I turn very solemn. “Are you afraid?” I ask, knowing I would never have the guts to ask something so personal in real life.
He’s quiet for a second and I see the muscles on his face flex. It makes him look younger. “For you? Yes.”
“For yourself?” I press.
“Sometimes,” he says. He turns and runs his fingertips down the side of my face. “But I would risk a lot of danger to see you.” He straightens and opens the door, leaving without a kiss. But his confession feels somehow even more intimate and a small hollow part of me mourns that it wasn’t real.
As the door swings closed behind him, my eyes flutter and open to the sunlight filtering into my bedroom through my half-open blinds and I sigh in sheer content.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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TWENTY-FOUR
Real life smacks me in the face as soon as I leave my bedroom. Sierra’s door is closed but Mom’s working in the office with her small television on. More about Clara. It’s been four days now and the doctors still can’t give a solid answer on whether or not she’ll live to tomorrow, much less the next fifty years.
Her parents have managed to come out of her room and make brief statements and every station just plays the clips over and over. Thanking people for their support, a call to find the monster that did this to their daughter.
Am I that monster, at least partly?
I tried to protect her from as much of her attack as possible, but I know I could have done more.
But then, what would the cost have been? Another kill I wouldn’t have gotten a vision of, like Eddie? And what if I had ignored the vision entirely? Clara would be dead. But I hate that I made that decision for her.
I’m not sure I can survive another day cooped up in this house with the television constantly reminding me of what I’ve done. What good is it to have power over the future when the tragedy is in the past? I wish I could just go back to bed and sleep the day away, but even I can only sleep so much.
I manage to pass the hours by playing my new Harvest Moon game, attempting to reread my favorite book, and taking one short nap. It’s the first time in my life I wish I had homework. I’m considering working ahead in my trig book just to numb my brain.
Finally it’s about time for Linden to arrive and I get nervous, hoping I haven’t ruined things by already living a version of what tonight could have been. I chide myself for being silly—real life is always better than dreams; it’s like books and movies. But even so, I pick different clothes from what I was wearing on the supernatural plane last night.
Just to prove that I can.
The weird sense of déjà vu doesn’t bother me when Linden walks in with the exact food he had last night, and especially not when it’s just as good in real life. My aunt joins us and I make those introductions.
That’s a change too. It was just the three of us in my dream last night. I try not to read any meaning into that, but I can’t help but wonder if she’s watching me.
If somehow she was watching me last night.
I don’t know how that would even be possible. But I’m starting to question every tiny thing.
Sierra sits silently at one end of the table while Linden keeps us all cheerful with new jokes and stories we haven’t all heard multiple times. I’d never before considered that the life of three single people all trapped living together might be a little, well, boring, but after the light and energy that Linden has brought to our table tonight, I wonder what it will take to make the house not feel empty.
As soon as the food is gone, Sierra excuses herself with a murmur and a quick grin, and Mom pleads a backup of work. With a significant glance in my direction, she declares that she will retire to her office instead of joining us for the movie. With zero adult supervision, there’s a chance that tonight’s reality might come close to the excitement of last night’s dream sequence.
Close. Surely I’m not quite as brave as I was last night in my own head.
We go through my DVD collection, debating the merits of this movie or that, but the looks we exchange make me pretty sure neither of us is going to actually watch much of whatever show we pick. We settle on The Princess Bride—nothing like a classic—and proceed to get rather busy not watching the movie.
“I’ve missed you so much,” Linden says, the tip of his nose running along the edge of my earlobe and sending a massive shiver of pleasure down my spine. “You must be going crazy cooped up here all day, every day.”
“Pretty much,” I whisper back as steadily as I can. For probably the hundredth time, I marvel at how odd it is that the best and worst things that have ever happened in my life are happening simultaneously.
But tonight I push everything else aside and just let myself be with Linden. To love the feel of his hands as they explore my body and the whisper of his lips on my skin, in my hair, and of course, on my lips. Despite the supernatural life I live, and the isolation that I know lies in wait for me in the future, this experience is so fresh and new I feel like a little kid.
The movie is almost over and my nerves are thoroughly, though pleasantly, exhausted when a tinny chime peals through the den. Linden pulls out his phone and the screen illuminates his face in the darkness.
“It’s my parents,” Linden says. “Time for Mr. Bodyguard to bring me home.” The alarm bells start to sound very softly in the back of my head as he nestles his lips against my neck. “I’d rather stay here.” His lips find mine, but I can hardly respond as he kisses me. I mean, I knew the scene I was in last night was a possible future, and it’s followed fairly closely tonight. But the word-for-word dialogue is a little disconcerting.
I laugh inwardly at my paranoia. It doesn’t have to be that way. It was just a dream vision, and I don’t have to play my part. So I try not to speak, to hold my mouth shut, but the words tumble out anyway. “I’ll walk you out to the car.”
Wait. No. This isn’t right. I should still have a choice.
“No.” Linden says, just like last night. “The guy will come to the door. I don’t want you exposed to danger for even a second.”
I look up into his face and again, I fight to hold my mouth closed. I don’t need to ask him this. I don’t have to. “Are you afraid?”
What’s wrong with me?
The hesitation—the flexing of his facial muscles. They make me want to cry. “For you? Yes.” Where do these words come from? Are they his and I simply heard them ahead of time last night, or did I make this happen?
“For yourself?”
“Sometimes,” he says. And before his fingers make contact with my face, I’m already familiar with the feeling. “But I would risk a lot of danger to see you.”
I stand in the doorway and watch his guard escort him out to the car. He pauses before he slips into his seat and I know he’s waiting for me to close the front door. He won’t leave until I do.
I made all of those choices last night. I decided which paths to follow. So is it my choice when I step back and close the door, or did I dictate my own future in my dreams last night?
The scenario was different. I wasn’t a third party like I have been all the other times. I was playing myself in the dome. Does that change things?
And the way I got into the scene in the first place—the way it rolled down without me willing it to. Did I do that? Did someone else do that?
And if it was just me, was everything Linden said and did tonight a lie?
I trudge down the hallway, almost forgetting that my mom is still awake. She turns her chair around with a smile. “So?” she asks.
I have to smile for her. I have to make the edges of my mouth go up even though I feel like my world is crumbling to pieces in my hands. “I think I love him,” I say, shocked at myself when the words come out. I wish I could take them back. What the hell will Mom think of that? Even though she’s known about my “crush,” she doesn?
??t really understand the years of pining, of wanting, of knowing I would never have him. Only to get him after all.
And not know if it’s real.
The Christmas party, I tell myself. That was before I’d figured out anything about my second sight. I couldn’t have possibly made that happen.
Mom simply smiles at my declaration and says, “Are you kidding? I’m half in love with him myself.”
I laugh, but inside I want to cry, especially when she takes my hand and squeezes it. “It’s about time you had someone in your life. And lord knows we could all use a little happiness right now.”
That may be true, but some of us deserve it more than others.
I’m turning to leave when my mom adds, “The doctors are saying that Clara’s condition has moved to stable, but that if she doesn’t wake up soon, she probably won’t.”
I back out of her office, slowly and silently, in case she hears me and decides to say something else. I can’t handle any more tonight.
In my bedroom, I pull on stretchy yoga pants and an old, faded T-shirt and climb under my comforter. When I woke up this morning, I didn’t think much about the fact that I had put myself actually into the scene with Linden while on the supernatural plane. Did that make a difference? Did I dictate my own future because I put myself in the scene? Or did I simply live out the one that was going to happen anyway?
But it was so exact! Sure, I was able to wear a different outfit, and Linden did tell us ahead of time that he would be bringing Italian food. And there were other differences. Most notably, Sierra joined us.
But that conversation. Not only was it word for word, I felt like I couldn’t not say the words. It was like a strange compulsion. That was how Smith always described what we do in my visions.
There was an Oracle using her powers on me, somehow.
But was it someone else, or was it just me?
A tiny spark of an idea begins to shine inside my mind. If I can put myself in a dream scenario and make it come true, shouldn’t I be able to put myself in a real vision? One I know is going to happen?
I don’t think I can just create a scenario in my supernatural plane that has me revealing the murderer—even the dome only holds possible futures as of that moment. I don’t think I can invent a future from nothing. But if I get a vision of the next murder and take the victim’s place in it, I can bend the future to my will. Can’t I?
I dig the pendant out from under my bed and loop it around my neck with the stone clutched in my fist. I have to practice putting myself into my dream scenarios tonight. Because if I can put myself into a dream vision, surely I can put myself into a foretelling vision. And that is central to my plan.
A plan that will only work if I can do the two things I think I can—the two things that Smith told me I couldn’t: affect the physical world while in a foretelling, and change the future while dreaming on my supernatural plane.
Which begs the question—did Smith actually not know, or has he been lying the whole time?
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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TWENTY-FIVE
I awake the next morning from a dreamless sleep.
No, this is wrong, I think groggily as I try to shake the cobwebs from my thoughts. I should have gone to my second sight last night; I was wearing the necklace. I needed to practice!
My hands fly to the pendant—maybe it fell off. But no, it’s still there. Around my neck. Why is it wet? I look down and a scream rips out of my throat.
I’m covered with blood. So much blood it’s not a bright, garish red, but a deep maroon. It puddles in my lap, soaking onto my bed and spreading across the sheets. I struggle for air as my hand brushes something cold and my hands curl around the handle of a knife.
The blade is caked with blood that has already dried in crooked rivulets. Flinging the knife from me I tumble off the bed and onto the floor where my right hand makes a perfect red handprint in the beige carpet.
“Charlotte! Are you okay?” I hear my mom’s voice from down the hallway and Sierra’s running footsteps.
I jump to my feet and lunge for the door, hoping to lock it before they can reach me, but my legs are tangled in my bedding and even as I stand, it trips me and I sprawl across the floor, spreading the blood even more. The door flies open, barely missing my head, and Mom and Sierra look down at me with wide eyes.
“I can explain!” I blurt, even though I know I can’t.
They just stare at me. At the room. Until Mom finally asks, “Did you fall off your bed?” with a hint of laughter in her tone.
I’m rigidly still, wide-eyed in confusion, and then I chance a look down at myself.
The blood is gone.
I glance behind me at the bedding strewn all over the floor. Clean. What just happened? I know I saw it. I felt the knife. It wasn’t a dream—it wasn’t a vision. What the hell is going on?
“Yeah, I kinda did,” I finally choke. The emotional roller coaster finally gets the better of me and tears of relief are streaming down my face. A maniacal giggle wants to escape my throat, but I know better than that. “Bad dream,” I settle on.
“Oh, Charlotte,” my mom says softly. “Of course you’re having bad dreams.” She leans down and pulls me to my knees and wraps her arms around me. She holds me for a long time as I try to stop hiccup-crying and pretend I’m upset for the reason she thinks I am.
I glance up and Sierra is still there. I squirm a little under her intense gaze.
“Charlotte?” my mom says in a hesitant voice, and my whole body feels instantly chilled. “I know you’re already upset, but I should tell you before you see it; there’s been another murder. A boy. They said he’s a teen, but his name hasn’t been released. I just . . . I think after a nightmare like this it’s probably best you hear it from me rather than the news. Or even Linden.”
“Linden!” I shriek.
“I took the liberty of calling his mother. It wasn’t him.”
I can’t move. Can’t breathe. “When?” I gasp.
“They think in the middle of the night. No one knows why he was out.”
“How did he die?” The question terrifies me more than anything that has happened to me so far, but I have to ask.
“What do you mean, how?”
“What . . . what did the killer use? What kind of weapon?”
My mom strokes my hair. “Sweetie, I don’t want you to be so upset. Maybe we should just turn off the news for the day and—”
“A knife,” my aunt interrupts.
“Sierra!” my mother scolds.
“She asked the question; she deserves the answer,” my aunt says evenly.
My mom’s silence as well as the firm press of her fingers on my back tells me she doesn’t agree, but it’s too late to take the words back.
I’m numb. A knife. What’s happening? Is this a different kind of vision? Or are my reality and my second sight blending? Maybe I’ve gone too far. Maybe I’ve messed with my abilities so much they’re . . . malfunctioning?
I look back up at my aunt and my mom, the two women who make up most of my world, and feel so very alone. The filtered morning light illuminates them with murky brightness and I realize how early it is.
“I’m okay,” I say. “Honestly, now that I’ve calmed down, I think I’d like to just go back to bed.” I make myself smile, though I know it must look forced at best. “It’s New Year’s Eve tonight. I don’t want to fall asleep before midnight.” I don’t want to fall asleep again ever.
My mom looks at me funny, but nods, and turns her wheelchair down the hallway toward the kitchen. My aunt doesn’t leave. After a glance at my mom—her sister, I often forget; the person she’s been hiding her secrets from her entire life—she says, “A vision?”
I don’t know what to say, so I nod. It was a vision, technically. It just wasn’t the kind of vision she’s referring to.
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“You knew about the knife,” she says, and it’s not a question. “Did the vision overwhelm you?”
“It was a different kind of vision,” I burst out, needing to tell someone. Needing to tell her—the woman who has been my confidante for as long as I can remember. “There was no warning, no blacking out, just—seeing it!” I know she thinks I mean seeing the murder—not myself covered in blood—but I can’t confess more than that.
I’m afraid to.
She stands looking at me with her lips pursed. Then her face softens and she says, “Everything, everything, gets harder in times of crisis.” She lays her hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “You’re not always going to win, but keep fighting.”
“It’s so hard,” I whisper.
“I know—they’ve been battering me too.”
“Really?” I don’t know why I’m surprised; of course Sierra would be getting visions similar to mine. Oracles always get visions about the most relevant happenings of their community. And this is her home too.
But she’s strong enough. Even if I were trying to fight the visions, I’m not. They beat me.
“It’s so important to close your mind, Charlotte. Even though we don’t use it, you second sight is vulnerable and more powerful than you could ever imagine.”
My tears cease at her words and for a second I wonder if she’ll continue.
But she just runs a hand across my forehead, tucking my hair behind my ear. “Be vigilant, Charlotte. Fight.”
Then she leaves and I remain kneeling in the middle of my floor feeling like the world’s biggest failure. I feel the tears build again, and for once, I do exactly what I said I was going to. I push my door shut, grab my bedding from the floor pull it over my head, and slip back into a dreamless sleep.
I stare at Smith’s name glowing on my phone’s screen for a long time while I decide whether or not to answer his call. I don’t like the niggling suspicions I have about him. That he lied to me about what I can and can’t do on the supernatural plane and in my visions. He seems to know so much. How could he not have known what I can do there?