Dark Before Dawn by Stacy Juba

than me. I must be doing it wrong. I mean, a lot of times when I have a feeling, I can’t do anything about it."
    "Give me an example," Serina said.
    "I knew that boy at school, Scott, was going to get run over. And there was also Mrs. Frazier, this nice lady who lived in my apartment building." Dawn flinched as the image of cracked horn-rimmed glasses and a lifeless body flashed into her mind. "With Mrs. Frazier, I had this strong urge to call 911. I dragged my mother next door. We had a key and found Mrs. Frazier unconscious. She’d had a heart attack."
    "Oh, my gosh," Jamie breathed. "Did she die?"
    "She died a couple nights later. She was so kind to me, like a grandmother. I never knew my grandparents." Well, except for her maternal grandmother, but Dawn had only seen her once. Her mother and grandmother fought all night, and the next day, Grandma was gone.
    Mrs. Frazier used to bake breads and play Scrabble with Dawn. She swallowed the lump that had settled in her throat.
    "Your job is not to save people," Serina said. "Just because you have a vision doesn’t mean you have the power or responsibility to intervene. Beginners often pick up negative images because they’re the loudest and most emotionally charged. But you’re so talented that I sense there’s more going on here than you realize. Did Mrs. Frazier have relatives who were able to stay with her at the hospital?"
    "Well, yeah. My mother called them right away and her kids rushed down to the hospital."
    "Don’t you see, there was a purpose to your vision," Serina said. "If the paramedics hadn’t arrived when they did, Mrs. Frazier would have died right there. Instead, you gave her family the gift of saying goodbye. Maybe she even died with one of her children at her side."
    "Her daughter was with her, holding her hand. I never thought of my premonition as a good thing before. I blamed myself for not having it days earlier, when I could have pushed Mrs. Frazier to see a doctor."
    "Have you ever heard of synchronicity, Dawn? That means there are no coincidences. You couldn’t save Mrs. Frazier as it was her time to depart this life, but she lived long enough to give her family closure. You couldn’t save Scott because the universe said this was his time, but Candace heard about your premonition and invited you here. Synchronicities are not random. You’ve been on the right path all along. You just need guidance to answer your questions and take your skills to a higher level."
    Serina stood, majestic in her grace. "I’ll leave you to think about that. We’d be happy to have you tomorrow. If you'll excuse me, I need to find a book that Candace wants to read."
    Candace pushed herself to her feet. "I’ll help you look."
    They left the room, their footsteps treading upstairs. Dawn and Jamie shot uneasy glances at each other. Dawn wanted to ask a million questions, but Jamie spoke first.
    "Does that happen to you a lot? Knowing about things like plane crashes and heart attacks?"
    "Usually it's not that big a deal," Dawn said. "Other times, I keep waiting for something big to happen, but nothing ever does."
    "Like what?"
    Uh oh. Maybe Jamie’s predictions had 100 percent accuracy. But it was too late to back off now.
    "Once, a couple years ago, I felt my mother shouldn’t walk to work," Dawn began. "It was just a vague feeling. We lived in the city and I was convinced she would get hit by a car or something. She didn’t listen and wound up slipping on the ice and dropping her purse. Her ankle was sore, but it was nothing like the scary stuff I was imagining. How about you? You didn’t talk much about your abilities."
    A faint tracing of red outlined Jamie’s cheeks as she answered, "I don’t have any psychic abilities. Yet. I'm not like you or Candace, but Serina says I’ll get better with practice. I think I will, too. I don’t give up easily."
    "How did you get involved with Serina?"
    "I used to walk past her house, but didn’t have the guts to