To the survivors of Newtown

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Ten Years Earlier

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Acknowledgments

Also by Aprilynne Pike

Copyright

About the Publisher

I sit on the itchy couch and stare at Mommy’s eyes, wishing for them to open. Everyone tells me she’s going to wake up, but it’s been two days. Aunt Sierra promised and the doctor said so.

But Daddy’s not coming back. Ever.

In my vision, it was Sierra who died. I was just trying to stop that.

But things didn’t happen like I thought.

Sierra’s alive. And Daddy’s not.

A lady came in to talk to her. They’ve been outside in the hall for a long time. I look at Mommy and then slide down from the couch and sneak to the door. They’re quiet, but if I put my ear right where the door isn’t quite closed, I can hear them.

“It was supposed to be me,” my aunt says in an angry whisper, and my stomach starts to hurt. I didn’t want her to know. Now she’ll figure out I changed things.

“You?”

“Yes, it was supposed to be me and I did nothing. Give me some credit.”

“Then who?” the other lady asks.

I cross my fingers, but Sierra still tells on me. “It must have been Charlotte. It would’ve terrified her.”

“You know how severe of an infraction this is,” the lady says, and I don’t know what infraction means, but her voice doesn’t sound like it’s something good.

“She’s six!”

“She broke the rules,” the woman says. “You’re one of us, Sierra. And hopefully someday that girl will be as well. But only if you get her under control.”

“I’ve been working with her since she was three!” Sierra argues.

“Then you’re going to have to work harder, aren’t you?”

Sierra says something but it’s so quiet I can’t understand her. Then I hear the loud click of high heels. The lady’s going away. Sierra’s coming back.

I run across the slippery floor and jump onto the couch again just as Sierra pushes the door open and pokes her head in. “Hey, sweetheart,” she says. “Are you hungry?”

I’m not, but when I said no all day yesterday, Sierra got mad. So I nod.

“Let’s go get a snack,” she says, holding her hand out to me.

But she doesn’t take me to the cafeteria. She stops at a vending machine and buys a package of M&M’s and we go to a dim, quiet room with a big cross at the front. It looks like a church, but it seems weird to have a church in the hospital. I guess everyone else thinks it’s weird too, because the room is empty.

Maybe that’s why Sierra brought me here.

“Charlotte,” Sierra says, “you had a vision about this, didn’t you?”

My bottom lip quivers, and tears overflow when I nod.

“And you tried to stop it.”

I nod again, even though the way she said it wasn’t really a question. It’s bad to see the visions at all. Sierra’s been teaching me how to fight them off since I was three.

But it’s hard.

And sometimes it hurts. This one hurt a lot.

“I tried to save you,” I whisper, but I can barely get the words out through my tears. My chin drops to my chest and I feel her pull me onto her lap, where the curled ends of her pretty, blondish-red hair tickle my face.

“I’m going to come live with you,” she says, and I’m so surprised my tears stop with a loud sniff. “Your mom will need a lot of help, and … I’m going to keep an eye on you for a while,” she says, and it sounds like a bad thing.

She lifts my face and rubs my wet cheeks with her thumbs. “Your mom is going to wake up,” she says, her voice very serious. “And when she does, you cannot tell her what happened. You can’t tell her anything.”

“But you said—”

“I know. I hoped that someday we could. But this accident has changed things. We can’t ever tell her now.”

“Why not?” I ask.

“Because … because she might be angry. With both of us,” Sierra says after a long silence, and my chest hurts at the thought of Mommy being mad at me.

“Charlotte, I’m afraid the time has come for you to act much more grown up than you are. It’s going to be difficult, but you have to work very, very hard at following the rules from now on. Do you understand?”

I nod, even though I really don’t.

Sierra glances at the door that leads into the little church place. “Tell me the rules,” she says.

“You know the rules,” I say, rubbing my eyes with my fists.

“Tell me again,” she says, and her voice is very soft and gentle now.

I stare at her, not sure why I have to do this here, but I start to recite anyway. “Never reveal that you are an Oracle to anyone except another Oracle.”

“Good. Two?”

“Fight your visions with all your strength. Never surrender. Never give up. Don’t close your eyes.”

“Three?”

“Never, under any circumstances, change the future.” Sierra nods and a single tear shines on her cheek.

Then I understand.

I did this. Daddy is dead because I didn’t follow the rules. I bury my face in my aunt’s shirt and start to sob.

What I wouldn’t give to live somewhere without snow. Not that there’s any snow actually sticking on the ground yet. Just dead grass and bitterly cold winds. Ugly cold.

Until I open the front door to the high school and am blasted with a mixture of heat, moisture, and noise. The hall is swarming with bodies and music and cell phones chirping, but I put my head down and wander through it like a winding maze.

The space in front of my locker is crowded with people and for a moment I indulge the fantasy that they’re waiting to talk to me. But I know better. Robert Jones is one of the most popular guys in school and his locker is on my right—thus the majority of the crowd.

On my left is Michelle.

We used to be friends. Now we have this wary sort of acquaintanceship. Michelle glances in my direction and even though I see her catch sight of me—that slight widening of her eyes—she gestures to the two girls with her and they walk off together toward the cafeteria.

Whatever.

I bodily shove some big guy talking to Robert out of my way so I can get into my locker.

Unfortunately as I touch the scratched metal surface, I feel a tickling at the edge of my brain.

A vision.

Fan-freaking-tabulous. Just what I need before school even starts.

Now it’s a race to get my locker open so I can crouch down and lean against it and look like I’m doing something. Something else.

I spin to the last number and yank up on the locker handle. It doesn’t budge.

Damn it! I start to try the combo again, but it’s too late. I’m going to have to sit on the floor. My legs bend, almost too easily, and I drop hard to my knees. I lean my forehead against the cool metal and breathe slowly, trying not to draw attention to myself.

The visions themselves aren’t that big a deal; they’re usually over in less than a minute. But I hate getting them in public because in those seconds I’m blind to the world. If no one speaks to me I’m fine—no one notices, the vision eventually dissipates, the world starts turning again, and life continues.

But if anyone tries to get my attention it’s a little hard to miss the fact that I’m completely unresponsive. After that, I suffer mockery for days. Or I used to. It’s a little better now that I’m in high school. People already know I’m a freak and just ignore me. The trade-off is, of course, that everybody knows I’m a freak.

Can’t think about that now. I suck in air slowly, like I’m breathing through a straw, and stare straight ahead. I visualize grabbing a black curtain and pulling it over my inner eye—my “third eye,” as Sierra always calls it—to block out the vision. Mental visuals seem to help.

I’ll be affected by the foretelling no matter what, but if I black out my mind, fill it with darkness, then I won’t see it.

And if I can’t see, I won’t be tempted to do anything about it.

As an added bonus, when I fight it, the vision generally passes more quickly. Which, when I’m at school, is the number one goal.

Sierra spent years trying different methods to help me block out my visions: a big, black paintbrush; turning off an imaginary switch; even covering my third eye with imaginary hands. The black curtain works best for me.

But no one can see what I’m doing on the inside; they only see the outside. And on the outside I’m some girl, kneeling on the dirty floor, my head against my locker, completely still with my eyes wide open.

I can’t close them. Closing your eyes is a gesture of surrender.

I cling to the words I used to resent:

Never surrender.

Never give up.

Don’t close your eyes.

I say them over and over, focusing on the words instead of the force of the vision fighting to get into my head.

An incoming vision feels like a huge hand squeezing your skull, trying to dig its fingers into your brain. You have to push back as hard as you can—with every ounce of concentration you have—or it’ll find a soft spot and get in. The pressure grows to a fever pitch, and then, just as it gets truly painful, it starts to fade. That’s when you know you’ve won.

Today, as usual, I win. It’s so normal, it doesn’t even feel triumphant. As the sensation ebbs away, my body belongs to me again. My lungs cry for air and even though I want to gulp it in, I do the breathing-from-a-straw thing so I don’t hyperventilate. Made that mistake once in fourth grade and passed out. Not my finest moment.

A few more seconds and I’ll be able to see again. Hear again. The noise filters in like turning the volume up on a radio and, as soon as I have the strength, I straighten my spine and let my eyes dart carefully from side to side to see if anyone noticed.

No one’s paying attention. I reach for my backpack and my hand covers a shoe instead. I look up to find Linden Christiansen towering above my head and holding my backpack.

Mortification and delight fight to drown me.

He reaches out a hand and I wish it meant anything other than that he’s a nice guy helping a girl up. But as soon as I’m on my feet, he drops his arm. “Migraine coming on?” he asks, handing over my backpack.

The lie that rules my life. “Yeah,” I mumble.

He’s looking at me and I let myself meet his gaze—and thus risk turning into a babbling moron at the sight of his light blue eyes that remind me of a still pond. “I t-took some new meds this morning,” I stammer, “but I guess they haven’t quite kicked in yet.”

“Do you want to call your mom?” he asks, his forehead wrinkling with concern. “Go home?”

I force a smile and a shaky laugh. “No, I’ll be okay. I just need to get to class and sit down. They’ll start working soon.”

“Are you sure? You want me to carry your backpack or anything?”

I’m tempted to let him. Anything to buy a few more minutes. But the vision has passed—I’m completely fine now. And my ego rebels against faking weakness for a guy.

Even Linden. Who I’ve liked since before my age reached two digits.

It’ll never happen. Even if by some miracle he were interested, there’re those stupid social lines that are practically stone walls separating us. I’m in the Artsy-Semi-Nerd pen. Linden is in the Super-Popular-Don’t-Even-Try-It pen. Despite the fact that he’s so nice. And talks to me sometimes. In choir class mostly. When he’s bored. He doesn’t actually sing very well, he just needs an arts credit.

But he wouldn’t ask me out or anything.

And what would I do if he did? I can’t date anyone. What would I tell the guy when he asks why I’m always so tense and jumpy? That I’m always on guard for unwanted foretellings of the future? Yeah, that’ll break the ice.

How about why I don’t want to go to a movie? Ever. Somehow telling someone I don’t like dim places because—like closing your eyes—they make the visions harder to fight, feels even more embarrassing than the lie that I’m afraid of the dark. Which is what I had to tell friends who used to spend the night—only once, of course, before they realized how weird I was—when they asked why I sleep with my bedside lamp on.

Not night-light. Lamp.

“You’re positive?” Linden asks, and I nod, hating that I want to cry inside. He throws me a grin—a real one, a nice one—and says, “I’ll see you in choir then.”

I wave lamely and watch him walk away. I wish I could just be normal.

But I’m not. I’m Charlotte Westing and I’m an Oracle. The kind you’ve read about who once imparted wisdom and advised great kings and queens and assisted brave knights on their quests. But those Oracles existed a long time ago. When they could actually reveal their foretellings and use them to make lives better.

The world is different now. And our role is different. Oracles once worked with the leaders of civilization to mold, shape, and change the future for the good of mankind. But corruption led to several disasters like the fall of the Roman Empire and the Mongol invasion of China, so the Oracles withdrew their power. From then to present-day, the Oracles have followed an ancient vow to allow the future to unfold as it will. Now, Oracles believe it’s best that no one sees the future. So that no one’s tempted to change it.

So that no one dies because an Oracle doesn’t have the strength to resist that temptation.

A hollow sadness fills my chest and I force it away. The past is gone. No one, anywhere, can do anything about what has already happened.

But the present? That’s what I have to deal with. The visions are part of my life—have been since my first at age three. As soon as I was capable, my aunt Sierra started teaching me how to resist them.

A child should never be burdened with knowledge of the future, she told me, and I tried to believe her even though at the time I was excited that I could “do magic.”

I know better now.

I’m more than ready to be finished with the day when I head into my final class—trigonometry. We’re going over a review test and I’m having trouble paying attention. My external senses feel oddly muffled, the subtle feeling that generally precedes a foretelling.

But I just had one this morning; twice a day is pretty unusual. And this foretelling is being weird. I never like weird. Weird is unpredictable. Usually, once I get the feeling, the vision follows within minutes, max. This time, the sensation has lasted almost half an hour and still nothing.

Class is nearly over when the blackness starts to descend around the corners of my eyes and it’s almost a relief to lay my forehead on my arms so I can get it over with.

Even though all my muscles are tensed and ready, it’s more forceful than usual and I try not to shudder as a painful weight settles on my body.

It feels different this time. It’s a vise that envelops my entire head. Squeezing, squeezing. A moan builds up in my throat and I push it away.

An Oracle never loses control. My aunt’s voice echoes through my head, but her words blow away as a storm thrashes within my brain like a physical thing, battering against my skull until I honestly fear the bones are about to shatter. What is this?! Distantly I feel my fingers grip the edges of my desk and I hold statue-still, scrolling through every tactic my aunt taught me and new ones I’ve come up with on my own throughout the years.

But this vision is too strong. It tosses aside my defenses as though they are tissue paper trying to hold back a stampede.

Within seconds, the formless presence of the foretelling pulses around me. I can still kind of hear Mrs. Patterson answering a question about the radius of convergence, but her voice is getting further and further away as I struggle against a pull that feels like a river, carrying me away in a whirling current. Inside my mind, shadows are emerging. Then I’m spinning, falling.

No, no, no! I shout in my head, trying to grip my desk harder, breathe even shallower.

None of my tricks are working.

I’ve never had a vision this strong. Even when I was younger and didn’t know how to control them, they didn’t overwhelm me quite this way. Some tiny part of me knows that I’m in school, sitting in a classroom surrounded by other sixteen-year-olds, but in the midst of the vision, those facts seem as fantastical as stories of princesses and dragons.

Then, with a brilliant flash of light, the falling sensation stops and my stomach feels like it flips upside down.

My feet are on solid ground.

I’m at the school football field.

It’s dark.

Cold.

Goose bumps rise on my arms, and the air is clammy and damp like I’m standing in a thick fog. The vision pulls me forward, forcing me to walk, bending me to its will as though it were a living thing.

I fight every step even though I know it’s too late. Still I fight. Because I’m supposed to. Because Sierra would expect it.

Because I owe it to my mom and dad to at least try.

I see her feet first.

Clearly a her—small feet clad in maroon ballet flats with little bows over the toes. I focus on those bows. I don’t want to see the rest.

But even where I look is out of my control and my gaze moves up her body. Legs, torso, shoulders. Face. In my mind, I gag and I hope my physical self doesn’t too.

Her eyes are open, sightless and a vivid blue. The splatter of blood across her cheeks is so fine it almost looks like glitter. But deep-red liquid pools under her neck, still dripping from her unmoving body. The puddle spreads as I watch, and the slice across her neck gapes in a grotesque display that makes my whole body rebel.

Get away!

I want to run—need to run—but the vision isn’t finished with me yet. I focus on the rest of her body, taking in the smaller injuries I missed the first time around. Her shirt is torn across her midriff and a long, bloody scratch decorates the skin there. A knife? Fingernails? I can’t tell. Her ankle is twisted at an unnatural angle and her hand is covered in blood starting at the fingertips. Her own? Her attacker’s? There’s no way to be sure.

Charlotte.

The voice is almost singsongy.

Chaaaaarlotte.

“Charlotte!”

I jerk my head up and air rushes into my nose. With a dull shower of sparks, my physical sight fades back in.

“Yes, Mrs. Patterson,” I say as soon as my throat stops convulsing long enough to let me speak. Croak.

“Number twenty-three,” she says, her hand on her hips, her voice heavy with annoyance.

How many times did she call me?

I make my neck tilt down; my eyes have trouble focusing as the numbers swim on my paper.

“One hundred sixty-seven point six eight,” I say, finally locating my answer. I look up and meet her eyes, hoping she’ll just move on. I don’t even care if I got it right. She stares at me for a moment. A beat. Too long? Too short? I don’t know.

“Jake? Twenty-four.”

Thank you.

My breathing returns to normal but my fingers are still clutched around the edge of my desk, pressing so hard they’re white all the way up to the second knuckle. I force them to relax, one at a time, but when I pull my arms back and tuck my hands into my lap, they ache from the tension.

A sheen of perspiration prickles on my forehead and catches the breeze from the heater, making me shiver. More sweat is trickling down my spine, gathering under my arms. I feel gross and worn out and all I want to do is go home and take a nap.

And some ibuprofen.

And something that will make me forget.

Even before I was better at blocking foretellings, the things I saw didn’t always happen—the future is fluid and the glimpses Sierra and I get are simply that: glimpses of how the future is currently set to play out.

But my record is pretty solid. Because unless you do something to change the future—which I would never do again—it’s probably going to flow down the foretold path.

My heart speeds as I try to recall every detail. But it almost hurts to remember. The stark image of the thick, syrupy blood still pouring from the slash across her neck makes my stomach churn. It may not technically have been a real body, but unless something changes, it will be.

The bell rings—shrill and piercing—loud enough to distract me for the tiny second I need. I pull my mind away and take a deep breath, pushing back some of the nausea.

I have to get out of here, I think as I shove my books and papers into my backpack. Get out of this classroom and I’ll be okay. I can go home. Take a nap. Forget about all of this.

I yank the zipper closed and spin toward the door in the back of the classroom, hoping I can walk some semblance of a straight line.

Then 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 medical bills—but Mom couldn’t handle sleeping in the master bedroom anymore, so she gave it to Sierra. It’s a big room with a small sitting area and private bathroom and … well, Sierra doesn’t leave it very often.

At least not when I’m home.

Her desk is set up in the sitting area and about half the time I bring dinner in to her so she doesn’t have to stop working. The walls are covered with shelves full of books about history and mythology and other Oracle stuff that she is constantly pulling out to use as references. When I was twelve, I asked what she would do if Mom came in and really took a look at her books but Sierra shrugged and said, “I’d tell her it’s research.”

Then I asked what she would do if I started coming in and borrowing books. She said she’d start locking the door.

Two days later when she caught me with Oracles of Rome, she started doing just that.

She always knows more than she’s willing to tell me. She says too much knowledge makes what we can do excessively tempting and that she only trusts herself because of years of resisting as she researches. I’m not even sure what that means. I guess we might be tempted to change the future, but she talks like there’s more.

And I desperately want to know what that more is.

I don’t think it’s fair. I can’t really believe any other sources; they’re legends at best. But Sierra’s library is the real deal. Ancient books and manuscripts that don’t exist anywhere else in the whole world. I keep trying to sneak glances at them, but Sierra’s not stupid—she notices. That’s why she does most of her errands when I’m at school.

And if I am home, the door is always locked when she leaves.

I try not to resent it. After all, she’s devoted so much of her life to me. She taught me everything she knows about fighting foretellings, and she’s always patient. I’ve actually never seen her lose her tempter.

But all those books … She says she’ll let me read more when I’m a member of the Sisters of Delphi. Like her.

Sierra is an author of several texts about Greek mythology and the unseen world. That’s what she does to pay the bills. And while her books are probably really great—I can barely understand the few paragraphs I’ve read, but she wins awards all the time—it’s just camouflage for her real job: the historian of the Sisters of Delphi.

The Sisters is an ancient organization of Oracles that basically monitors all of the Oracles in the world. All twenty or so of us. Sierra won’t tell me much about them. Which seems weird to me since there are so few of us. Shouldn’t we all share our information? But Sierra says that when I’m eighteen and it’s time to join them, I’ll be ready to know more.

Always the promise of more. But not now. Drives me crazy.

I knock softly on Sierra’s door. She must be home; her door is not only unlocked, but open an inch or two.

“Come in.”

Sierra’s work space is bright and inviting. The curtains are pulled back, letting in the sunshine, and there are two tall, standing lights flanking each side of her desk, which are on as well. The surface of her desk is a jumble of stacks of papers and books and about six coffee mugs, but there’s no dust, and certainly no darkness.

Darkness is our enemy.

Sierra doesn’t even look up until I’ve been standing beside her chair for what feels like a very long time. “Charlotte,” she finally says, pushing wisps of hair away from her face with a smile. Her hair is a shiny brown—just like mine and mom’s. At least it is now.

I remember when it was strawberry blonde, when she curled the edges and it danced around her face. Now she dyes it. I don’t know why anyone would opt for brown over that gorgeous strawberry. But when I asked her about it a few years ago, she looked so sad I’ve never asked again.

That was back when she always looked pretty and dressed up. Not anymore. No makeup, no fancy hairstyles. A single ponytail, a braid down her back, sometimes a bun. I glitz myself up more than Sierra does, and that’s saying something.

She’s staring at me, eyebrows raised, waiting for me to speak, and my mind vacillates. Confess or keep quiet? I honestly don’t know what the best thing to do is. I’d like advice, but I feel like a kid again, confessing that I wasn’t able to block a vision. Despite the fact that Sierra and I are close, she’s still my mentor, and she expects a lot of me.

“When was the last time you saw a vision?” I finally blurt out.

That gets her full attention. She slides her reading glasses up onto her forehead and pushes her office chair back. “The last time I fought a vision or the last time a vision won?” she asks softly.

“Both,” I say after a moment of hesitation.

She waves her fingers in the air almost dismissively. “I fought one this morning. It was small. No big deal.” She removes her glasses now and sticks the end of one earpiece in her mouth, her teeth worrying the plastic with audible clicks. “The last time a vision beat me was ten years ago,” she whispers as though confessing to a crime.

“Ten years?” I echo in the same hallowed whisper. And I thought I was doing well going on almost six months.

“It gets easier,” Sierra says, reaching out for my hand. “You’ll grow stronger.”

I nod, though my throat feels tight and I can’t actually speak.

“Hard one today?” Sierra asks, and her thumb makes circles on my hand.

I look at her and I know she can see the answer in my eyes. I always come in to see her on tough, draining days when blocking a foretelling takes everything out of me. Some days we don’t even talk; I simply sit and share the same space with the only person in my life who understands the struggle I face every day.

She hesitates and I’m afraid she’s going to ask if I won my fight or not. I don’t know how I’ll answer her. “Your teens are the hardest time,” she finally says, her thumb still stroking the back of my hand. “Life is so full of things to pull your attention away from your defenses, your body is still changing, hormones are raging.”

Oh yes, please talk about puberty right now, I think, forcing myself not to roll my eyes. I do pull my hand back though, and cross my arms over my chest.

At least she didn’t ask. She usually assumes I won. Because I almost always do. Maybe she trusts that I would tell her if I didn’t. And she should be able to. More guilt.

But ten years? I really am crappy at this.

“Things will calm down once you finish college and can withdraw from the world more,” Sierra says calmly, evenly. Like she didn’t just sentence me to a life of seclusion.

“Sierra,” I say after several long seconds of silence. “Would it really be so bad if we just let them come?” Her eyes narrow slightly, but I continue. “Not all the time, just, like when I’m alone in my room at home.” I don’t remember a lot from when I didn’t fight, but the foretellings I did get were mostly little things. Things I didn’t care about. “If I don’t do anything about it, of course,” I add when Sierra’s lips tighten.

She leans forward, looking up at me with dark brown eyes that look so much like Mom’s. “I know you think you can do that, Charlotte, but believe me, the temptation will become too great. You’ll want to change things. And that’s not a bad thing; it’s because you’re a good person and you have a desire to help people.” She furrows her brows and then she’s not meeting my gaze anymore. “You don’t know how bad the visions can get. Not even you.”

Not even me? Not even the girl who got her father killed trying to save her aunt? How much more devastating than that could it possibly get?

But then, maybe seeing a murdered teenager is worse. It makes me wonder what Sierra has seen that puts that haunted look in her eyes.

I want to ask more, but I’m not sure how I can without revealing what I saw today. And I just don’t want to. Don’t want to admit how much I suck.

I stand there silently for so long that after a few minutes, Sierra squeezes my hand, turns back to her computer, and resumes working.

I wander over to the shelf that houses the oldest books. With my arms folded, I scan the spines and titles—as close as Sierra ever lets me get. My eyes catch on a cracked leather spine printed with the words REPAIRING THE FRACTURED FUTURE.

Air slips slowly out between my teeth with a tiny hiss. This. This is what I need. I glance at Sierra, but she’s as focused as she was when I first came in. My fingers walk slowly forward, sneaking the same way I might tiptoe down a hallway. Closer. Closer.

My index finger hooks around the top of the spine and I pull slowly, tipping the book down. A whisper of the leather covers rubbing together makes me freeze, but after a few seconds I let the spine lean all the way into my palm.

Now I just have to pull it out and—

“Charlotte.”

Disappointment wells up in my throat. She didn’t snap—she never does—but that edge of “you know better than this” in her voice makes me want to melt into a puddle of shame. With my teeth tightly clenched, I push the book back where it belongs—at least she won’t know exactly which book I wanted—and turn to look at her.

Sierra sighs and rises from her chair. She comes close and puts an arm around my shoulder, deftly steering me toward the door. “You know you’re not ready,” she whispers.

“I think you’re wrong,” I say defiantly, proud of myself for voicing what I’ve thought for at least two years.

“I’m erring on the safe side this time,” Sierra says, leaning her head close enough to touch mine. “The last time I didn’t watch you closely enough, this entire family paid for it. You don’t need more temptation in your life.”

And without another word, she pushes me the last few inches through the door.

By the time I turn around, the door is closed and even as I raise my hand to turn the knob, I hear the unmistakable sound of the lock turning.

Great.

Maybe I should have told her. Now I have to decide what to do all by myself.

And I don’t even know where to start.

It’s all over the news the next morning.

Her body is covered with a white drape, and the reporter is rambling on about her injuries, but even his gruesome descriptions can’t compare to the actual sight. The one I saw only yesterday.

Mom’s hand is clenched around a mug of coffee, but she hasn’t lifted it to her mouth since she turned the television on ten minutes ago. “Who could do this?” she finally whispers after what feels like hours.

Unfortunately, despite the vision, that’s a question I can’t answer. Visions are fickle that way—sometimes they give you the important information, and sometimes they simply … don’t.

Sierra walks into the noticeably tense kitchen. “What’s going on?” she asks, looking between Mom and me and not seeming to notice that the TV is on despite its high volume. She’s like that, totally unaware of some things while being hyperaware of others. Probably because she’s constantly on guard for visions.

I guess I’ll be like that someday too.

“A teenage girl was killed at the high school last night,” Mom whispers, still staring horrified at the television. “Throat sliced right open.”

Sierra’s head swings to me and she stares with questions shining in her eyes. I feel like I did when I was six. I don’t know how she knew then, but she did.

And she knows now.

Her expression evokes the same awful guilt, even though this time I did nothing. Which makes me feel even more guilty.

Sierra fills her coffee cup with marked carefulness. She begins to leave the kitchen, but just before she disappears around the doorway she flicks her head, gesturing for me to join her.

I stall. I’ve got about five bites of now-soggy cereal in the bottom of my bowl, and I lift them to my mouth slowly. But I can’t put it off long—I have to leave for school soon.

Sierra is waiting for me just outside her bedroom door. “This is why you were asking questions yesterday, isn’t it?”

There’s no point in denying it.

“You didn’t tell me you actually saw it. I assumed you fought.” Even though her voice is soft, I can tell she’s angry. Angry that I didn’t confide in her? Maybe.

“I did fight!” To my dismay, tears are starting to build up in my eyes. I didn’t expect it to actually happen so soon. I wasn’t ready. “I fought so hard,” I continue, pleading now. “It was different from anything I’ve ever experienced before. I couldn’t stop it.”

She stares at me for a long time, but then her eyes soften and she simply says, “I wish you’d told me.”

“Why?” I shoot back. Not mad exactly, but very helpless. “So you could do something?” Her jaw tightens but I continue. “What good would it have done to tell you?”

Sierra looks down the hall toward the kitchen where I can hear the news continuing about the murder. She steps close and lays a hand on my shoulder. “Charlotte, the life of an Oracle is very solitary; we’re lucky to have each other. Please don’t push me away because I have high expectations of you. I don’t think you failed—these things happen. But that means it’s time to be even more vigilant.”

Her steady gaze makes me weirdly nervous and I pull out my phone and light up the clock on my home screen. “I gotta go.”

After getting dressed, I walk into the kitchen and pick up my set of house keys from the basket beside the back door. Surprisingly the soft jingle is what finally distracts Mom from the gruesome scene on the screen. “Where are you going?” she says in a rather irritated tone.

I blink at her, confused. “School?”

Her hair looks almost wild around her face as she shakes her head. “You can’t go to school today.”

“Why not?” The words are out of my mouth before I realize how stupid they are. Of course my mother is worried about my safety; a girl who’s in a couple of my classes just got murdered on school grounds.

She doesn’t know that I’m completely safe.

It’s kind of an open secret among Oracles; we all know how we’re going to die. Or, like me, we don’t yet because it’s too far in the future. The more personal a foretelling is, the harder to fight off. And nothing is more personal than one’s own death. I managed to get that tidbit out of Sierra once when I asked why she didn’t try to change her own death in the vision we both saw when I was six. But then she clammed up and wouldn’t tell me anything else.

I’ve never had a foretelling about myself. I’m pretty sure that means my death is years and years and years in the future. My lonely, eccentric future.

And that means I’m safe today. But Mom doesn’t know that.

“I know this is awful,” I say, “but I have a test in trigonometry today. I have to go.”

Mom fixes me with a dry look. “I have a feeling the test is going to be postponed.”

As though she can control the television, the silence between us fills with a voice announcing, “Due to the fact that William Tell High School is a crime scene that has not yet been released by the police, classes have been canceled. Principal Featherstone hopes to open campus as early as Monday, but until then, please keep your teenagers home, where they’re safe.”

Canceled or not, a quick shot from the news camera shows that the teenagers of Coldwater, Oklahoma, are certainly not at home. The football field fence is lined with students and adults alike, most in tears as they watch from behind bright yellow barriers of police tape fastened across the chain-link.

“The police haven’t released the name of the victim yet,” the news reporter continues, catching my attention again. “Only that she was a student attending this school.” She indicates the crowd of people, many on their phones. “You can imagine the panic these kids must be feeling as they call and text their friends and wait anxiously for responses. For channel six, this is—” But I tune her out; I don’t care what her name is.

My eyes are glued to the draped body that’s now being lifted onto a gurney bound for a waiting ambulance. They do a good job of keeping her face covered, but a gust of icy December wind wrenches the drape free from one foot and a maroon ballet flat comes into view.

A scream sounds from offscreen and, as though drawn to the agony, the camera swings toward the fence and shows a tall brunette crumpling to the ground, surrounded by a handful of other girls.

Rachel Barnett. She’s Bethany’s best friend. The one I saw her with yesterday. She would know instantly who those shoes belong to. Sobs shake her body as the news camera zooms in, invading her private grief. I can’t help but feel like a voyeur as Rachel wails and shakes her head. I don’t even realize I’m crying until I’m gasping for air.

I turn and leave the kitchen, ignoring my mom when she calls after me. I swing the door to my bedroom closed as fast as I can without slamming it, and lock it. My room feels too dark even with the sunlight pouring in through the window, so I turn on my overhead light, and then add my bedside lamp for good measure. After kicking off my shoes, I dive under my comforter, wishing something as simple as a fluffy feather blanket could hope to chase away the frost inside me.

I could have stopped this.

No, that’s not exactly true. I might have been able to stop this. And I didn’t even try. Even though I can hear my aunt’s voice screaming in my head that I did the right thing, I feel like a terrible person.

And what’s worse is that I hadn’t actually decided what to do yet. I thought I had more time. I was going to make the for-sure decision this weekend. And now the choice has been torn away from me.

I did nothing.

Not because I chose to do nothing, but because I didn’t make a choice at all. The thought sickens me. I wish I’d never seen the vision. I wish I’d fought harder. Assuming I even could have fought harder. The memory of how drained I felt after the foretelling makes me doubt it, but maybe there was something else I could have done.

Even without a vision, the whole idea of a murder would have seemed surreal. Coldwater is the kind of place where stuff like this just doesn’t happen. We’re not teeny tiny; there are, like, ten or fifteen thousand people in the community. Lots of farmers, people who say hi at the grocery store even though they don’t exactly know who you are. Half the town goes out to the high school football games Friday nights without fail. That kind of thing.

Our idea of a crime-filled night is some couple getting drunk and causing a “domestic disturbance,” or maybe a high schooler attempting to steal a bottle of tequila from the liquor store on a dare.

Not killing people. Not killing kids.

I should have warned her. I shove my head under my blanket in some long-forgotten instinct, and then tear it off again to escape the darkness.

As light flashes across my eyes, I have a terrifying thought: maybe that was the reason the vision overwhelmed all of my defenses—because I was supposed to help her and I failed.

But what if I had done something? If I’d warned her to be careful she might have taken Rachel with her. Then two people would be dead. And that second death would have been entirely my fault.

This isn’t about choosing between right and wrong; it’s about trying to predict the line between wrong … and more wrong.

Monday is pure hell. Even worse than the torture I’ve been putting myself through all weekend. There’s a huge pile of flowers and candles and stuffed animals in front of the school. Not just from other students—from the whole community. The sense of security that permeated Coldwater is gone.

People are afraid. Sad and afraid.

News vans have come in from Tulsa. I’d like to think it’s because they care—and that’s certainly the façade they’re trying to sell—but it feels intrusive. Like strangers attending a strictly family funeral. I want to chase them away and tell them this isn’t their loss.

But I can’t. I have to attempt to blend in—act like I’m as surprised by this horrific act of violence as anyone. That I’m as normal as every other kid floating aimlessly through the halls today.

Standing in front of my locker, I almost don’t notice Linden. Of course, he’s not drawing any attention to himself. Maybe he’s even consciously trying to avoid it. I pretend to be sifting through the stuff in my backpack as I study him. The light and spark in his posture and expression that generally define him are gone. His eyes are red rimmed. He looks broken.

I forgot that he was one of Bethany’s friends. I want to go to him, to say something to ease that awful look in his eyes. It makes me hurt to see him this way.

I probably shouldn’t, but I do anyway.

I approach tentatively, not wanting to screw this up and make it even worse for him. “Linden?” I say softly. He turns and for just a second it’s like he’s too deep in his grief to even recognize me. Then his face softens.

“Charlotte. I didn’t see you.”

“That’s okay.”

We’re both silent for a few seconds. “I’m so sorry about Bethany.” And somehow, just saying the words—apologizing to someone—makes me feel better. “I know she was your friend,” I add in a mumble.

He nods stiffly.

“If I can … if you ever need, I don’t know, someone to talk to or something,” I blurt, half mortified at what I’m saying.

He stares at me for several long seconds before a ghost of a smile touches his mouth. “That’s really nice of you. I—” He hesitates and for a moment I think he’s actually going to say something—something meaningful. “I’ll remember that you offered. Thanks,” he says, and then wanders away with a small hand flutter instead of saying good-bye.

I watch him go with an ache in my heart. Somehow, seeing Linden hurt like this makes my remorse even worse.

He doesn’t show up to choir.

When school gets out, I know I should hurry home. My house is literally within sight of the front gates of the high school and though I finally convinced my mom to let me walk to school this morning, she wheeled out to the front porch and watched me the entire way.

She’ll stress until I walk back in the door.

But I need a few minutes.

I slump against the worn metal door of my locker, letting my back slide down until my butt hits the floor. I rub at my temples. I’ve been in a blur all day, but my head feels downright cottony now.

Oh no. My eyes fly open. “I’m so stupid,” I mutter to myself. I’ve been so distracted by my own guilt and pain I didn’t recognize the signs. The very last thing I want to do right now is to fight another foretelling; it’s harder when I’m feeling emotionally vulnerable.

And there’s something else. Something new: fear. After the horror of the last vision a tiny quiver clenches in my stomach at the thought of losing a fight again. Of seeing something like that again.

I briefly wonder if I can make it all the way home and into my bedroom before it overtakes me, but even if the pressure in my head weren’t already starting to build, I suspect my mom won’t let me get past her without at least five minutes of talk—she hasn’t been able to focus on anything except Bethany all weekend.

Fine, it’s gotta happen here in the hallway. I can handle this. I can do it.

At least I don’t have to worry about anyone looking at me funny. Everyone is out of it today. I brace my forehead on my knees and stare steadfastly at the tiles on the floor, forcing a black veil over my second sight. Bracing myself to hold it there the way Sierra taught me.

A savage storm rips it away.

Not again! In my head, I grasp for the blackness and for just a second the imaginary drape slides into place and I think I’ve won.

Maybe I even could have won if I weren’t already exhausted. But the last dregs of my mental strength aren’t enough when a fistful of fingers reaches forward and rips the curtain away again and the same vise from last week squeezes my skull until I want to scream in agony.

I can’t erect a strong enough barrier to block it, and then the fingers are pushing into my mind, taking over, and I’m tumbling down the river. Then falling. Falling.

The darkness flees, leaving me standing in a strange grayness.

It’s snowing. Those thick, heavy flakes that fall silently and feel like a blanket being laid over the earth. My vision self breathes a sigh of relief. We haven’t gotten our first real snow yet. Whatever I’m about to see, good or bad, I should have some time. Not like Bethany.

As the vision forces my feet to walk, I start resisting again. Fighting with every ounce of strength I have left. Not because of Sierra or the rules.

Because I’m terrified.

I’ve never been so afraid of what might be waiting for me. I know what a vision this strong can bring and I don’t ever want to see something like that again.

But my feet keep striding through the cottony snow. There’s a large, dark shadow in front of me. Not a person, a thing. A truck, I realize when I get closer. The truck is sitting on a dirt road, but there are no streetlights. The sky is cloudy, so I can’t tell how full the moon is—that would have been helpful; maybe I could have looked it up. The filtered moonlight and distant lights from town are reflecting off the pure white snow and the billowy clouds above, giving the night air a strange orangey glow that always comes with this kind of thick, silent snowfall.

The door of the truck hangs open, and at first I don’t see anyone inside. But there’s something … I gasp as I realize the dark stain I’m seeing on the far side of the windshield is blood. A huge spatter of blood decorating a spider-webbed crack in the glass.

I swallow hard as dread eats at my stomach, but I can’t stop my legs from continuing to carry me to the truck, my neck from peering around the open door. And even though I squeeze my eyes shut, only my physical eyelids close.

My foretelling eyes have to see.

He’s draped facedown on his stomach across the bench seat, with his hand wrapped around his phone. Trying to call for help, I suspect. I try not to see the rest, but bile rises in my throat as I force back a sob and take in the details. It’s gunshot wounds this time, instead of a knife. One, two, three, four, five of them up his back before the veritable crater in his skull that makes me sway on my feet. Each wound is a gaping hole in his skin—through his coat. Five ripped circles stained with still-wet blood that looks shiny black.

His head … I can hardly focus. It’s too much. His hair is sprinkled with fragments of bones and small bits that I’m pretty sure belong inside his skull. The bullet must have done this, then kept going through the windshield on the far passenger side—making the bloody star I saw first.

He never had a chance. I swallow hard and remind myself to observe. I have to be brave enough to face this horror—figure out where he is, who he is. I can’t move my feet to where I want them to go, but if I crane my neck I can see just a little bit better. I force myself to look past the bloody mess of his hair and try to make out his profile in the dim light.

I throw my hand over my mouth. He’s one of the basses in our performance choir. A sophomore, younger than me.

Matthew. Matthew Phelps. He was in one of my art classes last year too.

With my fists clenched, I whirl around, trying to take in my surroundings. I don’t know if I can do anything to save him, but figuring out where we are is definitely the first step. Coldwater is a pretty spread-out community with a forest on the west end of the city. I think that’s where we are now. I’m surrounded by bare, spindly trees, but I’m not in the middle of nowhere. Just off the paved road. There’re a bunch of rich-people houses, up on what passes for mountains in Oklahoma, that don’t have paved roads leading to them. Maybe Matthew lives there.

Maybe he was just going home. And some guy asked him for directions. Then he turned his back and … I don’t know. I look at the trees as the vision begins to darken and force myself to stare, to memorize, as the vision fades.

I have to find out where this is. And more important: when. I don’t care what Sierra thinks—I have to do something. I’m not sure my conscience can handle another disaster. Not something even more bloody and violent than Bethany’s death.

The school hallway slowly comes into focus and I’m shivering uncontrollably. I huddle beneath my coat. It takes a couple of minutes before I have the strength to stand. This vision was even harder on me than the last one and my legs are quivery. With Bethany’s, I felt like I was put through a punishing workout—today I feel like I flat out got beat up. Bruised from head to toe.

I limp home and, sure enough, my mom’s wheelchair is sitting out on the porch and she’s bundled up in her warmest coat, staring at the screen of her phone.

“There you are!” she says, reaching out for me.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, squeezing her hand before I wheel her into the warm house and down the hall to her office. “We had a choir meeting after school,” I lie smoothly, “and I thought it was going to be, like, five minutes and it just kept going and going. I should have texted you.”

She gives me a tight smile. “Yes, you should have. But the important part is that you’re here now, and you’re safe.”

I sit on the chair in her office that’s always left empty for me and just watch her. She’s working, but the smooth rhythm from last week is gone. She writes a few things, then turns to stare at a small TV she’s set up on a stool beside her desk. It’s muted, the news reporters mouthing words I don’t need to hear anymore to understand. Bethany’s body, her delayed funeral, interviews with her parents, her teachers, her friends—when they can hold their tears back long enough to speak. I’ve seen it all, but they keep replaying it like some terrible CD skipping over and over.

I’ve got to go find that forest. I can’t let this happen again.

“Can I borrow the car?” I ask.

Mom turns and fixes me with a surprised gaze, clearly shocked that I would even ask.

“I just want to go for a drive. To think.”

She’s already shaking her head.

“Mom, please,” I beg, trying to hide how desperate I am. “I’ll be careful. I’ll keep the doors locked and I won’t stop for anyone or get out of the car or anything. I’ll just drive.” Up some dirt roads that may or may not lead to a future murder site in the middle of nowhere.

“I don’t want you leaving the house,” my mom says.

“We can’t let this make us paranoid,” I protest irrationally.

“It’s not that,” Mom retorts. Then she pauses and amends, “It’s not just that.” She turns back to the silenced television beside her desk. “The forecast is calling for snow tonight.”

There’s nothing on the news the next morning. But that doesn’t make me feel any better. The location looked remote; they might not have found him yet. My mom held firm last night and the weather guy was right. So I sat at my bedroom window until the wee hours of the morning, helplessly watching that thick, muffling snow cover the ground, certain I was too late.

I sit at the breakfast table, pushing my food around on my plate and waiting for the time when I have to leave for school. I keep expecting a hint of something on the news, but it’s all still Bethany. People are starting to get angry because the medical examiner hasn’t released her body. It’s been five days and as far as anyone can tell, there are zero leads.

I wonder if the discovery of another body will make them keep her longer or let them move on.

I feel like all of my insides are twisting around each other and squeezing. I wish I could fake sick. But then the news of Matthew’s death will come through and Sierra will know why I stayed home. I can’t risk it.

I considered telling her this morning—coming clean before the body was found—but when I got to her room, her door was locked. I thought about knocking—lifted my hand even—but I couldn’t make myself do it. I feel like the lamest Oracle on earth.

I leave the house with a quick glance at Sierra’s still-closed door, and Mom wheels onto the porch to watch me again. Tomorrow, she won’t let me walk. After today, I’ll be lucky if she ever lets me out of the house again.

I’m grabbing my trigonometry book from my locker when I see him, standing there with no idea he’s supposed to be dead.

The heavy book falls from my hands and lands on the linoleum floor with an ear-splitting crack that echoes through the hall. People turn to look at me, but I’m already staggering toward Matthew, ignoring everything else.

“Hey,” I say lamely, realizing I’m so focused on the fact that he’s not dead that I don’t have any idea what the hell to say to him.

“Hi, Charlotte.” He studies me, furrows his brow and then asks, “Are you okay?”

Better now. “Um, yeah, I just, I … I forgot my music for ‘Winter Wonderland.’ Do you mind if I borrow yours and make a copy of it real quick?”

“Oh, sure. Of course,” he says, the concern erased from his face so easily I want to cry with relief. He’s alive, he doesn’t suspect, and no one is looking at us anymore.

He hands me a piece of music. “Just bring it to choir with you. No hurry.”

“Thanks,” I reply, taking the music I don’t actually need. I hesitate, but the hellish hours I spent last night aren’t something I can live through again. I banish Sierra’s voice from my head and say, “Matthew, you live kind of out in the middle of nowhere, right?”

“Sort of. I mean, there are, like, four houses in our little neighborhood, but it’s up on the hill west of town.” He’s confused again.

“Be careful,” I say, hurrying on before Matthew can say anything. “Maybe I’m just paranoid because of Bethany, but that guy is still out there somewhere and … be careful, okay?” I spin away and flee before he can reply.

Before he can ask any questions.

There. I did something. Who knows if it will be enough? But I warned him. Being careful can’t possibly hurt. And considering last night’s snow, there’s a chance he was going to die, but that the future changed and it’s not going to happen at all.

The future is funny like that.

I return to my locker—which I left open with my trig book on the floor in front of it—no wonder everyone thinks I’m such a freak—and gather my stuff. I know I ought to feel guilty. But I can’t bring myself to be anything but glad.

As I pick up my trig book, my phone peals out my text chime and I drop the book again, winning myself more startled looks.

It’s a number I don’t recognize.

You’re the only one who could have helped her. Why didn’t you?

The world spins, and I suddenly can’t breathe. Who the hell could have written this? Who knows my secret?

The emotional roller coaster I’ve been on this morning proves too much for my nerves and a stabbing pain starts up in my head. The first bell rings and everyone starts shuffling toward their first-hour class, but I can’t take trying to listen to American history right now. Just … no.

I head to the nurse’s office instead. One of the perks of being weird is that the nurse has been informed that I “get very sudden migraines.” I don’t like the lie, but when I do actually get a tension headache, it means I can have a prescription-strength naproxen instead of the two Tylenol that most kids get.

The nurse takes my temperature and though she frowns at the thermometer in a way that tells me my temp is normal—I could have predicted that without any Oracle skills—she lets me lie down in the last available bed and gives me a well-worn but soft blanket before tugging the privacy curtain around me.

I should tell Sierra; I know that. But can I tell her the truth about the vision I saw with Matthew and still hide that I told him to be careful? That I broke the all-important rule of Oracles? Never, under any circumstances, change the future. She can read me so well—I swear, she’ll just know.

Why didn’t you? The words from the text swim through my aching head until my stomach starts hurting too. I’ve got to figure this out. Maybe it was another Oracle. Maybe she had the same vision.

I squint through the small crack in the privacy curtain and see the nurse sitting in front of her computer. I turn my back to the gap and carefully pull out my phone. I find my aunt’s number and then text her:

Are there any other Os in Coldwater?

I hit SEND before I can think too hard about the consequences of what I’ve just done.

My phone buzzes and I clench my teeth at the sound, hoping no one else heard it.

No.

Helpful, I think sardonically.

I send my reply with shaky fingers:

Are you sure?

A little while passes.

Completely. No bloodlines within 500 miles of us.

Oracles are not only always female, but the ability is genetic. So you don’t just have Oracles pop up out of the blue. It can skip a generation—even two or three sometimes—but there’s always a connection. And one of my aunt’s jobs is tracking genealogy for the Sisters. She of all people would know.

There goes that idea. I mean, technically it could be someone from far away, but if they know about me and saw what I saw, I have to assume they’re somewhere close.

So … probably not another Oracle. But then how …?

My phone buzzes again.

Why?

I scrunch up my face and try to think of a reasonable answer.

I just wondered if we should reach out and be supportive. That’s all.

I hold my breath and hope that satisfies her. Luckily I come to Sierra with Oracle questions all the time—even if she doesn’t always answer them very often. It’s not like I can go to anyone else and besides, she knows more about Oracles than … probably anyone else on Earth. Literally.

Rolling over again, I flip back to the other text. Not to read it; I know what it says. The words are burned into my mind. More to convince myself it’s real. I clench my fingers around the phone and hold it against my chest as I curl my spine and clutch my aching stomach and try to ignore the slowly softening pounding in my head.

Everyone thinks they want superpowers. To be magical and more important and special than everyone else. To be extraordinary. But they don’t really. They don’t understand. I would give anything to be normal.

Despite my stress and guilt and worry and paranoia, I do manage to get one uninterrupted night of sleep before I find out Matthew is dead.

My mom is crying in the kitchen, and fear squeezes my heart so tightly I’m pretty sure it stops beating for a few seconds. I can’t help but feel a smoldering of anger as I watch the news report. What could he possibly have done to get killed like this—stopped to pee in the snow? Everyone’s been on their guard—why would he get out of his car?

I told him to be careful. It wasn’t enough. I failed.

I’m almost deaf to the sound of the newscaster when one detail worms itself into my head.

“We have been informed that the male minor—who police have identified but whose name has not yet been released—was shot with a gun that, though registered to his father, was engraved with his name. The gun was left at the crime scene and hopefully holds a key to this killer’s identity.”

Shot with his own gun.

My knees won’t hold me and I collapse into a chair as questions race through my head: Why did he have a gun in his truck? Did he start carrying it because of Bethany’s murder? Or because I told him to be careful?

I feel a strong hand wrap around my upper arm and pull me into the hallway, but the message doesn’t reach my legs in time and I stumble and stagger after Sierra. Momentarily out of my mother’s sight, Sierra stares at my face, studying me. Not studying—scrutinizing. I don’t have the energy to try to hide anything. I simply look back, tears coursing down my trembling cheeks.

Sierra straightens, appearing satisfied. “This one surprised you,” she whispers, her hand rubbing my upper arms. It would be comforting if I didn’t already feel so guilty.

I nod. It’s the truth. I had just started to believe—to almost hope—that he would live. That I had changed his fate. I was surprised.

“You didn’t see it.”

I close my eyes and start to cry in earnest now. She takes my sobs as an answer and gathers me against her chest. “This is always the hardest part,” she murmurs in my ear as her fingers stroke my hair away from my damp face. “Seeing innocent lives snuffed out and thinking there was something we could have done.” She pulls back and looks down at me. “Charlotte, listen. There is nothing you could have done. Not for him, not for that girl. Not without setting into motion uncontrollable ripples of consequence. You’re innocent.”

Innocent? I’m anything but. If I had said nothing, would Matthew still be alive? Was it something he did in the name of caution that led to this? There’s no way to know for sure. But I took action and now, to some degree, I bear responsibility. I am so far from innocent.

But I nod. Because I have to. Because she won’t let me go until I do, and I need to get back to the news—to hear anything they might have discovered. My own method of torture, perhaps.

When I flee, Sierra doesn’t bar my way and I go right back into the kitchen. I eat a type of cereal I couldn’t have identified five minutes later and listen to the news, hungering for some tidbit of evidence that might exonerate me.

Or condemn me.

After an hour, I push my still half-full bowl away and go to my room. As fast as I can, I pull on yesterday’s jeans and shirt and jam my bare feet into boots. I’m back in the hallway in less than a minute, headed toward the front door.

My mom can tell what I have in mind the second her eyes fall to my boots. “Charlotte, no. You are not going to school today.”

I ignore her and grab my coat from the row of hooks by the front door. There’s a crash from the kitchen and I know Mom’s trying to maneuver her wheelchair down the barely wide-enough hallway. I’m a terrible daughter for taking advantage of her handicap to get away, but I do. I fling the door open as my arms slip into the sleeves of my heavy coat, then slam it shut and take off.

I’m almost half a block away before I hear Mom reach the porch and start shouting my name, but I duck my head and hurry onward, taking the first corner I reach to dart out of her sight.

She won’t chase me in her wheelchair; she knows she’d never catch me. There’s going to be hell to pay when I get home, but I had to get out of there before I choked.

I didn’t even think about the fact that I headed in the direction of the school. The “corner” I whipped around isn’t a corner at all; it’s the edge of the parking lot. Now I’m walking through the middle of a huge square of white snow. If I were younger—more ignorant, less guilty—I would lie down and make a snow angel. Or run around in circles full of giddiness at being the first person to mar the perfect blanket of pure whiteness.

Instead, I stand in the middle of the lot, the snow untouched except for my single line of tracks that lead halfway across.

It’s almost time for school to start. But no one’s here. Well, there’s a sprinkling of cars right by the front doors that probably belong to teachers. I wonder if school will be canceled again.

My phone chimes in my pocket. My mom. I stare at the brightly lit screen as it continues to ring and it occurs to me why this day is different from the day they found Bethany. That morning, a crowd gathered around the crime scene and word of who had been killed leaked out like wildfire as soon as Rachel saw those shoes.

Matthew was killed in a remote area. Even the few people who were there were kept far from the scene by both officers and the trees.

I’m the only student who knows the name of the victim.

I can imagine exactly what’s happening right now in hundreds of homes around Coldwater. Students are frantically calling each other; checking on their friends one by one. I can picture the texts.

Are u ok? Text me back RITE NOW!

U didn’t answer. Call me the SEC you get this.

Or even something as simple as:

Another kid is dead. Please let me know it wasn’t you.

The only person who called me was my mom. And I didn’t answer.

I text my mom a simple:

I’m at school. Sorry.

and shuffle forward. I’m halfway up the steps when my text chime pings again.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I mutter as I dig my phone out again.

A sinking swoop envelops my stomach when I see that it’s not from my mom, but that same unknown number as before. I look around but see no one.

Which is stupid because there’s no reason someone should need to see me to text me. With shaky hands, I unlock my phone. My hands are so cold I can hardly manage it, then I huddle into the corner of the entryway and force my eyes to look down at the screen.

Your attempt was admirable, but it obviously didn’t work. I can show you how to stop it from happening again. Call me when you get desperate enough. Do it for that poor boy’s sake. Please.

I suppress the urge to fling the phone to the ground as my lungs suck air in fast, loud gasps.

Whoever this is, they know. But how much do they know? Are they watching me?

They know I saw the vision of Bethany, and that I tried to warn Matthew.

And that I failed.

I shove my phone into my pocket and duck back into the early morning wind. I’m not sure where I’m going.

I can’t go home. I just can’t. I’m not ready. Not to face my mom or Sierra. I head past the school, walking down more unshoveled sidewalks and marring more perfect sheets of snow. My sockless feet are starting to tingle with cold inside my boots, but I ignore them. My mind tosses questions and possibilities around and around my brain.

After half an hour, I’ve circled the same block three times and I’m out of new snow to walk on. I feel similarly trapped in my head as my mind grows weary. It leaves the wild theories, the guilty scenarios, and instead focuses on the two pictures that won’t leave my eyes, even when I scrunch them closed: the bleeding gap across Bethany’s throat, and the hole in Matthew’s head.

And I realize I can’t live with myself if it happens again.

When I get back to my house, I’m shivering and stiff and fairly sure my toes are frozen. I took the long way and avoided the school, so I honestly don’t know if I’m technically ditching or not.

I guess I’m the empty desk today.

I’m certain I look pathetic when I come in the front door and go right to my mom’s office to apologize. But she takes one glance at my face and I know words won’t be needed. She helps me shrug out of my coat and kick off my boots. I murmur that I’m sorry as we go out to the great room, where I lay on the couch while my mom rubs my back. It’s something she’s done for me when I was sick for as long as I can remember.

I’m not physically sick today, but heartsick is a word I really understand now. Eventually my mom has to get back to work; I assure her I’ll be fine. That I just want to go to sleep.

Which is absolutely true.

But ten minutes later, I hear footsteps click down the hallway and the jingle of keys before the front door opens and closes. My heart pounds in my chest as I rise silently from the couch and peek out the window to see Sierra driving away.

My fingers tingle with both fear and anticipation as my gaze travels down the hallway.

Her bedroom door is closed, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I don’t think she knows I’m home.

With a quick glance toward the corner that leads me to my mom’s office, I creep down the hall and lay my fingers on the doorknob. I take a breath, cross my fingers, and try.

It’s unlocked.

I have no idea how long she’ll be gone.

And if she catches me, she’ll be so angry.

But it’s a chance I’m going to have to take. I hurry in and leave the door open a few inches so I can listen for her to come back. As though pulled by a magnet, I go right to the ancient copy of Repairing the Fractured Future and pull it out, feeling like the worst niece in the world even as my mind tells me I’m completely justified. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to know what Sierra knows?

I need this.

Sierra has told me that knowledge is dangerous, that she has a very risky position as the historian for the Sisters. But that sounds remarkably like all the arguments people give for censorship and banning books and stuff. I don’t agree with that either.

I know that the Sisterhood has the basic functions of finding Oracles, training them, and protecting them in ways I don’t really understand. But as far as I can tell, the main purpose they have—at least in my life—is to suppress all knowledge of Oracles. And not just from the world, but from the Oracles as well.

Shaking away my dismal thoughts, I carefully open the book. The title is stamped onto the leather cover with gold embossing, but to my surprise, the book is written by hand. The handwriting on the yellowed pages is full of loops and curlicues and as cool as it looks, it’s going to take ages to decipher. My heart sinks. I’d need days at the very least and there’s a pretty good chance Sierra just ran out for a cup of coffee from her favorite local café.

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 cold makes me want to cough. I lift my foot and it obeys me now. With terror pounding in my heart, I walk forward one step. Two. Three.

Whoever this is is lying on their back so peacefully he looks like he’s sleeping. I choke back a sob and hope with all my heart that it’s just some drunk guy who fell asleep and froze to death. Not that I would wish anyone death but it would be better than … better than …

Better than a teenage face looking up at me with vacant eyes and skin covered with a tiny layer of lacy flakes. A gust of wind clears some of the snow and then I see the bruises.

It’s another victim.

His coat is unzipped halfway down his chest and his scarf has been untied and pushed to the side as though to display what the murderer has done. Deep purple swatches cover his neck, almost black against his pale skin made even whiter by death. I stand there shaking, shivering, even though I can’t feel the cold anymore. He looks so serene that it’s almost worse than the gory scenes I witnessed with Bethany and Matthew. So incredibly dissonant.

I force myself to focus—the vision won’t last forever—and I lift my eyes to his face.

“Jesse.” My words are lost in the wind. Jesse Prince. He was in my art class last semester and we ended up being partners on a project. He had all the talent; I had all the discipline. The final result was subpar at best.

I suck in a ragged breath and look around again. It’s an empty space—a parking lot?—and I’m standing underneath a tall lamppost with only one light functioning. Maybe a park?

That’s it. A park. And now I can see the dim outline of a row of houses just out of the circle’s light. There’s a sign. It’s some kind of development. But as I lift my feet to get closer, the vision starts to fade. I try to run, to get there before everything goes black, but I can only lift my foot an inch or two and, within seconds, it’s all gone.

I blink slowly, carefully, bright sunlight invading my eyes and making them sting after the pure blackness. Unfortunately because I was sitting on a slippery patch of ice, I’m now lying full out on the ground beside the rusty truck. My head sits right next to a puddle of slush and I can feel moisture soaking into my hair and dampening my scalp.

I sit up, but don’t bother to look around. It doesn’t matter if anyone saw me; nothing matters now. Damp strands of hair fall into my face but I shove them away and push my hands into my pockets, grasping for my phone.

I don’t stop, don’t think, and don’t let myself reconsider. My icy-cold fingers dial the number and, as it starts to ring, I get to my feet, hanging on to the truck for balance.

“Hello?”

A man.

I was expecting a girl.

A woman.

Despite what Sierra said, deep inside I was certain it had to be another Oracle. “Hello?” My voice cracks as I answer and I have to clear my throat a few times before I can speak clearly.

The man on the other end says nothing, just waits.

“It’s Charlotte,” I say once I can speak again.

I hear a long, slow breath and he whispers, “Finally,” so softly I barely hear it. “Did you see the next one?” he asks in that same, calm voice.

“Yes,” I whisper, tears stinging my eyes.

“I need to meet with you.”

I swallow hard and force my emotions back. “How do I know you aren’t the killer?”

He laughs now, a soft, bizarre sound considering the circumstances. “Charlotte, how stupid would I have to be to try to kill an Oracle?”

Every muscle in my body stiffens.

Never reveal that you are an Oracle to anyone except another Oracle.

He pauses and when I don’t say anything he continues: “You know you’re not going to die today, don’t you?”

My silence is answer enough.

“If it makes you feel better, you choose the place. It can be as public as you want so long as it’s somewhere we can talk without being overheard.”

It’s still so soon after the vision that my brain and my body are moving at half speed. I should have waited to make the call until after I had recovered.

But then I might have changed my mind.

“The food court,” I finally decide. “At the mall.”

“When?”

“I’ll head there now. How will I recognize you?”

“I’ll find you. I know you.”

The way he says “I know you” makes a trickle of fear shiver up my spine. But I chide myself for it. Of course he knows me. He knew me well enough to learn my cell number. He’s been watching me closely enough to know that I warned Matthew.

Of course he knows who I am. But the words make it real.

“Ten minutes,” he says, and then 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