Chapter 15
Then
Frances didn’t speak to me on the drive to school the next morning, but I was so lost in my thoughts I barely noticed.
I’d glimpsed death in my teacup. But whose? And in what context?
Seeing death wasn’t some kind of harbinger of doom. It didn’t necessarily signal the physical death of a person. In fact, it usually meant something different. Something symbolic.
Death could mean lots of things. There was often death in Aunt Ruth’s fortune, especially around September, when deer hunting season was kicking off.
For someone asking about their career, it could signal the end of a job.
It could foreshadow the end of a marriage or even the death of an idea or sense of self.
I understood these things.
But when I’d set my intentions, when I opened the door and welcomed the Sight, I wasn’t thinking of a career or hunting. I was thinking of myself and my sister.
And what I saw was an ending. The feelings that had washed over me? Without a deeper look, without sifting through the images and keeping the door open as I peered in for more, I had no way of knowing what that ending would be.
I honked as we passed the gas station, glancing at my sister, who waved at the old men. I smiled. She looked so young. So innocent.
How could Mr. Fortenberry do this to her?
Once Frances ended things with him I’d feel better. About everything.
Maybe that was it. Maybe seeing death was good thing. Perhaps it was the death of her abuse.
Except it was my fortune and not hers. There had to be more to the message, something that would’ve been revealed if given more time. Something for me specifically.
We drove in silence until I turned into the school and parked the Rust Bucket in my assigned space. Frances reached for the door, but I leaned across the ripped bench seat and touched her shoulder.
“Don’t forget,” I said. “It has to be today.”
She pressed her lips into a thin line, once again looking so young, and nodded.
Then, she pushed open her door and was gone.
I didn’t see her again until after third period, as she marched through the hallway.
She’d been avoiding me for weeks, but now she walked right up to me, jaw set in defiance, her eyes bloodshot.
I hated seeing her this way. She looked so much like my sad baby bird slumped on the bench at St. Mary’s.
I reached for her, but she shrugged me off.
“I did it,” she said. “Now leave me alone.”
She pushed past me and stormed away.
“Frances!” I called after her in the crowded hall, but she didn’t turn around.
And that’s when it finally hit me.
What if the death I’d seen in my fortune was the death of us?