Sleep No More

I sit on the chair in her office that’s always left empty for me and just watch her. She’s working, but the smooth rhythm from last week is gone. She writes a few things, then turns to stare at a small TV she’s set up on a stool beside her desk. It’s muted, the news reporters mouthing words I don’t need to hear anymore to understand. Bethany’s body, her delayed funeral, interviews with her parents, her teachers, her friends—when they can hold their tears back long enough to speak. I’ve seen it all, but they keep replaying it like some terrible CD skipping over and over.

I’ve got to go find that forest. I can’t let this happen again.

“Can I borrow the car?” I ask.

Mom turns and fixes me with a surprised gaze, clearly shocked that I would even ask.

“I just want to go for a drive. To think.”

She’s already shaking her head.

“Mom, please,” I beg, trying to hide how desperate I am. “I’ll be careful. I’ll keep the doors locked and I won’t stop for anyone or get out of the car or anything. I’ll just drive.” Up some dirt roads that may or may not lead to a future murder site in the middle of nowhere.

“I don’t want you leaving the house,” my mom says.

“We can’t let this make us paranoid,” I protest irrationally.

“It’s not that,” Mom retorts. Then she pauses and amends, “It’s not just that.” She turns back to the silenced television beside her desk. “The forecast is calling for snow tonight.”

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There’s nothing on the news the next morning. But that doesn’t make me feel any better. The location looked remote; they might not have found him yet. My mom held firm last night and the weather guy was right. So I sat at my bedroom window until the wee hours of the morning, helplessly watching that thick, muffling snow cover the ground, certain I was too late.

I sit at the breakfast table, pushing my food around on my plate and waiting for the time when I have to leave for school. I keep expecting a hint of something on the news, but it’s all still Bethany. People are starting to get angry because the medical examiner hasn’t released her body. It’s been five days and as far as anyone can tell, there are zero leads.

I wonder if the discovery of another body will make them keep her longer or let them move on.

I feel like all of my insides are twisting around each other and squeezing. I wish I could fake sick. But then the news of Matthew’s death will come through and Sierra will know why I stayed home. I can’t risk it.

I considered telling her this morning—coming clean before the body was found—but when I got to her room, her door was locked. I thought about knocking—lifted my hand even—but I couldn’t make myself do it. I feel like the lamest Oracle on earth.

I leave the house with a quick glance at Sierra’s still-closed door, and Mom wheels onto the porch to watch me again. Tomorrow, she won’t let me walk. After today, I’ll be lucky if she ever lets me out of the house again.

I’m grabbing my trigonometry book from my locker when I see him, standing there with no idea he’s supposed to be dead.

The heavy book falls from my hands and lands on the linoleum floor with an ear-splitting crack that echoes through the hall. People turn to look at me, but I’m already staggering toward Matthew, ignoring everything else.

“Hey,” I say lamely, realizing I’m so focused on the fact that he’s not dead that I don’t have any idea what the hell to say to him.

“Hi, Charlotte.” He studies me, furrows his brow and then asks, “Are you okay?”

Better now. “Um, yeah, I just, I … I forgot my music for ‘Winter Wonderland.’ Do you mind if I borrow yours and make a copy of it real quick?”

“Oh, sure. Of course,” he says, the concern erased from his face so easily I want to cry with relief. He’s alive, he doesn’t suspect, and no one is looking at us anymore.

He hands me a piece of music. “Just bring it to choir with you. No hurry.”

“Thanks,” I reply, taking the music I don’t actually need. I hesitate, but the hellish hours I spent last night aren’t something I can live through again. I banish Sierra’s voice from my head and say, “Matthew, you live kind of out in the middle of nowhere, right?”

“Sort of. I mean, there are, like, four houses in our little neighborhood, but it’s up on the hill west of town.” He’s confused again.

“Be careful,” I say, hurrying on before Matthew can say anything. “Maybe I’m just paranoid because of Bethany, but that guy is still out there somewhere and … be careful, okay?” I spin away and flee before he can reply.

Before he can ask any questions.

There. I did something. Who knows if it will be enough? But I warned him. Being careful can’t possibly hurt. And considering last night’s snow, there’s a chance he was going to die, but that the future changed and it’s not going to happen at all.

The future is funny like that.

I return to my locker—which I left open with my trig book on the floor in front of it—no wonder everyone thinks I’m such a freak—and gather my stuff. I know I ought to feel guilty. But I can’t bring myself to be anything but glad.

As I pick up my trig book, my phone peals out my text chime and I drop the book again, winning myself more startled looks.

It’s a number I don’t recognize.

You’re the only one who could have helped her. Why didn’t you?

The world spins, and I suddenly can’t breathe. Who the hell could have written this? Who knows my secret?

The emotional roller coaster I’ve been on this morning proves too much for my nerves and a stabbing pain starts up in my head. The first bell rings and everyone starts shuffling toward their first-hour class, but I can’t take trying to listen to American history right now. Just … no.

I head to the nurse’s office instead. One of the perks of being weird is that the nurse has been informed that I “get very sudden migraines.” I don’t like the lie, but when I do actually get a tension headache, it means I can have a prescription-strength naproxen instead of the two Tylenol that most kids get.

The nurse takes my temperature and though she frowns at the thermometer in a way that tells me my temp is normal—I could have predicted that without any Oracle skills—she lets me lie down in the last available bed and gives me a well-worn but soft blanket before tugging the privacy curtain around me.

I should tell Sierra; I know that. But can I tell her the truth about the vision I saw with Matthew and still hide that I told him to be careful? That I broke the all-important rule of Oracles? Never, under any circumstances, change the future. She can read me so well—I swear, she’ll just know.

Why didn’t you? The words from the text swim through my aching head until my stomach starts hurting too. I’ve got to figure this out. Maybe it was another Oracle. Maybe she had the same vision.

I squint through the small crack in the privacy curtain and see the nurse sitting in front of her computer. I turn my back to the gap and carefully pull out my phone. I find my aunt’s number and then text her:

Are there any other Os in Coldwater?

I hit SEND before I can think too hard about the consequences of what I’ve just done.

My phone buzzes and I clench my teeth at the sound, hoping no one else heard it.

No.

Helpful, I think sardonically.

I send my reply with shaky fingers:

Are you sure?

A little while passes.

Completely. No bloodlines within 500 miles of us.