Lenny knocked on his aunt’s door. The light in the bedroom was on but Lenny did not hear any noises coming from the house. The house, a large colonial three miles from the beach, always appeared slightly askew, as if the decades of winds blowing off the ocean threatened to push it over. The bright blue paint and white trimming stood out amongst the pale tan houses that lined both sides of the street. The street was full of cars—probably overflows from the beach parking lot three blocks away.

“Do you think she is at home?” Samantha said. After Lenny told Samantha about everything that happened to him in the coffee shop, she became very concerned. She insisted that she accompany Lenny when he checked on his aunt. Lenny called before they drove over, but nobody answered the telephone.

Lenny knocked again, this time louder. He heard some shuffling on the stairs and the unbolting of the locks. His aunt opened the door wearing a cornflower blue bathrobe imprinted with yellow and pink flowers. Her face looked haggard, as if she had not slept the entire night.

“Are you okay, Aunt Elaine?” Lenny said.

His aunt did not respond. She leaned against the door jam looking frail and disoriented. Her pale blue eyes looked through Lenny, focusing behind him as if she could see through his chest to whatever lay behind. Lenny began to worry. His aunt looked like she did not recognize him.

“Aunt Elaine, are you okay? It’s me, Lenny,” Lenny said.

When his aunt still did not respond he stepped through the door and gently grabbed her arm. Samantha supported her other arm and they led her to the couch. They helped her sit down.

“I’ll make you some tea, Elaine,” Samantha said. When Samantha left the room, his aunt reached out and grabbed Lenny’s arm.

“The sweater. Where is the sweater? Why aren’t you wearing the sweater? You said you would wear it. You have to wear it! It is an important sweater” his aunt said, her voice becoming more excited and her eyes focusing on his chest, her hands clawing at his shirt.

Lenny suspected that his aunt’s head was becoming unscrewed. He held her wrists gently and placed them on her lap. He imagined her mind spinning endlessly around their final sane conversation. He shivered and rubbed her shoulder. “The sweater is at home, Aunt Elaine. It was a very nice sweater and I’m going to wear it again. It was very thoughtful of you to knit it for me. I will treasure it always,” Lenny said.

His aunt bobbed her head and grinned stupidly. “It is such a nice sweater, my boy, such a nice sweater. You should wear it often. It is such a nice sweater,” his aunt said as drool ran down her lips.

“Samantha,” Lenny called out to her through the kitchen door. “I think I need some help.”

Samantha walked through the swinging door holding a cup with a teabag hanging off its edge. “Is she okay?” Samantha said.

“I don’t think so. She’s not very coherent and keeps babbling about the sweater she gave me. You don’t think that man came here, do you?” Lenny said.

“I really don’t know,” Samantha said.

His aunt stared at her hands on her lap. “Such pretty fingers I have. So many fingers, what would I do with so many fingers?” his aunt said.

“I need to call my mother. I don’t think she is doing well at all,” Lenny said.

Lenny’s headaches returned two weeks later. Growing up, Lenny suffered from intermittent migraines, which came without warning and left just as unexpectedly. A year before, acting on the advice of his sister, he traced all the possible causes of his headaches. The likely suspects were his eating habits, coffee drinking, sunlight exposure, pollen count, and about every other aspect of his life that he did not completely control, including the time he woke up and his hours of sleep.

Then he hit upon a major cause: over the counter pain medicine. When his headaches became bad, Lenny would take three to four ibuprofen pills or other pain medicine a day. When he learned about rebound headaches, he quit taking the medicine and suffered through a week of dreadful headaches before coming out of it a new person. He resolved to only take four pills a month, and he had his headaches under control.

Or so he thought. With the tension created by his aunt’s hospitalization, Lenny began to suffer a recurring migraine. It struck early in the day and did not go away until sleep overcame him. The few hours when he first woke up became his favorite part of the day, knowing that only during those hours would he avoid pain. At first, Samantha pampered him, trying her best to relieve his pain. She gave him deep body massages and cold compresses, and fetched him water and coffee. But he spent most of the day hiding under the covers. Light, noise, and movement increased the severity of the pain. Samantha pleaded with him to visit a doctor, but he did not, preferring to fight the pain on his own.

Over the course of a week, his complaining finally got the best of her and drove her out of his apartment. Samantha returned the next day with a mission. She was going to help him get over his pain, and refused to listen to his complaints that her talking about helping him get over his pain was actually making the pain worse. The first thing she did was take away his sick sweatshirt. He wore the sweatshirt whenever he was feeling unwell, a way of hiding from the illness and sweating it out of his body. For headaches, it did not do much, but he still trusted in the magic of his Las Vegas sweatshirt. Samantha took the sweatshirt from him and the dirty clothes that had collected on the floor and promised to return after she washed them.

The day was warm and the windows in Lenny’s apartment were open, but Lenny would not have known. After waking up and taking a shower, he returned to the sanctuary of his bed when his headache reasserted itself. He felt that if he could just wear his sick sweatshirt, he could get his headache under control. He went to his closet to search for a replacement. This being California, his wardrobe did not offer him much in the way of sweatshirts. The warmest shirts he owned were long-sleeve, button-down shirts, nice to wear with a suit, but not of the same caliber as a sweatshirt for moping around properly.

Before he gave up his search, he opened the bottom drawer, where he stored the clothing he received as gifts or purchased foolishly. In the corner of the drawer, folded neatly, he saw the pink sweater that his aunt had given him. He pulled it out of the drawer and held it up for inspection. His head, which had been flaring only minutes ago, calmed down when he touched the fabric. It was soft to the touch, but still dreadfully ugly. After mulling it over, he decided to put it on. Since he fully expected to spend the rest of the day inside, hiding under the cover, whether he looked ridiculous or not would have no bearing.

As soon as the sweater was pulled down over his chest, his headache vanished. Not only did it disappear, Lenny could not even recall what the pain had felt like. It is the sweater, he thought. He knew that the sweater cured his headache. But at the same time he knew that the sweater helped create his headache. The memory of his conversations with Stacy and Samantha about Andy came flooding back into his head. He remembered what he had known and the thoughts were natural, as if he had always had those types of thoughts, and it was nothing out of the ordinary. Why the sweater made him feel this way or gave him these thoughts did not seem important.

When Samantha came home, it was apparent that she was surprised to see him up and about. She carried his laundry into the apartment.

“You’re looking better,” Samantha said.

“I’m feeling much better. It was the strangest thing. As soon as I put on the sweater my aunt gave me, my headache went away,” Lenny said.

Samantha gave him a funny look. “That is weird. Maybe you were worrying about your aunt, or felt guilty about not wearing the sweater. Could that have caused your headaches,” Samantha said.

Lenny thought about that for a moment. “Yes. That might be it. This has been a stressful two weeks. I have a feeling that that man that visited me in the coffee shop had something to do with my aunt’s mental instability,” Lenny said. He wanted to say more about the sweater, but his fears of upsetting Samantha overcame his curiosity. He pulled on a pair of jeans and left the house for the first time in days.

Fire sprouted from the windows in the village. The townspeople watched the village burn. Stacked around them were their belongings and family. They huddled close to the oracle on the only road that led away from the village into the forest. The oracle watched the burning with a studied look, the fire reflecting in her nearly black eyes. She was a tall woman, taller than most of the men in the village, and carried no possessions save a small sack tied to her belt. To the townspeople of the burning village, she was their oracle, but in other places and other times, she was known as Yeanda.

Yeanda motioned to the mayor of the village. “You cannot stay here. The men that burnt the village will not be satisfied with a charred town. They will be back for the people,” Yeanda said.

The mayor bowed his head to Yeanda. “Yes, oracle, but where will we go?” the mayor said.

Yeanda gazed into the distance and remained silent. “Your people will go west of here and settle deep in the heart of this forest. The men who seek to burn you will not find you, and you will prosper when you find traders to the north and east. Your town will become a trade crossroads. Build it well, mayor, and it will last for thousands of years,” Yeanda said.

“I will ready the people for the journey, oracle. Will you lead us to the location?” the mayor said.

Yeanda shook her head. “No. I must leave you, mayor. We all know that your village would have been safe but for me. I will not risk another accident,” Yeanda said.

“But if it was not for you, all of our belongings would have been destroyed and our people raped and killed. You saved us from that calamity, oracle. I and the people would gladly risk having to move again if we could rely on your counsel. You already said that these men would not find us in the new town. You would be safe there,” the mayor said.

“You are kind, mayor. But while the men that destroyed your village might not find me, there are many others that hunt me. Your village has been a sanctuary for these past ten years. I must now move on,” Yeanda said.

“Where will you go, oracle?” the mayor said.

“I do not know, mayor. The road grows long for me and I tire of the running. Perhaps I will find another village and hide out there. I have felt the pull of my family from the east. I have long thought that I may return to them and seek shelter under their roofs,” Yeanda said.

“Surely you can see your future as you see ours, oracle. How could you not know the best path?” the mayor said.

“It is not as you think, mayor. There are limitations to what I see; particularly when I look into my own future. That is the only way that I know that you will be safe—if I am not there I can see it. When I travel with you and your people, the vision fades. You are a good man, mayor, and you will prosper amongst your people. Take care of them,” Yeanda said.

Yeanda turned and walked down the road. A few children started down the road after her, but the mayor held them up. He waved at Yeanda’s back. The townspeople watched her walk down the path until the road dipped downhill and her figure disappeared.

Word count: 2,113

Words left: 36,871

Caffeination: mocha

Feeling: I was confused as I wrote this section this morning. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go with it. The last two days are evidence of my lack of planning. Starting the new story thread at the end really helped me get through the day. I’m hopeful this gets me going again. Thinking back to how I’ve described the sweater’s powers, I’m going to have to change some of it. I’ll keep moving forward and make the changes in the newer sections, and worry about going back to fix the older ones once I finish the story. Better than yesterday, but still not great.