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    Katrina's Gift
    Katrina's Gift
    Katrina's Gift
    Ebook113 pages1 hour

    Katrina's Gift

    By Fay Risner

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Katrina Sibowski has inherited a gift from her grandmother she doesn't want or understand. Gift is what her grandmother, Libby Sibowski, calls the women in the Sibowski family's ability to have second sight. This revelation catches Katrina by complete surprise. Her mother, Vencil, is uneasy around her mother-in-law because of her powers. She knew there was a fifty-fifty chance Katrina might inherit second sight, but she didn't warn her daughter. Katrina's grandmother is the granny woman healer for the neighborhood. The closest thing to a doctor. She doesn't talk about her gift and very few people have witnessed her have visions. They see that as a witch's curse. When Libby Sibowski realizes thirteen-year-old Katrina now has dream visions, Libby wants to train Katrina to become the next healer to take her place, but Libby warns Katrina to be careful not to talk about her second sight so no one outside of the family knows about Katrina's Gift.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFay Risner
    Release dateJun 8, 2017
    ISBN9781370587377
    Katrina's Gift
    Author

    Fay Risner

    Fay Risner lives with her husband on a central Iowa acreage along with their chickens, rabbits, goats and cats. A retired Certified Nurse Aide, she now divides her time between writing books, livestock chores, working in her flower beds, the garden and going fishing with her husband. In the winter, she makes quilts. Fay writes books in various genre and languages. Historical mystery series like Stringbean westerns and Amazing Gracie Mysteries, Nurse Hal's Amish series set in southern Iowa and books for Caregivers about Alzheimer's. She uses 12 font print in her books and 14 font print in her novellas to make them reader friendly. Now her books are in Large Print. Her books have a mid western Iowa and small town flavor. She pulls the readers into her stories, making it hard for them to put a book down until the reader sees how the story ends. Readers say the characters are fun to get to know and often humorous enough to cause the readers to laugh out loud. The books leave readers wanting a sequel or a series so they can read about the characters again. Enjoy Fay Risner's books and please leave a review to make others familiar with her work.

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      Book preview

      Katrina's Gift - Fay Risner

      Katrina's Gift

      Novella

      By Fay Risner

      Published by Fay Risner at Smashwords

      Copyright 2017 Fay Risner

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Cover Art 2017

      All Rights Reserved

      by Fay Risner

      Picture of scenic Northeast Iowa Countryside

      Courtesy of Shannon Brimeyer

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to the actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locals are entirely coincidental. Excerpts from this book cannot be used without written permission from the author.

      Booksbyfay Publisher

      Publisher, author, and editor Fay Risner

      fayrisner@netinsnet

      Thanks so much to Shannon for furnishing the beautiful rainbow picture that made the perfect book cover for my story.

      This story is for my cousin Ginger. She would have said this was the kind of story she liked – spooky. Ginger, I so wish you could be here to read the book.

      The concept of psychic energy is easy for most people to imagine. After all, it's just one step beyond intuition - and almost everyone is comfortable with the idea of intuition.

      Jayne Ann Krentz

      Chapter 1

      The large golden orb that dawned was meant to be admired by early risers. So gold, it tinted the small, fluffy, pearl white clouds floating in front of it as if they had been spun together with golden thread.

      After a long winter, this May day was a wondrous one. Warm and bright enough to make a wren belt out a blessed song from his hidden, leafy perch in the mulberry tree beside the road.

      Across the road, the Sibowski stock cows bawled to young calves, scolding them to stay close.

      In front of the Sibowski driveway, delicate pale blue butterflies, too many to count, hovered over a mud puddle in the road's pothole. As a group, they landed and danced on the water, fluttering their wings to keep from sinking.

      Thirteen-year-old Katrina Sibowski, dressed in her white polka dotted, blue flour sack dress, stood barefoot in her front yard along side the road. Her long dark hair waved behind her in the breeze.

      Her dark eyes lit up intently as she stared in front of her. A translucent aura in rainbow-colors to Katrina's amazement suddenly materialized. She hadn't seen anything like it before. The aura's appearance transfixed her to the spot. She wasn't scared. Just apprehensive, but more than that, she was curious. Looking through the hole in the middle of the aura, Katrina studied the scene in the road. She liken the colors to the brilliant hues in a landscape painting.

      Evidently, Jinks, her black cat, couldn't see the aura. He walked through the shimmer as if it wasn't there. What had him fascinated was the butterflies bouncing in and out of the mud puddle. The cat thought he'd found prey good enough to eat. He slowly crept on his belly toward the puddle and crouched close to the blue butterflies hovering over the muddy water.

      Suddenly, the stealthy black cat sprang forward, clawing at the air. He wasn't successful at catching even one, but he scared the butterflies. As one blue cloud, they moved to the opposite end of the pothole, baiting the cat to try again.

      Suddenly, Katrina heard traffic coming. She opened her mouth, but words wouldn't come out. Her whole body was inanimate Yet her brain still worked, and she feared for her cat's safety.

      Jinks wasn't listening for traffic. He had his attention on the butterflies in front of him, wanting to catch some of them.

      The cat was in danger, and Katrina felt helpless to warn him. Why didn't he hear the noisy springboard wagon pulled by a team of draft horses coming at him? Why wasn't she able to shout at her cat to move out of the road?

      Katrina felt as if she was a frozen icicle, watching a catastrophic end to her precious pet's life as the farm wagon approached. She was helpless to stop what was about to happen. It was the most hopeless feeling, and one she hadn't ever experienced before.

      The wagon bore down on the black cat. Katrina recognized the driver, Milo Juska, a medium built, muscular farmer who lived on a neighboring farm. He didn't see her cat because he wasn't watching the road.

      His eyes were on the herd of fine Hereford cattle in her father's pasture across the road. Most likely he was counting the amount of calves racing alongside their mothers to see if his neighbor had a better calving season than he did.

      Desperate to stop the impending calamity, Katrina opened her mouth to yell for her cat to come to her, but she found herself voiceless with each try. She wanted to throw her arms in the air to wave at Milo to slow him down, but she couldn't do that either.

      Plunk! The right front steel rimmed wagon tire hit the cat and rolled over it. The weight of the tire flattened the cat's mid section and was repeated by the back wheel.

      Poor Jinks lay very still. He was the most horrible sight Katrina had ever seen. He looked so deflated. His dark eyes bugged out of his head. His pink tongue lolled outside his mouth, fastened in place by his blood stained, sharp teeth.

      Suddenly, the aura disappeared. So did the horrible scene she witnessed. Katrina opened her eyes wide. She moved her head from side to side. She wasn't outside, but in her dark bedroom in her bed.

      What awakened her was the strange, soft whimpering sounds she had made in her sleep. She sat up, reliving the horrible scene that had happened outside. In her mind, she pictured her dead cat's broken body lying in the muddy road, and she grieved for Jinks.

      But she reasoned, she was in her bedroom. It was the middle of the night. That really confused Katrina. Milo Juska wouldn't be out this time of night. Neither would she. Besides, the scene she saw happened in sunny daylight.

      She must have dreamed the whole thing. A weird nightmare and not a true event even though it seemed so real. Like always Jinks surely was fine, sleeping in the barn or mousing in the hayfield.

      Katrina had played with Jinks yesterday, and she reminded herself Jinks was all right when she went to bed. She knew that for sure, because he peered through the back screen door, meowing to her to come out and pat him.

      Katrina took a deep breath and tried to reassure herself. She'd had a bad dream. That's all it was. Jinks would be fine when she went to hunt him in the morning.

      She laid back down and closed her eyes, wanting to forget the whole nightmare. That wasn't to be. No way could she go back to sleep. For the longest time, her jittery feeling of concern for her cat wouldn't let her rest.

      Soon after daylight the next morning, Katrina's mother, Vencil, a slim, hard working woman with black hair and serious dark eyes, clunked a cast iron skillet and the coffee pot onto the wood cookstove's hot surface.

      The noise was enough to wake Katrina from her troubled dozing. She listened intently for sounds in the room next to her that told her that her brother, Anton, was getting dressed.

      No sounds at all. Anton must still be asleep. Or, maybe he was listening for sounds in her room. He'd hear her feet hit the floor, and he would start to dress.

      Katrina had come up with a new plan to beat Anton. The night before, she laid her stack of clothes at the foot of the bed so she could dress in bed.

      She grinned as she thought about her daily race with her brother down the stairs to the kitchen. A race that landed both of them in trouble with their folks by the time they plopped into their chairs at the table.

      This morning, she didn't have it in her to run a good race or face her parents' disapproval. Being tired drained her energy as if she'd already done a hard

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