Foreteller Read online

Maybe a talking chimp, Zoey joked to herself. At some level, she knew that her mockery of her mother’s foretelling exhibited a classic case of denial, but her ego quickly reminded her that she was a creature of logic and not exactly lacking in the IQ department. Non-existent until proven existent—that was Zoey’s motto. Her cynical eye had saved her from being a sucker more than once in life, and she wasn’t going to turn into a gullible fool now.

  She ran both of her hands through her hair and yanked it, not enough to hurt, but enough to get additional blood flowing so she could logically deal with the remainder of this letter. Great choice she had: A crazy mother in her past or a knife-wielding lunatic in her future. She continued reading.

  “At the sound of a twig snapping ten yards behind her, the young lady spins around and adopts an expression of fear. She still hasn’t seen the man. She is seeing something or someone else. The man with the aged hands ducks behind a thicket of berried shrubs at the base of a rising ledge behind him. From his angle, he cannot see who or what has broken the twig, and he does not know what the young woman has seen.

  “A baritone voice shouts out from above, atop the ledge. It yells, ‘Keeks!’”

  Zoey’s resistance to the letter suffered a harrowing blow. All the layers of her mind, be they denial, paranoia, self-defense, or self-preservation, came tumbling down. She suddenly lurched from her wooden chair, sending it grinding across the tile floor as she banged it with the back of her legs. She pressed her palms hard into her eyes, as if to expunge what they’d just read. No way her mother could have known about Cesar Descutner, her college stalker, and the nickname that he had used for her. No way! At least no logical, concrete way.

  “Keeks?” she said aloud, pacing.

  Only Cesar had ever called her Keeks. Through a long evolution of nicknames that had started with Keer, then evolved to Key, which gave way to Keeker and Reeker, he’d finally settled on Keeks for the last year she’d known him. If Cesar had shown up in her mother’s foretelling, and the foretelling showed her future…

  How? How could this be?

  Zoey’s head grew light. She crouched all the way down to the floor, knees at full bend, and rested her forehead on her legs. The callused, disembodied hands of the man in the foretelling floated through her imagination. They loomed over a pathetic girl in the woods, standing along a riverbank. Zoey completed the disembodied hands with Cesar’s head and body.

  But wait. Her mother had said that Cesar stood up on a ledge, above and behind the man with the aged hands. Who belonged to the hands, then? She snapped her head up. This couldn’t be true. It went against everything she believed, and yet, she had to keep reading—if only to find out who killed her.

  She sat down again, every part of her body tensed and straining against the words on the typed pages.

  “The young woman looks upward to the baritone voice, toward an overhanging precipice of granite thirty feet above. The man with the callused hands steps out quietly so he, too, can see who is there. Atop the ledge stands a tall man, like a god in a flowing robe. He wears an oversized, black raincoat in an unfamiliar style. His unruly dark hair and thick features meld together in a way that complements his large countenance. With squinted eyes and fleshy lips pressed together hard enough to turn white, he leaves no doubt of his intense focus. His expression holds something else that strikes me as familiar but indefinable. A crazed obsession, perhaps? Fanaticism? Most notably, he holds a gun. A large, intimidating weapon. He points it in the woman’s direction.

  “Then a rustle in the woods sounds out. It is the woman diving to the forest floor. The man on the ledge fires his weapon. It is loud enough to deafen. Another shot, perhaps two. Hard to decipher among the echoes. Stillness follows as the man disappears from the ledge.

  “With the visitor from above gone, the knife-wielding man searches for his stricken prey. Suddenly, like a phoenix, the young woman rises unscathed from the dirt and leaves. She has not been shot—and she holds her own knife now. But again, she fails to notice the watchful eyes of her stalker as she returns to the massive boulder. (Why did you do that, Kyra? Why did you return to the boulder? You should have used your knife on the scary man!)”

  Zoey assumed the parenthetical phrase was added by Dora Santorini, who had clearly gotten so involved in the foretelling that she had referred to it in the past tense. Zoey shook her head and continued reading about Susan’s foretelling.

  “’Look out!’ I want to shout to the woman. ‘This man means you harm!’ But as always in my foretellings, I can be nothing more than a silent witness. I will give as many details as I can that may help the young woman if we ever figure out who she is.

  “The man seems tall, as I can judge from the distance between his hands and the ground. His shoes appear sturdy, but terribly worn, with a hole near the left big toe. He wears a ring on his right hand, but the sun’s glare prevents me from making out its details. A smear of dark blood, freshly dried and ingrained with specks of dirt, stains the back of his right hand. The red streak pulsates in rhythm with his own blood as it rushes through his veins.

  “A mild breeze tinges the man’s nostrils, carrying the scent of an injured animal, perhaps even death. Could that be the source of the blood? The smell makes me sick, but I fight to stay focused and present. Mild discomfort for me means nothing compared to the outlook for the young woman.

  “The young woman wears shoes that contain a strange, translucent rubber and a thick sole like I’ve never seen. On her body, the blue shorts and a plain pink shirt. Her tanned skin glistens with sweat, as if she has run here only moments earlier. Her muscular, trim physique suggests a body honed of hours laboring outdoors.”

  Zoey realized with dismay that her mother had just described her, in typical running gear. Then again, the same words could apply to hundreds of women in the city. Zoey certainly wasn’t the only redheaded, in-shape runner around.

  “In the distance behind the woman, a four-man crew boat passes on the river. The rowers wear bright purple and gold tank tops emblazoned with a black, triangular emblem unfamiliar to me. On the far bank across the river hangs a huge, painted banner from a rocky ledge. It reads, ‘For Kraft Crew we cheer! This is your year! Win that shirt green! In 20—’. The last part of the banner has come loose and folded over itself, but after much thought, I believe it must be 2013. The year 2013. A rhyme, which supplies the year for the foretelling.”

  The line about the Kraft College crew team stopped Zoey cold. She stared at the rhyme for what felt like five minutes. If her mother was right, it meant the foretelling took place in Philadelphia where Kraft College was located—and where Zoey now lived. And it would take place sometime next year. It would mean that the river raging in the background of the foretelling was the Schuylkill River—the very place where Zoey jogged all the time.

  Her mind raced. She flipped to the first page of the letter and saw that it was dated 26 years earlier. Kraft College had only come into existence 18 years ago—and it hadn’t boasted a crew team until five years ago. Yet her mother had described the Kraft College school colors, the school emblem, and the tradition of the crew team victors wearing green shirts for a week. Even the description of the banner sounded similar to those hung on the banks of the Schuylkill River to cheer on the rowers, although something about it struck a jarring chord with Zoey. Hadn’t she seen a similar banner during a recent run?

  Pangs of doubt now shredded Zoey’s protective layer of cynicism, but she talked herself through it. The proposal for Kraft College might have been floated back when her mother was alive, and crew teams all over the country put signs up. Nothing special there. Heck, this whole thing could be an elaborate farce—maybe this letter was written last year and put in here by some demented jokester. Any number of explanations would suffice. Sort of. Either way, even if her mother was correct, then this murder was more than a year away. Plenty of time to foil it.

  With crossed arms and a determination to shoot holes in the madness, Zoey read o
n:

  “The man begins his labored movements again. I long to reach out, to shake the woman by the shoulders and force her to confront her enemy, but I can only watch, mute and immobile as her fate unfolds.

  “The man’s left foot steps onto a pile of deep, wet leaves. The sound floats through the air and the woman’s head jerks up. She freezes in place, then slowly turns, at last, to face her foe. The man pauses, as if awaiting a response to his presence.

  “For the first time, I see the woman’s face clearly. Its oval shape and features strike me as familiar, with the full upper lip, the set of the square chin, and the slight upward tilt of auburn-inflected eyes, but I can’t place her.”

  Zoey cringed at the perfect description of herself.

  “The man waggles his knife. ‘No,’ the young woman says, filling the simple word with depth far beyond its lone syllable. As the man approaches, terror fills the woman’s face. Through labored breathing, she manages to utter words that rock me to my core. ‘If you kill me, you kill your child.’”

  Zoey’s face turned to stone. She remained glued to the last sentence like a witness watching a fatal accident, powerless to prevent it. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t process. After a minute’s silence that stilled even the cold air of the bank room, she repeated the words aloud in a frightened whisper: “If you kill me, you kill your child. Oh my God… Jake?”

  The strict instructions of the French bank teller rang through Zoey’s mind with a fresh significance: You must be alone when you examine the contents of the box. The person who left you these contents trusts no one else to be present.

  Had the bank teller sensed something, or was she merely following instructions? Zoey tried to recall the admonishing look the teller had leveled at Jake. Had it held suspicion? Distrust? More importantly, should it have?

  Ridiculous! All of it. Even if this foretelling were true, Jake would never kill her. And then a thought gripped her brain and would not let go. In a panic, she scanned the letter again, from the beginning, in search of a specific detail, even though several paragraphs remained unread at the end. She flipped through the pages, forgetting to treat the letter like a valuable artifact. Apprehension mounted on her features as she saw no mention of the one detail she needed to see.

  Her mother had described the woman’s flowing hair, the hands of the attacker, a ring on the attacker’s hand, the particulars of the clothing, and even the distant colors of the crew boat. But Zoey’s heart raced and her body grew hot as she internalized the glaring omission from the foretelling so far: a ring—engagement or otherwise—on the young woman’s finger—her finger—Zoey’s—in the future.

  Chapter 16

  Zoey shot up from the chair and paced. An old habit from her adolescent years—chewing on the distal joint of her right thumb—resurfaced without conscious awareness. Ten minutes of rereading the first three-fourths of the letter had resulted in no mention of a ring. Zoey tried to remain calm, reminding herself that she didn’t believe in foretellings anyway. Then she took additional consolation from a small voice in her head that reminded her of the remaining page of the letter. The engagement ring might still be mentioned. Maybe even a wedding ring. If not, would she be breaking up with Jake in the next year for fear he might kill her?

  She gazed down at her throbbing thumb, half-expecting to see a rabid squirrel hanging from it. It hurt like heck. No blood, but a bright red mark topped off the digit. She needed to get out of this room and breathe some fresh air. But Jake was out there. A war of emotions fought for dominance within her. Jake, the stable one who kept her wild thoughts in perspective, was now the potential source of her worst nightmare. Could he be both cause and cure? No. One or the other. If only she knew which.

  She glanced down at the letter on the table, sitting as innocuously as a missive from a friend, though in this age of wireless communication, she couldn’t recall the last real letter she’d received from anyone. And she certainly couldn’t recall one that detailed her murder at the hands of her fiancé.

  She touched the ring on her hand. Maybe the lack of ring boded well for her. Maybe it wasn’t her in the foretelling. In fact, if she never took off her ring, wouldn’t that keep this whole thing from happening? Could she trick a foretelling like that—by simply avoiding the Schuylkill River and blue running shorts? If she saw a crew boat, she could head in the other direction. There had to be ways. After all, Mr. Schmidt’s sister had beaten cancer. Zoey could surely beat a murderous encounter on a riverbank.

  Hold on. A simpler, more appealing idea crossed her mind. Maybe her mother had relayed all this information because she was crazier than a bat out of hell. The thought calmed her. First things first—finish the letter. She sat herself down to have a good laugh at the remaining paragraphs, but her bravado faded as she stared at the pages again. She couldn’t deny she was putting off getting to the end. People claimed they wanted to know when or how they were going to die, but when it came down to it, the majority chose the darkness of ignorance. Humans lived under the impression that they engaged in free will, controlling their futures. Isn’t that what all the inspirational posters said? And yet, here sat her future, laid out on a table, having waited 20-plus years to tell her that she’d be killed by a knife-wielding man—without her ring.

  She looked anxiously from the letter to the door through which Jake waited. He was undoubtedly bursting at the seams for the next step on this adventure while inside of her, his baby grew. Oh God, where was the baby in the letter? Where was the pregnancy bump? If the year was 2013, and it was crew season, she would have had the baby by then, but then the words of the victim—if you kill me, you kill your child—wouldn’t make sense.

  She pushed away the next thought, but it surfaced anyway. What if her mother was wrong about the year? What if the foretelling took place so near in the future that the baby wasn’t showing yet? It could happen in the next couple months. Her vision went blurry and she felt faint. Enough of this hesitancy! She grasped the edges of the table and blinked and breathed until she could focus and read:

  “The man’s ire rises. I can feel it. A profound store of anger from deep within engulfs him. The young woman points to the forest floor from where she arose earlier, as if an answer lies amongst the dead leaves, an answer that will calm the approaching beast. She struggles to speak but fear seems to freeze her tongue.”

  “Come on, Zoey,” Zoey yelled at her future self. “Don’t just stand there!”

  “The man raises the knife to striking position, now only a heartbeat away from the woman’s heaving chest. She lifts her arms to protect herself from the plunge of the deathly steel.

  “At this point, my pulse climbs to the point of a steady buzz, and my breathing all but stops. I grow clammy, the sweat inside me finding all possible outlets on my skin. A distinct pressure on my right arm begins to distract me from the events on the riverbank. My vision of the scene blurs, like black ink swirling in a current. Ultimately, all visual contact ceases. Not now, I want to scream, but the scene eludes me. The sounds of the foretelling, however, remain. There is shouting, indistinct but loud, and then a piercing scream followed by the swish of a blade lacerating what must be human flesh. The sound, rather than the sight of the event, makes me feel as if I suffer the fatal thrust myself.

  “One final noise makes an impression on me before I return to the present—the reverberation of a bullet—but it lacks the clarity of the rest of the foretelling. It strikes me as an echo, which only happened in one other foretelling. In that instance, the echo represented an alternate ending, a possibility generated because of the foretelling itself.

  “The foretelling ends there. My eyes open. They meet again with blackness, but of a familiar shade. It’s the dark surroundings of my own room.”

  “Oh no! Not fair!” Zoey screamed as the words ricocheted off the metal surroundings. “Are you kidding me? Why tell me anything at all then?”

  She slammed her fist on the table, causing
the papers to lift and settle with a ghostly flutter. Her shaking head reaffirmed the sentiment pounding inside her mind: No! The proclamation came without sound. The only force it needed was the outward thrust of her jaw and the narrow slice of her eyes. No! Her mother could not leave her hanging like this.

  Scenarios spun in her mind, creating an indecipherable web: Who kills me? The guy with the knife? Cesar Descutner with his phallic handpiece? Do I even defend myself? Why am I there in the first place? Maybe my fate lies in the hands of the mysterious boulder chimp. Christ, would there also be a red-nosed clown and a dancing dwarf on the banks of the Schuylkill that day? Everyone else seemed to be there.

  Her mother certainly told a helluva tale. No detail spared. But hadn’t Detective Farnham said that her mother had an eye for detail, and that she’d provided clues to the rapist that had proved useful even decades later?

  Zoey shuddered. She felt mentally saturated and had to get out of this room. She needed time to sort through this deluge of information—and she needed Jake. But mightn’t Jake be the most important person in the foretelling? The most threatening?

  Zoey read the final pieces of the letter.

  “That is the end of the foretelling, Little Kyra. I wish I could tell you more. I’d give anything to stay with you, but your mother requested that I stay away. She feared that if I remained in your life, you would sense how worried I was—since I know your future.”

  Zoey cringed at how unquestioning Dora Santorini seemed about her fate.

  “If I am still alive when you read this, please find me. I plan to settle on my brother’s land in Amelia, Virginia. One last thing, and I don’t know if I should include it or not because your mother was so close to dying, but I promised her I’d tell you everything.

  “In the last hour before she died, she grabbed my arm, as if recapturing strength with her final breaths. But her voice had grown weak and her lips barely formed the words. I leaned in as close as I could. She said, ‘Opal ring. Man with knife. Opal ring.’”