If I learned anything of value from Jason Smith, it’s that sometimes the only way to prevent a disaster is to act quickly and decisively. Every night I delay is one more night I might have failed to stop a murder. Fortunately, Smith also provided me with a tool that allows me to do just that.
Not that I’ve used it—not to revisit a vision, anyway. Just to let Sierra into my dome. The focus stone isn’t evil, but I know better than to underestimate the damage it can do if I fail to use it properly. I wear it on a chain around my neck, a chain that feels surprisingly hot as I remove it and hold it out in front of me. It dangles from the silver necklace, glinting in the fluorescent lighting. The stone is colorless today, as though asleep.
Time to wake it up. Carefully ensconced in the stall, I cradle the stone in my hands, then balance my arms on my lap, staring into the stone’s cloudy depths. Then I will the darkness at the edges of my vision to veil my physical sight and let my second sight peer into the stone instead.
With almost no effort at all, I’m standing in the foyer of a beautiful house.
My chest is tight and though I breathe deeply, I can’t quite seem to fill my lungs. Even within the vision I have to lean over and brace my arms on my knees for a few seconds to calm down. Despite my head spinning I can dimly sense my physical body, still in the bathroom, balanced rather ungracefully on the toilet, and I tuck that sensation into the back of my mind where I can reach out and remember it—a security blanket of sorts.
“I’m not actually here,” I remind myself. “This hasn’t happened yet. I can change it.”
And then I move.
I expect it to be hard. The first time I entered a vision with Smith it was like I had fifty-pound weights attached to each ankle. Just moving around took Herculean effort.
But he also told me that visiting my dome at night would increase my abilities. Apparently he wasn’t kidding. It takes focus—filtered through the stone, just the way he taught me—but at worst, moving feels a bit like trudging through sand dunes as I stride purposefully up the stairs.
Breathing evenly is at the forefront of my mind as I approach the doorway to the master suite. I know what’s in there this time, which is both a help and a hindrance. I edge around the double doors that sit open, beckoning my entrance. With as much detachment as I can muster, I stare at the carnage, trying to take it all in while remembering the kinds of details Sophie asked about during lunch.
The faces of the two bodies, though slashed with stripes of blood, aren’t mangled; if I knew who they were, I’d be able to identify them. That’s something. If I do manage to find them, I’ll know it.
The pools of blood are the hardest to look at, simply because there’s so much of it. It reminds me of Nicole, or at least my vision of her, hacked to pieces in her parents’ shed. But in that case, there was only one rather petite teenager. This is two full-grown adults, bleeding out through a dozen stab wounds each.
I make myself stare; inure myself to the horror before me. Then, when I’m certain I’m entirely in control, I will time to flow in reverse. Again, it’s almost effortless, and I can’t help but think about the years my aunt spent doing this kind of thing. I was amazed by her ability to mark the passage of time in the dome; how easy it must be for her to manipulate her visions after clocking years upon years in her supernatural plane? The power she has at her fingertips; power she refuses to exercise. It’s incredible.
With a shake to clear my head, I focus on controlling the scene here and now, pushing it further back. Crimson pools shrink and soon blood is pulsing weakly into the bodies, as if they were human sponges, re-absorbing life. I suppress a gag and continue to rewind. We’re getting close to the actual attack. The bodies begin to jerk in sickening twitches and I know I’m seeing the moment of their deaths in reverse.
The entire scene crashes to a halt and I stagger to the side in shock; I feel like someone just shoved me, hard, into a wall. With one hand on a—mercifully blood-free—dressing stool I steady myself and, once I gather my wits, resume pushing the scene backward.
But it crashes again.
What the hell?
I push harder, more like when I first started manipulating visions with Smith. I brace myself, with my legs shoulder-width apart, and use the hand movement that worked so well in the beginning—essentially as training wheels—and try to force the scene backward.
Nothing. It’s like trying to push over a skyscraper with my bare hands. The scene simply won’t rewind for me.
“The hell?” I yell at the vision. And that feels kind of good, but accomplishes no more than my pushing did. I keep trying to move the scene because I don’t know what else to do, but it’s as effective as banging my head against a wall, and results in a similar headache. I only give up when my entire body feels sore.
Still, I’m reluctant to leave. There must be something I can do! I slump down into to the plush carpet and breathe steadily for a few minutes, reclaiming my focus. The moment of calm helps center me. Where am I? That is what I came here to figure out in the first place.
Well, that’s what I told Sophie. My number one priority was to learn the killer’s identity. But second was to figure out the location of the house. I push to my feet and turn away from the scene of carnage. I wish I could say I won’t have to see it again, but I have a feeling that before Sophie and I are done, we’re going to see a lot of blood.
My hand slides along the smooth banister as I make my way downstairs and to the front doors. At the very least I should be able to get an address. I hesitate with my hand on the knob. My instinct is that I can’t affect the physical world from a vision.
Funny how one of Smith’s earliest lies has lodged so deeply into my mind. It was one of the first lessons he taught me … and the first I discovered to be false. A way to manipulate me and prevent me from finding out what he really was, from fulfilling my true potential. My potential to destroy him. So it’s with a definite glow of satisfaction that I turn the brass knob and push the heavy glass door open with no special effort whatsoever.
It’s cold. The temperature still touches me in visions, though it’s not as extreme as actually being outside in Oklahoma. It’s … informational: this scene is hot, this scene is cold. So though goose bumps raise on my arms, and my first breath of outside air is bracing, I’m not shivering when I turn and look at the front of the house, searching for a number.
6486.
Well, that isn’t nearly as helpful as I’d hoped, but it’s a pretty solid start.
I turn and put up one hand to block the sun while scanning the yard in front of me. And it’s way more than a yard. This house is situated on some serious property and I don’t actually see any other houses. Spindly, leafless trees line the edges of a smooth expanse of snow that I assume covers a grassy lawn. The front walk is shoveled, as is a path to the garage, but I don’t see anything else to help me figure out where I am.
The sound of a car zooming by, way faster than a typical residential street, pulls my attention to the left of the house. It’s early morning—the sun barely up over the Eastern hills. Beginning of the morning commute, or as much of a commute as Coldwater can claim.
Even though the most direct path toward the sound of vehicles is across the unmarred blanket of snow, I let my feet carry me down the path to the garage instead. Something about knowing that I can affect the physical world—and contemplating the consequences of mysterious broken snow at a crime scene—makes me, I think understandably, wary. I’ll go the long way.
Turns out the house isn’t actually that far from the road, but the wind break of aspens is super effective. I step off the long driveway and my heart sinks when I realize it’s not a road; it’s the highway. On the one hand, that means I can trudge no more than one mile in either direction, find a mile marker sign, and know exactly where I have to go. On the other hand, it means borrowing my mom’s car to find the house in real life.
Which means lying to my mom. And either being totally we
ird and not letting Sophie come home with me, or hiding her from Sierra.
Being close enough to walk to these people’s house would have been so much more convenient.
But it also would have brought the killer closer. Geographically, anyway.
As I shuffle along the gray snow banks at the side of the highway I think about how changed Coldwater is after last year’s murders. There’s a wariness in people’s eyes that wasn’t there before. The kids from school tend to hang out in clumps; it’s rare to see anyone high-school-aged walking around town by themselves anymore. Kind of like I am at this moment. Even now it feels weird, even though it’s not real. Maybe it’s better that this murder will be slightly out of town.
Which prompts an entirely new round of self-lecturing. It’s not going to happen! The whole point of all of this is to prevent the murder. But deep in my heart I don’t expect everything to happen as planned. After all, nothing has ever happened as planned when I tried to change my visions. In fact, I have a pretty sucky record.
But I have Sophie this time, I remind myself. She knows what she’s doing—it’ll be different.
Assuming she’s not the killer.
Which I do assume.
Just … some confirmation would be nice, that’s all.
It’s getting harder to walk now and I don’t think it’s because the vision doesn’t want me to figure out where the murder is. I think it’s very simply because I’m getting too far from the murder scene. The original location of the vision. The sensation of walking in deep sand is back and within a few steps it’s joined by the feeling of climbing a steep hill.
A little farther, I think, cheering myself on as I struggle to get five more steps so I can see over that little rise up there.
Four, three, two, one.
I can’t move another inch, but I can see the small green sign! 146. I’m not sure if that’s coming or going, but a little driving around will solve that easily. The most important part is that I know I can find the house again.
There’s no reason to trek all the way back to the house; I pull myself out of the vision.
I’m sitting on the toilet again, slumped against the wall of the bathroom stall, but I feel fine. A quick glance at my phone tells me that the whole thing took fifteen minutes—I’d have guessed half an hour at least. One of these days I’ll figure out how to judge the differences in time, but evidently, today is not that day
Chapter Nine
“It’s complicated,” I explain when I meet up with Sophie before the last class of the day and tell her that she can’t come home with me. That I can’t let anyone see us together. It feels sadly like hiding a romantic relationship. “It’s just that my mom doesn’t know about … about me.”
The silent O of Sophie’s lips fills me with a blend of guilt and sorrow. The sadness I’m used to. I hate that my mom doesn’t know. Can’t ever know. I’ve always hated that.
But now, in addition, I feel awful that a girl I just met does.
I mean, with Sierra it was totally different. Sierra had to know, and because we’re family she’s spent her whole life lying to the same I people I’ve been lying to. A sort of mutually assured deception; we shared the crime and the guilt, and it was clearly inescapable. But this? I feel like I’m betraying my mom, sharing my secret with a near-stranger; a secret I can’t share with the person I love most in the whole world.
“And—” But I snap my mouth closed. I was going to tell her that my aunt follows the rules. But even saying that much means revealing to Sophie that my aunt is an Oracle. And that’s not fair; it’s not my secret to spill. But at least I can get away with not outright lying about her to Sophie—at least for today. I just won’t say anything at all. “And it’s just easier if we both go home separately and I come pick you up,” I finish lamely, to cover up the fact that I was going to say something else.
“I get it,” Sophie says. And even though I can tell she does, I want to make sure she really understands.
“I’d like to have you over another time,” I blurt, pulling out my exceptionally rusty social skills. “Just not when we’re in the middle of a … project,” I finish, my eyes darting around as people walk by us. Like I said—rusty. Like one of those abandoned cars that’s more rust than metal. Yep.
A ghost of a smile touches Sophie’s lips and she switches her backpack from one shoulder to the other before nodding and saying, “Yeah, sure.”
It occurs to me that despite blending in way better than I do, maybe Sophie’s been equally lonely. If her life essentially revolves around her abilities as a Sorceress, what kind of social life can she really have had? Maybe we have more in common than I originally thought—a list that has grown surprisingly long in the last four hours.
An unfamiliar glow encompasses me as I pull out my phone and ask for her number and address.
Sophie stiffens. “Um, now that I think about it, maybe you coming to my house isn’t such a good idea either.”
“How come? I thought your mom knew all about this.”
She looks down to where her toe is drawing invisible circles on the linoleum. “She does, but I really, really messed myself up last month. The whole reason we’re here in Coldwater is to keep me away from temptation so I can recoup. Mom had to quit a job she really liked and everything. She knows it’ll take a couple of months to get me back up to full strength. Both physically and, you know, the other way. And that’s if I do nothing. If she finds out I’m doing stuff even after all that she’ll be pissed. Not that I am doing anything,” she says, sounding more like she’s reminding herself than me. “I’m—” She hesitates, then grins. “I’m a consultant.”
I smile back and it feels so weird to be joking about our powers. It’s always been such a serious subject with Sierra. But it’s nice to find humor in it. Freeing, really.
Sophie sobers quickly. “After everything my mom’s done, it wouldn’t be fair to worry her, that’s all I’m saying.”
“Fair enough.” Even though the bell for last hour rings, we steal a few more seconds to figure out a place to meet on the rather short list of landmarks that Sophie’s familiar with after her brief residency here. We part with a wave and jog in opposite directions toward our respective classes.
It’s funny. I feel happy. Productive. Needed, even. As I step through the doorway to my class and make an apologetic expression at the teacher, I try to remember the last time I felt this good.
Even though I’m only about a minute late, it’s just late enough that my arrival creates a disturbance and several heads turn to look at me.
One of them is Linden’s.
Oh yeah. I remember.
***
Not quite two hours later I pull up to the corner of a park on the far west end of town.
“Right on time,” Sophie says with a grin and a puff of vapor before sliding into the car. “And just FYI, my house is down that street over there.” She points to a tree-lined road just in sight of the park. “We’re 658, in case you should ever need to—I don’t know—contact my mom?”
“Actually, it’s probably a good idea for me to know,” I say, trying to ignore the pit that’s been growing in my stomach since seeing Linden’s face this afternoon. “All sorts of things can go wrong.”
Like stabbing the guy you love in the stomach. I want to cry at that memory. I’ve been so good at shoving them into the dustiest corners of my mind, but today everything is rising to the surface.
We take a few minutes to enter one another’s info into our cell phones. As I hit Save, Sophie adds, “And you can text me any time.”
That glow again, and I manage a little smile. Focus on the positive. “I will,” I promise, possibly with more gravity than the moment called for. But it feels so good to have someone I can tell almost everything to.
Especially since I’ll never be able to tell Linden the truth. Even if I wanted to.
“What are those?” Sophie asks as I pull away from the curb.
“Wha
t?”
“Those things on the steering wheel.”
“Oh, the hand controls?” I’m so used to them being there I’m hardly even aware of them anymore. For me the strange feeling would be driving in a car without them, even though I don’t actually use them. “My mom’s a paraplegic.”
I can tell her that much without my throat feeling like it’s going to close in. Because I’ve told hundreds of people that fact throughout my life. Thousands. Because it’s just that—a fact. One I can scarcely remember having been otherwise.
But my heart speeds up because I know I’m going to have to tell Sophie more. Maybe not today, but it’s so much of who I am as an Oracle, and why I live life the way I do. Eventually I’m going to have to tell her. Not because I owe her an explanation or anything, but because it seems like I should. Like I ought to tell Sophie everything I can. Especially since, despite everything, there are still secrets I can’t tell her.
“Always?” Sophie asks, her tone casual; the way people ask about stuff they know you might not be comfortable talking about. It’s a tone that gives you a way out.
I shake my head, not accepting the easy path, even though she was generous enough to offer it. “Car accident. When I was six.” One that I caused. Or was responsible for, anyway. Manipulated. Screwed up.
“Do you guys live with your dads? Oracles, I mean, not you specifically.”
Hello random. The look of confusion on my face apparently speaks better than the words I don’t say.
“Oh,” Sophie says, and looks embarrassed. “I guess you do.”
“You don’t?”
“Sorceresses are very … female. I know that sounds stupid. I mean, all Sorceresses are female, but like, we don’t really let guys into our lives. Not on a permanent basis, I mean,” she clarifies, then breaks into a grin I can only describe as saucy. “We like guys, don’t get me wrong. We just don’t traditionally keep them around. So, like, I know my father’s name, and I guess I could find him if I ever really wanted to, but he’s not a part of my life. Never has been. Doubt he knows I exist.”