Page 87 of We Already Dug the Grave

When I could no longer stand it—the pressure the power the stirring—I opened the door. This time, I didn’t pry, nor did it push me out of the way and flood my senses. The fate opened simply, as if I need only ask.

My sister drank. I lifted the cup and peered into my sister’s fortune. The leaves swirled around the cup’s belly, the pattern like the design of an intricate quilt. No. I frowned. No no no.

I again closed my eyes. Show me.

Then.

An aching dread.

That hand, my throat closing. Burt. The sound, oh that loud sound. And then there was Frances and blood.

That weight and that blood.

I pushed the Sight into the cup, urging it to unlock what I was seeing into something different. Something better.

I hoped there was something I was missing. I’d never wanted to be wrong before. I looked up at my sister and frowned.

“What?” she asked.

I slumped forward and peered once more into the cup and shook my head. “Nothing’s changed.”

“Oh.” Frances wilted.

I felt defeated, like my path had narrowed to one dangerous point, and I reached inside to ease the door closed, but stopped.

Wait.

The thing inside twisted. A whisper. A scream.

Another flash of emotion, a wrenching feeling. This time faster.

I stared for a long moment, reality muffled around me. Fear nipping at my heels. Dread intensifying. Anxiety swelling. All three nesting in my chest.

“Milly? Are you okay?” Bunny touched my arm. I flinched. “What is it you see?”

I blinked.

There was an urgency in the tea that hadn’t appeared before.

“Let me see.” Aunt Ruth hunched forward over the table and peered down. Though Frances didn’t have a lick of the Sight, she stared at the cup too, palms splayed on the table as if ready to push away and bolt at a moment’s notice. Maybe she should.

“What’s changed?” she demanded. “Tell me.”

“I know you girls think you handled it,” Ruth said. “But we got to kill him for Frances to live.”

“No. He must die.” I shook my head. “But it doesn’t say kill. It doesn’t say murder, not directly, and—”

“Sister.” Frances grabbed my arm. “I don’t want to die. Not because of him.”

We locked eyes. I didn’t want that either.

“Milly?” Frances asked. “What else?”

“There’s a new urgency. Whatever’s happening, is happening soon,” I said.

“Real soon,” Ruth echoed.

“But it doesn’t mean we have to kill,” I said again, desperate. “This doesn’t mean—”