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Page 294
she put the candle on the ground and pulled the shawl more closely about her. She refused to acknowledge the wetness in her eyes; crying would solve no problems.
She looked up againand then, through the blur of her tears, it happened, just as it had before.
At first she was not certain whether her tears caused the shifting of the stars. But then the humming of a jetshe had a name for it nowsounded in her ears as its lights blinked overhead: not lanterns held by a soaring bird, as she had once, in her naivete, believed.
Immediately Abby wished she had not brought this vision on herself. Pain racked hernot her body, but her very soul. Mike's loneliness that she had shared before was nothing compared with this terrible isolation that resembled, but was not, her own. She heard his deep voice, hollow with grief, ringing as though from inside her own head. "Abby, why did you leave? I believe in you now, damn it."
He paused as though waiting for an answer. She tried carefully to make her thoughts coherent as she explained that she'd had to return, that it would not be forever, just until she was able to rejoin him.
But as always, her powers were fallible. Despite her ability to sense his thoughts, not just his emotions, he must not have understood hers. This time, when he spoke again inside her mind, his anguish seemed overshadowed by excitement. "I feel you. Abby, where are you?"

 
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