The Thunderbird crept to the end of the next exit, the richness of its throaty rumble loud now that the noise from the interstate was behind us. Her impatience showing, the tires chirped as Indy sent us lurching forward onto a two-lane country road, never coming to a complete stop.

Being careful of my side, I shifted to look around. There was a lane up ahead leading to a quaint restaurant, the building painted white with green awnings. The place was attached to the back of a gas station, the sum of it apparently called "The Emlenton Truck Plaza" according to its signage. A weather-weary banner at the entrance announced: "The World's Worst Apple pie," the word "Worst" was crossed out and "Best" scrawled above it. I rolled my eyes. Guess every place needed a gimmick.

"Can we please stop there? I need to use the ladies room." I didn't need to all that badly, insomuch as I really needed to get out and stretch my legs.

Indy looked at the time and then checked the GPS app on her phone before tossing it aside, letting out a grunt like we were on a strict schedule. "We're running out of daylight. I was hoping for enough light to see Petroleum Valley before nightfall. I hear the landscape's quite unique. Factories occupy the entire length of the valley for a good stretch of twelve miles. And there's a wildlife preservation."

We're moving to an industrialized wildlife preserve? Weird combination. "Oh please," I begged.

An insistent beep sounded from the cubby in the dash and my aunt groaned, reaching for her phone again. Lucky her, she still had it. My phone was gone, lost in the apartment collapse along with so many of my other possessions, including my beloved Mad Hatter doll.

I let out a sigh and settled back in the seat. I was never going be able to replace that doll. My mother had given it to me for my eighth birthday. The last gift I received from her before she—I shook my head and put my hand to my mouth when my bottom lip threatened to tremble.

Indy looked at the incoming call. "I have to take this." She cut the wheel to make the turn for the restaurant. The great nose of our car rose with the incline.

Expression tight, she pulled between the tired white lines of the farthest parking space, jammed it into park, and cut the motor before answering her phone. I frowned, turning in the seat to criticize how many empty spaces she passed up.

Sweeping hair to one side, I dug my digital camera out of the center console. Thank goodness the little guy lived in the car, otherwise he would've been back in the rubble with my missing doll. I had been taking photos during the past two weeks, not really with the intent of "capturing the moment," but rather for the purpose of gathering ideas to draw from. Like my mom, I too had some talent for art. I was honing my skills.

Slipping on my shoes with the intent to get out, the sharp clicking of Indy's tongue drew my attention. She quietly mouthed, "Spit out your gum."

I rolled my eyes, and her eyebrows rose, waiting for compliance. Sure, knock over one rack of clothing worth millions backstage at a Calvin Klein showing when you're six and just so happen to be chewing gum at the time, and they act as though the substance impairs your ability to walk and chew for the rest of your life. I disposed of the gum in a parking ticket.

Slamming the door shut, I was relieved that my side was only mildly bothersome now. I leaned on the car, waving to catch Indy's attention.

Frowning, she held up a finger for me to wait while she continued in her usual business tone. "What do you mean you got lost after getting off the interstate and had to double back? For Pete's sake, it's a straight shot from I-80 to Petroleum Valley after you turn right at the second stop sign."

Did I mention her business voice and her conversational voice sounded pretty much the same? Moody and domineering when she wasn't in the right frame of mind to handle what she considered to be stupidity—or defiance. I should know. I was addressed in that tone of voice often enough for the second offense.

The person on the other end of the phone conversation spoke in hushed tones. My brow furrowed with confusion. Was she talking to one of the movers hired to transport our stuff out of storage?

"Can I snap some photos?" I mouthed back, begging for some slack in my leash.

Waving me off, she motioned for me to stay near the car. I turned to speed away, her growing irritability blending with the distant whoosh of traffic. "Just follow the river until you get to Parker City! Then use the goddamn Google Maps app on your phone!"

Jeez, she was really letting him have it.

I covered an oncoming yawn as I walked alongside the restaurant toward the entrance, the dark glass doors' stately grandeur promising plenty of food inside.

"Did you go to the restroom yet?" Indy barked. Jumping, I whirled around in surprise at her sudden appearance.

"No!" I snapped with my heart in my throat, wondering why she would ask such a dumb question when it was her stupid rule that I could only use public restrooms when there were two cars or less in the parking lot.

One rule among many others that had been established long ago due to her paranoid need to keep eyes on me out of the fear that somebody, angry with how Mom and Indy conducted business, would try to get back at them by kidnapping or doing something to me. When I was younger, it was bothersome, but nowadays my aunt's paranoia could be unbearable.

"No, of course I didn't go in. I was waiting for you to finish talking with the movers." I looped the camera strap around my wrist. So much for taking pictures.

"Do you think they really have the Best/Worst apple pie?" she asked, eyeing the doors behind me. "I'm starving, and I could go for a slice. Maybe a BLT, too."

"I thought you were in a hurry to get to Petroleum Valley to see wildlife living among factories?"

My aunt shrugged. "Might as well take our sweet time now. We're never going to get there before nightfall." She lifted her chin and inhaled deeply, scenting the wind that had picked up from across the interstate. It tossed my hair as it swooped into the parking lot to kick up dust and trash. "Smells like there's a storm approaching from the west." Indy smiled appreciatively.

She loved all things lightning and thunder. Me on the other hand...

With building unease, I shifted from foot to foot. It was clear in the direction she gestured, and I fervently hoped she was wrong about the weather. Although it was unlikely, Indy was rarely wrong. She could have been a meteorologist if the fashion thing hadn't panned out.

"Do we have to waste time eating? I'd rather go so we can get to the house before it starts to storm."

"I'm hungry. We're going inside." Indy declared as she forcibly led me into the restaurant.

It was busy inside. The clinking of silverware and the hum of multiple conversations blended to create a charged atmosphere, an infant letting out an occasional squeal spiking my edginess while I sat and sulked. I slumped in the booth where Indy had dumped me while she returned to the car to get her wallet.

"This sucks cheese," I mumbled.

I swallowed at the lump of emotion that rose in response to my troubled childhood relationship with storms. I always lost my appetite at the mention of severe weather, so it wasn't as if I was going to eat anything while Indy gnawed on her awful apple pie.

My posture straightened at the approach of our waitress. I offered her a polite smile when she stopped at the table to place two glasses of water in front of me. Beads of condensation glinting with touchable appeal, I shifted to pick up a glass, and then withdrew my hand with an anxious inhale, a reflexive reaction to the woman's nearness as she dropped straws on the table. She didn't notice my hasty retreat, and it was just as well. I didn't touch people and strangers didn't get to touch me. That was one of my cardinal rules.

Our waitress offered me a smile in return despite her strained demeanor, which probably had something to do with the busy supper hour.

"Rough shift tonight?" I asked, trying to be sociable as I reached for the straw.

The pretty woman who looked to be in her early forties shrugged with a veteran server's indifference. Her nametag identified her as JoAnne. "Oh, no rougher than any other night," JoAnne answered. "I just finished serving a group of fifteen."

I lifted eyebrows at the mention of such a large number. I leaned to see around her aproned waist, spying the party she was referring to. There really were fifteen, all dressed in similar black and blue homemade attire. Three tables had been pushed together to make enough seating. I recognized their littlest fussing in his—or her— highchair as the infant who'd been crying.

JoAnne made a motion to grab a couple of menus from the server's station, but I waved them away. "We know what we want," I told her, removing the paper from the straw and spinning it in my water to make the ice tinkle like breeze-rustled wind chimes.

She nodded and pulled a pad of paper out of her apron to take down Indy's order as I gave it. "And will there be anything for you?"

"Um..." I mumbled. My gaze wandered to the next booth, abandoned plates alluding to the departure of its occupants. I spotted a bowl of untouched peach slices. They were heaped on top of a scoop of something white, vanilla ice cream probably. "Can I get a bowl of peaches? Leave out the ice cream."

Not that I wouldn't mind some ice cream. But alas, my extreme lactose intolerance wouldn't allow it. For if, collectively, all of the world's milk and by-products thereof were to be considered my kryptonite, then I myself made a piss-poor excuse of a superhero. Goodness knows how the conversation planning my demise would go: "Oh, I know," said the villainous heifer. "Let us hurl a block of cheese at her. And then, while she's stunned, squirt milk in her eyes. Mooo- wa ha ha!"

Peaches would work just fine. Not that I had enough of an appetite to down an entire bowl, but maybe I could manage a slice or two.

Flipping her notepad shut, JoAnne gave me a wide grin. "You're from out of state, aren't you?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"Most folks from Western PA would recognize peach slices heaped over a scoop of cottage cheese."

Holy cheddar, no way! Grossed out, I shuddered.

She smiled apologetically as she turned to leave. "I hope I didn't just go and ruin your outlook on the state of Pennsylvania, as well as your appetite."

"No, ma'am," I said, my shock softening to nothing when my gaze fell from her. Personally, I expected very little from our move out east. And my zeal for food had pretty much been non-existent anyway.

"Something happened to them," I suddenly blurted as, from around the right hip of my waitress, one of the women in the group of fifteen held up a spoonful of applesauce to the child in the highchair.

Her actions froze when our eyes made steady contact. A momentary slip of control had caused me to seize firm hold of her heart with mine. The woman flinched with a deep seated, primordial reflex that acknowledged something was sifting through her soul. Small fingers stretched for the contents of the spoon just out of reach, but she took no notice.

With pressed lips, I made mental note of my findings. The pain in her heart was the long-lasting type that fermented with the passage of time, like wine corked in a bottle and put away in a dark cellar. Swallowing at the taste that rose in my mouth, the particular type of hurt she carried was that of a horrible offense to her maternal sensibilities, the vintage of its age settling in my bones to leave me with the impression of the event being five, perhaps six months ago. I smelled a hint of something else—burning, harsh—maybe the stench of brakes locking up.

"An automobile accident this past spring," I mumbled. "One of her children died."

Severing our connection with a long blink, my self-awareness recoiled back to me with a rush of heat warming my cheeks. The mother also snapped back to reality, fumbling the spoon and dropping the applesauce on the floor. My shoulders slumped, and I bit into my lower lip when I realized the waitress hadn't left yet. Crap, not good.

With the metallic taste of blood from my bitten lip warding away the taste of all emotions that existed outside of myself, I turned my attention to JoAnne's stillness.

"It was their horse-drawn buggy versus a truck, I believe," she said softly. "Their little Sammy was curled up sleeping in the back. He...didn't make it." The clinking of silverware became loud in the silence that hung between us for a few uneasy seconds. "You said you're not from around here, right?"

Bobbing my head once, I inhaled shallowly, then flinched at the pungent smell of her apprehension.

"It was somebody from out of state who didn't know the area that crashed into them," the waitress said briskly to deflect her uneasiness with me. "So I trust you'll be careful north of here when you see the road signs cautioning of Amish buggies." And with that warning issued, she hurried away.

Head hung low, a wave of disappointment rolled over me, filling my ears with a nondescript quiet that dampened my hearing to the rest of the sounds in the room. Damn it, I usually wasn't so careless.

Losing its forward momentum, the swell of quiet shame retreated to the depths of my troubled core, leaving me dripping with insecurity and aching for my mom. Lost, I fidgeted on the bench. Things were so much easier when she was alive. The unconditional love her eyes held for me a comforting sweetness that could be pressed to the middle of my tongue, much like the act of giving a toddler a lollypop at the end of a tough doctor's visit, choosing to ignore the lingering wetness of tears trailed over rosy cheeks in favor of rewarding bravery summoned.

Now that she was gone, I had nowhere to look to after such a troubling incident, so my gaze settled instead on the space outlined between the water glasses, and I allowed my eyelids to droop.

I was so incredibly tired. The risk that came with drowsiness was that my self-control might slip—but not often. Not if I could help it. I kept my hands to myself and didn't let anyone touch me for just this reason. Touching wasn't simply physical contact, but also provided an opening for an emotional connection. To touch someone was to become more familiar, more intimately involved with them, and once that line of familiarity was crossed, it made keeping out even harder.

The scene just now with the Amish woman had been a fluke. Fully rested, I had much better control over it and what I could do with it, and I didn't do it on purpose—very much. So what exactly was it?

I sat up and wrapped my hands around the bottom of a water glass, allowing its wetness to soothe me. It happened whenever I got a scent or a taste from a person. A flavorful, extra-sensory cue of what they were feeling, among other things that seemed to come along with this sort of ability. I could even look in through somebody's eyes to their heart, their soul, and read and do things from in there. Mom believed I might be a specialized type of empath, and I guess maybe she was right because I didn't know of anyone else who could sense the inner emotional workings of others like I could.

I looked up expectantly as Indy's heavy-booted stride finally approached the booth. Without making eye contact, she slid across the bench with a delicate whoosh of designer slacks and began picking at her flaking fingernail polish. Apparently, she was not in a talkative mood. Fine by me. She was my legal guardian, and we had spent hundreds of hours together traveling, but it wasn't like we were best friends. Far from it. I maintained a definite emotional distance.

I am a pro at the distance thing. Deserve a gold star and all that. My gaze fell while a frustrated heat rose in my face. I was okay with not being close to my aunt, but still, I so needed to get a social life. Most people had a social life. Had friends. I heard the fast-paced steps of our waitress approaching. I looked at the bowl of peaches she set in front of me and then looked away, letting my chin drop into my cupped hand as I pondered my isolation. Maybe I was getting tired of being alone.

She threw extra napkins down onto the table and walked away without giving me a second glance, and I really couldn't blame her. Sometimes people who noticed my "peculiarity" reacted this way, like I was carrying something infectious that might be transferred by my looking at or speaking to them.

Closing my eyes, I let out a quiet groan, feeling overwhelmed, half-starved and sick all at the same time.

The toe of Indy's boot nudged my right foot. "Is your stomach bugging you?"

I opened my eyes just a crack. The slightest movement of my chin offered a truthful nod because I hated the taste of my own lies. They stuck in my teeth, like bits of tough meat, something floss couldn't dislodge. I stifled the urge to groan again when my aunt pulled her handbag onto her lap. Oh please, not the homeopathic remedy, again.

Red and powdery and supposedly containing all sorts of things that were "good for me," Mom used to give me the powder with breakfast when I was little, something Indy continued administering to this day. And it wasn't as if, up until two weeks ago, Indy had been a health nut about the stuff, but now she was making me drink it just about every time I let out a little moan. It was getting ridiculous.

Sure enough, Indy pulled out a square of wax paper from the front pocket of her purse. Unfolding it so the top part opened, she dumped the red powder into what remained of her half glass of water and stirred it with the straw. It turned a murky crimson before the color dissolved, returning to clear the longer she agitated it.

Mmm, concentrated. My expression puckered. The stuff didn't taste so bad, unless you mixed it like that.

The sound of the glass scraping across the table toward me was muffled by the hockey game being turned up—Penguins vs. Redwings—so the men huddled around the front counter could hear the final moments of the power play. I reached to curl my fingers around the glass, knowing very well if I didn't drink the stuff instantly, she was going to bitch. Too bad it never made me feel any better.

So I downed the contents of the glass like so many times before, never knowing what its specific ingredients were. If I had to guess? Probably a blend of ginseng and chamomile with vanilla extract for flavoring, the last a throwback from when I was a kid and Mom was trying to get me to drink it.

"Go ahead and use the restroom if you still need to," Indy offered, reaching with a fork to gather a peach slice from my bowl. "I spotted the ladies room up front."

I sat there and stared at her. Was she kidding? She had to be. "But there are more than two cars in the parking lot," I pointed out.

"Uh huh," she mumbled as she chewed with an unusual, carefree indifference about her.

"The restaurant is full of people," I said with more obvious detail.

"So?"

"So...you don't feel the primordial urge to kick open the restroom door before I go in to make sure it's safe?"

Indy shrugged casually; nonchalance looked out of place on her. "You're a grownup. You can go to the restroom by yourself any time."

Holy cheese and crackers, since when?

Not wanting to risk waiting around for the moment when she remembered she was my stick-in-the-mud aunt, I made sure the strap tethering my camera to a belt loop was secure and I scooted to the edge of the seat. I still couldn't believe what I was hearing. Where was the uptight, overbearing, single-minded security Nazi I had come to loathe—er uh, I mean love—over the years? Something wasn't right here.

I made my way to the front of the restaurant but didn't go to the restroom. Instead, I bypassed the facilities altogether to stare in hesitation at my reflection in the front doors, and then I pushed on through.

It had gotten pretty dark outside. Eyes narrowing in defiance, I spun around with my long hair fanning out to face the building and wait for my aunt to come bursting out after me. But she didn't burst out; she didn't even bother to make an appearance. This was definitely not our norm.

In a moment of dazed bewilderment, I wrapped both arms around my waist. Where was the over protection? Where was the drama? Why would Indy sever my lifelong leash? Had she suddenly sobered up from the bat-shit crazy theory that somebody was going to make off with me?

No, that couldn't be it. But why did I even need her, really?

Aged grief bubbled up, the decade-old suppressed turmoil of losing my mother rising with a taste like bile, sickness and crushed pennies, sour and foul. Dry heaving once loudly, I swallowed it back down and held my breath until I was certain I wouldn't actually throw up. When I finally exhaled it came out trembling like the beginnings of a sob. Damn it.

With my self-worth falling to settle among wind-blown trash in the parking lot, I turned my attention away from the restaurant to walk to the middle of an empty parking space. I sat down on the cracked black top. The heat of the day still radiated from its surface to warm my legs, and yet failed to displace the coldness that had settled in my heart long ago. My thoughts touched upon the waitress's adverse reaction to me and a pang of angst squeezed my nauseous stomach. I wanted to make friends? I couldn't handle friends. Humanity and its tiresome, over-emotional monotony. People? Ha, who needed them?

Who indeed? Crossing my legs, I let my head drop into my hands. I was doing "just fine" on my own—and I was sitting on the dirty ground in a pair of light-colored shorts. Yep.

As if in effort to soothe me, a gentle breeze buffeted me from behind, sending my hair swirling up around my shoulders and burying my face. Indy sure was taking her sweet old time, but at least the warm ground was comforting. Comforting enough that I could fall asleep...

* * *

I was in a vague state of awareness when the quiet clopping of heeled boots approached from behind. A hand came down to rest on my head, surprising me. Indy was touching me. And not in a pushy or hasty way?

"Are you ready to go, kiddo?" my aunt asked. She further intrigued me by running fingers through my hair, unburying one side of my face.

Stirring at the mention of departure, I lifted my chin to peer up at her with dry eyes. "I've been ready for a while."

She reached out, offering a hand to help me up. But I stood without touching her. She'd had her five seconds.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and I hugged my arms protectively around my bruised middle.

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VOTE if the wind has ever soothed your soul :)