I start reading as fast as I can and I’ve worked my way through less than two pages when I realize I’m being stupid.
There’s a camera on my phone.
Isn’t that how the last Harry Potter book got leaked?
I pull my phone out of my pocket and crouch down to lay the book out flat on the floor. Focus, take the picture, flip the page. Again, again, again. My concentration is laser sharp as I continue to page through the book, cursing under my breath when the camera phone has trouble focusing on the blocks of cramped handwriting.
When the sound of a door opening echoes in from the front entryway I’m so intent I almost forget what it means.
Sierra. Home.
Shit!
With a sharp pang of regret, I slam the book closed and shove it back into its gaping space on the bookshelf. I hear Sierra greeting my mom as I slip out her door and pull it closed behind me as silently as possible. On quiet feet, I sprint down the hallway and duck into my bedroom. I count to five and then poke my head out like I’m casually saying hi.
“I didn’t know you were here,” Sierra says, startling a little when she sees my face.
Or I wouldn’t have left, I finish her thought in my head.
I bite my lip, but my mom’s voice trickles in from her office to save me. “It’s bound to be a rough day,” she says. “I let her stay home.”
“Oh. Oh yes,” Sierra says as though only just now remembering that another teen was murdered less than two miles from this house.
She turns and heads down the hallway to her room and as she turns the doorknob, I stand frozen, gripping the wall to keep my fingers from shaking. I’m waiting for something to happen. Why the hell did I think I could get away with this?
But Sierra’s door closes with a soft click. My mom clatters on in her office. The world keeps turning.
I just can’t breathe.
The next few days pass in a blur and by the time the end of the semester arrives, the worst of the shock has passed. Not that anything’s back to normal. But we’re starting to remember how to function again.
Today’s the last day of school before winter break, but I don’t feel festive. No one does. I’d never have believed that the social walls in the school would crack, but something about one of the Populars and one of the Nerds both being killed within a week of each other has splintered that unbreakable stone. Everyone mourns together and though I’m sure it can’t last, this blending of all the cliques feels like a fitting way to honor them both.
Except for me. I drift through the hallways as much a ghost as Bethany and Matthew might be. No one in the entire school knows what I know—no one else feels the weight of such a blend of emotions. Even in the face of this united grief, I’m alone. Two deaths in the school apparently doesn’t make me any less of a freak.
The one silver lining in this whole catastrophe is that, oddly, Linden’s talking to me more. Not every day, and generally he just asks how I am, but it’s a bright spot in my very dark world and it helps keep me centered.
At this point, the cops aren’t fully convinced the two killings had anything to do with each other. One girl, one boy. One with a knife, one with a gun. One Popular, one Nerd. One white, one black. Although everyone was certain in the beginning that they had to have been killed by the same person, there’s nothing to actually link the two teens except for their ages and the fact that they’re both from our small town. People are starting to hope that it was two bizarre but isolated incidents and that everything will go back to the way it was.
I’m not letting that stop me though. I’ve put a password on my phone—just in case—and each night, after I’ve closed my door, I pore over the pictures I took. I got about forty of them, but after almost two weeks I’ve barely made it through twenty. Not only is the handwriting hard to read, it simply doesn’t make sense. It talks about jumping into a supernatural plane, and there’s a drawing that looks like a domed room. I don’t know what that means, but apparently once you’re there, you can see multiple visions—multiple futures—and maybe even change them?
But there’s nothing about how to do this. Or even if a normal Oracle can. I mean, if I had a power like this, wouldn’t I know something about it? Or this supernatural plane place? I’m starting to wonder if this is one of those legend books that doesn’t actually have any truth in it, but that Sierra bought because it was a cool, old, handwritten text.
I keep reading anyway. I risked so much to get these pictures, and there might be something more helpful in the rest of the pages.
There haven’t been any new messages from the mysterious texter either. I read the two I’ve already received at least ten times a day. I haven’t gone so far as to call, but the number is always there. Just in case.
The parking lot at school is still covered with snow. It starts to melt in the afternoon sunshine, only to freeze again in the bitter cold of the night. So it’s not soft, fun powder anymore, but sharp, unforgiving ice veiled by a thin layer of fluff.
I’m only halfway through the lot when I feel the familiar tingling of a foretelling. After shaking off the terror of what might be coming, I glance around and then crouch beside a big truck and let it come.
Since the vision of Matthew’s death, I haven’t fought a single vision, and I’ve had a good ten or so. It seems pointless—the murder visions I had about Bethany and Matthew bowled me over anyway, and the others are so insignificant that resisting them isn’t worth the effort. And despite that bubbling fear each time I feel one coming on, every vision since the one about Matthew has bordered on boring. Who cares that Mr. Johnson’s car is going to slide off the road on Christmas Eve? He’ll be fine and it’s an old car anyway; he wants a new one. And there’s some lady I don’t know who’s getting ready to serve her husband with divorce papers. What the hell would I do? Find them and tell them to get counseling?
It’s just tiny glimpses into the lives of people in Coldwater—most of whom I don’t know. So I let the foretellings come and then forget about them almost as soon as the vision is over. Although I wouldn’t dare tell Sierra, I’m glad I’ve stopped fighting. It’s all so much easier now.
Easier. Not easy. I’m still doing the same things I’ve always done—throwing myself into my classes and studying my brains out so I’m too tired to think when I lie down to sleep at night. But at least I’m not trying to conserve energy to fight visions on top of that.
The blackness starts to encroach on the edges of my physical sight and I close my eyelids before it even starts. Give up. Let it wash over me and suck me in.
I’m standing in an open field at night and soft, powdery snow is falling lightly. Like lace, not the heavy muffling snow we’ve been getting lately. This is the kind of snow they always have in movies right before the main characters kiss.
I look around and see nothing. Confused, I wait for the vision to pull my feet in the direction they’re supposed to go, but after several seconds, I’m still standing there.
With nothing else to do, I try to take a step on my own but my feet are glued to the ground. Okay, there’s something here I’m supposed to see. Instead of looking forward, I look down and realize the lumpy surface a few feet to my left isn’t, in fact, a snow-covered patch of bumpy ground.
It’s a cream-colored coat.
I suck in a freezing breath and even in my vision the sudden