Foretold Page 18

  The printout of Mrs. O’s tormenter—the developer—is added to the pile, along with the letter I stole from her. It catches and sparks purple. I imagine Mrs. O’s developer dropping his bid for her property. I picture his eminent domain case going away. I envision it over and over so many times, each time identical to the last, that when I open my eyes, I can’t tell if I’m remembering something that’s already happened.

  The flame goes out suddenly, like a birthday candle in a windstorm. I grab for a washcloth and press it to my throbbing hand, staring out at the silent street of my neighborhood from home.

  And I hope.

  Chapter 17

  A dragonfly as big as my forearm flits in front of me. It hovers for a moment, massive eye reflecting the street light I’m standing under, before it zips away into the churning, swirling dark. Another halo of light appears ahead of me, and the dragonfly waits, its beating wings an aquamarine blur.

  I follow, with dread but unable to resist, from one street light to another as they flick on ahead and extinguish behind me. No going back.

  Suddenly, the light that next pierces the night is at the top of a long staircase. I climb, but the dragonfly is gone by the time I reach the top. The door in front of me creaks open, like every horror movie ever made.

  I’m in an entryway I’ve never been in before, but there is something familiar about this place. I run my fingers over a delicate hall table. A vase of fragrant black orchids sits in the center. To its right is a bowl of rotting oranges.

  My stomach rumbles. Naturally, I move to the kitchen. A plate piled high calls to me, but as I approach, it blows away, crumbling to dust. I grab at a loaf of bread next to the plate, but it squeezes through my hands like wet sand.

  Humming—a gentle, soft sound, vaguely like a lullaby—is coming from somewhere in the house. I head back the way I came and climb the stairs, higher and higher still, until I reach an open door and step through.

  It feels as though the whole of the universe is curving around me, a canopy of light punching through dark, galactic swirls all rotating at a dizzying speed.

  The humming again. I climb over a small barrier to my right, and there, in the pale light, is my mother.

  I reach out to her. Her hair is longer than I’ve seen it. It flows around her like a shroud. Her humming stops.

  “Cassie.” Her voice is music. I rush to her and she enfolds me in her arms. It is quiet there. It shuts out the light.

  “Time to choose,” she whispers, pulling away. She lifts her hands, and in her outstretched left palm is a fistful of grapes, in her right a lush red fruit resembling a plum. I grab for the strange plum eagerly, my teeth piercing the firm skin, the thick ripe juices coating my tongue. It tastes of iron. I drop it, gagging, and look down at my hands. They’re stained red.

  She smiles with my mother’s mouth, a sad smile, but it’s not her, and she parts her curtain of hair to reveal a dripping chest cavity, ribs splayed like a butterfly’s wings, the center devoid of its heart. “I’d give my heart for you. What will you give for him?” she whispers.

  I stumble back. The juices bubble up, blood, pouring past my lips, running down my neck. My teeth begin crumbling in my mouth, and my hands fly up, trying to keep them from falling out.

  “Easy! You’re okay. It’s a dream. It’s not real,” I dimly hear a familiar voice say.

  “Just because it’s a dream doesn’t mean it’s not real,” a second voice says.

  “Not helping, Nox,” the first voice says dryly.

  * * *

  My eyes fly open. I shriek and claw and kick. I’m pressed against a strong chest. A pair of arms tighten around me, holding me.

  “That’s not my mom! It’s not her,” I sob.

  “I know. It’s okay.” A hand moves in soothing small circles on my back. He whispers comforting nonsensical words and phrases in my ear as my sobs ease into sniffles. A few shuttering breaths and all is quiet.

  Disoriented, I grimace and swallow to wash way the iron taste lingering in my mouth. And for the first time, I wonder whose embrace I’m in. I don’t even remember why I’m being held in the first place.

  I take a breath. He smells like fresh linen and sneaking out after dark. I look up.

  “You smell good,” I say, and clap a hand over my mouth.

  Sebastian’s dimple flashes. “You, too.”

  I hear unkind laughter and realize that my entire Babylonian Dream Scrying class is now awake and staring at me. I quickly push apart from Sebastian and comb a hand through my sleep-ruffled hair.

  How did I end up in his arms? I look around, then down at my cot and scratchy green blankets. I remember anointing myself with oils the way Luke Nox showed us. I glance over at our swarthy instructor and down at my hand. I remember writing out Colin’s name in ash on my palm after burning my dream questions… the images from my dream come rushing back to me. My eyes sting. Noah and Regan have rushed over and planted themselves on my cot like guards, Regan at my head and Noah at my feet. I wave away their concerns, but my eyes well again.

  “How about I take her out so she can compose herself?” I hear Sebastian say.

  “Yes, sounds like an excellent idea. Next time I lunch with your father, I’ll be sure to tell him you’re an ideal prefect.” Luke claps his hands and turns. “Everyone else, please record anything from your dreams you can remember. Hurry now, before you forget! We’ll spend the rest of the class analyzing the symbolism.”

  I glance around at my busily writing classmates and avoid making eye contact with the few remaining gawkers.

  “Can I… can I wash my face… and stuff first?” I ask Sebastian.

  “Of course,” he says, firmly but still gently.

  My cheeks burn. I grab my bag and run off to the restroom to make myself as presentable as possible. Sebastian is waiting for me when I emerge, and I glance back and catch the huge grin and thumbs up Regan gives me. At least one of us is over my episode.

  “Don’t forget, I’m stopping by your room later for some tea,” she calls.

  I follow Sebastian out. What do you say after completely flipping out in front of someone? And after waking up on his lap? I pick at my thumb. “I’m sorry about…”

  “Don’t apologize.”

  “I’m pretty sure I hit you,” I insist.

  “I’m pretty sure you did, too.”

  There’s a red mark high on his cheekbone, right under his eye, that I think I’m responsible for. I wilt inside.

  Sebastian sees something in my expression and pulls me along. My hand feels small in his. “There are a couple of people you should meet.” He turns down a tight pathway and pushes open a heavy metal door. I don’t examine why I don’t mind holding his hand too closely.

  Every head in the cafeteria-like space swivels, except the one belonging to the dead animal lying on the stainless steel table. A heavily scowling man has his arms elbow deep in the animal’s stomach, his thick arm hair glistening with fluids I’d rather not think about.

  “How many times, Sebastian? How many times, I ask?”

  “Vencel.” Sebastian’s tone is firm but conciliatory. “I thought Haruspicy only met on Tuesdays. It won’t happen again.”

  “Nem. You say this before, but you still treat this place as your playground.” He pulls his arms out of the carcass and props one on his smocked hips, the other picking up and brandishing a large butcher’s knife. A few of the students standing around the table, looking like residents observing a surgeon at work, wisely move out of his way as he takes a step toward us. “You keep it up and you be on this table instead of Aneska.”

  “You named that thing before you killed it?” one slightly green-looking girl asks in a small voice.

  “Nem! I did not kill this animal. Management crybabies worry about animal feelings! Sacrifice is bad now. Bah! This—” He gestures to the animal in disgust. “—this animal die of natural causes.”

  Sebastian tilts his head toward the exit across the room. Still
holding my hand, he pulls me along, moving slowly to avoid attracting Vencel’s notice again.

  “Is there, like, an animal hospice you stroll up to for fresh victims?” Griffin drawls. He smiles when he catches my eye. Everyone laughs at Griffin’s comment, which clearly doesn’t sit well with Vencel. Griffin, on the other hand, grins, clearly pleased with himself.

  “Funny guy! You’re lucky Splanchomancy is a crime these days, my comedian friend.” Vencel slams his butcher knife down blade first into the counter. It sticks.

  “What is Splanchomancy?” Griffin asks.

  Vencel smiles. “Splanchomancy is, you know, looking at the insides of human sacrifices. Virgin human sacrifices. You would be perfect for this. Igen?”

  The room erupts in laughter, much to Griffin’s chagrin, none laughing louder than Vencel at his own joke. Vencel’s guffaws abruptly end as he scowls and shouts, “Enough! No more laughing. Joke is over.” The class falls immediately silent.

  Sebastian is pushing at the door when a knife whizzes by our heads, vibrating in the wood frame.

  “I don’t care who your father is. No more, Sebastian! Igen?”

  “Igen, Vencel. Good lord. Igen.” Sebastian slams the door shut behind us and leans back against it, rolling his head along the door to look at me. “That hulking Hungarian is an expert with knives. You were never in any danger. And he wasn’t who I wanted you to meet, by the way.”

  I let out a shaky laugh. “What kinds of weapons will they have?”

  His lip quirks. “Caffeine and gossip. Much more dangerous.”

  We enter a room so thick with smoke that for a moment I’m afraid it’s on fire. Sebastian throws open a window, scattering some roosting pigeons.

  “What was that?”

  “Sounded like birds.”

  “You two sound like birds.”

  Three women’s rasping voices sound in rapid succession, the last archly sarcastic.

  “Don’t be nasty, Felda.”

  The breeze helps thin the smoke to a filmy haze, and I spy three elderly women seated on plastic-encased colorful sofas. The women are arranged around a low table, a basin of sand in its center. There is a moat of tiny overturned coffee cups and discarded sunflower seed shells surrounding the sand, and an outlandishly large hookah pipe resting on the ground.

  “It’s me, ladies,” Sebastian announces. Then, softly, just to me, “Double, double, toil and trouble.”

  “I heard that, you scamp. We are not witches!” A woman who looks like a Pomeranian chuckles, a puffy cloud of graying hair bopping around her narrow face. I recognize her voice as the one who lectured the woman she called Felda.

  “He didn’t say we were witches, Emina. He was reciting a poem,” says a starving greyhound of a woman.

  “No, he was quoting Shakespeare, Gelisa,” Emina says. “Although with Shakespeare’s use of iambic pentameter, and his mix of prose and verse, one could make the argument it is poetry!”

  “What do you know about Shakespeare?” scoffs that third sarcastic voice, belonging to a woman who looks like a bulldog. Process of elimination suggests that this is Felda.

  “I know plenty about Shakespeare, Felda, because I pick up a book now and again,” Emina replies mildly. She picks up her tiny coffee cup and brings an eyeglass up to her eye to peer inside.

  “They read Turkish coffee cups,” Sebastian says in a low voice, as we take seats opposite them. Then, louder, “Sorry to interrupt…”

  “You haven’t interrupted anything. Except maybe their yapping,” the sarcastic bulldog, Felda, says.

  Gelisa snorts. “Yapping is what you do best, Felda.”

  “Please, both of you. Decorum. We have company,” Emina lectures.

  I throw a look at Sebastian. His lips are twitching, another crack in his poker face.

  “Who’s your lovely little friend, Sebastian?” Emina asks.

  “This is Cassandra. She’s one of the new Initiates.”

  “Clearly she’s his new chicky, Emina,” Gelisa says.

  My cheeks go hot. “I am not—”

  “Well, she seems sweet. Doesn’t say much, though,” Emina says.

  “Maybe that’s because she can’t get a word in edgewise with you two blabbing,” Felda snaps as she stares into her upside-down cup. She grabs the eyeglass from Emina. “I’m not getting a thing out of this cup.” She picks up a hookah hose and attempts to blow a smoke ring.

  "You have to speak up if you want to keep his attention, dear," Gelisa offers, and pats my hand.

  The dizzying speed with which they bicker and change subjects has me fighting to tamp down a hysterical giggling fit. My head throbs.

  Gelisa picks up her cup. “My cup has a bird.” Her brows are knitted together with extreme concentration as she looks down at the cup in her hand. She demands the eyeglass from Felda.

  “Is she your girlfriend?” Emina smiles up at Sebastian.

  “I’m not—” I begin again.

  “She must be special if you’re settling down, you scamp. No more mucking about with all those girls,” Gelisa interjects.

  “Or the boys. How he juggled them all, I’ll never know,” Felda says, pulling on the hookah again.

  “Oh, that’s lovely, both of you. What a thing to say in front of his new girlfriend!” Emina sighs. “‘Nice to meet you. You’re dating a tom-jones.’ What’s wrong with you two?”

  “Well, you're the one who called him a tom-jones,” Felda snaps.

  “What’s a tom-jones?” I ask, my curiosity getting the better of me.

  “Word from long before your time, dear. Means he’s a bit of a whore.” Gelisa peers through her looking glass down at her cup. “My cup has two birds, actually.”

  “I didn’t call him a tom-jones, Felda. I was saying that’s what you two were saying.”

  “I never called him a tom-jones, Emina,” Gelisa huffs.

  “Can we not?” Sebastian sighs.

  “You implied it, then made it worse by calling him an outright whore,” Emina says. She shrinks in her seat, chastised, when Sebastian gives her an incredulous look.

  Felda snatches the looking glass from Gelisa and looks at her cup again. “My cup actually has a bird, too,” Felda guffaws. “I’ll be damned.”

  “Ladies, I brought Cassandra here for a reason.” Sebastian looks mildly exasperated. “She had a pretty traumatic sleep Scrying session. I thought, considering you three are omen reading experts—” The women sit up and preen. “—you might help her decipher what she saw. It was intense enough that I figured she wouldn’t want to dissect it in front of the class.”

  “I always knew you had it in you to be a thoughtful boyfriend, Bastian.” Emina leans over to cup his cheek lovingly.

  “He’s devoted, isn’t he? How romantic. Reformed rakes make the best partners,” Gelisa sighs.

  “What do you remember from your dream?” Felda asks.

  “I…” I look over at Sebastian and he nods encouragingly. The dream was an emotional Molotov cocktail, and remembering brings on an echo of that feeling, but the details pour out of me like a confession. They all wince when I mention eating. I finish up quickly, telling them what my faux dream mother said before my teeth fell out. Emina, Gelisa, and Felda immediately stand and rest their hands on my head, probing.

  When they release me, they sink back into their seats and their graying heads—one slick, one fuzzy, one shortly spiked—come together as they huddle to confer.

  “You feel the vibration? And dragonfly is clearly—” I hear Gelisa say.

  “The teeth… we all know that’s—” Emina says.

  When they conclude their whispered debate, they sit up as one. Emina rakes a small copper coffee pot through the hot sand and pours it out, pressing a cup on me.

  “My dear, I think we’ve arrived at an interpretation. Keep in mind this isn’t an exact science,” Emina says.

  “Death and deceit. They’ll come from those close,” Felda says.

  “You couldn’t s
often the blow a little, Felda? Really?” Emina cries.

  “What good would sugar-coating it do? Rip the Band-Aid off. Best way.”

  Emina ignores her. “There is one thing, though, that might help.”

  Gelisa pushes the cup I’m holding to my lips. “Drink!”

  I slurp the coffee down, eyes wide as I wait for Emina to continue. It’s strong and thick, with a slightly bitter, nutty taste. Gelisa whisks the cup away and turns it upside down on the saucer when I finish.

  “There’s something you want. Desperately. But the sacrifice is too great,” Emina says.

  “Too great,” Gelisa echoes.

  My heartbeat is a sledgehammer strike against my ribs. Colin’s royal blue eyes, his lopsided teasing grin, flash through my mind.

  “That’s for her to decide,” Felda scolds. She turns to me. “If you try, if you still want it, your dream’s omens have a message for you: ‘one key to see.’”

  “What does that mean?” Sebastian asks.

  “Not a clue,” Felda says.

  “You forgot to mention the red blessing,” Gelisa scolds.

  “Didn’t forget nothing. You just mentioned it,” Felda says.

  “I was part of a group that helped save Ford…” I begin.

  “Oh, yes, we heard about that,” Emina says.

  “And right before that, I had a few visions of red bless—”

  “Must be it, then. Good to know,” Felda interrupts.

  “You know, scamp, I bet this girl solves that problem we talked about. Your father’s people will have to take you seriously if you cut back on all that carousing,” Gelisa whispers, quite audibly. Sebastian lips tighten.

  Emina picks up her coffee cup and her looking glass. “My cup has a bird, too,” she says with a puzzled expression.

  For the first time since we entered, the room is silent. It stretches as they pass their cups and the eyeglass back and forth to each other. Felda grabs for my overturned cup.