Uncle Bob was already out of bed. He was used to being roused at all hours. Cookie, sadly, was not.
“What?” she asked, her gaze darting wildly about the room. “What happened?”
“Cookie.” I coaxed her to me. “She’s okay, but you need to come to my apartment.”
She finally focused on me. “What? Who’s…” Then it sank in. “Amber!”
She scrambled out of bed, slipped on a sock, only one, then found her robe. Uncle Bob had already thrown on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt.
We hurried back, and Amber was sitting in a dining room chair as Reyes administered first aid.
“Amber!” Cookie ran to her and kneeled beside the chair. “Oh, my God. What happened?”
Uncle Bob stood back and took in the picture while I kneeled beside them.
“We woke up,” I said, “and she was in our room, sleepwalking.”
“What?” Cookie questioned Amber with a look of astonishment. “Amber?”
Amber shrugged. “I don’t even remem —” She hissed in a breath as Reyes poured another round of peroxide on her shaking leg. In fact, she was shaking all over.
“But what happened?” Cookie asked, taking in the bloody scene.
“Do we need to get her to a hospital?” I asked Reyes.
“No!” Amber said. Then softer, “No, really, the cuts aren’t even deep.”
I leaned forward. Put one hand on her face and one on her arm. Turning her arm over, I asked, “Like these?”
She pressed her mouth together. Bowed her head.
She had over a dozen cuts on her arm, all at different angles and different depths.
Cookie gasped aloud. Then threw a hand over her mouth.
“It’s not what you think,” Amber said.
“You’re… are you mutilating yourself?”
“No.” Amber shook her head. “No, Mom. Never.”
“Then… then I don’t understand.”
Amber chewed on her bottom lip.
“They aren’t deep,” Reyes said. “She doesn’t need stitches, but this will have to be cleaned a couple of times a day and the bandage changed for a few days. Just to be safe.”
Amber put an arm around Reyes as though for strength.
He looked up at her and winked. “You’ll be okay, princess.”
She nodded. She melted a little first, but nodded valiantly in the face of lethal charm.
Cookie stepped closer. “Amber, what is going on?” she asked, growing frustrated.
“I’m not cutting myself, Mom. I swear.”
Reyes began wrapping her leg.
I took her foot and straightened out her knee to make it easier. “You’ve been upset,” I said. “I’ve felt it, especially this morning.”
“Oh, that?” She shook her head as though dismissing the notion. “That was nothing. I just… I just got bad news.”
“What kind of bad news?” Uncle Bob asked.
Amber’s eyes rounded, and I felt a distinct jolt of fear. I couldn’t help the anger that shot through me. Was this because of him? Because of his behavior of late? Was he somehow stressing her out?
I shot him a warning glare over my shoulder.
He mouthed, “What?”
“Amber Olivia Kowalski,” Cookie said. “Explain.”
Amber chewed her bottom lip a bit longer, then said, “I just woke up and I had cuts on me. I don’t know why. I didn’t do it on purpose.”
What the hell? “Amber, do you remember speaking to us?”
My question surprised her. “What did I say?”
“Something about the oceans boiling and broken glass and then” – I looked at Cookie and Uncle Bob – “she spoke in chiShona.”
Cookie flashed me a puzzled expression.
“It’s a language native to a people in Zimbabwe.”
“Come again?” Uncle Bob said.
“She spoke a Shona language. She said I must eat him.”
“Eat who?” Amber asked, her expression a little grossed out.
I stifled a laugh. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
Amber shrugged, helpless. “I’m sorry, Aunt Charley. I don’t remember.”
Reyes finished taping the bandage. I scooted a chair over so he could stay close to her, then I scooted one over for Cookie and myself. Uncle Bob could just stand there and stew. The bully.
“I didn’t figure you would, actually,” I told her. “You’ve done this before.”
“Done what?”
“Prophesied.”
Cookie shook her head. “Charley, you don’t mean that time at the school carnival.”
Amber was pretending to be a fortune-teller at a school carnival, only when I went in, she didn’t have to pretend. She slipped into a trance and prophesied about the Twelve, a dozen hellhounds that, we didn’t know at the time, had been sent to protect Beep. And she prophesied about Beep’s war with Satan. She’d nailed it, too. Every word.
“She’s very powerful,” I said to Cookie. “I tried to tell you.”
Cookie hadn’t wanted to listen when we spoke about Amber and her sensitive nature. Her gift. Cookie’s cousin was also touched with a gift, but she’d gone a little insane. The thought of Amber having the same abilities terrified her.
“Surely… no, you can’t be serious.”
“I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.”