Walking out of the bar helped to clear my head. The night air was cool and dry. There was western pop music drifting around us. It wasn't the alcohol that had made me feel light headed. Well, at least it wasn't just the alcohol. She was so damn strange and nothing about tonight had gone the way I had supposed the evening would go. And now I was walking down a cobblestone Hong Kong street with her hand in hand.
Her small hand was warm and dry. When we had slid off of our seats and turned to leave, she had grabbed my hand. I stopped, not knowing what to expect. I had thought that there might be an electric shock, or at least a tingling sensation. There was nothing but the feel of her soft skin. She looked up at me and smiled as if she had read my thoughts...again.
"Let's go for a walk." She had said. "There are a few more things that I would like to tell you, and then I think I would like for you to walk me back to the dock."
When we left the bar I automatically looked to make sure that I had not left anything. It's a reflexive action for me, as I tend to be forgetful and have left items ranging from backpacks to car keys. She noticed me looking and I felt certain that she thought I was looking for the duffel. I patted my jacket pocket and said "Oh, here it is." and removed my cell phone. A doubtful smile crossed her lips.
The reminder of the bag also reminded me of the strange looking character who had stared at Wendy in the bar. Had she met him somewhere lost in the crowd near the back of the bar? Why had she lied to me about going to the restroom?
"I want to tell you a little bit about me. I am afraid that it might create more questions than answers, but it's important that you understand who I am and what I can do for you. What we can do for each other." She didn't look at me while she talked. She stared straight ahead.
She continued talking as if she were making a presentation to an unseen audience. "Being a destiny seeker isn't something that anyone chooses. The path and the ability chooses us. My grandmother was a destiny seeker. My mother was not. At least as far as I know she wasn't, however she died when I was very young."
I felt her hand tighten slightly in mine as she said this. She continued. "My grandmother is still alive. She is 92 years old and still living in Glasgow by herself. She is a remarkeable woman. When I was a teenager she came into my room one night as I was doing my homework. My mother had been gone for about 5 years I think. She sat down on my bed and said "Child, tell me about the colors of your dreams."
"I looked up at her thinking that she was having me on. The funny thing was I had recently started having very strange dreams where I could remember vividly bright colors, like a Picasso painting. I sat there trying to remember when I might have told her about these dreams. I was quite sure that I had told no one."
Wendy looked up at me. "I know that none of this makes any sense to you right now, but I have to tell this story my way."
I nodded my head and she continued. "I described to my grandmother that night how I had been seeing vivid colors in my dreams, and that the colors made no sense. For example, just the night before I had a dream where I saw my mother talking to my piano teacher while they sat on a park bench. It was a normal dream except that my mother had shocking cobalt blue skin and flaming orange hair, and my piano teacher, who I had taken lessons from for going on 8 years, had appeared to be a very young man and he had green, scaly skin with yellow eyes. As they talked I could actually see the words leaving my mothers mouth, like what you would see on a cartoon graphic. She was talking about me. Talking about my future as though I had not even been born yet. Her words were golden flashes tinted in red. The words would drift across the distance between her mouth and my piano teacher and then disappear into his forehead."
Wendy looked up at me to see if I was paying attention. "It's difficult to describe. Even as I am sitting here 20 years later I can remember that dream as if it had taken place only a minute ago. That was when my grandmother began explaining to me that I had a very special ability. She told me that I could trace destinies, both forward and backwards. The language of this ability was dreams and colors."
We were getting close to the dock, and she walked down a few steps and sat down. She was sitting on the very step where I had been when I had spotted her only a few hours ago. I sat down next to her.
"I can't explain everything to you yet." She raised her hand in a stop sign motion when she saw me starting to say something.
