“You wouldn’t wish it. It truly can be a curse rather than a blessing.”
“But you didn’t answer my question, Emma.”
The eyes, oddly flat and incurious, turned again toward the flame-headed woman.
“Did I know there was to be all that killing? I can’t answer that properly. To do that I’d have to explain what I see and how I see it. And that’s impossible. It’s like trying to explain the color turquoise to a blind man.”
“Or like trying to tell a stranger about rock and roll,” Mildred said. “Sorry. Old music reference. Shouldn’t have interrupted. Go on, Emma.”
“I see reality, just like anyone else. But I sometimes see an overlay. Like what I think the old vids and teevee must’ve been like. Like I looked at that man and ‘saw’ all about his real, hidden life.”
“And the man with the blue-and-green hair,” J.B. was as fascinated as any of them. “If he follows your warning, he could live. If he doesn’t.”
“He’ll die with his throat slit in the Hole,” she said. “But it’s not always that precise. I tasted death with incredible strength in the saloon. But I couldn’t have foretold how it would come. I also felt a lot of power from you seven.”
Doc squatted, the cracking of his knees even louder than the pounding rain. “It sounds a little like throwing handfuls of mud at a wall. By the nature of the beast, some will stick and some will fall out.”
“Could put it like.” Her eyes opened wider. “By water and stone! Where do you come from?” She turned to Mildred. “And you. There are colors to both of you like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Like all colors and no colors. How.”
Ryan smiled at her obvious distress and bewilderment. “Time enough for that later. Once the rain stops we can move on. I’ll introduce all of us and tell you a little about where we’ve come from.”
Emma stood, her face drained of blood. “No. Thanks for the offer of your protection, but I can see death if we travel together.”
“Who for?” Dean asked.
“It’s like I said. A color. Dark. So dark. If I travel with you, then death will come to one of us. But if you go on without me, then the shadow retreats from you all.”
“But it can be cheated?” Ryan asked. “You said that yourself. We can cheat death. We’ve all done it more times than you’ve eaten hot soup.”
She shook her head doubtfully. “The shadow is like a cloak made from the wings of ravens. You saved my life and turned the black spear from my heart. How would I feel if I caused the death of one of you?”
“Not as bad as whoever dies,” Mildred said grimly.
“You don’t believe I see the future and the past, do you? I can almost taste your suspicion.”
“Maybe I don’t want to believe it, Emma.”
“Your father was burned to death in an attack by men in white sheets and hoods, in his church. A place like this. He had a younger brother, also a preacher, whose name was Josh. He called you ‘Millie.’ I’m right, aren’t I? Though parts of your life are oddly distorted. Not like norms.”
“That’s enough,” Mildred said, shaking her head so that the plaited beads rattled in her hair. “I believe you can see some of what’s already happened. Doesn’t mean you can also see the future. Nobody can. Future’s like millions and millions of alternate possibilities. I might drop dead the very next breath. Or in five minutes. An hour. A day. A year. Nobody knows that, Emma. Not even you.”
“I do know that,” she said very gently. “It’s what I’m trying to explain, but I guess I’m doing it real badly. I see some things to come. Just some of them. But I can’t explain how or why I do it. Sorry.”
Her words hung in the darkened church, surrounded by the insane violence of the raging chem storm.
The noise of the thunder and the spilled water made any further conversation impossible.
It was well over an hour before the rain ceased and the thunder rolled south.