Six Seconds

15

Bonita Hills, California

Maggie battled to keep her hopes in check. As she threaded her way through the freeway traffic, her stomach tensed.

Would her nightmare ever end?

Would she ever see Logan and Jake again? Where were they?

Each day had passed without news. Nothing from police. Nothing from the courts. Nothing from the sup port groups, Logan’s doctor, Logan’s school or the private investigator. Nothing from her amateur Internet search ing.

Not a word from Jake or Logan.

Nothing but deepening anguish.

Dammit, why did Jake do this?

Maggie searched the traffic in vain for answers.

Whatever it was, maybe Jake just needed time to sort it all out. Maggie consoled herself with that explanation, hoping with all her heart that Madame Fatima would work a miracle tonight.

But who was she?

Maggie had called Stacy Kurtz, who’d pressed her police contacts for more information, urging Maggie to keep what she’d learned confidential.

The woman was known as Madame Fatima Soleil. She’d descended from French gypsies who’d fled per secution in Senegal and roamed Europe in the early 1900s. Her family tree branched into northern Quebec and Louisiana’s bayous.

As a young woman working in the cafes of Germany, Poland, Austria and Czechoslovakia reading tea leaves, Fatima had told a Czech police official’s wife that her youngest daughter would nearly drown within one year. Some ten months later, the girl was on a school trip in Rome where she was found at the bottom of the hotel pool. She was pulled unconscious from the water and had barely survived.

The girl’s mother told her husband, a skeptical, case hardened detective. But months later when the ten-year old son of a Russian diplomat was kidnapped for ransom in Prague, he sought Fatima’s help.

Fatima met the boy’s parents, spent time in the boy’s bedroom, then told Czech detectives to search a specific spot near a riverbed in the St. George Forest, an hour northeast of Prague. They found the boy buried alive in a coffin equipped with an air pump. Police traced the pump to the point of purchase, then to his abductors and arrested them at gunpoint.

At her request, Fatima’s role was never ever made public. And she’d refused any money. Later in life, her reputation, known only to a few in police circles, accompanied her when she’d moved to California. She’d planned to retire on a small inheritance, but agreed to help California police when they called upon her.

There’s the exit for Bonita Hills.

Maggie signaled.

At the first red light, she consulted her directions.

She was close to the Serenity Valley Mobile Country Club, where Madame Fatima lived alone in a sixty-by forty-foot mobile home. She had a tiny, neat-as-a-pin yard with a flower garden beneath a large picture window and a big awning that shaded much of her house. The stone walk invited Maggie to the side porch where she rang the doorbell.

She was greeted by a woman who was less than five feet tall but had a solid frame under her Hawaiian shirt and sweatpants.

“I’m Helga, Fatima’s friend.” She directed Maggie to a cloth-covered dining table in the paneled living room and kept her voice low. “Please sit down. You should know that she is not well and has very little time left, so you must-”

“Helga!” An unseen voice whisper-wheezed from the dark paneled hallway leading to the rear. “Come get me.”

Helga left Maggie who peered down the hall after her, not believing her eyes.

A thin, feeble woman, bent by age and deterioration, emerged from the darkness. One gnarled hand gripped a cane. Her free arm was hooked around Helga’s neck. The stronger woman supported her as she inched for ward.

Fatima was wearing an emerald muumuu and a green head scarf. Maggie detected the smell of jasmine as Fatima eased into a chair at the table, the silver cross hanging from the chain around her neck captured the twilight.

Maggie sat across from Fatima thinking that she re sembled a concentration-camp inmate. The skin on her face was wrapped tight to her skull behind oversize glasses. Looking beyond them, Maggie met fierce dark eyes as Fatima’s ghost of a smile liberated the tips of crooked brown teeth.

“It’s finished for me,” Fatima said, pulling off her kerchief revealing that her hair had fallen out. Small islands of down were all she had left. “The cancer. Not much longer for me. You are Maggie?”

“Yes.”

“Your husband has taken your son away and you wish to find them?”

“Yes, he’s a good man but he’s mixed up about-”

Fatima’s palm stopped her.

“Did you bring me something that belongs to each of them?”

Maggie reached into her bag for Logan’s pirate key ring and Jake’s penknife which she’d retrieved from the sofa where they were forever losing things. A fond memory flickered in the corner of her mind as she placed them in Fatima’s hands.

“My glass please, Helga.”

Helga placed a glass with ice chips next to Fatima.

“We shall begin,” Fatima said. “Whatever you hear or sense, you must not move or speak, or be afraid. If I ask questions, answer only yes or no. Say nothing more. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“The window and the candle please.” Fatima put some ice chips in her mouth. “The ice cools my throat and stomach.”

Helga lit a white candle, placed it in the center of the table, then drew the heavy curtains. Calm filled the room as Fatima extended her arms, resting her hands on the table, her skeletal fingers caressing the key ring in one hand, the penknife in the other.

Helga removed Fatima’s glasses for her. Maggie noticed the jasmine smell intensifying. The candle flame quivered in Fatima’s eyes while she continued ca ressing the knife and key ring. A sound akin to soft lowing flowed into the room before Maggie realized its source.

Fatima.

She was humming, creating a surreal aura; candle light haloed around her round head as she began to sway, her gaze fixated on nothing as if she were search ing another dimension, seeing other lives and other worlds.

All the while, Fatima never ceased massaging the knife and key ring, increasing her ardor with each passing moment, drawing energy from them, as if sensing the very thoughts Jake and Logan may have left on them.

Fatima shut her eyes.

Her body began to bounce up and down slightly as she continued humming.

“I see a truck.”

Maggie caught her breath.

“A big truck,” Fatima said. “Near mountains.”

Fatima began bouncing slightly as if she were there in the cab of a rig.

Maggie felt Logan near. Felt his presence. Detected his scent!

“Logan! Honey, it’s Mommy! Where are you?”

“Shush.” Helga touched Maggie’s wrist.

Fatima’s humming stopped.

Maggie had trespassed on the moment.

Fatima’s work resumed. She continued rubbing the items in her outstretched hands, continued humming and bouncing as if a passenger in a rig.

Fatima’s head snapped back.

Maggie gasped.

Fatima’s body jolted as if punched by a powerful force. It jerked again, nearly throwing her from the chair. Fatima’s hands let the knife and key ring slip to the table as jolt after jolt shook her in her chair.

Maggie’s skin tingled.

Fatima’s eyes bulged to the point of nearly bursting. Her pupils rolled back in her head, leaving only the whites.

She was motionless.

Each minute melted into the next, devouring time in huge chunks before Helga blew out the candle and drew back the curtains.

Fatima began coughing.

Helga brought her a fresh glass of ice chips and Maggie watched Fatima’s jaw work as she crunched them. The older woman’s body was depleted as Helga slid her glasses back onto her head then helped replace her head scarf.

“We’re done,” Helga said. “Thank you, Maggie. You may leave.”

“Fatima, did you see my husband and son?” “I saw nothing that will help.”

Maggie’s jaw dropped.

“You saw something, didn’t you?”

Fatima searched for her cane.

“You have to help me, please, tell me what to do?” Maggie asked.

Helga helped Fatima from the table.

“Please, Maggie.” Helga nodded toward the door. “We’re done.”

“Yes,” Fatima whispered, “I must sleep.”

“That’s it?”

“You must leave,” Helga said.

“No! Wait, please, you have to tell me what you saw. You have to help me!”

Fatima extended her shaking hand to Maggie’s, then dropped Logan’s key ring and Jake’s penknife into it. Fatima’s eyes held Maggie’s for an intense moment.

“No one can help, especially me.”

“What are you saying? What does that mean?”

“You should pray.”

“Pray for what? I don’t understand.” Helga was closing the door on her. “Please, you have to help me! You can try again! Please! I felt Logan with us! I know you saw something!”

Maggie stepped from Fatima’s mobile home and the locks clicked behind her. She leaned against the door, slid to the landing and buried her face in her hands.