Yisu looked bored. Obviously, the discussion of sex rites and temple priestesses held no interest for her. She jiggled her feet off the edge of the sofa and stared off into space. Finally, once we finished talking, she rolled over onto her stomach and looked at me, her chin resting on the heel of her hand. "How do you see a person's past?"

   "It happens when I touch them, but it doesn't happen every time."

   "Can you control what you see or go back to see the same thing more than once?"

   "I can't control what I see... I don't think," I answered. "But I can go back to the same vision if I want."

   Ezra looked at me, surprised. "In the car, outside of Esther's house, I returned to a vision of you several times. We watched a Charlie Chaplin movie together." His face bounced back and forth from surprise to amusement.

   "Have you tried to see a specific point in a person's past?" Sria asked.

   "Huh, well..." I thought about it for a moment. "No, I guess not."

   "Okay," Yisu jumped up. "Let's try." She flew off the couch and sat back on the coffee table facing me. She crossed her legs in front of her and held out her hands, bouncing with excitement.

   I smiled at the way her knees sprang up and down in a rapid cadence. "Alright." I placed my hands on top of hers. I waited, and nothing happened. I opened my eyes and shrugged.

   "Nothing?"

   "Sorry."

   "Try again."

   I rested my hands on top of hers and waited. Nothing. I wrapped my fingers around her wrists and tried to see. I tried to imagine her past. Nothing.

   "I'm sorry."

    Yisu pouted slightly.

   Sria suggested I try on her. I did, but again nothing happened. I was ready to give up, but Yisu demanded and then pleaded that I try once more, holding out her hands.

   I wrapped my hands around her forearms, with Yisu mirroring my movements. I closed my eyes and breathed. I tried concentrating without success. Then I tried relaxing, unfocusing my thoughts. Nothing. Ezra reached up and softly stroked the back of my neck. My pulse quickened as his fingers slowly trailed along my spine.

   Suddenly it was dark. A small fire flickered nearby. I was surrounded by tall green grass, and I could vaguely see clusters of trees in the distance. I walked toward the light and saw three mounds of people sleeping next to the fire. A man and a woman slept together under some kind of shaggy animal skin. A girl about ten years old was asleep near their feet. A few feet away under a smaller pile of red and brown blankets with large swirls and geometric designs, I saw Yisu. She was very young. She was awake, watching the fire. A firefly flew down and began crawling on a blade of grass near her hand. She reached out and gently touched the glowing end.

   I opened my eyes, and Yisu yipped in delight. "It worked!"

   "What did you see?" Sria asked politely, trying not to smile as Yisu whooped in enthusiasm.

   "People sleeping next to a fire," I said. "Yisu awake, watching a firefly."

   "Was I there?" she asked. I shook my head. "No, I don't think so."

   "Again! Again!" Yisu cried, thrusting her hands toward me. Ezra and I laughed at the same time. Her enthusiasm was infectious. I set my hands on top of hers again and closed my eyes. The vision came quickly this time.

   Slow rhythmic drumming pounded in my head. It was dark, enclosed like a tent. There were wisps of smoke lingering in the air coming from a small fire in the middle of open space. The smell of offal permeated the tent from somewhere far away. Something else was burning closer that wafted wisps of smoke from person to person, sticky and sweet. I could also smell the sweat and dry dirt. Someone began a low hum. Others followed, the drums beating steadily underneath.

   I scanned the crowd of people lining the edges of the tent and found Yisu sitting next to an older boy. She was young... maybe between three and four years old. A woman was standing behind the fire humming with her eyes closed. She wore a long, roughly woven fabric that draped from her shoulders to the floor. There was a long slit down the front down to her navel, and it was flared open, revealing her breasts. She had long dark hair and what looked like ashes matted in it. She held her hands out slightly from her sides, and I saw a long bronze knife in her right hand. The humming grew louder as the drumming climbed in intensity.

   Slowly she lifted the knife and sliced an extended cut along the tops of both her breasts. Blood dripped and ran down the sides of each breast to her stomach while the humming reached a fevered pitch, and she let out a long keening wail. The drums pounded, spinning me around as everyone howled. 

   Holy Crap! I yanked my hands away from Yisu's. She blinked back at me, surprised. "What happened?"

   I shook my head, trying to dispel the vision and quickly described what I saw. Yisu turned to look at Sria. "I don't remember that."

   "I'm not surprised," I muttered. "You looked young, and I'm pretty sure it was opium they were burning in that fire."

   "But that was two different visions," Sria said. "We should try to get you to see the same vision at will. Or you should choose a specific moment and try to see it."

   "Alright." I reached out for Yisu's hands again. Having no desire to see the second vision again, I opted for the first one. Nothing happened at first. I got a flash of a fire for a moment, and it disappeared. I gripped her hands tighter and waited.

   The wood in the fire popped, and sparks flew out of the flames then died as they fell back to the earth. Yisu sighed and rolled over onto her back. She turned her face away from the fire toward the dark grass and closed her eyes. Everything was still. The only movement was the rhythmic breathing of the sleeping forms and the flickering of the flames.

   I opened my eyes and nodded. I described the rest of the vision to them. Yisu was delighted with the new game. Ezra also seemed particularly pleased, nodding quietly to himself.

   "Now try to see a specific moment in Yisu's life," Sria said.

   "What moment? I don't know much about her life."

   "You're not always going to know about someone's life ahead of time," Ezra said. "Just pick something you know must have happened to her."

   I decided on the moment she first met Sria. I closed my eyes. Ezra brushed my hair away from my shoulders and traced along my shoulder blades in his familiar absent-minded way that made my heart tremor. I gripped Yisu's hands tighter.

   I was in a field. There was a long wooden fence next to me enclosing some kind of paddock. I could smell hay and something heavy and organic. In the distance, Ezra was walking in a wide-brimmed hat. He had a trimmed beard and was wearing a loose blue cotton shirt with dark trousers. A brown spotted dog loped happily next to him, its tongue hanging out the side in an enthusiastic wolfish grin. A long rifle was slung over Ezra's shoulder.

   I opened my eyes and turned to Ezra with a mildly annoyed expression. "You look good with a beard, but the hat was too big for you."

   He looked at his hand, resting against my neck and snatched it away. "Uh... sorry." Yisu giggled.

   "One more try," I said to Yisu. A slight headache was beginning to spread, radiating from my right temple. I took a deep breath and tried again, grabbing Yisu's hands and willed a vision to appear.

   Water was running close by. I was in a bright summer forest. The trees were old, the branches weaving overhead, thick and heavy. Thin leaves covered dried skeletons of older branches lower on the trees' trunks. Full branches in the canopy swayed in a soft chorus of creaks and rasps. Everything was a vibrant, saturated green.

   Yisu was some distance ahead of me wearing a long sack-like tunic that was belted around her waist. Her feet were bare. She had two long braids down her back, and she was carrying a basket. I jogged up to meet her and felt a stab of disappointment. She looked only slightly younger. The basket was half full of roots and other plants. She used a long stick to poke at the ground. She plucked a handful of cattail fluff from its long stalk hanging close to the water. She sniffed it and then put it in her mouth. Then she stepped into the water, using her feet to sift through the silt. Next, she dug deeper with her feet before using the stick to dig up the flower's roots. She pulled three long thin tuberous bulbs and rinsed them in the stream. Then she picked up the basket and continued her search.

   I opened my eyes. "You were digging roots by a stream in a thick forest. You weren't much younger than you are now."

   "And that's not what you intended to see?" Sria asked.

   "No," I said. "I was trying to see when you first found her."   

   I frowned at my hands. I couldn't make them do what I wanted. I understood my ability wasn't directed from my hands, but that was the part of me I was blaming.

   "Don't worry," Ezra said. "It will take time."

   "Yes," I said, pouting a little. "But if I can learn to direct where the visions go, then maybe I can learn to shut visions down easier once they start." I stopped and shot a quick glance at Ezra. A dark veil slid across his face, and I looked down at my hands again. "The ones I don't want," I added quietly. Sria watched Ezra silently and then looked out the window.   

   Yisu wanted to continue testing my visions for the rest of the day. Still, after a couple more botched attempts, I needed to stop. A dull headache grew worse with each attempt. It took nearly an hour for the pain to disappear.

   We spent the rest of the day sorting through Esther's files and comparing immortality stories. It was well past midnight before I climbed the stairs to bed, Ezra half a step behind me. We slid quickly into bed, and Ezra pulled the netting closed around us.

   "Have you ever heard of an Avati child before?" I asked. He rolled over on his side and slid his palm along my hip.

   "Yes," he answered cautiously. "But, they don't usually live long."

   "What do you mean?"

   He stared into space and didn't answer. Finally, he turned to look at me with an expression like a parent scolding a foolish child. "It's considered a mercy. What kind of life can it have spending thousands of years in the body of a child... an infant or a toddler?"

   "But how would the infant know?" I protested. "Yisu isn't..."

   "She has the body of a child," he said, cutting me off. "She looks like a child, she acts like a child, and she thinks like a child. But she also has thousands of years of experience. She is not a child."

   I could understand the logic of what he was saying, and I knew it was true. But to kill the child was just too extreme.

   "Besides," he said, rubbing his hand over his face, "imagine an Avati dies as an infant. In two or three thousand years, he becomes a toddler. But he's thousands of years old and has incredible strength and speed. How could you control him? Trust me, don't underestimate Yisu. She may look skinny and helpless, but I'm sure she could rip a full-grown man apart if she wanted to. She's lucky Sria found her first."

   "Yisu is aging fast. She's aged more than four years in the last two millennia."

   "And if she continues at the same rate it will be, what, five or six thousand more years before she'll be able to legitimately take care of herself." He sighed and turned me to look at him. "You don't have to convince me, Kaja. I'm not going to try to put her out of her misery or anything. Anyone who tried would have to get through Sria anyway." He reached over and pulled me closer. "A few children have survived, none as young as Yisu, though. How old did she say she was when she turned?"

   "Three or four, I think."

   Ezra shook his head and made a low murmur. "And she lived the first few hundred years alone." I'd heard that tone before... a mixture of pride, awe, and alarm.

   "The world just keeps getting more and more interesting now that you're in it," he said with a dashing smile. "And we can keep working on controlling your visions now that I'm sure what your trigger is."

    "What?" I said much louder than I intended.

   "I should have realized it earlier."

   "What?" I repeated.

   "I think it's connected to your adrenaline. Just like everything else. It's obvious now that I think about it."

   "Ah..." I thought quietly, chewing on my lip. "So I have the visions whenever I'm what... nervous or scared... or excited?" He nodded.

   That explained a lot.

   He moved his hand over my hip and slid it under my shirt. I wiggled away uncomfortably. He pulled up and looked at me.

   "What?"

   "I just... I don't know," I said. "It feels strange with Sria and Yisu in the house."

   Ezra laughed. "Sria is the goddess of sex and lust. I don't think she'll mind."

   "Mind?" I said. "I'm afraid she'll want to come in and cheer."

   Ezra laughed loudly and then bent to kiss me again with renewed purpose. 

   I woke up as a soft breeze was blowing my hair across my face, tickling my skin. Ezra was gone. The sheets were twined around my legs, and the mosquito netting had been pulled aside. I found my pajama shorts under the bed and had to get down on my knees to fish them out. I slid them on, tied my hair away from my face, and made my way down to the kitchen. I was feeling sluggish. I needed coffee.

   I padded drowsily into the kitchen. Someone had already made a pot, and I sent a silent thank you to whichever god was responsible.

   I glanced around at the empty house before heading toward the patio overlooking the water. Sria was already there, sitting on a low wall. I poured a second cup and walked over to her. She smiled and nodded as I held the coffee out to her. She inhaled deeply, sampling the aroma before she took a sip. Her lips curled in pleasure.

   She was dressed in a soft mustard-colored sari. Her bare feet dangled over the edge of the patio wall. I swung my legs over and sat next to her, looking toward the water. Yisu was wading through the surf with Ezra. She was wearing white capris pants, and Ezra had jeans rolled up to his knees. I heard Ezra's low laugh as he bent over, searching for something in the water. Yisu was talking animatedly as she waded toward him, pointing to something.

   "The few times I imagined Azrael the Destroyer," she said, breaking the soft silence, "this wasn't it."

   I watched Ezra and Yisu pick up a rock from the water and then toss it before looking for another. "I'm sure whatever you imagined was accurate... for the time."

   "You don't know what I imagined."

   "I know precisely what you imagined."

   She turned and looked at me, thoughtfully. "I supposed you do."

   "Was he as bad as they say?"

   "Worse."

   She watched me for another second and then turned back to Ezra and Yisu splashing through the waves.  

   Yisu ran deeper into the water, soaking the bottom of her pants. "How did she survive so long on her own?"

   "Oh, she's a little demon. Don't let the angelic face fool you. She was able to attach herself to the right people... most of the time. Nomadic people, in general, always take care of each other. She was lucky she died at just the right age."

   "The right age?" I couldn't imagine a worse age.

   "Old enough to learn what plants are edible and be able to scavenge for food, but young enough to make people want to take her in and care for her. The need to protect and take care of children, any children, is a strong instinct few people can ignore."

   I wondered how long she'd been able to stay with one family before having to leave. A couple of years at the most, I assumed.

   "She doesn't understand it yet," Sria continued after a long silence, "but she's fortunate she died as young as she did. Of course, she doesn't see it that way."

   "What do you mean?" Yisu was walking toward the path to the house with Ezra behind her. She hopped barefoot from one rock to another. Then Ezra swept her up and threw her, giggling and shrieking, over his shoulder.  

   "She was too young to be of much interest to the men who didn't have the instinct to protect her. Well, most of the men anyway."  

   Ezra was running up the hill with astonishing speed, jiggling Yisu over his shoulder. She shrieked with every jostle. I tore my eyes away from her and stared at Sria in horror. She waved a hand, dismissing my thoughts when she saw my stricken face. "Some tried."

   Ezra walked onto the patio and set Yisu gently down on her feet.

   "Nomads don't have brothels. So she wouldn't have been much use to a trader. The only real threat was those who were desperate or perverse enough to want to keep her around for personal use." Yisu walked over and hopped up onto the wall next to Sria.

   "Yisu is very clever." She brushed the girl's hair away from her shoulders.

   "What did you do?"

   "I knew most of the plants that grew in the area," she said, wiping the dirt from the bottoms of her feet. "We had to since we never stayed in one place long enough to grow our own." I nodded. "I knew what plants to eat, which to use as medicine, and which were deadly."

   I thought about it. Too young to fight and too young to run. The only way to get away from men like that would be to die.

   "You poisoned yourself?"

   Ezra looked down at the ground and shook his head.

   "Why would I do that? It wouldn't kill me. All it would have done is make me sick."

   Sria's face spread into a slow, knowing grin.

   I looked back at Yisu, and then I understood.   

   Leif sucked in air in a long, strangled gasp. He gulped a few more agonizing breaths before rolling onto his stomach. The ground was still damp with blood where his body had been. His face and chest sank into the soft dirt while he waited, building the strength to sit up. Eventually, he managed to work himself to his knees, damp clogs of earth falling from his face and clothing.

   He groaned and shook awkwardly. The stairs dropped at a steep angle over him. He gripped a wooden step with one hand and used it to pull himself upright.

   Bracing against the stairs, he glanced around the room. There was a light from a single bulb overhead. He didn't remember seeing the light before. Had someone been down to the basement while he was unconscious? It was large, and either by luck or subconscious self-preservation, he had rolled himself under the stairs into the farthest and darkest corner of the basement. Even with that single light, he could barely see anything in that area.

   The basement was filled with old trunks, piles of unused lumber, and pipes. On the opposite wall stood a small sink, aged with streaks of rust and a small metal pail underneath. Leif breathed once, anticipating the pain, and stumbled slowly toward it. He closed the distance faster than he thought he would. Leaning his weight against the porcelain sink, he turned on the tap and waited. For a moment, nothing happened, and then slowly, brown water gushed from the pipes in short bursts. Eventually, it cleared enough to look like water.

   Leif took off his jacket and shirt and methodically splashed himself with the water. Then he dunked his entire head beneath the stream to wash the dirt and blood away. Without a mirror, he had to use the clarity of the water to judge how much of the grime he was able to wash away. When he was as clean as he could manage, he wiped the blood from his shirt, focusing on the largest and most visible spots.

   His muscles smarted and jerked as he wrung the water from the shirt. There were three dark round bullet marks on his chest. It would take several more days for the bruised skin to fade, but he didn't have time to wait. He tugged his arms through the wet shirt and pulled the jacket on after it. He slowly fastened each button and made his way up the stairs.

   He paused when he reached the top and listened. No footsteps, no murmured voices, no sirens... nothing. He reached for the doorknob and stopped. The door was locked. He remembered not being able to find a lock before and looked at the knob. It required a key. He cursed quietly to himself and grit his teeth as he twisted with both hands hard to the right. It took almost all the strength he had to snap the lock.

   Slicking his wet hair away from his forehead, he climbed the stairs, muttering to himself with each one. He didn't know who the hell had attacked him, and he had no intention of waiting around to meet them again. He was going to grab Esther and run. He could hide and figure out who they were and what they wanted later.... Much later.

   Leif stopped just before he reached Esther's floor. Red police tape was strung across her door. He couldn't read what the black lettering said, but he didn't need to. He repressed a snarl and turned back down the stairs.

What do you think is going on? Can Sria and Yisu be trusted? What did Leif get into?

TEASER: Yisu crouched down and I wrapped my fingers around her arm.  "Stay behind me."