Then she caught sight of the bite she had taken out of the burger. The beef patty oozed pinkish juice. She looked at the bright red sprinkled across the fries, and the food in her mouth transformed into a rock as her ravenous hunger fled as abruptly as it had appeared. She fought to swallow, gagged and gulped more Coke to shift the clump down her throat.
The early evening news caught her attention and she looked up. The bar area was noisier than she thought it would be, and the TV’s volume was turned low. The channel was set on a news show that was more sensational than she preferred, so she didn’t think she was missing much.
She glanced up a couple of times as she struggled to eat a few more bites. She was unable to hear the news anchor’s voice-over, so she had no warning. From one glance to the next, the scene changed. When she looked up, she found herself staring at a broadcast being filmed live from her neighborhood in St. Joe.
They were filming her house.
It was on fire. Flames poured out of the windows.
The HDTV swam in her vision. She coughed food.
“Hey,” said the bartender. He moved back toward her. “Are you all right?”
She waved her hand toward the television and wheezed, “Turn it up. That’s my house.”
“What?” He glanced up. “You’re shitting me. Hold on.”
He searched for the remote while Mary stared at the scene of trucks, firefighters and flames that shot out of every window of her ivory tower. The bartender found the remote and punched the volume up in time to catch the end of the news segment.
“. . . A neighbor called it in just after three o’clock this afternoon. No one knows yet if the owner was inside. Officials say that they should have the fire out before dark. It might be well into tomorrow before what’s left of the home is cool enough to inspect. There’ll be more live coverage tonight. . . .”
Mary’s pulse pounded so hard she could hear it in her ears. She put a hand to her mouth, to her forehead. The bartender, his young handsome face concerned, leaned toward her. His lips moved around those sharp white teeth. He seemed to be asking if she was all right.
“No, I’m not all right,” she said. She gave him an incredulous look and flung out one hand in the direction of the television. “That’s my house.”
“There wasn’t anybody at home, was there?” he asked.
“What?” She looked from him to her plate full of greasy food. Back to him again. Already in knots, her stomach lurched. The film clip had shown the blaze roaring out of every window and door. Even if the firefighters were able to put the fire out right after the broadcast, her work, the quilts, the paintings, her clothes, the few mementoes she had from her childhood, everything would be gone. “No. No, nobody was home, I live there alone. No pets. Just me in my house. And all of my things. Everything. Everything I own.”
Mary and the young man stared at each other. The thick sticky film of shock began to evaporate, leaving raw incredulity behind.
This was a bad joke, she thought. Right? This was the beginning of an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, like the one where the chick sits in a bar and finds out she’s being hunted by a psychotic maniac, only he’s not a psycho but a cyborg who sounded like he had a speech impediment, and he can’t say her name right.
Right?
“I’m getting you a drink. On the house,” said the bartender. He winced. “Shit. No pun intended . . . you just look like you could use a bit of brandy or something. I’ll be right back. My God.” He patted the air between them with both hands as if it might fix something, or mean anything, and he rushed away.
Mary watched him go. She knew what she was doing—she was having a Sarah Connor moment. Only this wasn’t quite like an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. It was a cross between an Arnold movie and The Sixth Sense. She was having a Sarah Connor moment, and she saw dead people. Mother Mary or Mother Teresa, or whoever the hell she had seen in her vision, told her she couldn’t go home and she was in danger. Then she found her house burning on Live at Five.
Just because you’re paranoid . . .
Several feet away, the bartender poured coffee into a cup and tilted some brandy into it. He waved another waiter over and spoke to him. They both looked at her.
Her ricocheting thoughts continued. In the Arnold movie, the cyborg went to Sarah Connor’s apartment.
She knew she was mentally babbling, but it was an urgent babble because there was someplace she was supposed to get to, she could feel it, some appalled realization bubbling up out of the toxic sludge of her shock. She didn’t want to deal with it but she had to.
Because in the movie Arnold the cyborg went to Sarah Connor’s apartment.
Sarah wasn’t there but her roommate and her roommate’s boyfriend were. They died a horrible death.
And a neighbor called in the fire just after three o’clock.
Justin had said that he would come to pick her up around two thirty. She hadn’t been home, but he wouldn’t have left right away.
He was such a stubborn mule. He would have waited to see if she was late getting back from running errands. He would have stayed and stewed, paced and bitten his nails, and then he would have used his copy of her house key to let himself in.
Only when he was quite sure they couldn’t make the appointment would he have given up and called Tony’s office to apologize and say they were going to be late. Or maybe he would have said they were not coming at all that day and would have to reschedule.
But he would have been there.
She hadn’t brought her cell phone, because she hadn’t wanted to pick up a call from work. She lunged off her chair and grabbed her purse. The bartender hurried over to her with the brandy-laced coffee. She said, “Your pay phones.”
He told her, pointing. She raced to the phone mounted on the wall near the restrooms and dug in her purse for coins. She didn’t have enough for the long-distance call. She raced back to the bar and slapped down a ten-dollar bill. “Quarters.”
“Right.” He opened the cash drawer and handed her a roll. She raced back to the phone and fed it quarters until it let her place her call.
“Pick up and be mad at me, you dumb jerk,” she muttered as she dialed his cell phone number. “Come on.”
His phone didn’t ring. Instead she heard his voice mail message right away, which meant that his phone was turned off. Maybe it was recharging.
Or burned? Was his cell phone destroyed?
She hissed and slammed the receiver back on the hook. She made a gigantic effort to think with some rationality. Somehow she had to shake off the feeling that some trickster god had turned into a graffiti artist and had tagged her with the message LIGHTNING STRIKE HERE, spray-painted on her forehead.
Who would want to harm her, or burn down her house, or possibly hurt Justin if he was inside? Nobody, that’s who. She could think of a few people who probably disliked her in some mild way, but nobody who would burn down her house. That was insane.
Kind of like seeing a vision at the Notre Dame Grotto that told her she was in danger and she couldn’t go home.
Yeah, that kind of insane.
She tried to think of anything that could explain the day’s events in a reasonable manner and slammed into a mental wall. She knew she hadn’t started the fire by accident. When she had been a teen, she had burned her arm on a clothes iron that her aunt had forgotten to unplug. As a result she double-checked everything to make sure she had turned off machines after she used them. When she was overstressed, sometimes she triple-checked appliances and the oven, which was actually another thing she should put on her fix-it list.
Who was it that had said when you have exhausted all possible explanations, you should next try the impossible?
She couldn’t remember, although she was pretty sure it hadn’t been Van Gogh.
She walke
d back to the bar and slipped into her chair. The bartender—Danny, she saw on his name tag—came over as soon as he saw she had returned. “A brandied coffee,” he said as he pushed the mug toward her. “Did you make your calls all right?”
She shook her head, wrapping her fingers around the mug. “I couldn’t get through. Thank you.”
“The manager is going to stop by to see how you’re doing,” Danny said.
“That’s kind.” She tried a sip of the coffee and grimaced. The nasty-tasting liquid slithered down her throat to confront her already queasy stomach.
He handed her a sugar packet and a spoon. “Hey. Your house burned down. It’s the least we can do. Can you finish any of your food?” She looked at the plate of cold greasy food and shook her head. “And you wanted it so much too. Want me to put it in a carryout container for you?” She shook her head harder. “Okay. You know, you look a little glazed. Why don’t you just drink your coffee and take your time? Don’t worry, I didn’t put that much brandy in the coffee, but still—don’t go anywhere until you feel steady enough to drive, okay?”
“Sure. I should call the authorities and tell them I’m alive.” And tell them about Justin? Tell them what? That she had a vision, and thought of the film The Terminator and now she was worried about her ex-husband? She crossed her arms on the bar, put her head on them and groaned.
Someone farther down the bar called out. Danny turned toward him. “Hold on, I’ll be right with you!” He looked back at her. “Look, it’s just my opinion, but you know the authorities are still going to be available in twenty or thirty minutes. Take your time and let yourself deal with the shock.”
She said, “Makes sense. Thank you, Donny.”
“Uh, it’s Danny.”
“Right. Sorry.” Those damn teeth.
“And you’re welcome. Let me know if you need anything else.”
Mary sipped at her brandied coffee until she felt the caffeine and sugar add a fresh spike to her bloodstream. She was borrowing energy against an inevitable crash, but there wasn’t any other alternative. Her day had just become thirty times longer after watching Live at Five.
The restaurant manager came over, profuse with brisk concern and platitudes, but Mary didn’t warm to the other woman. She could tell the manager was acting out of professional obligation and would rather be doing other things. Mary killed two birds with one stone and got rid of her by asking if the other woman would call the St. Joe police to tell them she was alive, if somewhat in shock, and she would be in touch with them soon.
Danny came and refilled her coffee. She thanked him, elbows on the bar, head in her hands.
Okay, she thought. She had to get at least a temporary grip.
What did she know?
She knew she was an intelligent woman. Her experiences were interacting with the outside world. Okay, so the incident with the dancing sticks and twigs from early this morning was pretty iffy, but her house really was on fire. She didn’t know what it meant, but things were not just happening inside her head.
Psychic phenomena have been the stuff of myth and legend for millennia. She knew that for the last hundred years people had claimed to have experienced visions and have their prayers answered in the Grotto.
That was why she had gone there today. Even though she was not very religious, she had wanted to throw out a prayer. You know, just in case God did exist and would like to lend her a hand.
She wanted some answers. She couldn’t very well complain when she started to get some, could she?
Maybe she lived in Gretchen’s world after all.
The scientist in her tried to kick that thought out of her head. She frowned and held on to it.
Maybe . . . maybe all those years of med school were why she had started to doubt her own sanity in the first place. Maybe she was quite sane (there’s a thought), and she just hadn’t yet found the right explanation for everything that was happening. The doctor in her wanted clinical proof and scientific explanations, and maybe she wasn’t going to get any.
For the last several years she had been trying to play by someone else’s rules, and she felt more sick and unsure of herself than she had ever felt in her life.
“My dreams are real,” she whispered.
In spite of the fact that she was worried about Justin and had lost everything she had in the world, a corner of her mouth lifted.
Where did she go from here? She should talk to Gretchen again. She needed to ask more questions, about the woman she saw in her vision and how weird she felt afterward, and what the hell was going on with her vision.
Maybe the Lady didn’t say what Mary thought she had said.
Maybe Mary was in danger if she had tried to go home?
Maybe she would have been in danger if she had been home? The house might have caught fire from some bad electrical wiring, or even from vandalism.
In any case there was no reason for her to create a grand pattern out of everything. And Justin was fine. It was broad daylight. He would have been awake and alert, not asleep and in danger of smoke inhalation. He was pissed and he went back to work, so he turned his cell phone off. As for her, she needed to take things one step at a time and chill. Of course her vision had wonked out. She was chronically sleep-deprived.
She would need a week off to sort out her life. No other way around it. Maybe she would need two weeks. She had to deal with the insurance company and find a place to stay, buy clothes and essentials like toiletries. While she was dealing with all of that, she would get a script for Ambien, get some real sleep and reboot.
She started to feel almost cheerful, which was actually not too bad for someone whose life was in complete upheaval and who had lost everything she owned, aside from her car and what money she had in the bank. She waved Danny over. “I’m ready to leave now. Can you give me my check?”
“Forget it,” he said. “You’re good.”
“But I ordered a lot,” she said.
“You ate, what, three bites of your meal?”
“I had the salad, and the Coke and the coffee. . . .”
He leaned toward her. “I cleared it with the manager. Like I said, you’re good. She also told me to tell you that she called the police for you too. They’re waiting to hear from you. Go do what you need to do.”
“Thank you.” She picked up her purse and slipped off the barstool.
As she pushed outside, she passed a group of people going in. She paused to take in a deep breath of fresh air, grateful to be away from the hot, noisy interior. As nice as the staff had been, she didn’t think she’d ever eat at another Friday’s again.
The sun was setting. The sky was lavender and gold, the edges near the horizon deepening to purple. She looked around with care. The Van Gogh effect was still present, but it wasn’t as pronounced as it had been earlier in the afternoon. She lifted her face to a slight cool breeze.
It curled around her neck and kept circling, a jerky agitation of air.
She stopped breathing. She started to raise a hand to her neck and froze, not daring to move. Something was swirling around her upper torso but there was no weight or solidity to it. It felt as though she was wrapped in a puff of wind.
Then she heard a voice inside her head. Danger.
Seriously. Inside her head.
“Yes?” she whispered on a bare thread of sound. Her whole body tingled. “I know. I—Is it okay if I breathe?”
But then she had to. Stunned and feeling ridiculous, she clapped a hand over her mouth as she drew in air through her nose, as if that might help her to avoid breathing in whatever it was that swirled around her.
Must stay with you, keep you safe.
Gretchen had said that she had sensed someone was with Mary. Could this be BabyMama Two? She asked, “Who are you and how long have you been there? We
re you in the car with me earlier?”
DANGER!
“Yes, I saw the news,” she whispered. Could this creature or spirit understand television, or care? “I know my house is burning.”
A couple approached the restaurant. Mary caught a sidelong glance from the woman as they passed. She started to walk again toward the parking lot.
The air grew more agitated. Not there. Here and now!
How can that be?
She rounded the corner of the building to the parking lot.
Two men approached. They were fit and tanned, in their thirties or forties. One wore a light jacket and jeans. The other wore khaki pants and a sport coat. Both were smiling. Preoccupied, she gave them the barest glance.
Something odd and subtle caught her attention. She lifted her head with a frown.
RUN! the presence screamed.
She jerked to a halt, caught between trying to make sense of what her small voice said, and—what was so odd about those men?
Purposeful and bland, they strode forward.
Toward her, not the restaurant doors. She took a step back, then another.
Then she figured out what was so different about them. Her eyes widened.
The edges of the men’s bodies weren’t glowing with that strange Van Gogh effect, as was virtually everything else. Instead they were surrounded by a dull smudge of darkness. Wrongness snapped at her with invisible fangs.
One of them called out with a smile. “Dr. Byrne?”
He reached inside his jacket.
Alarm jolted through her. She whirled to lunge back around the corner. She heard footsteps running after her. They didn’t say anything further. That frightened her more. It frightened her badly.
She barreled into a family of four as they stepped outside the restaurant doors, a father and mother, a boy around eleven and an older woman. All were varying shades of blond. Mary’s knees weakened with relief even as both she and the older woman staggered. The man grabbed their arms to keep them from falling. The wife yanked her son out of the way.
“Careful,” the man said. “Are you two all right?”