CHAPTER 1
As a child Kate Childs would wake up crying, at that age unable to understand she had been dreaming vividly but the worry of her parents had her believing they were nightmares.
Perhaps they were. No one got into Kate's head to check it out and of course years later she couldn't remember those early childhood dreams.
In ageing Kate came to accept that generally she had good dreams. She could manipulate her gift a little by thinking of something and then within a night or two she often dreamt it. She couldn't change a dream.
Gradually Kate's mother accepted her youngest daughter possessed a gift and to her credit she told no one and urged Kate to do the same otherwise Kate would be pestered by people to dream for them to meet their expectations.
"Just keep your dreaming ability secret darling."
"Okay mom. I don't want people I don't know pestering me."
Laura's realization that her youngest had a real gift came one morning when husband Basil had taken the two older children hiking.
Kate came to her mom's bed crying.
"Oh darling what is it," Laura said, hugging the 8-year old.
"Da-da is dying."
Laura was shocked. Her father was in hospital waiting to have a benign growth removed from his stomach. Her mother had said it was just a routine procedure, that there was no need for Laura to worry.
But the shock of hearing such a positive statement about 'Da-da' as the kids had always called him made her react. Remaining reasonably calm, she said to Kate to get dressed and they would go and sit with grandma.
It was a 90-mile drive and Laura's mother was surprised she'd come but was delighted that she had arrived and brought darling Kate.
"I want to see Da-da."
Gran checked her watch and said, "He'll be in the recovery room darling. We'll see him soon."
The surgeon came to the waiting room and told grandma everything had gone well.
Later the smiling nurse said, "Only two visitors at a time please Mrs Knowles."
Astute gran said, "Then would you please mind my granddaughter while my daughter and I go in?"
"Um you can take her in Mrs Knowles but please keep her quiet."
They sat quietly and chatted with the patient who looked poorly but said a few words including asking Kate what she'd been doing at school and she told him in great detail as if she were reading script.
They were about to leave when Da-da had a seizure. The visitors were hustled out and two hours later Mrs Knowles was taken aside and told the distressing news that her husband had died, probably as the result of a blood clot.
That night when the weary Laura was patting Kate to sleep at grandma's house she murmured, "Thank god you dream darling."
She then went out to meet the rest of her family who'd arrived in a borrowed vehicle and they hugged but no mention was made of Kate's dream that enabled Kate and her mother to be with Da-da moments before he died.
* * *
At college, freshman Kate Childs was under investigation accused of cheating. Her English class had been asked to memorize as much of Milton's epic poem as they could, and with more than 10,000 lines of blank verse that request was more than a tall order. Students knew that next morning they would be tested.
Kate was third person up for the recitation and she just went on and on until the instructor called stop and asked Kate to hand over her recording playback equipment.
"What playback equipment?" Kate asked looking perplexed.
"You have quoted that poem, perhaps word perfect but who knows, for almost thirty minutes, boring us all to death. No one is that good. Yesterday no one in the class, including you, claimed to have read that poem. Please hand me the recording apparatus."
Kate denied she was reading via any recording prompt and caused further uncertainty when she said angrily anyway how on earth would she have known 'Paradise Lost' would be the test piece? Nonetheless she was reported and next day appeared before a three-person panel.
Again she denied cheating.
"What would be the purpose? What we did yesterday wasn't a marked test."
At that even the convener of the panel, Assistant Professor Knowles looked confused.
"Okay Kate," challenged Kathy Knowles, "then how did you do it?"
"Memory retention I guess. I was almost up to where I'd read the night before the test when I was stopped. That poem is in our folio of suggested reading."
"How many times did you read that section?"
"Just the once; I had other things to do."
Professor Knowles went to her side desk and returned with two copies of the college's last annual report. She handed Kate a copy.
"Have you sighted this published magazine before?"
"Yes and I skipped through it."
"Did you read the President's three-page report?"
"God no."
The panelists had to smile at that.
"Please read the President's report."
Kate asked was it some kind of test and was told yes.
Several minutes later the three members of the panel huddled over the convener's copy as Kate put down her closed copy and began to recite. After a third of the way through Professor Knowles sighed and said, "You can stop Kate. You do have phenomenal memory retention. You may go. Please understand this investigation was necessary. Um how do you do it?"
"I just seem to be able to picture what I have read but must concentrate hard if I am to see the continuing imaging of that feedback."
As Kate left one of the panel members said, "Does she have a specialist career if she retains this gift?"
Professor Knowles said, "Perhaps CIA or military intelligence, police interrogation or a supermarket career."
"A supermarket?"
"Yes she'd be employed to walk around the aisles and return to her computer and order replacement stock where shelves needed restocking."
"You're kidding."
"It would be a damn sight cheaper than automating the re-ordering system."
After that nasty experience, not liking being accused a cheat, Kate decided not to reveal her power of memory attention and the occasional flash of seeing things she later found were predictions and often came true. Her mom had been right, it would lead to her being embarrassed.
Each year at college before graduating with a master's in political science, Kate studied all the published material of class testing and always finished that year no higher than 5th position in her class. She knew the information she possessed at exam time could have placed in in the top two but that would only risk attracting attention. The effect of that was no one remembered the revelation as a freshman that she exhibited a phenomenal power of memory retention.
Kate returned home to live with her parents in Roxton, a city with more than 400,000 inhabitants and so had a variety of employment opportunities if she could appeal to recruiters.
