I freeze.
Bethany laughs and touches her friend’s shoulder.
I didn’t think about her face in the vision. Didn’t worry about identifying her.
All I saw was that cut. The blood.
She’s alive.
For now.
But she’s wearing those maroon ballet flats.
“I’m home,” I call as I walk in the front door.
“Office,” Mom hollers back.
I’m almost afraid as I approach the converted bedroom where she does medical coding from home. Does it show on my face how stressed I am? I hope not. I can’t talk to her. Not about this.
She doesn’t know what I do. She can never know.
I peek my head around the doorway and smile, taking in my mom’s shiny brown hair that falls into perfect waves—unlike mine, which is the same color but frizzes no matter how much product I use. She’s slim and has long arms that reach for a file in one direction, a red pencil in the other, all fluid motions that flow almost like a choreographed dance rather than an entry-level job she never expected to work.
She looks perfect, always has. If you didn’t notice her wheelchair, you’d assume she was about to jump up and give me a hug.
But that hasn’t happened since the accident that left her paralyzed.
The one where I traded my aunt’s life for my dad’s.
I suck in a breath and push that thought away, the same way I do twenty times a day. At least. But it’s harder today after having a foretelling I couldn’t fight. About another death. Those are the worst. People like to laud heroes. The ones who rush in, risk their lives to save someone. And I’m not saying they don’t deserve it; they do.
But you know what’s harder? Not doing anything. Standing back and letting bad things happen. Letting people die because they’re supposed to.
I remember asking Sierra once, soon after she moved in, why we didn’t act. “We could be superheroes,” I argued with her. “We should help people. Isn’t that the right thing to do?”
“Look what happened when you tried to save me,” she said so gently I couldn’t be angry.
Just sad.
In the end, it’s not the right thing. Ever. And so I stand back.
Before I gained control—when I saw my visions more often—I foresaw a few deaths. Usually it was something like car accidents, heart attacks, that kind of thing. Things I probably couldn’t stop even if I did try.
But murder? Just a word of warning to Bethany. To be careful. How much could it hurt?
Especially when the other option is to let her die a terrifying death.
“You’ve got your thinking face on, Char,” my mom says, pulling my mind back into her well-organized office.
I make myself smile. “Lots of homework,” I lie. Not that I don’t have a bunch of homework. Just that it isn’t what I was thinking about.
She pauses and glances up at me, her face so soft and caring it makes me want to cry at the thought of all the lies and half-truths I tell her on a daily basis. “You work so hard,” she says quietly.
I bite the tip of my tongue. The last thing I deserve is her sympathy. I don’t take advanced math and science and every AP class the school counselor will let me into because I’m some brainiac who’s all self-motivated and ambitious. I do it because if I tire my mind out enough, I don’t have time to think as hard. About the visions, about my utter lack of social life, about the fact that I ruined my mother’s life and now we’ll grow old together, two lonely spinsters.
Three, if Sierra stays with us.
“Gotta get into Harvard,” I say in the lightest tone I can manage. It’s another lie. I’ll go to Rogers State in Claremore, about twenty miles away, so I can live at home. For a million reasons. Because Mom needs me and I’m responsible for her. Because it’s dangerous for me to drive to Massachusetts, at least semi-irregularly, on the freeway, where I can’t pull over at the first sign of a foretelling.
Because I could never live with roommates.
But Mom doesn’t need to know any of that. Not yet.
“Is Sierra home?” I ask, changing the subject. Even though Mom’s basically self-sufficient now, Sierra’s never left.
And even though I hope it’s not because she thinks she still has to babysit me, she kinda does anyway. I don’t mind. Much. It means she’s there to talk to, and the three of us all get along really well. Like Gilmore Girls plus one.
And a big-ass secret.
Mom often reminds Sierra that, although we love her and she’s welcome to stay as long as she wants, we don’t need her anymore and she can go out and have a “real life.”
But Sierra and I know the truth: Sierra’s an Oracle too, and her “real life” is inside her head. There’s not really a possibility of anything else for Oracles. Getting married? I’m pretty sure a spouse would notice all of the weird things we aren’t allowed to explain. I’ve always hoped that maybe someday Sierra would find that perfect person who she could trust enough to confide in. But even assuming Sierra would be willing to go against the rules, would finding out the truth chase someone off? And if it did, would they keep their mouth shut about it? Not likely.
Or, let’s say they did believe her—it would take a pretty big person not to start prying about their future. Everyone thinks they want to know the future.
Everyone is wrong.
So it just … wouldn’t work.
Similarly, there’s no perfect soul mate in my future either. Only a lifetime of hiding. I didn’t choose this. I wouldn’t choose this. But it’s the hand I was dealt. The hand Sierra was dealt. Some people are short, some people have freckles, some people see the future. It’s all genetics.
“I think so,” Mom says, and I’ve forgotten what it was I asked.
Oh yeah. Sierra.
“But you know how she is; she sneaks in and out and I don’t hear a thing.” Mom grins at me over her shoulder before turning back to her work. “Check her office.”
I pull Mom’s door closed and walk down the hall to the room Mom always refers to as “Sierra’s office”; but it’s really her room/office/work/life. When Dad died, we didn’t have the money to move—especially not with all the
