it had been a lion, rather than the mild house cat it had been for most of its life.

Zoom.

The increased power was quickly felt by Andrea as she felt the world begin to blur and speed past her, as her car began gaining speed rapidly. Even taking her foot off the accelerator caused the car to just speed up and fly down the winding county roads that lead home.

Almost at the same time as her car passed the curve, the lights from the cop car disappeared, as if being eaten up by the night and the surrounding trees.

Badump, badump.

Andrea’s heart raced as she began to quickly guide her suddenly speeding car safely around the bends, moving back fully into her lane, and then gradually began applying enough pressure on the brakes to slow her speed safely.

Slow.

Andrea went slowly, trying to find a safe spot to pull over, but with the roads the way they were, practically carved into the side of a nearby hill on one side, and a runoff ditch on the other, there really was no safe spot to pull over.

As such Andrea slowed down and began pulling forward until she found the start of her yard, which was thankfully just after the exit of the country road that served as the backway into her little community.

There was of course a main entrance, but that way often added five minutes, not due to extra distance but due to excessive traffic lights and four way stop intersections. Thus, the backway was Andrea’s main way home, especially as it let her off right by her house.

At first Andrea decided to pull off on the side of the road, where she waited. After a few seconds, it was clear that the officer that had been chasing her, an officer that she was now well and truly noted for evading still hadn’t arrived.

Seeing that her house was right there, and realizing that her argument about not running from the officer would be more believable if she was parked in her driveway with the lights off.

At the very least she hoped that she could play it off, as in she didn’t know the cop was flashing their lights at her, right?

“I mean it had to be that other nonexistent car on the road.” Andrea muttered to herself as she let out a breath and then eased her way into the driveway and then quickly shifted the car into park, flicked off the lights, and turned off the car in record time.

The last time she had done such an act of turning off the vehicle so quickly was when she had come home late from curfew and not wanted to wake her dad up by the rumbling sound of the car, nor the headlights directed at his window.

Of course, her attempts were in vain, as he had been waiting up for her in the living room the entire time.

Having dealt with her father who never missed a beat, Andrea now found it odd to think that she could get one over on the cops.

“Breathe.” Andrea hissed to herself as she clutched the steering wheel with her keys tightly packed into her fingers.

Then following her own orders, she took in a breath and let out some of the tension she had been feeling. Only now did she remember that her daughter had been nearly hysterical a few moments ago. Turning back to face her daughter, she looked and saw her daughter staring back at her.

Well, what she imagined her staring back would be. It was now dark out, and her daughter was wearing that stupid helmet with the sottered on polarized lenses that prevented her from seeing her daughter’s face.

“You okay?” Andrea asked.

Head tilt.

Misha cocked her head to the side, an effect that was heightened by just how large and awkward the black helmet was on her head. This was what Misha had learned to mirror meant that she did not quite understand.

Silence.

Andrea, realizing that this was her daughter’s way of asking her what she meant, elaborated her question.

“You were screaming earlier, are you okay now?” Andrea asked. With everything that had gone on, from being caught red handed for littering, to the sudden lurching of the vehicle, to barely being able to cover the turns on the winding back road, to realizing she was evading the police, so many things ran through her mind, that she felt guilty that it took until now for her to address her previously panicking child.

Head straightened.

“Yes, I am fine. Are we safe to disembark?” Misha asked.

Blinking.

It still caught Andrea off-guard whenever she used that word, disembark, as if they were on a ship. Had Andrea not known any better, she would swear that she learned the word from some naval tv show, but that never happened. Even her father, Misha’s grandfather, had never used such a term around her. So where did she learn it? How was it, that her go to word for exiting a vehicle was disembark, Andrea would likely never know.

One time she had asked and got a long-convoluted story about it being the standard term for her time while serving the fleet in the alternate universe.

Shaking her head, Andrea decided to answer the question.

“Yes, lets disembark.” She replied, then getting out of the vehicle she went and sat on the first of two sitting chairs that overlooked the back roads.

Clump, pop.

Next the girl got off her booster seat, opened the door, exited the vehicle and then forcefully closed the door behind her. While most parents had to go behind their children to close the door, to ensure everything was closed properly, Andrea never had such a problem. Though she had problems to deal with as a parent, whether her child successfully closed a door was never one of her concerns.

Instead, she had other concerns. Like what did her daughter just do when she screamed? Why did the cop suddenly stop chasing them? Why did her little Camry suddenly roar to life like it was the lead pace car at a NASCAR speed race? Sadly, those were just the fun questions that would hopefully let Andrea sleep better tonight if she somehow knew.

No, right now, Andrea had more pressing questions to learn the answer to.

As they approached the front door, Andrea dangled the keys in her hand, but then decided against doing so.

“Sit down kiddo.” Andrea said, pointing to the far chair on the porch, meaning that Misha would have to walk an additional four of her smaller paces to the empty seat.

Jump.

Misha for her part did everything that was asked of her with grace and poise. Easily going over to the empty seat and hopping in.

Once in, she looked at Andrea and quietly waited.

Of course, as always the seriousness of the situation was slightly put off by the fact that her daughter was wearing her customary helmet and gloves.

At first Andrea felt an intense desire to yell at Misha to take off that gear so they could talk honestly with one another. Then just as she had that thought, the fear and memory of her daughter in the hospital, and the fact that she woke up from nearly dying to almost having a complete personality change shocked her.

Taking a deep breath, Andrea forced herself to relax. This was her daughter expressing herself, apparently.

Also, sadly enough, her daughter no longer felt that she needed to express herself in the same way. Yet, she would continue to wear the gear that had been unnerving and embarrassing a few days ago to Andrea, now, solely because Andrea had asked.

Realizing that was a good spot to start, Andrea decided to ask some questions while she inevitably waited for the cop to come around the final bend of the winding road and arrest her for fleeing.

“So you no longer need to wear the helmet and gloves?” Andrea asked, feeling like she was peeling back the scab of a wound that she herself might not want to see what lay underneath.

“Need to? No. I do not need to wear them anymore.” Misha said, as if it was a matter of fact.

Nodding.

“But you do still like to wear them?” Andrea asked.

“Yes, they still provide an extra level of comfort to the electromagnetic pull of this planet.” Misha said.

Nodding.

Once again Andrea nodded her head, as she had heard this excuse a dozen times before. At the time, she thought her five-year-old daughter was just spinning fantastical stories, but now she had seen things that caused her to question a lot of core beliefs in her life. What was especially vivid was the scene of her own daughter being shocked by lightning, and her body falling lifelessly to the ground. Fortunately, she had been saved, and had seemingly come out of the situation just as healthy as before.

“Yes,” Andrea said, letting that response linger on the wind as she tried to come up with the next question that would help her understand her daughter better.

In a way going to therapy for what happened on her grandfather’s land was a blessing in disguise, as it showed that she could talk to Misha, so long as she asked questions and accepted the answers given. Even if the answers provided didn’t make sense at all, so long as she accepted the answers provided, there was dialog, they could converse and build a stronger relationship together.

That above all else was the one thing that Andrea learned from her meetings with Dr. Grier. Also, another thing that she learned was that sometimes there were people that were weirder than her own daughter.

That black card with golden embroidery that the doctor had given her, came to Andrea’s mind. The main reason for this was that the whole series of stressful events to this point had all been caused by that card.

Tow-truck headed out of the little community and to and through the back roads.

Seeing the tow truck heading out of the community caught Andrea with a moment of confusion, as she saw the vehicle heading out of town, then couldn’t explain why her mind had picked up on that particular event.

Shaking her head, she realized she was still talking with her daughter, so she continued. “So I take it you believe you are a mage?”

Inhale.

Andrea waited with a desperate breath as she listened to what her daughter would say next.

“No.” Misha replied.

Exhale.

With that one-word confirmation, Andrea felt a slight twinge of relief fill her. Her daughter was already weird, to have her think she was one of those holding your gemstones and wand carrying people would be almost too much for her to bear. She already couldn’t go to church due to the looks she would receive from the others of the local congregation. Now, if her family found out that her daughter was a self-professed wiccan at age seven, her father would roll over in his grave.

That relief was short lived, as Misha continued her answer. “I am a Psycher. Honestly, I do not understand what the difference between a Psycher and a mage of this planet are. I assume it is people who have somehow managed to gain unique powers or abilities due to this planet’s highly magnetic pull. Their minds, or something extra about them can harness this magnetic energy in a way runs contrary to most known bands of physics or life sciences.”

And just like that, her daughter showed how both frighteningly intelligent she was, and how out of place she was in this world.

These were the ramblings one might expect from a twenty-year-old who had smoked peyote for the first time and had attempted to become one with the world. At least that is what Andrea equated this conversation to. Something she would expect to hear on a university campus, versus from the mouth of her seven-year-old daughter.

Fear.

At this moment, Andrea realized two things. First, her daughter was granted a lot more gifts than she had been in her youth.

Yes, while Andrea had been marked as exceptionally intelligent compared to her peers. Her daughter made her feel inadequate, even now on the front steps of her porch.

Rumble.

The slow rumbling of a vehicle coming from around the bend could be heard. The random traffic once again caused a pit of fear and panic to rise up in Andrea’s stomach, as she knew this was the cop. Somehow, she just could tell that the cop had finally come and was now going to find her.

Bright lights.

There were bright lights that illuminated a large frame vehicle, one that seemed larger than the cop car she had thought she saw in the rearview mirror of her car.

Then confusion hit Andrea, as she forced herself to relax slightly.

That fear that had been building up within her stomach was going away, as Andrea realized that this wasn’t the cop at all.

Until she realized that it was the tow truck that had gone down the winding back road a few moments ago.

Now the truck was coming and pulling a vehicle behind it, a vehicle that had a bevy of other vehicles that had apparently been stuck behind this one vehicle for a while.

Shaking her head, Andrea let out a sigh. As it was a common occurrence, a vehicle popped a tire, or did something on the winding roads to spin out, thus causing an accident that then blocked others who attempted to use the same back road.

The entire thing just caused a pit of sadness to form up in Andrea. Followed by the innate sense of relief that she had somehow avoided that traffic jam.

Then the lights of the vehicles that were following the tow truck all came to life around the final bend in the road, illuminating the vehicle that was being towed.

Gasp.

With a gasp, Anrea realized almost immediately that the vehicle was the missing cop car. Springing to her feet, Andrea was standing up on her porch and stared out, over the field trying to glimpse everything that had happened to the vehicle.

Did it crash?

Did it pop a tire?

Had she somehow been part of an accident or could she have saved a cop’s life had she turned back around to check on the missing cop car.

In her mind, she felt guilty, as she realized that she was so worried about trying to get away from a simple littering ticket, well a littering ticket that would have led to a fleeing the police ticket, that she never stopped to think about the cop.

In the tow truck, Andrea saw the dark silhouette of a man wearing a police uniform.

Relief.

At that sight, she felt better knowing that the cop had apparently survived. Then her eyes began scanning the car for any signs of a dent of accident. The car’s frame looked fine. It wasn’t until the car had been dragged past her, and was still being lit up by the lights of multiple vehicles that were caught behind the disabled cop car, that Andrea noticed the black smoke that seemed to have come up from the engine.

Seeing the signs of black smoke, a jolt of fear rose into Andrea’s heart, as she turned to her daughter.

“Did you do that?” Andrea found herself asking, remembering the strange sensation that had flowed through her when Misha had screamed. Then her car suddenly sped up violently.

Remembering that sensation, Andrea couldn’t help but wonder if that same odd pulse had something to do with the state of the cop car as well.

Grimace.

Even with half her face covered, Andrea could read the micro expressions on her daughter’s face well. There was the slight pinching of her jaw, as her lips were pulled back in a slight grimace. Not much, too many they might not even notice the expression, but to Andrea they spoke volumes.

Then her daughter spoke those four words that bring both annoyance and relief to every parent’s heart. Relief that they confessed, slightly, but annoyance in that they did it at all.

“I didn’t mean to.”

At that Andrea could only nod her head. Then grasping at straws, she found herself asking out loud for help.

“What should we do?”