the line goes dead.
What have I done? But my fingers clench and I push my phone into my pocket. “Something,” I mutter to myself as I duck my freezing and still-damp head and turn in the direction of the mall. “I’m doing something.” Of course, the last something I did might have made things worse. But I shove that thought away. I can’t be afraid.
It only takes me about twenty minutes to walk to the mall, which is plenty of time to feel thoroughly frozen. Coldwater’s mall is more like one hallway of a real mall, with a mini food court stuck onto the end. There are about ten tables spread out around an alcove with several skylights that are quite pretty in the summer, but make everything feel even colder in the winter. I pick a table at the edge farthest from the stores and restaurants. Everyone can see me, but the nearest seat is about ten feet away. It’ll work.
I sit there like I’m just ditching school to meet a college boyfriend. Like I’m sneaking off for some typical teenage mischief, not supernatural lifesaving. At least I hope it’s lifesaving. If this guy can really show me how to stop this, then it’s all worth it.
Because I’m not sure my mind can handle another kid dying. A kid pretty much just like me.
I sit alone for a few minutes before I realize someone’s looking at me. I raise my head to get my first look at the man who thinks he can save our town from this monster.
I’m not sure what I was expecting—not really certain if I was expecting anything at all. But he’s so nondescript my eyes slid right past him the first time I glanced his way and he only caught my attention when I realized he was looking at me. He’s basically average: average height, average build, average age if such a thing exists. Maybe midthirties, I decide as he gets closer. But his hair is prematurely peppered with gray, so at first he looks much older. He’s wearing nice jeans—the kind that are almost as dark as slacks—and a black peacoat that looks like half the coats in Coldwater. He’s neither handsome nor plain, but has a strange kind of in-the-middle face.
I expect him to smile when our eyes meet. For him to try to put me at ease, get me to trust him. But the somber expression stays there as he drops into the seat across the small table from me.
“Hello, Charlotte,” he says, and I instantly recognize the voice from the phone.
“I don’t know your name,” I say. It’s kind of a rude way to greet him, but since he’s ignoring the meaningless niceties of meeting someone for the first time, I follow suit.
“Call me Smith,” he says. “No, it’s not my real name,” he adds before I can scrunch my face up into a look of suspicion, “but you’ll forgive me if I’m not inclined to give true information to an Oracle whose aunt has such close ties to the Sisters of Delphi.”
I pull back, staring at him with shock and fear. It’s one thing to know about Oracles, it’s another to know about my relative and the role she plays in a secret society. A secret society I barely know anything about.
“Don’t do that,” Smith says, holding up a hand. “People will start looking at us. Stay neutral.”
“How do you know about my aunt? And the Sisters?”
“I know a lot of things. And let’s just say your Sisters of Delphi wouldn’t mind at all if I ceased to exist because of it.”
I sit silently, my nerves crackling.
He doesn’t speak again, doesn’t rush to fill the silence, and I realize he’s not going to offer up information. I’ll have to ask. “How did you know about me?”
“I learned the signs of an Oracle a very long time ago, Charlotte.”
It’s disconcerting the way he keeps using my real name when we both know the one he gave me is fake. “How?”
He loosens his scarf—like he’s settling in for a long chat. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. “When I was very young, I lived a few houses down from a girl who was an Oracle. We were best friends and when she started having foretellings, she did what any kid would do: she told her buddy, Smith.” The start of a smile lifts the corners of his mouth for about half a second, but the haunted look in his eyes cancels it out. “Her mom was an Oracle too, and took her in hand as soon as possible, teaching her the same things I imagine you were taught.” He waves his hand toward the table as though there were a pile of items on display. “Fight the visions, don’t ever tell anyone who isn’t an Oracle what you can do, never ever, ever change the future. And she was very dutiful. With one exception.”
“You?” I say after a long pause.
He nods. “I watched her suffer through the same kind of things you probably go through—spacing out in the middle of class, everyone thinking she was a weirdo, feeling like she could never have friends.”
I swallow, empathy filling my chest as I compare that to my own solitary childhood. My solitary life: it’s not like that part ended along with scraped knees and cooties.
“I did what I could,” he says, looking out at the food court again. “Shielded her when she had a spell. Took her to prom when no one else would. Supported her lies when she told people she was epileptic. But her senior year something happened. I suppose the Sisters got to her. Threatened her somehow. She staged a huge fight in the middle of school. I knew it was forced, of course—I knew her better than anyone else in the world—but afterward, she wouldn’t speak to me. Not even on the phone. When I left for college, I sent her letters and they were all returned unopened. For several years, I thought our friendship was just over.”
“Did she come back?” I ask, knowing the end of this story isn’t “happily ever after” and wishing it was anyway. Not for Smith’s sake, necessarily, but for this other Oracle girl. But I know better. We don’t get happy endings.
Smith swallows visibly and shakes his head. “No. But the accidents started.” He runs his fingers through his already tousled salt-and-pepper hair and looks decidedly uncomfortable. “I don’t have any proof, of course, but I think that when I kept trying to get in touch with her, the Sisters decided that if I wasn’t going to go away on my own, they’d make
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