Chapter 8
After the skating incident, Anna insisted on buying Grace lunch as a reward for both surviving the ice.
Anna sang along to the radio as she navigated the snow-packed streets.
Grace tuned in and out, distracted by the strange way sunlight shimmered over the drifts, turning the ordinary into a stage set for something unreal.
Every so often Anna’s voice would jolt her, “you better watch your back, or I’m coming for you!
I’m coming for you!” Then laughter, bubbling and infectious, bringing Grace back to the present.
She liked that about Anna. She could draw you in with a line, no matter how absurd.
The pizza place was across town, in one of the old buildings on the edge of the tourist district.
The sign above the door declared it “Pi’s the Limit!
” in peeling green letters, with a hand-painted π symbol where the apostrophe belonged.
Inside, it was warm and noisy, packed with teens in hockey gear and a few tired-looking parents who’d probably lost the battle for dinner input weeks ago.
Anna elbowed through the crowd and found a booth near the front window.
Grace slid onto the vinyl seat, automatically turning her face to the window.
The glass was fogged, the world outside blurred into a watercolor of blue and white, and she felt the residual tension from the morning begin to loosen.
Anna flagged down the server, a girl with a ponytail and a nose ring who called Anna “Miss H” and took their order without a notepad.
They settled on a large pie with “everything but anchovies” and a pitcher of root beer, Anna’s favorite.
Once the server left, Anna fixed Grace with a shrewd, sea-glass gaze. “You doing okay?” she asked, softly, so that the hockey kids wouldn’t overhear. “You looked pretty pale back there after Martha went down.”
Grace shook her head, tried to play it off.
“Yeah, it’s just still kind of weird having these psychic abilities,” she said.
“Pair that with how different this place is from my childhood cities, and I feel like I’m experiencing everything for the first time.
Even this place. Most of my childhood was spent at chain restaurants and Army bases.
This restaurant, this town is something else.
Something almost as weird as my new powers. ”
Anna’s laugh was kind, not mocking. “You’ll get used to it,” she said.
“Holiday Hollow’s all about big gestures.
The first year I was old enough to volunteer, I ended up in a Cupid diaper for the Valentine’s parade.
There are photos. Don’t ask.” She topped off Grace’s glass.
“But I mean it. You did good. If you hadn’t warned Bryant, half the mayor’s office would’ve been barbecue. ”
“Or,” Grace pointed out, “they’d be fine, and I’d just be the crazy new girl who sees death everywhere.”
Anna’s smile faltered, just a fraction. “You’re not crazy. Just gifted. In the Hollow, that’s a good thing.”
Grace nodded, but she didn’t say anything more.
The place had started to fill up, the Friday night rush bringing in families and clusters of high schoolers.
The noise was oddly soothing, like the low hum of a busy airport, an orderly chaos.
Grace leaned back and watched Anna work her charm with the staff, trading barbs with the server and a group of retired teachers near the counter.
She was good at this, blending in, making everyone feel like they belonged.
Their pizza arrived, steaming and magnificent.
Anna attacked it with professional speed, folding her slices and inhaling half the pie before Grace had finished her first. They talked about nothing.
Holiday plans, the latest episode of the baking show Anna was obsessed with, whether Grace was going to actually go to the Winter Ball with Bryant or “do the small-town thing and play hard to get until someone keys his car.” Grace laughed more than she expected, and for a moment, the past and the visions receded.
A kid dropped something onto the floor. Onto the red tile that clashed with the green walls, and Grace stiffened, a sense of déjà vu washing over her.
There was something about the place, something that tugged at the back of her mind.
It wasn’t the décor, which was a riot of plastic ivy and old math posters.
Nor was it the smell, though the air was thick with melted cheese and oregano.
It was a feeling, a persistent echo, like the rumble of a distant train.
The more she looked around, the more she was sure she’d been here before.
Not in the literal sense, but in that strange, sideways way her visions worked.
She pushed it down, refusing to let paranoia take root. Instead, she grabbed another slice and changed the subject. “You ever regret staying here?” she asked Anna. “In Holiday Hollow, I mean. It must get… weird, being in a place where everyone knows your business.”
Anna’s answer was instant. “Nope,” she said, dabbing her mouth with a napkin.
“I love this town. I left once, for college, but I couldn’t hack it.
Too dry, not enough snow, and no one believed in magic.
I’d rather be a mermaid in a pond than a goldfish in the ocean, you know?
” She smiled, big and genuine. “Besides, someone’s got to keep the Wonder Guardians from getting too smug. ”
Grace snorted. “Are you still pushing that name for the magical people running the holidays here?”
“Better than ‘Holiday Keepers,’” Anna retorted. “Sounds like an old folks’ home.”
They finished their food, but their server was busy with other tables.
“I can get some to-go boxes from the back register,” Anna said, starting to stand.
Grace shook her head. “I’ll get them,” she offered. “You handled pretty much everything else tonight.”
Anna smiled. “Thanks. Don’t let Tino back there guilt you into a breadstick eating contest. I’ve lost entire afternoons that way.”
Grace grinned and threaded her way through the tables toward the counter.
The noise was sharper up here, the kitchen open to view behind a long Formica divider.
There was a window for pickup orders, a heat lamp that buzzed and popped, and an ancient cash register that looked like it belonged in a museum.
She waited her turn, and that’s when she noticed the flickering fluorescent fixture directly above the counter.
It was less a light and more a strobe, humming and pulsing at erratic intervals.
Every few seconds it would shudder, and the light would strobe so hard the whole ceiling seemed to breathe.
At first, it was just annoying, but as she watched, she realized the hum had a rhythm. A kind of heartbeat, accelerating.
She looked left, to where the delivery drivers waited by a battered pegboard covered in keys.
There was a space heater jammed under the table, red coils glowing, its cord snaking up and disappearing into a surge protector that already hosted a nest of other plugs: the light fixture, the register, a fan, the phone charger, all of it crammed into a single strip.
There were paper towels stacked everywhere, a pile of order slips above the heater, napkins tucked between canisters, the whole space a shrine to combustibility.
Grace felt the skin on her arms pebble. She could smell the plastic of the space heater, an acrid undercurrent beneath the cheese and tomato sauce.
A flash of déjà vu hit her, sharp enough to make her gasp.
For a moment, the world shimmered and tilted.
She was back in the vision from last night, the one she’d tried to bury: flames, the roar of fire, that feeling of desperate suffocation.
And then, superimposed over the present, she saw the fire chief, Rick Dalton, slamming his shoulder against a door, the room filling with black smoke, his face locked in terror and grim determination.
She blinked hard, and the hallucination receded, but the sense of impending disaster didn’t.
The light above her crackled again, and she swore she saw a spark leap from the socket.
Her breath caught, and for a moment, she wasn’t sure if she was seeing the future or the present.
The line at the counter had vanished; she realized she’d been standing there for a full minute.
The man at the register asked her what she needed.
She sputtered out that she needed boxes, grabbed them, and turned, half-dazed, and hurried back to Anna, who had already stacked the rest of the pizza and was dabbing at a root beer spill. Anna looked up and saw her face.
“Grace, you look like you just saw a ghost,” Anna said, then stopped herself. “Sorry. Poor choice of words.”
Grace put down the boxes, her hands trembling.
“This place. The kitchen—” She swallowed.
“It’s going to catch fire. I saw it. The heater under the counter, the surge protector.
Everything’s going to ignite. Rick Dalton…
he tries to get out, but he’s trapped. He’s going to die if we don’t do something. ”
Anna’s expression changed in an instant, all humor gone. She leaned in, eyes locked on Grace’s. “Are you sure?”
Grace nodded, the rest of her words tumbling out. “I saw it. The smoke, the fire, Rick—he was inside. He couldn’t get out. It’s the same vision from last night. The one I had after the tree lighting. But I didn’t know where it was until just now.”
Anna was already pulling out her phone. She scrolled through contacts with practiced speed, then hit a button and waited.
“Hey, Rick,” she said, her voice suddenly businesslike.
“It’s Anna Harper. Listen, I know this is going to sound weird, but you need to get over to Pi’s the Limit right now.
There’s a fire hazard in the kitchen. No, I’m not screwing with you.
I’m here with Grace Baker. She’s a psychic, remember?
She has visions. Yeah. Yeah, she’s sure.
It’s one of those surge protector situations.
And a space heater. I know, but trust me.
Better safe than crispy, right? Thanks, Rick. See you soon.”
She hung up, exhaled, and shot Grace a reassuring smile. “He’s on it,” she said. “Rick doesn’t mess around when it comes to electrical stuff. He’ll have them shut everything down before you can say ‘grease fire.’”
Grace stared at Anna, relief and adrenaline wrestling for dominance in her bloodstream. “You just told him I’m a psychic?”
Anna shrugged, almost sheepish. “I told you, it’s the Hollow. He won’t even blink.” She reached across the table and squeezed Grace’s hand. “You did good. Again. And you didn’t even ruin lunch this time.”
Grace tried to laugh, but the sound came out thin. “I still might. What if—what if I’m wrong?”
“Then you gave the fire department a good story for the bar tonight,” Anna said. “But you’re not wrong. And if you hadn’t said anything, maybe tomorrow we’d be reading about a tragedy instead of leftovers.”
The weight of the morning eased, just a little. Grace let herself breathe, let the warm air and the smell of pizza wrap around her. She looked at Anna, who was already texting the rest of the girls, and realized she had never felt less alone in her life.
Outside, the world was still ice and blue shadow, but in here, with Anna and the noise and the certainty of small-town friendship, Grace found a kind of peace. The visions would keep coming, she knew that now. But at least she wouldn’t have to face them by herself.
They boxed up the rest of the pizza, tipped the server generously, and made for the door.
As they left, Grace looked back at the counter, half-expecting to see Rick Dalton already there, barking orders and unplugging cords.
Instead, she saw the staff, laughing, none the wiser that disaster had brushed so close.
Anna bumped her shoulder as they stepped outside. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll buy you coffee on the way home. And if you see any more death-visions, just try to hold off until after dessert.”
Grace grinned. “I’ll do my best.”
The snow had started up again, lazy and slow, each flake turning in the light as if it was trying to decide where to land.
Grace walked beside Anna, and for the first time since arriving in Holiday Hollow, she didn’t feel like she was running from her past. She was moving forward. One vision at a time.