Parable of the Talents Read Free Page A

hands, my feet begin to fade away. I hear thunder. I see the streak of light rise higher in the sky, grow brighter.
    Then I scream. I fall. Too much of my body is gone, van-ished away. I can't stay upright, can't catch myself as I fall and fall and fall....

    ************************************
I awoke here in my cabin at Acorn, tangled in my blankets, half on and half off my bed. Had I screamed aloud? I didn't know. I never seem to have these nightmares when Bankole is with me, so he can't tell me how much noise I make. It's just as well. His practice already costs him enough sleep, and this night must be worse than most for him.
    It's three in the morning now, but last night, just after dark, some group, some gang, perhaps, attacked the Dove-tree place just north of us. There were, yesterday at this time, 22
    people living at Dovetree—the old man, his wife, and his two youngest daughters; his five married sons, their wives and their kids. All of these people are gone except for the two youngest wives and the three little children they were able to grab as they ran. Two of the kids are hurt, and one of the women has had a heart attack, of all things. Bankole has treated her before. He says she was born with a heart defect that should have been taken care of when she was a baby.
    But she's only twenty, and around the time she was born, her family, like most people, had little or no money. They worked hard themselves and put the strongest of their kids to work at ages eight or ten. Their daughter's heart problem was always either going to kill her or let her live. It wasn't going to be fixed.
    Now it had nearly killed her. Bankole was sleeping—or more likely staying awake—in the clinic room of the school tonight, keeping an eye on her and the two injured kids.
    Thanks to my hyperempathy syndrome, he can't have his clinic here at the house. I pick up enough of other people's pain as things are, and he worries about it. He keeps want-ing to give me some stuff that prevents my sharing by keep-ing me sleepy, slow, and stupid. No, thanks!
    So I awoke alone, soaked with sweat, and unable to get back to sleep. It's been years since I've had such a strong re-action to a dream. As I recall, the last time was five years ago right after we settled here, and it was this same damned dream. I suppose it's come back to me because of the attack on Dovetree.
    That attack shouldn't have happened. Things have been quieting down over the past few years. There's still crime, of course—robberies, break-ins, abductions for ransom or for the slave trade. Worse, the poor still get arrested and inden-tured for indebtedness, vagrancy, loitering, and other
    "crimes." But this thing of raging into a community and killing and burning all that you don't steal seems to have gone out of fashion. I haven't heard of anything like this Dovetree raid for at least three years.
    Granted, the Dovetrees did supply the area with home-distilled whiskey and homegrown marijuana, but they've been doing that since long before we arrived. In fact, they were the best-armed farm family in the area because their business was not only illegal, but lucrative. People have tried to rob them before, but only the quick, quiet burglar-types have had any success. Until now.
    I questioned Aubrey, the healthy Dovetree wife, while Bankole was working on her son. He had already told her that the little boy would be all right, and I felt that we had to find out what she knew, no matter how upset she was. Hell, the Dovetree houses are only an hour's walk from here down the old logging road. Whoever hit Dovetree, we could be next on their list.
    Aubrey told me the attackers wore strange clothing. She and I talked in the main room of the school, a single, smoky oil lamp between us on one of the tables. We sat facing one another across the table, Aubrey glancing every now and then at the clinic room, where Bankole had cleaned and eased her child's scrapes, burns, and bruises. She said