by Jeremy Flagg
Eleanor spoke, accentuating each word. “I. Will. Know.”
She turned and walked away, making sure that she took her time so he knew she was anything but afraid of what had transpired. As she walked out of the apartment, working her way down the stoop , her body reacted.
Vomit projected onto the stairs.
Eleanor remembered curling over one of her mother’s pots, clutching it for dear life as she hurled. Her parents had worried about her speaking to imaginary friends past her childhood. The ghosts showed her things she didn’t want to see, giving away events before they happened, each time leaving her stomach upset and her head spinning. Yet when it happened, her father collected her hair, pulling it away from her face as she emptied the meager contents of her stomach.
“Poor child, everything’s going to be okay.” Poppa’s voice walked the fine line between gruff and comforting. As she wiped her lips with a handkerchief, she didn’t believe him.
“I saw them again.”
“It’s just an overactive imagination,” he assured her.
A young Eleanor bit her lip. She didn’t want to upset her father. Tears collected in her eyes and embraced the girl. “Everything will be okay, Ellie.”
“You die.” The words were a quiet whisper. She feared saying it out loud would upset her father. She clutched his work shirt, burying her face in his chest. The sturdy man squeezed her, letting her sob, leaving wet spots on his clothes.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“The military men take you. They come and you never come home.”
“How do you know?”
Eleanor pulled away from her father, staring into his large brown eyes. Even at a young age she understood the burden resting on his shoulders. Their farm struggled to produce enough wheat, each month thirty days closer to being foreclosed. Even as Momma took a job as a nurse in the city, catching a ride with the neighbors as they passed their driveway, her father carried the burden of providing for his family.
“I saw your funeral, Poppa.”
Like the dozen times before when she spoke about outlandish events taking place, his face held a cross between pity and sadness. They had taken her to speak with their pastor and when he claimed she may be possessed, they stopped attending church. Now she spent most of her time on the farm, caring for their chickens and watching over her baby brother.
“I’m right here, Ellie. I’m not going anywhere.”
Her lips quivered with the certainty this would be the last time he’d promise her everything would be alright. Tears streaked down her face. “They’re here,” she whispered.
As a knock sounded from downstairs, they both froze.
“Who is it, Ellie?”
“Them.”
“Honey,” yelled her mom from downstairs, “Frank is here.”
Her father squeezed her hand, leaning in and kissing her forehead. He reached under her chin with a finger and lifted her face to meet his. As he pushed her hair behind her ears, he smiled. His image had burned into her mind, the last time she held him. Before he got off the bed to see his army buddy he whispered to her, “I believe you, Ellie.”
Those four words were the last time she heard her father’s voice. She stared at the empty doorway for hours after he left her, wanting nothing more than for him to return. As with every vision before, the sickness ran its course, but the future was inevitable. She didn’t know how long until it happened, but the next time she laid eyes on her father, the man would be dead.
Her eyes focused as she snapped back to reality, the gun sliding safely into her clutch. She wiped off her mouth with the back of her hand. Steadying herself with the rail of the stoop, she regained her composure, her limbs beginning to function. She made her way down the stairs and onward.
Eleanor’s pace sped up as she moved across the street. Three blocks later she reached her building. Looking up as she passed, she caught Susan Lee outside on the fire escape smoking. She let out a sigh. Eleanor had nearly killed a man and yet she was more concerned with her roommate’s health.
She opened the door to her apartment and took off her shoes, kicking them against the wall. She scooped them up as she walked toward the bedroom. As she walked in, Susan Lee ducked inside through the large window, freezing at the sight of her roommate.
“I thought I heard something out there.”
“So you decided to smoke it out?”
“I, uhm,” she stammered.
Eleanor took the pack of smokes, slid one from the box, and waited for Susan Lee to produce a match. She took a deep drag and smiled at the shock on Susan’s face.
“Who are you and what have you done with my roommate?” Susan asked.
“It has been a long night.”
“We were together a half hour ago,” Susan said. “What could have possibly have gone wrong since then?”
“One of those businessmen decided to get handsy.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” She gestured to her bloody shoe. “I kicked him real hard in the shin. He jumped back and I ran away.”
Susan Lee started to reach out for a hug, but paused as Eleanor tensed, then pulled back. She appreciated Susan Lee understanding her phobia of being touched, which she cited as a quirk, never explaining it had to do with the visions. Despite her idiosyncrasies, Susan Lee seemed to like her. Eleanor always went out of her way to be social with her roommate and tried to be a supportive friend when she could.
“Should we call the cops?”
Eleanor took a long drag on the fag and shook her head. “Nah, I’m sure he’s fled the scene by now. I’ll just have to be more careful with who I flirt with.”
“You just have men gawking at you all night.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Jeremiah smiled at you.”
“Who?”
“The Negro who smiled at you. I work with him. He’s an orderly at the hospital. He’s always been a pleasant man.”
“A Negro, Susan Lee?”
“Well,” she said, “you do seem to like being a wild child.”
Eleanor rolled her eyes.
“What time is your shift tomorrow?” she asked.
“Eight a.m.”
“What about you?”
Eleanor flicked the spent cigarette out the window. “Same.”
“Are you ever going to tell me what you do?”
“I told you,” she said.
Susan Lee frowned at her. “You told me a bunch of nothing!”
Eleanor let out a sigh. The tone in Susan’s voice made it clear there was no backing down. She put her clutch in a drawer and shut it while looking at Susan. “Fine,” she said. “I work as a secretary for a jewelry maker.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I don’t like people knowing.”
“Why not?”
“Would you want people to know that you worked for a man who was almost a millionaire?”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Eleanor said in a well-rehearsed speech. “That’s how I can afford this place. He pays me far more than he should. He’s a nice older man who loves what he does. I basically keep his appointment book and make sure he goes to his meetings. It’s nothing glamourous.”
“I beg to differ,” Susan said. “So why did you need a roommate?”
Eleanor sat on the bed and began to slide down her pantyhose. “I don’t like living alone,” she admitted. “I never have.”
“Even after you left home.”
Eleanor’s face hardened at the mention of home.
Susan Lee stopped her questioning. Of the many secrets Eleanor held, family was one of them. In the year they had been living together, she had never once told a single story about her life growing up. Not a single effect from home decorated her bedroom, not even a photograph.
“I think it’s bedtime,” Eleanor said in an even voice.
“Right on,” Susan said, not pushing her luck.
Eleanor put away her dress
and slipped on a silk nightgown. She pulled the wallet out of her clutch. It held the man’s personal effects: a license, some money, a photograph. Taking the cash, she slid it in her underwear drawer. She took the man’s license and threw the wallet in a small trashcan. Turning off her nightstand lamp, she sat down on her bed, gripping the piece of paper.
The paper had coarse edges, worn from resting in his wallet for years. She touched the small card and focused on the man she left bleeding in the apartment. The hair on her neck began to stand upright, as if a cool breeze touched her skin. The card under her fingertip grew heavy as she thought of him and what would happen to him.
Like so many times before, the light in the room flickered and dimmed until she sat in the dark. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again she stood in a kitchen she had only visited in her mind. A woman in a white apron cut vegetables on the counter as her husband came in the door. Eleanor recognized the man and felt the anger creep into her limbs.
Johnny walked with a cane, limping. Eleanor smiled. The bastard remembered her with every step. He kissed his wife.
The image shifted and Eleanor stood in their bedroom. The covers of their bed rose and fell. She recognized the motion of a man making love to his wife. Eleanor smiled; while she wanted him to suffer, it seemed destiny may have changed for the better. She walked through the bed until she was close enough to see their faces.
Eleanor snarled as she realized that Johnny was choking his wife. She wanted to scream for help but she knew it would be futile. The man’s movements got more and more furious as he clenched the woman’s throat, a game she must be familiar with. She grabbed at his fists as panic set in. It stopped being fun for his victim.
Eleanor waved her hand and the image shifted. Now she could see an empty space where the woman had been lying, the covers pulled back. The man was sleeping on his back, his bare chest exposed. The psychic swore, angry she hadn’t stopped the man. It was only a matter of time before his anger escalated. The visions had not helped Eleanor change the future.
She cocked her head to the side in a curious glance. Something seemed different from before. Where normally dozens of future possibilities unfolded before her, now she could only see one. It wasn’t the same sensation as when she taxed her ability to see the ghosts. This time, it simply felt as if only one option existed. She tried again and nothing changed.
Eleanor turned as the door to the bedroom eased open. The woman stood there in her nightgown. Eleanor tried not to let the tears fill her eyes as she apologized. “I’m so sorry.” She wanted to confess what she had done, that she had attempted to save the woman. She could see the ghosts, but she couldn’t interact with them.
Eleanor saw the flash of metal as the woman crept closer to the bed. The blade from earlier pointed down in her hand. Eleanor watched, a calm easing the tension in her chest as the woman raised the knife and slammed it into her husband’s chest. The battered woman struggled as she pulled it out and slammed it back into his chest again. His throat already full of blood, he didn’t even have a chance to scream.
“It changed,” Eleanor said in surprise.
She reached out to touch the woman covered in blood. Eleanor focused on the woman’s face in order to see her future. A headache built behind her eyes, the pressure intensifying as she pushed forward. Just as the image shifted, a searing pain rush through her brain. She yelped as she opened her eyes, grabbing the side of her head.
Eleanor sat in her bed, surrounded by the present again. She tossed the man’s license into the trash alongside his wallet. The look of contentment on his wife’s face as she impaled her spouse haunted her. Eleanor had hoped to spare the woman a grim future, but regardless of what came to her now, it was better than lying dead in the park.
She lay down in bed, smiling. For the first time, after a lifetime of failed experiments, she had altered the future. Satisfaction filled her chest, satisfaction in herself and her abilities. A sense of empowerment flowed through her.
“I changed the future,” she mouthed to herself.
Sounds of the city crept in through her opened window. She longed for the quietness of the country, the rustle of wheat as the breeze swept through the plains. The moment she let memories of home wash over her, the image of her family gathered around the table surfaced. It started with them all eating—Eleanor, Mom, Dad, and Benjie—making the most of their meager meal. One by one, they vanished. Her father first, then her brother and finally her mom.
The image of the pond came to mind. She stood at the edge of the water, trying to stay warm on a cold winter day. Benjie, with all of his bravery, slid across the ice. As it cracked, she didn’t call out to warn him, didn’t even blink as the break raced along the frozen surface. The hole opened up and he slid in, waving his arms and crying for her. Every vision from that day until now had come true, no matter how strongly she protested and fought against fate.
A shiver covered her skin in tiny bumps. Her face froze in horror, unable to scream. She waited to wake from the vision, to rise in bed screaming for Momma. But she didn’t wake. The vision didn’t end. The splashing water calmed as her brother found himself trapped under the ice.
In a small bedroom in New York City, more than a decade later, her skin covered itself in tiny bumps. Eleanor cried silently as she wondered if, like today, that afternoon at the pond could have been different. She fell asleep, her pillow wet with tears.
Vanessa
February 13, 1992
My Dearest Angel,
You are older than the babe I once met, now a woman in your own right. Of all the recipients of all the letters I now write, you are the only one I have witnessed firsthand. In a single moment I watched every award, recognition, victory, and heartache you have ever experienced. I am proud to have seen the woman you have become even if I could not truly see it happen.
Vanessa, you are truly unique.
I know not how we are capable of what we are, but you are the first to walk between two worlds. You have been burdened from birth with the ability to know the thoughts of every human. It will only magnify as you develop a vessel as fierce as your mind. I am truly sorry. I understand that life as you know it is crumbling down about you. Years of work seem to be for naught, but as the only person who can truly predict your destiny, the future needs you.
In every possibility laid out before me, every path I can manipulate, every future I have seen, you are there. In your boundless beauty and unyielding patience, they will come to you for guidance. Those like you will seek refuge from a mounting storm and as they do, you will find your purpose. You shall be their angel and in return, they will give you purpose. God will send a man needing your strength. He shall be the first. This lost soul seeks refuge from himself: he must know Skits resides in Bellevue.
You are an angel, in deed if not appearance, Vanessa. Never forget that.
Sincerely,
Eleanor P. Valentine
May 2, 1990
“And who might you be?” asked Sister Muriel.
Even at the age of two, the young infant in Sister Muriel’s arms made her back ache. Orphaned at birth, the child maintained a healthy appetite.
Two men in matching sunglasses waited for the nun to hand over the girl. Muriel suspected it had to do with Sister Vivian claiming to hear the infant speak without moving her mouth.
The men had taken a step closer when she hesitated. Now, an elderly woman burst into the small meeting room where prospective parents were introduced to the children. The woman’s powder blue dress and elbow-length gloves spoke to a time long since past.
“Excuse me?” one of the men asked.
“President Cecilia sent me.”
“How do we—”
“Mr. Erickson said the codeword is ‘crocodile’.”
Sister Muriel bounced the child while the woman speedily cut them off. For an older woman, for any woman, she had a presence in the room demanding she be heard. The secret world threw both men off. Th
ey exchanged glances and shrugged their shoulders.
“Thank you, Ms. Val—”
“Eleanor,” she corrected before they could finish.
“Eleanor.”
The men eyed the child again before leaving. It didn’t have to be said, they believed the young girl had special gifts. The government hoped to take her, possibly train her, and put her to work for the country.
“Eleanor P. Valentine, I presume?” Muriel said.
The woman gave a slight nod. Eleanor Valentine didn’t show up to many festivities along with the President of the United States of America, but they paraded her around on occasion. The mentalist who claimed to see the future. “Sister Muriel, there isn’t much time. But I need you to know—”
“I do not believe in your soothsaying, madam.”
“I do not remember asking.” Spoken by any other person, it would have been a biting reply. But Eleanor’s poise and intense eyes removed any personal judgements. The government psychic held out her hand, a single white envelope between her fingers.
“What is this?”
“It’s for Vanessa to read when she is old enough. This young girl’s destiny is extremely important.”
“What if I—”
“You will. Vanessa will need more than your support in the years to come. I have seen to it the government will not come looking for her again.”
“How do I—”
“Someday the world will know you as the Patron Saint of the Streets. When the light flashes across the sky, Vanessa will not be the only soul you save. The disenfranchised will turn to you for moral guidance. Your heart will be the purest it has ever been and for the first time in your life, you will believe in God.”
Sister Muriel bit her lip. Vanessa’s tiny fingers wrapped around the gold chain holding a cross about the nun’s neck. The infant pulled, giggling at the shiny object. A sense of joy touched Muriel’s heart at the sound of innocence in the girl’s chirps. Despite the magic of Vanessa’s voice, Eleanor had laid a truth on the table Muriel hadn’t been prepared for.