GRACE
I always knew I was different. My mother said that while other babies enter the world screaming, I was presented to her with a
smile on my face and a look of calm in my dark, ocean-blue eyes. That was before they turned green and before I knew that I had a
gift. Mom said that when she first held me, I looked up at the ceiling as if I was staring at something that made me unbelievably
happy. Within minutes of being born, my tiny hands reached toward the light in the delivery room as a look of contentment swept
across my face. The peace in my eyes was like nothing that she had ever seen before and because of that, she asked the nurses if I
was healthy.
“Why isn’t she crying?” she shouted at the nurses in a panic as she looked down at me with her own frightened green eyes. The
nurses confirmed that I was fine and that all my physical tests and response times were average, if not above. They told her that
some babies just don’t cry at first.
They assured my mother that, one day, I would find my voice.
CHAPTER ONE
GRACE MCKENNA WAS ONLY THREE YEARS OLD WHEN THE FIRST VISION catapulted her into what her mother assumed was a
really bad tantrum. They had been walking down Main Street in Wentworth, a small Massachusetts town that boasted
the best holiday shopping. It was almost Christmas, and Grace had been mesmerized by the colossal Christmas tree on
display at the center of the bustling ice skating rink.
“Wait right there, Grace. Don’t move,” her mother said, as she turned toward the clerk at one of the stands selling
homemade Christmas ornaments. Her mother kept one eye on her and one eye on the clerk as her hand navigated
through her tattered faux leather fringe purse to retrieve her last five-dollar bill to purchase the glittery ornament.
Money was low as it always had been, but Ellen McKenna did her best with what she had and was determined to make
Christmas special for her daughter. The small, artificial Charlie Brown tree that they had at home had been swiped
from a dumpster after the holidays last year, and Ellen used what few ornaments had been handed down to her. She
couldn’t leave the rest of the tree bare, so she hung silver measuring spoons from the scrawny branches, showing her
daughter that they didn’t need to spend a fortune to add some shine and sparkle to their lives.
“Mama! Look!” Grace yelled, pointing to a little girl who was twirling effortlessly in the center of the skating rink in a
short pale- blue skirt, shimmery tights and a sparkly turtleneck sweater.
“I’ll be right there, sweetie,” Ellen said as she watched the clerk wrap the ice skater figurine ornament, complete with
tissue paper and a sparkly red bow. Grace fell in love with watching the skaters glide across the ice, their ribbons
trailing from their heads like the dolls she thought they were. Her eyes followed the skater in the blue skirt as she used a
toned leg to push off the icy surface and accelerate across the rink and into the arms of a boy who skated with as much
finesse as she did. She positioned herself in front of him, their arms linking as they soared across the ice arm in arm,
creating a dance to the back‐ ground music of Sinatra’s voice bellowing “I’ll be home for Christmas.”
“Do you want to be an ice skater someday?” A man’s voice pulled Grace from the trance. Startled, she dug her hands
deeper into the pockets of her red hand-me-down pea coat. One of the big black buttons on the pocket dangled by a
thread, partly from her habit of twirling them when she was nervous and partly from the wear and tear of a winter coat
worn by several children before her.
As a little girl, Grace was painfully shy. Had her mom been within a few feet, she would’ve darted to her and
maneuvered her way between her legs, using them as a security blanket in which she could wrap herself to get away
from the stranger. Instead, she slowly looked up at the man, the owner of the deep scruffy voice that interrupted her
concentration on the dancing skaters. She parted her lips to speak; the few sentences that she could put together at her
young age mashed together and clogged her thoughts. Her wide-set green eyes, innocent until that moment, widened
and latched onto his as if being pulled into a tunnel. Their eyes locked like two forces of opposite energies, hers pure
and green, and his bloodshot, brown, and filled with corruption.
Maybe her first vision was the worst simply because it was the first, and it transformed the clarity of her innocence into
a murky mess, having wiped her clean of any natural thoughts she had yet to form. Or maybe it really was the worst. It
started with the body of a fair-skinned woman being dragged across muddied earth, the kind that is usually the result of
a rainy spring day. Bursts of the woman’s placid face flashed in and out like a blinking light. Grace was only three years
old, but she was old enough to have the innate ability to know wrong from right; something about these images left a
sick feeling in her stomach. A flash of red hair splayed across the woman’s emaciated face, chunks of crusty mud
cemented into the corners of her mouth and deep into the hollows of her eyes. Dried blood left a line of color down the
woman’s ashen body, starting at the neck and dipping between her breasts, ending at a jutting hipbone. A flash of the
woman’s face, displaying a pair of terrified eyes just seconds before a knife ran the length of her neck, leaving a neat
slice for a pool of blood to spill out and onto her sharp collar bone. The images didn’t come in order, but rather in short
bursts of disarray.
The vision made Grace emit a high-pitched scream.
“Grace!” Ellen looked up from her interaction with the clerk and ran over. The freshly wrapped ornament fell to the
ground, landing on a bed of fake cotton snow that enveloped the outside of the skating rink. Completely unaware of the
man, she ran right past him, nearly jabbing his burly body with an elbow. By the time Ellen reached Grace, the little girl
was lying on the ground flailing her limbs in protest, as if someone was holding her down against her will.
“Grace! Grace, honey, what’s the matter?” Ellen’s voice escalated.
As a crowd started to gather around the scene, the man meandered away, hidden by the puffy winter coats and hats of
the audience.
The visions kept coming, flashes of crime that infiltrated Grace’s mind. The red-haired woman’s naked body being
pulled and dropped into a pool of murky water. Her red hair fanning out above the smooth black pool, making her look
like a mystical mermaid. Her eyes were closed, a look of peace masking a face that had just witnessed her own murder.
And then a flash of her sinking.
“Grace! Please, honey, what happened? Did something happen?”
Ellen looked up at the audience, seeking witnesses who saw the start of her daughter’s breakdown. “I just looked away
for a second!” she shouted, feeling the need to defend herself. “Grace! Baby, what happened?” She cradled Grace’s little
body in her arms, pulling the peacoat closed where it had been torn open from the jerking movements of her daughter’s
arms and legs.
“The man.” Grace pointed a delicate finger toward the crowd, as heads swiveled in search of a mystery man. When no
one came forward as a witness, the crowd opened up and dispersed, going back to their Christmas shopping.
“Maybe you should pay more attention to your child,” a heavyset woman said as she waddled by. Her eyes were so small,
they looked like two raisins pushed into her head.
“Dude, that was weird,” said a teenage boy to his friend. “Maybe she’s like that chick in Poltergeist. She looked possessed.”
“That man is bad, mommy,” Grace said between bouts of shaky sniffles.
“What man, honey? Which man is bad?” Ellen asked, shaking off the comment of another passerby who accused Grace
of seeing ghosts.
“He’s gone. I don’t see him anymore.” Grace craned her neck, looking beyond the elegant skaters who hadn’t missed a
step in their routine. They soared across the ice like figurines in the center of a snow globe, far from the world Grace
had just witnessed.
“Baby, are you sure you saw a man? What did he look like?” Ellen asked, trying her hardest to push out any doubt that
had surfaced. Grace had a tendency to be a creative little girl, often having tea parties with invisible friends, but she’d
never gone to extremes like this, especially in such a public place. She was painfully shy and did anything she could to
divert attention from herself. “Honey, was the man one of your invisible friends?”
“No, mommy. The man is bad. He hurt the girl.” Grace’s voice was still slightly heightened by her adrenaline.
“Honey, let’s go home.” Ellen had reached her limit. Now there was a girl, too. Surely Grace was making this one up. She
turned, remembering the ornament she had dropped, but there was no trace of the shiny red package.
After the incident at the ice skating rink, Ellen put every earned penny toward psychologists, behavioral specialists and
psychics on a mission to find out what her daughter was seeing and if her behavior was normal. Nearly every shrink
said that Grace was lonely and using her imagination to build worlds inside her head. The behavior specialists claimed
that Grace’s “visions” were normal and it just meant that she was searching for more attention. “This behavior is quite
common in single-parent homes,” one specialist told her. The psychics went to the opposite extreme, saying that Grace
had powers from the other side and for ten more dollars they could tell her what her daughter should do next to protect
herself from the visions and evil that were headed her way. Ellen became fed up that no one was taking her seriously;
she was determined to keep at it, believing the girl and standing by her when everyone else thought she was a freak.
While not a religious person, Ellen had a childhood friend who went on to become a priest at a church in Boston. As a
last resort, Ellen brought five-year-old Grace to Father Burke, begging him to see her and give her an explanation. His
response had been the most simple and straightforward: “Grace has been chosen as the recipient of a special gift. She
was created by God to see visions of sinners. There are people of all backgrounds who have used meditation and
hypnotic tools to receive the gift that Grace has naturally been given.” Father Burke said the words calmly, as if he were
talking to a friend about the weather. He was the first person to treat them with respect.
He told Ellen that Grace’s visions were called “pictures,” and that based on his experience, these pictures would contain
one scene and usually appear in a flash without prior notice. “It happens very quick‐ ly,” he said, “and the images will
remain just long enough for Grace to notice them before they vanish.” Ellen nodded. “When God gives you a gift, you
are to use it and share it with the world—to help others. So, my advice to you is to take these visions and piece them
together to bring down the sinners. I know it’s not the easiest thing to do, but I’m sure Grace will find a way.”
Father Burke passed away from a heart attack only two years after their initial meeting. With Grace too young to
understand, Ellen saved his words of advice and gently nudged Grace throughout her life, pushing her daughter to get
involved in the world of law enforcement where she could use her gift to help people. ...
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2025 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
