Usually, Eve liked Saturdays. By the time
patients had made it as far as her weekend sessions on make-up and skin care,
most of the painful surgery was over. Their scars were beginning to fade, and
they were generally feeling a lot more cheerful about their prospects.
Her classes always had a waiting list, now that word had
spread about Eve Prentice’s magic touch with skin care. Nobody could understand
why people under her care healed faster, or why their scars became almost
invisible, and Eve pretended that it was just a mix of positive visualization
and special skin cream blends.
She would never be able to explain what she did anyway. She
couldn’t explain it to herself.
Today’s morning class had been one of the best yet: full of
laughter and optimism. It should have been a great start to the weekend.
Instead, Eve was bleakly certain that she’d be lucky if she survived it.
Something was off about today. She’d felt it from the
minute she woke up, and she was never wrong. Until today, though, her
predictions had been about bad things happening to someone else. What worried
her this time was that some calamity was barreling straight at her. Worse, she had no idea what it was. Not a single clue.
How could you head off disaster if you didn’t know what it
was? Or where it was coming from?
She shut the clinic door behind her, wheeled her heavy case
down the ramp and heaved it into the trunk of her Chevy Malibu. The lid of the
trunk closed with a dull ‘thunk’ that seemed to echo her state of mind
perfectly. Eve leaned against the car to stare up into the sky, as if there
might be some answers written up there in that cloudless expanse of blue.
She did a quick body scan. No hairs standing on end; no
prickle of warning, so there was no immediate threat. No feeling of unwellness,
no unusual symptoms, so it wasn’t physical.
Deep inside… that was different. That’s where she felt it;
that and that strange connection with the otherness of life that she had
never been able to explain.
She quartered the sky above her and checked each quadrant as
far as her senses could reach, and then did the same for the richness of the
earth under the concrete. Nothing lurking above or below.
Well, standing here wasn’t going to provide her with any
answers. She ran through her options. Go home, get changed, swim the length of
Rockaway beach and back. The freezing water of the Pacific was just what she
needed to focus her mind. She’d have the ocean to herself; very few people
could put up with the temperature the way she could.
Or maybe go to the gym and work out then do forty laps. Get
changed and go for a fast, sweaty run. Yeah, a run followed by a swim.
Truth to tell, she was getting tired of the frantic physical
activity. She felt like a scared animal, sensing an earthquake coming and
running around in circles looking for shelter. It didn’t really matter what she
did, she wasn’t going to be able to outrun it .
Damn, damn, damn.
She unlocked the driver’s door and slid behind the wheel,
staring at the rows of cars in front of her. On impulse, she pulled down the
visor and peered up at her image in the mirror. Pale grey eyes, almost silver,
looked back at her from under white-blond bangs.
Normal. She looked completely normal. People used to have
difficulty coming to terms with that, when they found out that Eve shared her
grandmother Alice’s gift of precognition. It was as if they thought she should
look a little bit odd; maybe wear clothing decorated with stars and moons to
fit their idea of a Mystic Meg. Not an ordinary-looking girl clad in jeans and
a scoop-necked t-shirt.
So why do they want to hunt me down?
The thought came out of nowhere, slashing through her mind
like the blade of a dagger. Eve blinked.
Hunt her down? Where had that come from?
Abruptly, in her mind, she saw a quick flash of a girl
fleeing, shadows racing after her. It lasted only a millisecond. But it wasn’t
like her normal
patients had made it as far as her weekend sessions on make-up and skin care,
most of the painful surgery was over. Their scars were beginning to fade, and
they were generally feeling a lot more cheerful about their prospects.
Her classes always had a waiting list, now that word had
spread about Eve Prentice’s magic touch with skin care. Nobody could understand
why people under her care healed faster, or why their scars became almost
invisible, and Eve pretended that it was just a mix of positive visualization
and special skin cream blends.
She would never be able to explain what she did anyway. She
couldn’t explain it to herself.
Today’s morning class had been one of the best yet: full of
laughter and optimism. It should have been a great start to the weekend.
Instead, Eve was bleakly certain that she’d be lucky if she survived it.
Something was off about today. She’d felt it from the
minute she woke up, and she was never wrong. Until today, though, her
predictions had been about bad things happening to someone else. What worried
her this time was that some calamity was barreling straight at her. Worse, she had no idea what it was. Not a single clue.
How could you head off disaster if you didn’t know what it
was? Or where it was coming from?
She shut the clinic door behind her, wheeled her heavy case
down the ramp and heaved it into the trunk of her Chevy Malibu. The lid of the
trunk closed with a dull ‘thunk’ that seemed to echo her state of mind
perfectly. Eve leaned against the car to stare up into the sky, as if there
might be some answers written up there in that cloudless expanse of blue.
She did a quick body scan. No hairs standing on end; no
prickle of warning, so there was no immediate threat. No feeling of unwellness,
no unusual symptoms, so it wasn’t physical.
Deep inside… that was different. That’s where she felt it;
that and that strange connection with the otherness of life that she had
never been able to explain.
She quartered the sky above her and checked each quadrant as
far as her senses could reach, and then did the same for the richness of the
earth under the concrete. Nothing lurking above or below.
Well, standing here wasn’t going to provide her with any
answers. She ran through her options. Go home, get changed, swim the length of
Rockaway beach and back. The freezing water of the Pacific was just what she
needed to focus her mind. She’d have the ocean to herself; very few people
could put up with the temperature the way she could.
Or maybe go to the gym and work out then do forty laps. Get
changed and go for a fast, sweaty run. Yeah, a run followed by a swim.
Truth to tell, she was getting tired of the frantic physical
activity. She felt like a scared animal, sensing an earthquake coming and
running around in circles looking for shelter. It didn’t really matter what she
did, she wasn’t going to be able to outrun it .
Damn, damn, damn.
She unlocked the driver’s door and slid behind the wheel,
staring at the rows of cars in front of her. On impulse, she pulled down the
visor and peered up at her image in the mirror. Pale grey eyes, almost silver,
looked back at her from under white-blond bangs.
Normal. She looked completely normal. People used to have
difficulty coming to terms with that, when they found out that Eve shared her
grandmother Alice’s gift of precognition. It was as if they thought she should
look a little bit odd; maybe wear clothing decorated with stars and moons to
fit their idea of a Mystic Meg. Not an ordinary-looking girl clad in jeans and
a scoop-necked t-shirt.
So why do they want to hunt me down?
The thought came out of nowhere, slashing through her mind
like the blade of a dagger. Eve blinked.
Hunt her down? Where had that come from?
Abruptly, in her mind, she saw a quick flash of a girl
fleeing, shadows racing after her. It lasted only a millisecond. But it wasn’t
like her normal
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