Jessica: Seven Sisters, #2

By Amelia C. Adams

English teacher Jessica McClain has been having strange dreams ever since the night of the Zap - an odd power outage in her parents' house that left her with headaches. Each dream is about someone she's connected to, and these dreams seem to be coming true. As she tracks their frequency, she realizes something even more astonishing - she's dreaming about things as they're actually happening.

Kent Morgan is a widower with a son at risk - Jake is failing school, and needs the chance to grieve the passing of his mother. Kent doesn't know how to help Jake when he's still trying to put his own life back together again. When he goes into the school to meet with Miss McClain about Jake, he realizes that maybe what they need isn't just a way to improve Jake's grades, but a second chance at real love and a true family.

But will Jessica's strange secret keep them from finding the happiness they all deserve?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amelia C. Adams
• Release date: Dec 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201049911

Book preview

Jessica

Seven Sisters Book Two

by Amelia C. Adams

With thanks to my beta readers—Amy, Barbara, Cheryl, Dorothy, George, Joseph, Mary, Meisje, Shelby, and Renee.

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Cover design by Erin Dameron-Hill

Table of Contents:

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

Bagley, Texas

March 1984

It just wasn’t any use at all.

Jessica McClain had been trying to go to sleep for hours, but her head hurt, and the red digital numbers on her alarm clock were making it worse. Fluffing her pillow hadn’t done anything, and neither had turning it over to the cool side. Maybe some Nestle Quik would help.

She walked into the kitchen and took the milk out of the fridge, thinking about what a strange evening she’d just had. Her father, Bob McClain, had asked the entire family to gather at the house that Saturday night to look at some new gadgets he’d gotten his hands on. Her father and his gadgets . . . She shook her head as she stirred the chocolate powder into the glass of milk. He was always getting the latest new things, and he showed them off like a breeder at a dog show.

The weirdest thing had happened that night, though, something that had never happened before. Just as her father was showing them his discoveries—something about a GPS and a cell phone—there was a clap of thunder, and the lights went out.

When they came back on, Jessica felt a little disoriented. Heather, her oldest sister, said she felt like some of the power from the electricity had gone into her, but her five other sisters hadn’t said much of anything. Heather went home early, not feeling well, and now Jessica was on the sure brink of death from this dumb headache. She hoped they hadn’t all gotten the flu or something. She didn’t have time for that—she had to grade papers and prepare an exam for Monday. She had her whole Sunday afternoon blocked out, and taking a sick day wasn’t on the agenda.

She thought back to her high school years and how spontaneous she’d always been. Then she grew up, and something happened—she got boring. Well, not totally boring—she was still sarcastic, because some things never change, and she loved teasing her family, because they were so very fun to tease. But now she paid her bills on time and voted and did all sorts of other mature, grownup things—stuff an adult would do, even though she’d sworn she’d never be an adult.

At thirty, though, she didn’t really have a choice anymore.  

She drained the last of her chocolate milk and rinsed out the glass—being mature and responsible again—then went back to bed. If she tried hard, she could get four hours of sleep before she had to wake up for church. Missing church wasn’t an option unless she had leprosy, and since she was pretty sure her nose hadn’t fallen off, her mother, Barbara, would expect her to be there.

Now if she could just get her head to cooperate.

***

Jessica walked into her sister Heather’s house without knocking—without opening any doors. She just floated through the wall and there she was, watching her sister as she sat at her dining room table, playing with a box of crayons. That was odd—she didn’t know Heather liked to color. She watched as Heather picked up a red crayon and then a blue crayon and held them together, a smile lighting her face as she looked at them. Then Jessica drifted out of her sister’s house and back to her own.

***

Thankfully, Jessica’s headache went away, and she’d been able to get a few hours of sleep. She’d definitely need a nap after church or she’d never be able to get those papers graded, though.

She stepped into the shower and let the hot water run down her neck and back to ease her stiff muscles. She didn’t think she’d moved around once she’d gone back to bed, and staying in the same position all night always made her wake up feeling like a board. She badly needed a massage, but she didn’t think she’d have time that week.

As she toweled off, she suddenly remembered the dream she’d had. It was so strange. Heather was thirty-two—why would she be playing with crayons at her age? It was probably just Jessica’s headache playing games with her mind, but this dream didn’t seem at all like others she’d had. It looked . . . well, kind of like the difference between a television show and a movie. It was almost as if the lens of her dream camera had been changed out and she was seeing things sharper and clearer and in more detail.

But crayons?

It was probably a chocolate milk-induced dream, and she should just forget about it.

She sat with her family at church, trying to pay attention to the sermon, but not really succeeding. Her mind kept drifting to crayons, and she noticed that her sisters seemed a little off too. They laughed and joked after the service like they always did, but it wasn’t the same.

She grabbed a quick lunch at her parents’ house like she usually did on Sundays, then headed home to prep for school the next day. She loved her job working at the junior high, but some weeks were harder than others, and she’d really been struggling with a boy in her last class of the day. His name was Jake, and he seemed completely disconnected from the world around him. She knew his mother had passed away the year before, and she suspected that had something to do with it, but that wasn’t a problem she could fix.

She’d asked the school secretary to pull up Jake’s grades for the previous year, and sure enough, they were really good up until his mother had died. Now it was up to her to find a way to reach him, but nothing she’d done so far had worked. She’d sent a letter home a few days ago and hoped to get his father on her team.

After grabbing a cherry 7-Up from the fridge, Jessica sat down at the kitchen table, put on her reading glasses, and faced the stack of papers in front of her. The class had been assigned to write a short biography on one of their heroes. It didn’t surprise her to see a smattering of papers about Mother Teresa, Michael Jackson, and Boy George. She chuckled when she saw one written about Alf and another about Skeletor—those would be fun to grade.

The last one in the stack brought her up short. It had been written by Jake, and was titled simply, My Mom.

My mom was the best. She always took care of me and made sure I ate breakfast, even though I hate eating breakfast because it takes too much time and I’m always late. She’s my hero because she never complained. She just did what she had to do.

That was it. The assignment had specifically been to include a place of birth and a birth date for their hero, as well as other personal information about them, and this paper had none of that. How could she even begin to grade this paper, though? Jake hadn’t done the assignment, but he’d shared a piece of his heart. Things like this made her job so much harder.

She was supposed to hand out the graded papers the next day, but she felt like she needed a little more time to think about this one. She didn’t want to do anything hasty, knowing it would have an impact on this boy. She’d hold off for a couple of days. The students would be distracted by the exam, and they probably wouldn’t think to ask about their papers just yet.

She glanced at the clock and realized she wasn’t going to make it over to Heather’s to watch their recorded shows together like they’d planned. She grabbed the phone and twisted the cord around her finger while she waited for her sister to answer. Hey, I’m behind on some stuff for school. Go ahead and watch your shows without me, okay?

Heather chuckled. You’re ditching me for school stuff?

Yeah—I’m sorry.

All right, I suppose I’ll survive it. Talk to you later.

Jessica hung up