Sleep No More

TWENTY-SIX

I’m sitting at the kitchen table when the next vision overtakes me. Home has always been one of the most dangerous places for me to have a vision because my mom might see me. But since I’ve stopped fighting the foretellings, it’s doubly risky because Sierra could catch me. And if Sierra knew I was just letting them come—especially now—there would be hell to pay.

At the very least. I briefly wonder what she might be able to do before I lay my head down like I’m exhausted and let the vision take me.

I’m so tired of standing in the snow first thing in my visions; it’s ruined for me forever. It used to make me think of sledding and children playing and the holidays. Now I only remember how bright-red blood looks on its sparkling-white surface.

It’s daytime. That confuses me. Maybe this will be a normal vision. But I shake that hope away. This one has the same nearly unbearable pressure inside my skull that I’ve almost gotten used to. It’ll be violent—that’s all I know for sure.

But in the middle of the day? I glance up at the sky and guesstimate that it can’t be later than about one or two in the afternoon. Who murders someone in broad daylight? In a town that’s already on high alert?

Maybe I’m too late. Maybe for some cruel, sadistic reason, the universe only wants me to see the bodies after they’re already dead. To show me how helpless I really am. I look to my right when I see a flutter of something black in my peripheral. A figure turning a corner on the newly shoveled sidewalk.

“Smith?” I whisper. But all I saw was a black coat. There are thousands of black coats in Coldwater. Still, I swear . . .

I take off running after him and am a little surprised when my vision lets me, with no added effort. Apparently that’s where I’m supposed to go. My feet don’t slide on the slick cement and I make good time, but when I fling myself around the corner, the sidewalk in front of me is empty.

I walk slowly and nothing moves. No one is out; no voices to be heard. It’s like a modern, frozen ghost town.

But then, isn’t that what Coldwater has become with four teenagers dead? What else could we be?

I keep trudging forward simply because that’s what my vision is telling me to do. I see movement again—brown this time. Not the same person. I hurry toward it anyway.

My footsteps echo on the bare sidewalk, and the girl in the brown coat turns as I draw near. And smiles at me.

My feet slow. That’s weird. No one in my visions has ever been able to see me.

Except when I put myself in the scene with Linden.

But this isn’t the supernatural plane. This is something else entirely.

“Hi, Charlotte. You couldn’t take being pent up anymore either?”

Charisse, from choir. We sit next to each other even though I sing alto and she sings second soprano, because Mrs. Simkins said we’re both strong enough singers to handle it. A compliment to each of us—we’ve been friendly ever since.

“I know I shouldn’t be here,” Charisse confides, “but aren’t you going crazy?”

I nod. “Totally,” I whisper, meaning it more than her question intends.

“I snuck out. My dad is away on business and my mom got called in to work last minute. She made me swear about a billion times on everything from my grandpa’s dead soul to the baby Jesus that I would stay in the house and not answer the door to anyone.” She turns and points to a house across the street. “I live over there and after she left, I couldn’t help it,” she finishes with a shrug.

She takes in a deep breath and spreads her arms wide. “It was worth it. Besides,” she says after she pushes her hands into her pockets and starts walking again, “who’s going to try to kill someone out in the open in the middle of the day?”

“Me,” I say from just over her shoulder. I grab her hair and twist it back, exposing her throat. She’s so shocked she doesn’t make a sound until I’ve pulled the knife across her neck and then it’s too late.

She’s alive for another second or two when I drop her into the snow with blood pouring over her chest, and she stares up at me with eyes that ask so plainly, “Why?”

I jerk myself from my vision and I’m breathing so hard I feel like I’ve run miles and miles since I laid my head down on the table just a couple minutes ago. My sight is still black, but my feet are so cold it feels like I actually went walking in the snow. I shiver; my whole body is freezing.

My hand seems to have a memory all its own as it recalls the sensation of the knife so vividly it feels like I’m actually holding it. I blink and the sunlight finally invades my sight.

I shriek and jump back.

I’m outside. In my socks and a light hoodie.

And the knife is in my hand.

I instantly shove it under my sweatshirt and out of sight. My head whips around, searching for anyone who might be looking at me; anyone who witnessed . . . whatever just happened. “No,” I whisper. “It’s not possible. That’s not what happens!”

But nearly every vision I’ve ever had has come true.

And why the hell am I outside? Worse, how am I going to get back in without Mom or Sierra noticing?

The back door. That’s the one closest to the kitchen and farthest from Mom’s office. It’s my best shot as long as Mom hasn’t decided to angry-cook again. I duck and jog to the back gate and let myself through. I slip in and pull the door closed behind me, but I hear Mom’s humming making its way down the hall. My bowl of chili is still on the table and I slide across the linoleum to the table and slip into the chair just as she comes around the corner.

“Aren’t you done yet?” she asks as I shove a huge—cold—spoonful into my mouth so I won’t have to speak. But she doesn’t actually seem all that interested as she reads an email printout while unwrapping a bagel. After toasting it for what feels like an eternity, she slowly wheels out of the kitchen and back to her office without giving me a second glance.

As soon as she’s out of sight, I dump my chili in the garbage and hurry to my room. I turn on my heating pad and wrap my feet in it before pulling the knife out from under my hoodie.

“Nobody’s dead yet,” I whisper, staring at the sharp, shiny blade. But as an Oracle, it’s hard to even consider that the future I just saw won’t come true. I mean, it’s not for sure, but that’s where the future is headed. I’m already on the path to murder.

So which side of me is stronger? The Oracle, or the human? And how long until I find out?

Somehow, someone is taking control of my abilities and until I figure out who, and how, I can’t use them.

What else am I supposed to do? There was no indication in my vision of when I’m supposed to kill Charisse. But she talked about being cooped up, which means that the killer is still at large.

Maybe that’s my answer. If I can find the killer before Charisse’s destined death, I can derail fate and stop everything. Change everything.

Completely freaked out, I stash the knife under my bed. It occurs to me that if I was able to sneak into our house so easily—in the middle of the day, no less—how hard would it be for a killer to slip in?

Or for Sierra to slip out in the middle of the night. Last night.

But they said the killer was a man.

Everything in my life has turned inside out.

I pull out my laptop and check out the stories on the newest murder. A knife, just like Sierra said. And they’ve released his name: Nathan Hawkins.

My heart sinks. I know him too. We were both in an experimental advanced track in eighth grade. There are about seven hundred kids in our school; after four murders and four additional potential victims in my visions, you’d think at least one of them would be a stranger to me.

But the most disturbing part is the FBI officer’s statement a few paragraphs down:

There’s something different about this killing. The killer seems to have hesitated; there are a number of shallow, nonfatal cuts as though he had not quite made up his mind to take this young boy’s life.

And the worst part—the part that chills me right to my bones:

There’s a chance we may be looking at a copycat killer.

I shudder, the spasm wracking my entire body as I close my laptop, unable to read another word. Is it possible I killed this guy? Is that why I don’t remember last night? Why I woke with visions of blood all over me? And why was I outside after the vision with Charisse? Doing things I can’t remember is terrifying considering the current circumstances. Could another Oracle make me murder someone? Without me even realizing it?

The tiniest spark of hope lights in my mind. If an Oracle could do that to me, maybe I could do it to the killer. Make him turn himself in.

Unless I’m the killer. The only killer.

No. Even if I’m involved, it can’t just be me. I was with Linden when Eddie Franklin was killed.

Probably. Science has been known to be wrong.

“Charlotte?”

I almost shriek at the sudden sound of my mom knocking at my door.

“Can I come in?”

“Sure,” I say, willing my heart rate to slow. It’s just my mom. I look up and a wordless scream gets stuck in my throat. Her head is sitting nearly on her shoulders, her eyes unseeing, blood from her severed neck pouring down her chest, dripping off her chair.

“Charlotte, are you okay?”

I blink. The blood is gone. She’s back to normal—whole and healthy—her eyes focused worriedly on me.

“You startled me, that’s all,” I say, but I can’t hide the shakiness of my voice. I wonder if she can see that my entire body is trembling.

Her hand is resting on my doorknob as she studies me. “Charlotte, do we need to go out of town? Maybe we should go see your cousin Jennifer until school starts back up. This whole thing is really starting to affect you—not that I blame you,” she adds with her hands palm out toward me, as though placating a young child. “It’s having an effect on me too.”

I contemplate this silently. If I leave, I can’t help catch the killer. But if I stay, I might be the killer. Am I trying to run from my fate? To change things that can’t be changed? For all I know, we’ll leave tomorrow, get as far as Henderson Park, the car will break down, and that’s how I run into Charisse.

Sierra once told me that the future is like a stubborn, old man—he’ll get what he wants even if he has to go to hell and back to make it happen. Look at the murders. Yes, we saved Jesse and Nicole—and you could argue that we saved Clara too—but Eddie and Nathan? I didn’t even get visions of them. Would they still be dead if I had let the killer get Jesse and Nicole? Am I simply swapping one person’s death for another?

For the first time, I realize I might not be changing anything. Not really. I’ve been operating on the idea that the future is fluid, but maybe some things are set in stone. Maybe if I’m supposed to pull that blade across Charisse’s throat, one way or another, I have to. No matter how impossible it seems.

“I don’t know,” I finally say, unable to make a decision.

Mom purses her lips for a few seconds then nods. “I’ll call Will and Saundra and see what their plans are this next week and we’ll go from there.”

I nod weakly, feeling like a complete wimp for giving up. As I close the door behind her, I’ve almost convinced myself that I’m doing the right thing when the familiar tingling starts in my temples and another vision overtakes me.