I half turn, too nervous to look at her dead-on. She doesn’t even flinch. Alex is the one who finally has to say, “She is.”
There’s another, longer beat, and it’s quiet enough that I can hear the five of us breathing out of sync. “We’ll talk later, Cass.”
Christie’s name vanishes from the screen as she disconnects the call.
“Does she not want us to see the Mockingbird?” I ask.
Alex chews on that for a moment. “Ms. Jones doesn’t like me alone with her.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Felix drawls. “You always wanted the two of us to agree on something.”
“I work for the sheriff’s office,” Alex says. “She’s a respected citizen. I can’t just avoid her.”
In the quiet that follows, I turn my attention back to the list of names in my hand. “So,” I say. “Our first stop is this . . . John Jonas?”
And that’s enough to finally get Cassie’s attention.
“Please, no,” she groans.
“He bought something,” Alex says with a shrug.
“Apparently an . . . antique bassinet,” Felix reads off the receipt. “You know, like a weirdo.”
Cassie wrinkles her nose. “What does he need an antique bassinet for? He lives alone with his begonias.”
Felix grins. “I’m sensing a lack of respect for Lotus Valley’s second-most accurate prophet.”
“He’s a clown,” Cassie says dryly.
“Must suck that he’s got a place on you in the rankings, too,” I say.
“Wow. Okay,” Cassie says. “I lost the fourth-grade spelling bee on nebula. Did you want to rub that in, too?”
I duck my head, laughing. At least I distracted her for a second.
It was bad enough to think that somewhere among these names was the person who brought me here. Now I also need to convince them that I can fix this.
Even though I haven’t convinced myself.
“What’s wrong,” comes Cassie’s voice from my right. Not quite a question. Rarely a question, with her.
Any number of answers could be correct. The weightless, sliding sensation of a car that’s not under my control. The distant line of the highway out of the corner of my eye, all those exits open in theory but closed to me. That voice asking what gives me the right to take chances with a home that isn’t mine.
“Is this my decision to make?” I ask quietly.
Cassie doesn’t need clarification. But a little wrinkle appears in her nose, like the question makes no sense to her nonetheless. “If it makes you feel any better,” she says, “it was inevitable.”
And we ride in uneasy silence to our first stop.
Fourteen
THE PREVIEW OF COMING ATTRACTIONS
“SO HEY,” FELIX says. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
John Jonas, second-most accurate prophet in Lotus Valley, blinks like a cat. “I’m not sure what you mean, Felix.”
“You predicted every meal my father cooked last week,” Felix says. “I’m just saying, you could have been paying a little closer attention to the ETA of our cataclysmic prophecy.”
“The whims of fate are unpredictable.” John smiles slowly. “So, too, is the third eye.”
The apartment regards us as John does: sleepily observant. There’s a mirror on each side, elongating the walls, and the curtains hang open, fluttering with every whir of the ceiling fan. But the feel of the place sharpens when my eyes fall back on the door. There are four sets of locks, each heavier and more forbidding than the last.
“There’s such a thing as too much knowledge,” John says, following my eyes. “I’d see anyone coming, of course. I always do.”
I glance back at him. The way Cassie looked at me that first time, the way Mayor Williams looked at me, the way he’s looking at me now—in some ways they couldn’t be more different, but they all have that one thing in common: the recognition.
He looks harmless. But on Theresa’s list of pawn shop customers, he’s easily the most frequent visitor.
“Rose Colter,” he says, like he’s feeling it out.
I try to smile. “Hi.”
“You’ll make the right decision,” he says. “You might not be able to imagine it now. But you wouldn’t have been happy at Stanford. UC San Diego is the far better fit.”
I blink. That’s not where I saw that sentence going. “Hang on. I’m getting into both?”
“What happened to not fair?” Felix says.
“This is the only time I’ll talk to her,” he says, slightly wounded. “I won’t get to tell her later.”
“Wait, wait,” I say. “This is for real, right? Because Cassie says she gets things wrong sometimes.”
“Yes, Rose,” Cassie says with a sigh, “thank you for bringing that up here and now.”
“John is never wrong,” Alex says. “Or hasn’t been before.”
“But you’re still ranked under Mayor Williams?” I say.
“John’s prophecies are more accurate,” Cassie says. “But his predictions have always been decidedly small scale.”
“Jealousy is unbecoming, Cassandra,” John says.
Cassie’s expression darkens. “One drought,” she mutters. “Anyone can predict a drought. The weatherman could predict a drought.”
“And many did,” John singsongs. “You, as I recall, did not.”
Alex, in his own impressive display of foresight, puts out an arm just as Cassie steps forward. “Anyway,” he says, “that short survey . . .”
“Ah, yes,” John says. “But I’m already planning to vote in favor of Ms. Colter. Anything to understand the Great Sea.”
The Great Sea. Hope they didn’t hear that. Don’t want to give them an ego on top of everything else.
“Then,” Alex says slowly, gesturing to the TV, “why do you have Maggie Williams on?”
John regards the low drone of the TV with a sleepy nod. “Don’t you find it sort of soothing?”
Alex tactfully doesn’t answer. But John smiles anyway.
“Don’t be too hard on Maggie,” he says. “She struggles with her gift.”
“She’s never struggled with anything in her life,” Cassie says darkly.
“You know better than that, Cassandra,” John says. “Haven’t you ever regretted what you’ve seen? Maggie came to me once, when she was younger. She told me she saw a future where her prophecies controlled this town, from the laws passed to the decisions we made day to day. She asked me if that meant it would really happen.”
Cassie’s expression flickers but doesn’t lighten. “I didn’t know that.”
“What did you tell her?” Alex asks.
“I told her that she was the most gifted young prophet I knew,” John says, “and that if she saw it, then it would likely come to pass. She never asked me about it again. But when she claimed, years later, that she lost the sight, I wondered if she was trying, the only way she knew how, to stop what she knew would come.”
In the beat of silence that follows, I think of Mayor Williams: her sweater set, her pearls, her beatific smile. A future where she controls this town seems like something she’d kill for. But maybe that’s not always how she was.
I don’t know if what John and Cassie have is something you can wish away. But with enough time and practice, you can bury just about any part of yourself. No matter how big.
“Look at me, chattering away.” John laughs. “You have questions, don’t you? Ask.”
“Right.” Alex digs for his survey. “The first question is, what is your happiest memory?”
“Happiest? My,” John muses. “Next week I’m going to have a particularly good cup of tea.”
“Memory,” Cassie grits out. “Mem-o-ry.”
“Cassie,” Alex warns. But then thinks about it further. “But yes, a past thing
. A past thing is better.”
“It’s all the same, isn’t it?” John says. “The premonition came on a Tuesday last year. So isn’t it both past and future?”
“Oh,” I say, in sudden realization. “That’s not going to work.”
“Why?” Felix says.
“The next question is ‘What would you give to live it again?’” I say.
There’s a collection of quiet, rueful noises around the semicircle. John watches us thoughtfully.
“I think I see the problem here,” he says.
“I think there are actually multiple problems,” Felix says. But John shakes his head.
“You’re not on the same page,” he says. “None of you are. If you can’t communicate with one another, how can you hope to communicate with me, let alone the Great Sea?”
“How many people do you know who can communicate with you?” Cassie says.
“I’m going to give you something,” John says. “One prophecy, free of charge.”
“Um.” I raise my hand. “Were the others not free?”
“Ah, no,” he says, perfectly serene. “Those ones were just for fun.”
Cassie’s eyes glaze over. I think she’s still listening. But I also think she’s slipped into some kind of rage fugue state.
John settles back in his chair, tilts his neck slowly from side to side. “The abandoned multiplex,” he says. “That’s where you should go next.” Alex frowns, glancing down at his list, but John laughs and shakes his head. “It’s no one you planned to talk to. No one’s talked to them for quite some time. But if you don’t go there next, you will not be successful today.”
“So we will be successful?” Felix says.
“Who is it?” Alex asks at the same time.
“I’m afraid both those answers are out of my reach,” John says. “All I know is that this path grants you your best chance. Perhaps your only chance.”
I start to look at the others. But before I can, Cassie says, “I’m fine with that.”
Alex scribbles on his schedule without looking down. “Thanks, John.”
We mutter thank-yous and goodbyes as we shuffle to the door, which John accepts with a gracious incline of his head. As I slip out last, he gestures to me, “Ah, Ms. Colter, when you find the Great Sea, do treat them gently, yes? You never know someone else’s story.”
I smile and duck through the door before he can see the shiver that works its way through me.
“I’m kind of surprised, Cassie,” Felix says as we make our way to the stairs. “That you’re taking John’s advice, I mean.”
Cassie looks at him sideways. “I’m petty,” she says, “I’m not stupid. I said it before, didn’t I? John’s prophecies may be trivial. But even I know that they’re never wrong.”
* * *
—
THE ABANDONED MULTIPLEX sits tucked between two restaurants on a busy corner of Morningside Drive. But when you step off the block and into the entryway, it’s easy to forget that. Like in the middle of this lively downtown chaos, there’s a pocket of airless space.
Wordlessly, Cassie offers her purse, and Alex pulls out a keyring, squinting at the color-coded caps.
“Do you guys have keys to the entire city?” I ask.
“Just the public buildings,” Alex says. “Sometimes Ms. Jones brings me to check on the places that need a . . . closer eye. But we’ve never been here before.”
“You’ve heard a lot about the neighbors by now,” Cassie says, “but you haven’t seen many, have you? That’s because they’re happy enough to leave us alone if we leave them alone. You avoid the right parts of town, you can go weeks without seeing one at all.” For a moment, she watches Alex, sorting through the keys. “And there are particular places you shouldn’t go at all, whether you want to see them or not.”
“Unless you’re Felix,” Alex mumbles, most of his attention still on his task.
Felix sputters. “Again! The child of scientists here! If you hand me a list of places I shouldn’t go, what do you expect me to do?”
“I mean,” I say, “probably not go there.”
Alex smiles, just a little, and it untwists something in my stomach. He’s been quieter than usual since I saw that list in his hands.
I watch his face a little more closely as I ask, “But the multiplex isn’t one of those places?”
I think I see recognition on his face. Then he finds the right key, and it’s gone.
“No,” he says, sliding it into the lock. “If it was dangerous, Ms. Jones would have told me.”
That’s the exact moment that Alex withdraws the keys and pushes at the door. It unsticks with a snap and creaks slowly open. The air rushes out with a little sigh. Then it stills.
It’s darker than dark in there. Dark like nothing within our atmosphere should be.
Felix takes a huge gulp of an inhale. “I’ll go first,” he says. But Alex is already slipping past him, braced against the chill of the hallway. Cursing, Felix bolts after him.
Cassie turns to me with a wry smile. “Shall we?”
So we do.
My eyes adjust slowly. And as they do, I catch the ticket booth looming ahead, broad strokes of light fixtures framing the sides like peacock tail feathers. I can just imagine it: bombastic splashes of light against dark carpet and dark paint. But I don’t think this place has been lit in a long time.
I sidle up next to Cassie and whisper, “Are we really going to find someone here?”
Cassie shrugs. But even in the dark, I see a brief, rare flicker of uncertainty.
From up ahead, Alex clears his throat and points at the darkened door. “Let’s try theater one.”
I glance to the right as I follow, through the double doors. I know from the sign outside that there are only four screens. But in the dark, the theater stretches on and on.
There’s light filtering through the emergency exits. By it, a stream of dust cascades from ceiling to floor. The screen looms above, framed by the scalloped edges of the curtain. Something about a dark screen always looks like waiting.
Alex clears his throat. “If there’s anybody here,” he calls, “could we ask for five minutes of your time?”
There’s no response to that. For a second, I think I see a dark, fuzzy shape, hovering at the edge of the curtain. But I blink hard, and the image clears.
My imagination, maybe. I hope.
“John Jonas sent us?” Felix adds hopefully.
At the silence that follows, Cassie attempts a smile. “We want to talk to them, Felix, not scare them off.”
“Let’s try theater two,” Alex says. And even he sounds uneasy at this point
We turn around. The good news is, I’m no longer at the back of the line. The bad news is, I’m at the front.
I take a breath. I’ve been telling myself these past few months, whenever that nameless panic crept in, that the worst thing that could happen to me has already happened. Now I think I was tempting fate.
I reach for the doorknob. Something gets there first.
Something black and thick and solid stretches across the doors like rope.
I jerk back, nearly taking myself and Cassie to the floor. Something slithers along the walls, laced into brambles across the door.
From the front of the theater, by the darkened screen, there’s the sound of something slithering. And it whispers, low.
“Talk.”
Fifteen
THE FEATURE PRESENTATION
“COME ON. COME on.” Felix thrusts his phone above his head, waving it. But there’s as little signal here as there was on the desert road, and Felix realizes that quickly. “Help!” he bellows. “Someone help!”
“What’s happening?” I turn to Cassie.
“I don’t know,” Cassie says. Her eyes are wide, darting. It’s deeply un
nerving, seeing her thrown off. “I didn’t see this.”
“I’m trying the other door,” Felix says over his shoulder, already halfway across the theater.
“Felix,” Alex says, “get away from there.”
“And do what?” Felix reaches out, rattles the doorknob. “I’m not just going to stand here while we—”
But then Felix stumbles back, one hand fully recoiled, the other gripping his wrist. When he speaks again, it’s quieter, higher. “Guys,” he says, “something bit me.”
Through the dark, I can barely make out the web barring our way: solid, dark strokes branching into thinner spindles. They look almost like tree branches. But they’re vibrating just slightly. Pulsing with potential energy.
“Is that you?” I say slowly.
And the web, piece by piece, shivers like the limbs of the spider Dan killed in the bathroom a couple of weeks ago. I’m starting to wish he were here.
“Talk,” it whispers.
This isn’t the Flood. For the first time, the thought doesn’t come as a relief.
Felix grips Alex’s arm. “Say something,” he whispers.
Alex twitches, startled back into the moment, and clears his throat. “Ex-excuse me,” he manages. “We’re . . . sorry to bother you. But if I could ask you a few questions—”
“What are you doing?” Felix hisses. “Convince them to let us out!”
“Not yet,” Alex says softly.
“What do you mean, not yet?” Felix says.
“What if they know something about the Flood?” Alex says.
There’s a low-level buzz now, rattling the seats around us, rising steadily in pitch. “Talk,” they say. “Talk, talk, TALK!”
“We’d like to,” Alex says, his patience just barely steadying his voice. “But if we could just ask a few questions—”
“NO!” The buzz turns high and crackling, a shriek of a roar. “YOU! TALK!”
It takes a few seconds for the room to still. My fingers, curling around the back of a chair, feel just as unsteady.
“Alex,” I say, never looking away from the door. “Was that what the list was for? Were you going to interview the neighbors, too?”
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