Giving Up the Ghost by Phoebe Rivers Page B

shown that I had much backbone before. I think I might have been as surprised as she was, but I tried not to show it. I just sat there and didn’t look away.
    â€œVery well. If you have seen that dreadful woman so many times, then you have a right to know.” Lady Azura’s eyes searched my face as she spoke. “I will tell you the story of Nina Oliver.” And with that, she cleared her throat and launched into her story.
    â€œNina came to visit me many years ago—it was more than twenty years ago, in fact. But she came not as a client, she told me, but as a colleague. She told me that she had a special power. She was able to read people’s minds.”
    Lady Azura sat back and regarded me. I nodded, like that information came as no surprise. I mean, I’d seen and heard firsthand the way she read my own mind.
    Of course, I could see that Lady Azura registered my response. She continued.
    â€œIt started happening to her very suddenly, when she was in her late forties. Her children had grown. She was an attorney at a large law firm, well respected for her keen analytic mind, but, I gathered, not on a partnership track because she was not well liked by her colleagues. I could see why. She was argumentative. Unwilling to listen to what others had to say. Arrogant.
    â€œShe came to me, she said, for advice. Her powers came and went sporadically. She wanted to learn to better harness the power, so she could use it to her benefit. But she did not like what I had to say to her. I told her this power was not the gift she believed it to be, but a terrible burden, and a destructive one. I told her I would help her to rid herself of this power, if she so chose.”
    Now the second dream I’d had made sense. The one where Nina had given the crystal back. The one where Lady Azura had been urging her—pleading with her, really—to relinquish her power rather than to strengthen it. “So you mean, being able to read minds is always a bad thing?” I asked without meeting her eye.
    â€œOur thoughts belong to us, Sara. They are precious. And they should be private. The choice to share our thoughts and feelings should be our own. And the ability to hear others’ thoughts can be terribly destructive to the one who possesses the power. But then,” she said, looking at me keenly, forcing me to meet her eyes, “I suspect that you have learned this firsthand.”
    My breath caught in my throat. How did she know?
    She continued. “At first Nina seemed to want to work with me. She came back twice. She used the moldavite crystal I gave her to work on blocking out the power. But it seems the power was too seductive. Her ability to read others’ thoughts turned out to be extremely beneficial in her capacity as a litigation attorney.”
    â€œAs a—what?”
    â€œA lawyer who argues cases in court. She became a much-feared litigator who, of course, could always know what the opposition was going to do before they did it.”
    I nodded. I could see why reading minds would be an advantage to a lawyer.
    â€œShe came back to me one more time. But it was to return the crystal I had given to her. She told me she was working on strengthening her powers, not blocking them. When I tried to tell her I thought she was making a huge mistake, she accused me of being jealous.” Lady Azura sniffed, as though the memory was something she’d prefer not to dwell on. “She called me a charlatan.”
    â€œA what?”
    â€œA fake. I suppose I lost my temper with her. She was not an easy person to deal with, and it was difficult to maintain one’s professional composure when she turned combative. But that was the last straw. I threw her out.”
    â€œOh,” I said, suppressing a smile. I remembered my dream where my tiny great-grandmother had thrown the woman out. Leave it to Lady Azura to stand up to one of the toughest cross-examiners in the business,