“I’m fine. I just hate the way people watch me. It’ll be worse now when the news about the killer gets out.”
“They’ll catch him,” my mother says, and it feels somewhere between a wish and a promise.
We sit quietly for a few minutes, and I realize that despite all the wrong happening now, I have some right with my mother. Our peace is interrupted by the doorbell, and we both startle at the sound. For a moment, I see my own fears in her eyes, but then she pats my hand.
I brace myself for the vision, for falling into her death, but nothing happens. There is no death, no slipping into her future self, and I’m speechless at the absence. I don’t want to feel her die, but I don’t understand why it didn’t happen.
Then her hand is gone from mine already, and she’s heading to answer the door.
A few moments later, she returns, carrying a vase of flowers and a small package wrapped in brown paper. Her hands are shaking as she sets them on the counter.
“There are flowers,” she says, pointing out the obvious. “There are flowers here at our house.”
I look at them. A gladiolus and a scarlet lily are surrounded by honeysuckle. It’s an oddly beautiful bouquet, but it fills me with horror. The package that came with it is too small to be chocolates. If it were from a friend, I’d think it was jewelry. It’s about that size. Part of me is oddly distant, trying not to get scared. I think of my friends, of the death visions that I now suspect are real, and I am resolved to figure this out. I have clues the police won’t believe.
My hands tremble as I look at the bouquet. The killer knows where I live, knows I’m out of the hospital, and sent me flowers. After talking to the detective, I know these flowers are a message.
“I’m calling her now,” Mom says. Her phone is already at her ear, and she walks out of the room as she begins to speak: “Detective? This is Mrs. Tilling.”
My mother’s voice grows faint as she walks farther into the house, and I debate what I’m about to do. I need to know what’s in that package. I don’t want my mother to open it and find something awful there. I think back to every police procedural I’ve watched with my father. I don’t want to destroy evidence. So far, the delivery person and my mother’s fingerprints are on it.
I get up, grab my crutches, and hobble to the walk-in pantry. There in the far back, beside the tinfoil and storage bags, is an unopened package of the thick yellow gloves my mother wears if she hand-washes any dishes. I balance on one foot as I open the plastic bag and put on the gloves.
Once I’ve hobbled to the counter, I carefully open the small white envelope with my yellow-gloved hands. It’s a standard card, one of the “thinking of you” ones, and on it are five letters in tight block print: YOURS.
My hands are shaking as I set the card aside and turn my attention to the tiny box. Visions of severed fingers or ears fill my mind, and by the time I open the package, I’m expecting something gross. Inside the tiny box, which is actually a white cardboard jewelry box, is a dead cicada.
I don’t get it. The killer sent me a dead bug. It’s clearly a message, but I have less than no idea what it means. Is it a threat? Is it something else?
When my mother returns, I look away from the bug in the box to tell her, “I need my laptop.”
“What are you . . .” Her words fade as she comes to stand by my side. “He sent you a cicada?”
“I need my laptop,” I repeat.
She looks down at the card and gasps. Suddenly, my mother hugs me with one arm, and again, I don’t fall into her death.
When Nate arrives a few minutes later, I’m at my laptop typing. I hear my mother explaining that she’s not going to work.
“You’re going to work, Mom,” I call out. “Dad needs you there. I’m fine here with Nate. Promise!”
She doesn’t answer me, but her voice is a quiet hum in the background as she brings him up to speed. I’m copying and pasting possible meanings for flowers and cicadas and the word “judge.” I remember from class that there was a book in the 1800s that was supposedly all about the official flower meanings, but I’m guessing that the killer uses the internet if he’s anyone younger than thirty.
Gladiolus: “I’m very sincere,” preparedness, flowers of the gladiators (Note: Dedicated/serious in his crazy?)
Red lily: “high bred” or “high souled” (Note: Online it’s called a “scarlet lily,” but the orange one means “hatred.” I think this is red/scarlet though. He either is saying I’m high bred, or he is, or it’s to be orange and he hates me.)
Honeysuckle: united in love, devoted love, fidelity (Note: He’s telling me he’s a creeper. Figured that out already without the flowers.)
Asphodel: regrets beyond the grave, I follow you to the grave, remember me after the grave (Note: Who had the asphodel? Micki or Amy?)
Amaryllis: pride, pastoral poetry (Note: guessing it’s not the poetry. So who is he calling prideful? Or is he saying he’s proud of what he did?)
Cicada: regeneration, change, rebirth, longevity, patience, immortality
Judge: to form an opinion, to try, to weigh in, to find guilty or innocent; an authority
Yours: What’s mine? The flowers? The cicada? The blame? The killer? All of it???
In a separate file, I jot down what I remember of the death visions, the deaths that already happened, and prosopagnosia. I add my notes that prosopagnosics use voice, clothing, hair color, walk, and other details to identify people. Maybe that’s the trick I need to try in my visions. I’m still staring at my notes, googling other meanings on the flowers, and flipping between them when Nate comes to stand behind me. He looks over my shoulder at my screen listing the flowers and says, “I’m sure the police already started looking up what the flowers he left with Micki and Amy meant.”
“I can’t not think about it.” I look back at him. “The killer carved my name on Amy’s body when he killed her. He killed Micki and tried to kill me. And now”—I motion to the counter—“he’s sending me flowers and dead bugs and cryptic messages.”
“I know.” He looks so calm that I feel better just having him near me. “That doesn’t make it your fault.”
As much as I want that to be true, it feels like it’s somehow my fault. I save the document and close my laptop. I don’t say anything, but Nate knows me. Even though it’s been far too long since we were kids, I don’t think I’ve changed so much that he can’t figure out that I disagree with him.
He pulls out the chair my mother had been using and sits down. I reach out for his hand before he takes mine. It’s more forward than I would be, especially if we are truly just friends, but I feel like my seams are loose. I’m afraid that he’ll touch me, and I can’t bear looking at his death. I thought I was holding it all together, and I’d planned to test my visions, but last night I realized that I’m ready to fracture.
“They’ll catch him,” Nate says.
“Everyone keeps saying that, but Amy and Micki are dead.”
His hand tightens on mine, and I’m reminded of those weird days between death and funerals. In Jessup, my family makes a lot of appearances at the homes of the grieving. My mother has an almost pathological need to take covered dishes to mourners. Dad says it’s because she lost her mother so young. Looking out for the grieving makes her feel less helpless, but being inside the house where death is clinging to every thought makes me feel lost. There’s a hazy sense of being out of time and place in that grief window—sort of like being in the hospital. I feel desperate to talk about something, anything other than death, but it’s there in every room and under every word. It’s inescapable.
It’s all part of why I hate funerals. They’re so heavy with awkward desire to talk about anything other than loss, but the guilt of doing so makes it impossible. It’s suffocating—and there will be another one in a matter of days.
“We’ll have to go to Amy’s funeral,” I think out loud.
Nate’s expression is stony. “There’s a killer who’s
obsessing on you. I’m not sure going to Amy’s funeral is a good idea.”
“I agree,” says a voice from behind me. I look over my shoulder and see the detective standing there with my mother.
“You can’t stop me,” I point out, calling upon my television police knowledge. “I’m not even a material witness. I’m allowed to go anywhere I want.”
Detective Grant’s lips twist into a smile of sorts. “Everyone I’ve interviewed describes you as sweet and almost meek. I’m not sure they were right.”
I tilt my chin upward and stare at her. “I’m not going to live in a cage because of some sicko.”
She walks past me to examine the flowers, the card, and the cicada. She doesn’t touch them, telling us, “A tech will be by to collect these shortly.”
I push myself up, using the table for leverage. Nate wraps an arm around my waist to help steady me. I reach for my crutches and pull away from him.
“I wore gloves,” I point out.
“You shouldn’t have opened them at all,” the detective chastises me.
“Nathaniel, why don’t you help Eva out to the sofa,” my mother says.
I can’t disobey her. There’s nothing else to say to the detective right now, and I won’t learn anything new by staring at the dead cicada, the tiny card, and those horrible, beautiful flowers. I meet Nate’s gaze and nod. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to feel safe again. I want to lock everyone I know and love, and even those I only like, here in the house with me, and we can wait while the police catch the killer.
The sheer weighty terror of it all creeps up on me. Someone tried to kill me. Someone feels such vile things for me that he—or maybe even she—wanted my life to end. There’s no way to make that kind of wrong feel okay. It’s such a big violence that it killed Micki and Amy. Their deaths feel like my fault.
And it makes me sick.
What did I say or do that made this crazy person fixate on me and my friends?
“Are you doing okay?” Nate settles on the uncomfortable chair to the left of the sofa, near enough to reach me if I need anything but not so close as to make me nervous.
I’m nervous anyhow. I need to figure out who’s killing girls in Jessup, and to do that I need to tell Nate my secret. I can’t research anything without him knowing why I’m trying to solve it.
“If you touch me, I see your death,” I tell him before I can back down from the impulse. “Since the accident, I see people’s deaths. I thought it was just hallucinations, but . . . I think it might be real, and I’m terrified.”
Nate stares at me with something like sympathy in his eyes. He’s still staring at me when my mother walks into the room.
“The detective is leaving, and I have to go to the police station with her. I’m swinging by the office briefly to pick a few things up, but I’m not staying,” she says. “I’ll lock the door behind us. The alarm is set, the company is monitoring it as a top priority, and the police will do drive-bys, and . . . I’ll have my phone, and . . .”
Nate nods. “I’ll be with her until you come home. We’ll be okay.”
She pauses, but she doesn’t really have a choice. If the detective needs her to go to the station, she has to go. We are safe here too.
“I’m fine,” I add. “Promise.”
She takes a shuddering breath. “Do you want an officer to stay? I’m sure we could ask Detective Grant to—”
“No,” I interrupt. “You can call or text, and the alarm is set. The service monitors it, right? Honestly, I’m fine.”
Reluctantly, she leaves.
Once she goes, Nate is silent again. It’s not until the outside door closes behind her and we hear the lock engage and the telltale beep of the alarm being armed that he says, “Say that again.”
“When people touch me, I see their deaths. One of the nurses has a heart attack. My father dies from some disease in the hospital. You . . . you drown on liquor after the killer finds you along the road.” I watch him as I tick off the deaths I’ve seen, listing them impersonally so I don’t think about the details, the feelings, the horrible panic of death.
“And this started after the accident,” he half asks, half states.
“Yes.”
“But you think it’s . . . not from your TBI.”
I huff in frustration. “I know it sounds crazy, but you’re my proof.” His brows raise, and he motions for me to continue, so I say, “I knew about Nora and Aaron because of the death vision. When you touched me, I sort of . . . I think of it like falling into it. I fell into you, and you were worried about them. You hadn’t told me anything about them yet, but I knew their names already.”
He’s silent again, but this time he’s motionless. We sit staring at each other for several tense moments, and then he stands and walks toward me. “How do you think I die?”
I flinch away. “Liquor.”
“I stopped drinking.” He kneels on the floor in front of me so we’re eye-to-eye. “I don’t drink or drink and drive.”
“I know,” I whisper. “He forces you off the road, and you don’t have your cell phone . . . well, you didn’t. The vision changed after I asked you to keep your phone on you. When I saw your death the second time, he broke your phone. It was on Old Salem Road. You were almost home, and it was dark, and—”
“I do drive that way,” he interjects. “It’s faster.”
After a minute pause, he says, “That’s why you made me promise to check for my phone.”
I nod. “It wasn’t enough though. When you got out, you thought he was going to help. He doesn’t help. You need to stay in the truck so he can’t touch you.”
“Why did I pull over?”
For a moment, I think back, letting myself imagine the two times I’ve felt Nate die. “You get sick. Ready to throw up. It’s like the flu or something.”
We exchange a look as I realize how strange that sounds. How would the killer know Nate would have the flu and would be pulling over? That part doesn’t make sense. Even if the killer was following him, it wouldn’t mean there would be an opportunity—unless there was reason to expect Nate to get sick. I meet his gaze. “He must give you something first. Poison or a drug or something. Don’t eat or drink anything that isn’t in a sealed container. Until we catch him, you can’t risk it. I don’t know when it happens.” I pause. “It was a Friday, I think. You were thinking about visiting Aaron.”
“Okay.” Nate doesn’t look away. “How does it work?”
“It only happens when people touch my bare skin. If I touch you, it doesn’t happen.” I pause. Telling someone feels weird, like speaking it makes it somehow more real. “It has to be bare skin, and it doesn’t happen every time . . . I don’t know why. I didn’t even think it was real. I thought I was just hallucinating, but . . . I don’t know. . . It feels like it’s real, some sort of curse or gift.”
Nate listens, but instead of telling me I’m crazy, he says, “So I’m going to touch your arm now.”
He extends his hand, and I drop my gaze to it. I watch as his fingertips get closer, and then they graze my skin. That’s all it takes.
The car swerves toward me, and I have to go off the road to avoid impact. I feel the truck dip and jerk as the front wheel hits the ditch. I’m braking, hoping the brakes don’t lock up, praying I don’t go into a spin, and regretting the lack of airbags. My brain is racing, rolling into thoughts that seem out of place. I wasn’t going fast enough that the accident will be fatal, but I don’t have time to be without wheels.
It’s dark out, and there are no street lights on Old Salem Road, but I know the area well enough after driving it every day the past year and a half. It’s wooded along the road, but not thick. The front of the truck clips a tree, but it’s only a sapling. I start to swerve farther only to jolt to a stop as I smash into a much larger tree.
The truck gives one last shudder as it comes to a stop at the tree, and I shakily cut off the engine. I know there’s no real danger of explosion. This
isn’t a movie, where cars explode constantly.
I unfasten my seat belt and push the door open. It creaks in a new way, and I wonder how much damage there is to the frame.
I wince as I slide out of the truck. I must have hit my knee because there’s a sharp pain when I put weight on my left leg. Tentatively, I take another step. Nothing seems to be broken, but I suspect that I’ll be limping for a couple days.
After a moment, I pat my jeans pockets and find my phone.
My face feels wet, and I realize that blood is dripping from a gash above my eye.
A car pulls up in front of me, and I wonder if it’s the car that ran me off the road or someone who saw the accident. The headlights shine in my face so I can’t see who’s inside the car. There aren’t a lot of people who drive along Old Salem Road, but there are a few houses and the reservoir.
The lights make the person getting out of the car look like a silhouette. He’s not a huge man. I can tell that. I concentrate on details, size, height, clothes. It’s too dark to make out anything about the clothes beyond trousers and a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up. The height makes me think “man.” Although he could be a bigger woman. . . . I watch the person walk up to my truck. Something seems wrong. I realize that he’s holding his arm straight down, motionless and tight against his body. It seems awkward because his other arm swings as he walks toward me.
He—or she—isn’t speaking. I can see the shape of a person, and I’m almost certain it’s a man, but I still can’t see a face. It’s there, but I can’t focus on any details. His hair that I can see sticking out from under his hood looks brown. The shape of the body, the hair cut—short—makes me pretty sure this is a man.
I’m shaking, and I think back to what Eva said. This is the accident she warned me about; this is the person who attacked her. This is the man who killed Amy. I wish I could remember the details about this attack, the things that she said I did, so I could change them all right now when it’s happening.
I fumble with my phone, tapping the button for my mother, and then look around for some sort of weapon. He already has one; that’s why he kept his arm close to his body.