Abigail has a special gift and a special heart. She must use that gift to stop the evil that has come into her life. She must be stronger then she ever imagined possible and along the way she changes her entire life and will save the lives of others.
Excerpt:
I HAVE OFTEN thought, the best part of taking a journey was not reaching the conclusion of that journey, but everything you might achieve along the way. There are many reasons you might take that journey. One reason might be to reach a goal you have desired all your life and to achieve it lifts you higher than you have ever been before. Of course, that does not make what you achieve along the way any less important, because along the way you might make new friends you never thought you would make, see new places you have only ever dreamed of and find strength in yourself that you never imagined possible.
I have just reached the end of a journey of which the conclusion was very uncertain, even though I feel as if I have only just begun on a much longer journey. Today, I have made a very important decision, it was not an easy decision to make but after everything that has happened, I think it is the right one. I feel as if my eyes have only just started to open. Like stepping from one consciousness to another, very much like being born. The decision I made is going to bring many wonderful things into my life, so I know I have made the right one. I have decided to stop living my sheltered life and explore what is outside these walls that have been created for me.
At the front of our home is a wooden bench. It is not an unusual bench by any means, rather it is quite a plain wooden bench with some green mold growing on the end of the boards that the council removes yearly but grows back none-the-less. Sometimes I wish they would not clean it, because I like it, it gives it character. But that is not the reason I like the bench. The reason I like the bench is that from here I can see the world going past. I could sit here for hours watching the people pass by.
Mother says I have an odd fascination with people, but people make me happy, that is the reason why it is one of my special places and I sit here often. Mother is inside fussing, that makes me nervous, so I thought it best to wait outside. It is a warm summers night; a slight breeze is blowing from the East carrying with it the rich perfume of jasmine. On some nights when the wind is blowing just right, I swear I can smell the roses from the Newtown rose garden.
The night is clear, which is rare for a city night. It is often difficult to see the stars for the lowlying clouds drifting silently over the mountain range like nomads across a distant desert. The city is built on a winding range that overlooks an Eastern escarpment and one season can sometimes become four very quickly. I have longed for a clear night to enjoy the stars for longer than a few moments at a time, but I would need to leave the city to see that as the lights of the city cast a hazy dome over us all. I do sometimes catch a glimpse though, each time there is a break in the clouds I take in their beauty and that makes me happy, even if only for a short while.
I was surprised when Mr Spencer knocked on our door. Mother had heard a light rapping sound and found him standing in our doorway when she went to see. He was dressed neatly in a suit and tie. Under his left arm sat a parcel wrapped carefully in brown paper and tied neatly with string. I believe Mother was not sure what to say to him because he had arrived earlier than expected. It was the first time they had met, and they hit it off right away. I even saw a silent tear in her eyes. She was happy that I was making new friends and a life of my own. Of course, she was worried for me, but I think that has already passed.
I find myself feeling very nervous, but I guess that is only natural for anyone who is about to do something they have never done before. Mother told me I should not doubt my own strength after everything I have achieved on my own. She always reminds me that the strength of a woman comes from her heart not her muscles. I doubt there would be anyone that knows that better than her, because even though I know it is over, the window will be there forever, to remind me and I feel that could only be good thing. In the end that is how it must be. A constant reminder to mark the beginning of my journey and why I took the journey in the first place.
Until now, I have lived as Abigail Price. Price was the name my mother took when she married my father and kept after he left. I have never lived as most other girls do. I have spent my life so far living with my mother in a large block of flats. The flat we call home belonged to my grandmother, that is my grandmother on my mothers’ side of the family. We moved in here shortly after I was born. Grandmother said Father had lost his job and had moved away looking for work. I have often thought that strange as he never did come back. I was not sure what he did or what kind of work he was looking for. If I ever asked Grandmother what my father did, she would tell me, “He didn’t do very much,” and it was always left at that.
It was Grandmother who first told me about the windows. She started to see them when she was just a young girl and it terrified her. I do not remember how old I was, but I do remember she said I was old enough to understand. I know it was a Sunday, because that was the day the Anglican Priest from Saint Luke’s came and gave Grandmother mass at home, on account of she was too old to risk trying to get to the church anymore.
I heard the tapping of her cane on the wooden floor as she left her room entering the hallway that separated our rooms. It was not a strange thing to hear because sometimes she would pace the hall of a nighttime complaining she could not sleep, so I was not surprised when she appeared in my doorway.
It was early spring, I was daydreaming on my bed, the Eastern sun always shines through my window and across my bedroom during the morning. I just love laying there in the warmth watching the dust dancing in those golden rays like tiny angels. At that time of her life, she was hunched over terribly and used her hickory cane when she walked. She sat herself gently onto my bed and looked at me with the warmest of smiles. “Abi,” she started, she looked at me momentarily with an expression warmer than that springtime sunshine that was caressing my face. She had surprisingly few wrinkles even for her age. Her glasses always hung low on her face. Her eyes which were a deep brown were focused intently on me. “You’ve been seeing the people in the windows, haven't you?” she asked even though she already knew the answer.
She explained everything carefully and gently. Considering every word she used so l could best understand. ‘At first, it came to me like these rays of sunlight coming through your window,’ she held her hand up to the light as if trying to capture it, ‘it’s gentle and warming. It’s like you’ve fallen asleep in a summer field and the wind that gently strokes your face wakes you from a dream you can barely remember.’ She told me the windows that she saw, carried the images of people’s lives, lives that were filled with sadness.
Time went by and those rays of sunlight became more intense for her. They showed her images she could not block from her mind no matter how hard she tried. It terrified her until she dreaded them and dreaded closing her eyes in fear of seeing them. I guess that is something you would find hard to miss, a sleepless child. Her Grandmother found her when she had passed out from exhaustion and did for her what she did for me.
She taught her how to control it. She told me ‘It’s like standing outside a strangers window and looking in, as long as you don’t open the window, your safe, you can see but you can’t be seen. There is no reason to be afraid of what you see because it is all in the past, and what is in the past cannot harm you,’ she would often say when we spoke of it.
Once she told me it is like ripples on a pond, you did not cast the stone, but in your mind, you can see the ripples when no one else even knows they’re there.’
