Page 41 of We Already Dug the Grave

This time, there was no delay.

You first. Where is Casey?

I clamped a hand over my mouth and swallowed a sob. Seeing those words—Where is Casey?—so plainly, so out in the open, it was a knife at my throat.

I didn’t answer. There was nothing I could say. Soon enough the dots appeared again.

Okay. I’ll tell you my name.

My breathing hitched as my stomach knotted, almost doubling me over.

This is…

I hunched forward, holding the screen inches from my face.

Shane.

A breath whooshed out of me, and the tears I’d been holding back slipped down my cheeks. I blocked the number and threw my phone across the room.

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.