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“I’m good,” Detective Jackson said. “I seriously doubt there’s more than one liver-eating giant stone woman wandering around these woods.”
Liliana wiped her face off with a tattered sleeve. This entire outfit would have to go in the recycler when she got home, anyway.
“Hey, Madame Anna. I didn’t know you were still here.” Detective Jackson came around to her front, smiling, and got a good look at the spider seer’s face. “Oh, hey now. What’s the matter?”
Despite the dirt getting on her nice suit, Detective Jackson sat down beside Liliana on another flat rock.
“I couldn’t save them,” Liliana said. “I saw their deaths. I knew it would happen. I should have saved them.”
“The family with the little girl?”
Liliana shook her head. “No, I couldn’t have saved them or your Forensics man. I’m sorry. I didn’t foresee their deaths.”
Detective Jackson’s lips went tight, and her chin trembled once.
Liliana wondered if the detective would cry.
Detective Jackson took a breath, and her jaw tightened. “Greg was a pain in the ass, but he was one of ours. I’m not looking forward to telling his wife.”
They sat in silence for a few seconds, grieving for people they didn’t like or even know.
Detective Jackson broke the silence. “I’ve been wondering what led you to be out in the same woods as a murderous stone giant on the same day as us.”
“I saw that Sergeant Giovanni and you, or maybe Pete, would die here today.”
“But you can see that we’re not dead.” Detective Jackson’s voice took on a careful note, like she didn’t want to upset Liliana. “So your visions are maybe not as accurate as you thought?”
“No. My vision was right.”
“Did you see us dying later then?”
“I got between you and Spearfinger, drew her attack to me, and deflected it. If I had not been there—” Liliana shrugged.
Beside her, Detective Jackson’s face became thoughtful, considering. “We thought she was harmless. If you hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have been wary enough. She’d have stabbed me.”
“Or Pete. Even Celtic wolves cannot survive without their livers. Or maybe she would have killed both of you if he tried to protect you but wasn’t fast enough. Fate is determined by the choices we make.”
“In that case, thanks for saving my life.” Detective Jackson appeared to be thinking fiercely. “Let me get this straight. So, you saw us die, but we didn’t die because you changed that?”
“Right.”
“But you couldn’t save Greg or the family because you didn’t see it before it happened.”
“Yes, I’m sorry.”
Detective Jackson waved that away. “No one expects even a fortune teller to be omniscient. Does what you do to prevent something ever end up being what caused your vision? Like a self-fulfilling prophecy?”
Liliana shook her head. “What I see comes to pass if I do nothing about it. It is fated. If I alter the conditions that led to that situation, the visions change. Fate changes. Sometimes, all I have to do is decide to do something different and the vision will change. Sometimes, my actions make things worse, but always different. My visions show the future created by the sum of all likely choices, and sometimes I can see visions of even the results of unlikely choices. Fate is a collection of every choice made within the Green.”
“That’s kind of profound.” Detective Jackson grinned at her, and it made Liliana smile a little as she stared at the scrape on her knee.
“So if you saw someone, say, about to be murdered, and told me, then could I save them?” Detective Jackson asked. “Or are you the only one who can change your visions?”
“If someone were about to be murdered, and I called a police detective who showed up and arrested the murderer before he fired the shot, then yes, that would change the victim’s fate.”
“But if I show up before a murderer killed anyone, I can’t arrest them.”
“You would have to find another way to save the person, but you would know they needed saving before you arrived, so you would do whatever was necessary.”
