Foretold Epilogue One Year Before A Geographical History of Amelia Graham
Foretold
Epilogue: One Year Before
A few months after Beck died, I got it in my head that I needed to consult a clairvoyant.
When she was seventeen, my mom had her future foretold, a fortune that became a compass, prophesying her life’s most significant events. I was sure a reading of my own would give me the direction I’d lacked since losing Beck—since losing my fate.
Scouring the Internet, I found a psychic reader in Arlington, a woman named Jasmine who, in her website’s headshot, looked safe enough. I booked an appointment for a cold afternoon in early March. The drive took forever and, by the time I stood at the storefront with Jasmine’s Readings painted on its window, a brisk wind stinging my cheeks, I was a tightly coiled spring.
Bells tinkled as I pushed open the door. Stepping into the small lobby, I wondered if my mom had been so nervous before her long-ago reading.
An interior door swept open, and a woman stepped through. In the movies, psychics always have robes, bangle bracelets, and whimsically braided hair, but she looked like she was headed to the grocery store in khakis, a cable-knit sweater, and brown boots. Her face was lightly made up, and her brown hair was loose. She looked me up and down before offering a smile.
“Lia Graham?”
I nodded, then blurted, “You don’t look like a psychic.”
Her smile became bemused. “You don’t look like someone who needs a reading.”
“Is that a casual observation or a professional conclusion?”
She lifted a brow. “Would you like to come back to my office?”
I followed her into a space that wasn’t unlike my grief counselor’s: desk, sofa, crowded bookshelf, vining plants. No star charts, shells, or bones. No incense or tarot cards.
She gestured to the sofa. I sat.
She relaxed into the chair opposite it and said, “Well, Lia. What is it that you’re interested in learning?”
I hesitated, then stumbled over a response. “I guess—I just—I need to know what I’m supposed to do. You know…with my life?”
She looked at me, unspeaking, for a long time. I’d expected a certain level of uneasiness, but I felt utterly exposed, and deeply uncomfortable, like she was rifling around in my cache of secrets. I didn’t avert my gaze, though. It seemed important to remain vulnerable.
In a businesslike tone, she said, “You’ve experienced a loss.”
“Is it that obvious?”
She gave a tight smile. “You’re…astray. You won’t always be.”
“Promise?” I asked, a weak attempt at humor.
Crisply, she said, “The loss was recent.”
“It’s been ninety-nine days.”
“He was important to you. Your lives were entwined.”
My eyes burned as my vision blurred. In a small voice, I said, “It still feels that way.”
“You weren’t expecting his death.”
“No.”
“And now…your soul misses its mirror.”
The woman I spoke of—your soul’s mirror—will mother your daughter’s fated.
A bone-deep shiver rattled through me.
Clamping my hands together, I dammed my tears.
My sorrow must’ve been palpable, though, because she said, in a voice gentler than anything I’d heard from her yet, “I’m very sorry.”
I nodded, afraid speech would steal my composure.
“My impression is that you’re seeking specifics,” she went on. “You asked what you’re supposed to do with your life and…I don’t know. You’ll face choices—difficult choices made more so because you have a unique understanding of the fragility of our existence. Sometimes you’ll make the wrong choice. Sometimes you’ll choose exactly right, but the outcome won’t be what you expect. Regardless, the choices are all yours.”
I shifted on the sofa, frustration building. “But you’re supposed to tell me my future.”
You’re supposed to help me , I thought despairingly.
She leaned in, resting her elbows on her knees. “I’m a guide, not a choreographer. All I can tell you is that your heart will heal. Someday you’ll stop counting the days he’s been gone. Someday you’ll laugh without second-guessing whether you’re allowed to feel joy. Someday you’ll think of him and instead of feeling like you can’t breathe, can’t exist , you’ll warm in the glow of his memory.”
I shook my head, unable to imagine the scenarios she described.
“Someday,” she said with the sincerity of a promise, “you’ll love again. You’ll cherish that love because you know the fickleness of forever.”
She stood. Reluctantly, I did too. I followed her into the lobby, irritated at having wasted my time, furious to be without a fortune.
I wanted fate.
I wanted magic.
I wanted hope.
In the foyer, she startled me with a hug, one as prolonged and discomfiting as the look she gave me when I sat down in her office. There, in her warm embrace, my body began to sense what my brain lacked the wherewithal to register: a shift, a current of electricity traveling a closed circuit between the two of us. My skin cooled, goose bumps rising on my forearms, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.
She spoke in a tone soft but sure, her voice urgent in my ear. “He’ll appear when you least expect it, long limbs and ebony hair, scarred on the surface and deep within, nose crooked as a woodland trail. In you, he’ll find a confidant. In your heart, faith will regain its footing. He’ll embrace you as I am now and if you let him…his soul will offer yours a second match.”
When she pulled away, her eyes were distant, her mouth a solemn line. She pushed the door open and waved me out into the cold.
My heart, for weeks still and dark, flickered, then flared.
A new future, promised to me.
A Geographical History of Amelia Graham
Ages: 0, 1, 2
Duty Station: Fort Drum
Location: Evans Mills, New York
(Location of the Byrnes: Fort Riley, Junction City, Kansas)
Ages: 3, 4, 5
Duty Station: Fort Bragg
Location: Spring Lake, North Carolina
(Location of the Byrnes: Fort Bragg, Spring Lake, North Carolina)
Ages: 6, 7
Duty Station: Fort Leavenworth
Location: Leavenworth, Kansas
(Location of the Byrnes: Fort Stewart, Hinesville, Georgia)
Ages: 8, 9, 10
Duty Station: Joint Base Lewis-McChord
Location: Lacey, Washington
(Location of the Byrnes: Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Lacey, Washington)
Ages: 11, 12, 13
Duty Station: Fort Carson
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado
(Location of the Byrnes: Fort Jackson, Columbia, South Carolina)
Ages: 14, 15, 16
Duty Station: Pentagon
Location: Rosebell, Virginia
(Location of the Byrnes: Fort Belvoir, Rosebell, Virginia)
Ages: 17
Duty Station: Fort Campbell
Location: River Hollow, Tennessee
(Location of the Byrnes: Fort Belvoir, Rosebell, Virginia)