Sleep of Death

  But now that I’m alone, I let my thoughts go to the one place they’ve wanted to go all night.

  No—“wanted” is the wrong word. I don’t want to see it again. Although, I have to admit, part of me has hardened to the sight of death in my visions. Seeing so many murders will do that to a person. Not that I’d say I’m used to it—just that I don’t melt into a sobbing mess anymore.

  Is that a good thing? It feels dehumanizing. But then, I am something beyond human. So maybe it’s fitting.

  Shaking my head against the dismal thoughts, I close my eyes, focus, and soon I feel a sludgy darkness surround me. It’s similar to what I felt when I tried to picture Jason Smith months ago—though I didn’t know it was him at the time. Similar, but not identical. Darkness, yes. Desperation, yes. But not the aura of unnatural evil that accompanied Jason Smith. I shiver, remembering that icy, oily blackness. I guess it’s better that I’m not dealing with someone—something—as insidious as him. But a murderer nonetheless. Don’t forget that, I remind myself.

  I open my eyes and the blood is everywhere. Pools of it. Twice as much as usual, I realize ruefully, because there are two victims. Obvious and horrifying at the same time. I stare at the numberless potential futures around me. In some, the woman awakens as the man is being stabbed and tries to fight the killer off.

  Succeeds.

  If it’s in my dome, it’s possible. I squelch the surge of hope inside me and focus.

  There’s another; this time the woman is first and the man continues to sleep, unharmed.

  Also possible.

  Each time I consider a different possibility, I see it. In one possible future, the victims sleep peacefully—safely—through the night. I focus on that one and the dome rolls, bringing it toward me. When it draws near I step into it, trying to figure out a way to make this future real. To cancel out the vision entirely. I remind myself that my dome—unlike Jason Smith’s—shows only possible futures. This future can happen.

  But how do I make it happen? Exploring the future in my dome doesn’t yield any long-term consequences, but twice before, I’ve stepped into my own role—played the part of myself in a possible future and … then that future is the one that came to be.

  Maybe it’s the illusion of control, but it’s a damn powerful illusion if that’s the case. Like when I saw my date with Linden in January, the night before it actually occurred, and then it happened that way, word-for-word. Creepy, almost. Or would have been if there weren’t so much kissing involved.

  Did I do that, or did Smith? I hate that everything having to do with him is possibly contaminated. And even taking Jason Smith into consideration, every time I’ve possibly used the dome to change something, it’s involved me stepping into my own role.

  I’m not in this future. I don’t think I can even nudge things around in the dome.

  I grit my teeth, wondering if I can only control my own future from here—if controlling others’ destinies here on my supernatural plane is more power than an Oracle is allowed to have. I know that I can do more when I revisit the visions with the focus stone—that I can influence other people’s choices. Maybe that’s what the visions are—a way of seeing the things I’ve been given the power to change, provided I have the stone. That actually rather makes sense to me. At the very least, it would be a reason for having visions that’s much more satisfying than simply knowing. I mean, what’s the point of seeing the future at all, if not to change it?

  I sigh; so much of this is guesswork. So far there’s only the one book I found last year—Fixing the Fractured Future—about the supernatural plane itself, and it’s not very specific. The supernatural plane seems to be the taboo of taboos. The kind of thing no Oracle dared to write down. Or maybe those books were burned in the witch hunts and zealotry of the Dark Ages. I know Sierra knows more, but even though she’ll answer my question, she won’t offer up information unbidden. She won’t teach me; it’s simply too much for her to rationalize with her prickly conscience. I have to figure out exactly what to ask on my own.

  Whatever. The peaceful scene I’m standing in isn’t actually going to help me discover anything, so I return to the mirrored floor and stare at an array of possible futures, willing the scenes back to when both victims are very much alive. I watch a hundred nearly-identical couples get into bed and though there are some differences—sometimes the man goes to bed first, sometimes the woman, sometimes a bit earlier and sometimes a bit later—within an hour or so the result is the same. They’re asleep.

  I feel a ripple through the dome that indicates that soon I will not be asleep anymore, and I wish I could speed up my scenarios in the dome the way I can when I revisit visions. That, and I wish I understood how time works here at all. It baffles me that Sierra can keep track of real-world time when the hours here feel so slipstream to me. The only thing I’ve managed to figure out is the ripple that precedes me waking. A two-minute warning of sorts, and not very useful at all.

  There’s movement to my right—a blurry figure enters the scene. But it’s not obscured, or shadowed, or moving fast. It’s just … blurred. Like that witness protection thing they do on TV, where they fuzz the person’s face. Except the entire figure is like that. I can’t even tell how tall the person is, much less get a decent look at their facial features.

  The figure has entered many of the other scenes now, and in some has already begun his work. But in every single one, the murderer is a blur. Impossible to make out. Even when I step into one of the scenes and walk right up close, the fuzziness doesn’t go away.

  I don’t understand.

  The ripple makes my dome shudder again as I reach an arm out, wondering if I can touch the blurred figure. My eyes open, sunshine streams through my window, and my work is done for the night.

  Chapter Five

  By Monday morning I feel like I’ve spent the whole weekend beating my head against a brick wall. The double murder still seems to be in the future, but I have no way of knowing exactly when it will happen. I was afraid something might still be broken in my dome, but I couldn’t find anything to fix. I worried that something supernatural—like a Sorceress—might be blocking my ability to identify the killer, sort of like how Smith always hid his face. But the chapter on Sorceresses that Sierra bookmarked for me didn’t mention any powers like that.

  When I finally worked up the nerve to ask her about blurry figures in visions, I was afraid she’d ask me if I was trying to change the future. But instead she just said that some futures are less certain than others, and some people have no idea what they’re going to do until they do it. Which raised a lot more questions in my mind, but not the kind I could expect Sierra to answer without firing back some pointed questions of her own.

  So waking up Monday was frustrating anyway, but even worse when I splashed my face with cold water and remembered Sophie. Not that I’d forgotten her—hard as it is to suspect the girl of a double homicide, the timing of her appearance reminds me too much of Smith for comfort—but I honestly hadn’t given any thought at all to our inevitable next meeting.

  Today.

  After waving goodbye to my mom, I plunge out into the bitter Oklahoma morning, the sun shining weakly just over the horizon, glinting off a thin sheet of ice crystalized over every surface. It’s supposed to be spring in less than a month, but this winter seems determined to dig its icy fingers in and hold on forever. As a community I think we’re doing okay, moving forward from what was arguably the biggest tragedy this town has ever experienced. But there’s something renewing about spring, and warmth, and sunshine; if only Mother Nature would cooperate.

  As I walk across the school parking lot I’m still trying to figure out how to face Sophie. At minimum, I need a game plan for mostly avoiding the Sorceress who has suddenly moved into my small town. Art is obviously going to be the worst because it’s our one class together. Even if I manage today, I can’t arrive late and leave early every day. At some point we’re going to come face to fa
ce.

  But hopefully later rather than sooner. Even though Sophie seems nice enough, I’m not ready to talk with her, and not just because she might be a part-time assassin. I feel like I need to know more about Sorceresses in general before I can handle one right in front of me, and Sierra’s book hasn’t been proven overly helpful. A fact I doubt was an accident.

  “It’s just not something we concern ourselves with,” Sierra told me when I asked her for more information straight out. “My job is to pass on the knowledge of the Oracles, and be a reference to the Sisters. Not to young undecideds, and not about Sorceresses.”

  So all I really know for sure is that Sorceresses can jump back time but have a finite amount of supernatural energy to do so.

  It’s not a lot to go on.

  In the halls after second hour I catch sight of Sophie emerging from a classroom and turning in my direction, so I dive out of sight around a corner and slam into something warm and solid.

  “Sorry,” I mutter, but that’s all I can get out before I’m silenced by Linden’s gaze, and six separate emotions pull me in eight directions at once. I feel my knees buckle.

  “Charlotte.” His hands are on my shoulders, holding me up.

  Holding me out, away from him.

  I may be reading too much into that. But how could he not be repulsed by me? I remind him of an awful time in his life. Of the girl he was falling for; the girl who died. Of being manipulated by a murderer in ways he can scarcely begin to understand.

  Never mind the secrets that he doesn’t know.

  I close my eyes, willing my nose to stop burning, and the tears to stop threatening at the thought of the secrets that will always keep Linden and me apart. After wanting him for so long. After having him, ever so briefly—even if under false pretenses.

  It didn’t feel fake, when I had him in my arms.

  I open my eyes and focus on his shoulder, when all I really want is to drink in the sight of his face. But if I start, I won’t be able to stop.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, sorry,” I mumble, still refusing to look at him. Until this moment I’ve been able to return his soft smiles—forced myself to, really, to keep him from worrying—but they were always from across room, or down the hall. Standing so close to him, feeling the heat of his body and the faint stirring of his breath, smelling the mint of his favorite gum. I just can’t. I clench my fists to keep my hands from rising. To do what? To touch his face? To brush my own lips, remembering the feel of his kiss?

  Maybe just cover my eyes, to hide.

  “Charlotte?”

  My name in his soft, deep voice is like a knife through my heart. But I can’t ignore him; I have to do it. Raising my chin and meeting his eyes is like bench-pressing a mountain. I cringe at the thought of what I must look like to him, but now that I’m staring, I can’t look away. He’s as beautiful as he ever was, with his perfect blond hair and slim-not-skinny frame, always so perfectly accentuated by his designer clothes.

  Of course, I guess that’s basically the point of designer clothes. But still.

  His eyelashes are thick, but just the tips are blond, like his hair. I love to see the light shining off those blond tips that fringe his pale blue eyes.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asks after I’ve stared at him, wordlessly, for long enough to really make it awkward.

  “I’m okay,” I say, though my teeth try to clamp down on the lie. I’m awful. Even more miserable than usual. “You?”

  “I’m …” He pauses, as though considering, then lifts one corner of his mouth and says, “I’m good. Better than I thought I would be at this point, actually.”

  I nod spasmodically. “Good.” And as though that weren’t an idiotic enough thing to say, I keep nodding. “Good, that’s really … good.”

  “What have you been up to?” he asks, releasing my shoulders at last and running his fingers through his hair.

  I swallow hard and put us both out of our misery. “Linden, it’s okay. You don’t have to keep watching out for me. I’m fine.”

  “I haven’t been—well, I mean I kind of have—but it’s not because—”

  “I really am doing good, Linden. Thanks for checking up on me.” I carry on through the shakiness in my voice. “You don’t need to anymore.” My face, my eyes, my voice, I know they’re all screaming that it’s not true, but I have to say the words.

  “I know.” And now he sounds frustrated and I’m not sure why. Didn’t I just let him off the hook? Other kids are streaming past us now and when his eyes dart around at them, I wonder if he’s embarrassed to be seen talking to me.

  Probably.

  “I have to get to class,” I say, ducking my head again.

  “Charlotte, I—” His hand on my arm. It burns and chills all at the same time and I want to lean in and jerk away, so instead I simply freeze.

  “It’s okay, Linden. I’m okay.” I force a smile and, even though he doesn’t look appeased, I spin and head toward art class before the burning in my chest can turn into tears.

  I thought it would be easier. I guess because I’ve always known I did the best thing possible for him by cutting off our relationship. After all, it wasn’t a real relationship. Not actually. Not for him, anyway. After the truth came out, Linden needed space and time and I gave that to him. It wasn’t a true break up; it was more like returning things to normal.

  Unfortunately, my heart knows what it’s missing now. It knows what it’s like to hold on to Linden while we speed along on his snowmobile. What it’s like to kiss him with my leg burning against his hip. To have his weight press down on me as his fingertips grip at the bare skin along my ribs. I can’t ever un-remember that.

  In a lot of ways it was better when I was hopelessly in love with him and knew nothing would ever happen. Now? Everything is awkward and strange because of all the things that did happen.

  But they weren’t real.

  It wasn’t him.

  And it shouldn’t have been me.

  Of all the things Jason Smith did to me, this might be the worst. Not only because of Linden himself, but because as an Oracle, I can never have a real relationship anyway. I used to just know and accept that.

  Smith gave me a taste of love, then took it away. Forever.

  In the art room I melt onto my stool and pull out the project I was working on last Friday. It’s always like this, after any kind of contact with Linden. It drains me of my energy and self-discipline, and it’s all I can do to hold myself together for the rest of the day.

  And that was the most we’ve spoken since things … ended. My chest hurts so badly I’m finding it hard to breathe. I thought I was making progress, but in two minutes of stilted conversation everything I thought I’d accomplished has been completely swept away.

  Chapter Six

  “Listen.”

  The word hits my ears about the same time as two elbows come down on either side of my paper and when I jerk my head up her face is literally three inches from my nose. I almost fall backward off my stool.

  I had chilled considerably while I listened to Mr. Fredrickson’s lecture, but all of the calming is undone in one word.

  Sophie doesn’t seem to notice and her hand flutters expressively as she continues talking, the buzz of chatter around us drowning out her words to anyone farther away than me. “I know after the other day you probably think I’m some kind of supernat roadie who’s, like, I don’t know, hanging on to you because you’re all special and powerful and all of that, but actually, I think you’re the one who’s lonely and, I have to be honest, a little pathetic.”

  I just stare at her in silent horror because I can’t even begin to imagine how the hell I’m supposed to answer that explosion of words.

  “No really,” Sophie says, glancing up at Mr. Fredrickson, who is pacing up and down the aisles. “I’ve been watching you all morning. You float through this school like you don’t actually touch the ground.” She holds both hands ou
t in front of her. “Not in a lofty, stuck-up way; actually, I don’t think you’re like that at all and I’m pleasantly surprised, you being a … well, you know. It’s just that you’re so apart from everyone else. Like you’re in your own personal parallel dimension. You could be invisible and no one would notice. People aren’t naturally like that.”

  I disagree.

  “They make themselves like that.”

  Okay, maybe I can’t disagree as much now. “What do you want from me?” I ask, and I’m not sure how Sophie catches my words when I can barely hear them myself.

  “I want to stop feeling bad for you every time I see you. I know that sounds harsh, but seriously, I hate seeing you and knowing that I could have been like you if I didn’t have other supernat friends to keep me from feeling alone.” She tosses her dark curls over one shoulder and says in a tone so light it can’t possibly be genuine, “Call it selfish, I guess. I don’t like seeing what I could have been.”

  “I was just fine before you got here,” I growl.

  “Sure you were. You look like it. And any day now your friends will all get back from vacay and your boyfriend will get over his issues.”

  What does she think she knows?

  As if hearing my thoughts, Sophie continues, “I think we have seriously different definitions of the word fine.”

  Mr. Fredrickson stands behind Sophie and clears his throat. “Are we talking about art, girls?”

  Sophie turns back toward her seat. “Think about it, okay? No man is an island and all that.”

  When the bell rings, Sophie leaves the room before I even have time to gather my stuff. Ball’s in my court I guess.

  I dig out my sack lunch and head for the cafeteria, wondering what exactly Sophie is after. She doesn’t seem like the kind of person I’d naturally choose for a friend and I honestly don’t get the impression that she’s terribly impressed with me either. Is the simple fact that we both have secret identities and supernatural powers supposed to be foundation enough for a friendship?