I wasn't the most well-liked person in Harrow Hall, mostly because a lot of people found me strange on the best of days. They had heard rumours about how once upon a very long time ago I would tell people that I could see when they would die, and sure enough some of those prophecies came true, which was unsettling to say the least. I didn't know then what I knew now, that very few people could handle the truth of knowing when and how they would die. I also learnt that telling just anyone about a gift as odd as mine could give people the impression that I had a few bolts loose upstairs, and that impression ultimately followed me all my twenty-three years in my hometown. No one ever treated me poorly, that much I can say, but I was often kept at a comfortable distance, the way people often do when they can't understand the bigger picture. I couldn't blame the folks of Harrow Hall for their caution, simply because if I put myself in their shoes then I would probably take the same approach. Is it unfair? I suppose. That doesn't mean I have to stop doing what I do, or that I can hold anyone accountable for how they feel. It's human instinct to question anything outside of the realm of our earth and sky, that perhaps there is a man in the clouds working alongside of us. I don't know if there really is, but there has to be something greater than us. Something, or someone, gave me my gift.
I was lucky, however, to have a best friend who only ever once questioned my premonitions. She had seen the proof for herself, even though I hated the way in which I had to prove my gift to her. In the seventh grade I was faced with a premonition about her father passing suddenly from a work-related accident, and I felt it was only right to tell Jannie. At first she did what everyone else had --- she told me that I was a sick individual for saying such a horrible thing about her dad and that she had tried her best to ignore how weird I was, but that was the last straw for her. I accepted her anger, as I often do when death comes knocking, and let her see it for herself. When he died in the exact manner in which I described, it took Jannie awhile to come and apologise to me. I saw her struggle with the truth, and sometimes I still see that same hesitation boiling inside of her, but ultimately she chooses to believe me.
Jannie is the only person I can really talk to about my premonitions, especially when I'm struggling to come to terms with the upcoming death. Unfortunately, she has been in the city for the last three years at university, which means we often can only communicate by phone unless she comes home for summer break. Luckily for me, she was on her reading week before exams and had decided to come home to rest.
As soon as I dropped Elaine off back at her house, I drove directly to Jannie's parents house. I couldn't keep the images of the brutal murder premonition out of my head, trying my best to keep myself composed enough to walk through Jannie's house without alarming her parents. My hands were shaking so much that I could barely open my van door, gnashing my teeth together and forcing a smile for her parents as they allowed me inside of the house. I made a bee-line for Jannie's room, opening her door without knocking. She jumped in her chair when the door flew open, pulling out her earbuds as the music continued to softly chime.
"Lord have mercy, Ellion, you scared me," Jannie said, leaning back in her chair as she exhaled softly. "You don't knock anymore?"
I plopped myself down on her bed, quickly raking my fingers through my hair as I tried my best to stop seeing the knife sticking out from the newcomers throat, how I could hear blood gurgling as he desperately tried to take a breath. "I'm sorry, I just --- I saw something. I don't know why, I've never seen anything like it before."
Jannie spun her desk chair around to face me, leaning forward so that she could gently place a hand on my knee, squeezing it momentarily before wheeling herself forward. I felt myself break, tears swelling in my eyes before letting out a panicked gasp. I hadn't ever seen a death so disturbing before, especially a death that was caused directly by someone else's hands. I could still feel the fear of the newcomer, the way he wanted so badly to take back all of the events that had led him to that moment. It wasn't often that people were actually scared at the moment of death, they often came to console themselves in whichever way helped. Most times people cried out to God and felt comfort from that, other times it was the idea that their death would bring them closer to a loved one. But the fear this man had inside of him, the way he panicked and begged internally for one more chance, it left me with a feeling I can't even begin to put into words. I cried harder than I ever had, falling into the comforting arms of my best friend as she tried her best to console me.
"Ellion, babe, it's okay," Jannie said, wrapping her arms tightly around me as she stroked the hair on my head. "What can I do to help you? Can you tell me what you saw?"
I tried to put it into words, but everything I said came out jumbled in between desperate gasps. For a moment I felt like a child again, crying so hard that I wasn't able to comprehend why I was actually crying anymore. Jannie sat quietly and listened to me try to work out what I had seen, desperately clinging to her as if she was my anchor keeping me close to shore. When I was finally able to, I told her everything that had happened in the premonition. She was shocked and dismayed, trying her best to comfort me as she worked through her own feelings about the murder. I could tell she needed a moment to think it all through, so I asked her if she could make me a cup of tea to help calm my nerves. When she returned with two steaming cups, sitting down beside me on the bed, she sighed and placed her free hand on my arm.
"I know you don't want to, El, but I think you need to tell the police," Jannie said. I wanted to believe it would be that easy, that I could describe the date, time, and location of the stranger's death, but that would only incriminate me. How else would I know such specifics? Even if they decided to hear me out they probably still wouldn't believe me, and given my reputation around town they would more than likely dismiss anything I said.
"You know I can't do that, Jannie, it doesn't work that way," I replied, staring down at the murky reflection of myself in my cup. "I don't know what to do, I've seen this man get murdered and I have no way of stopping it."
"Well," Jannie paused, taking a moment to think through the rest of her thought, "did you see who it was that did it?"
I hadn't, unfortunately. I tried to recollect the images and piece them together the best that I could, but I was unable to pinpoint even the simplest of identification like whether the murderer was male or female. All I knew was that the newcomer would be killed on June 12th, just two and a half months away, and that the scene of the crime would be on the shore of Lake Newberry after succumbing to a stab wound in his throat.
"So who is the victim, then? You said you saw him at Ice Queen?" Jannie questioned.
"Yeah, I think he was with that Daniels girl --- you know Fletcher Daniels, he owns the construction business outside of town? I'm pretty sure that was Fletcher's daughter that he was with."
"Oh, Hadley Daniels?"
"I'm pretty sure it was her, but I don't know because I haven't seen her in a long time."
"Well, that gives me something to work with. I think I have her on my Facebook, actually," Jannie said, handing her cup of tea to me so that she could resume her seat at the desk, flipping open the lid of her laptop. She mashed away on her keyboard before making a noise of acknowledgement, picking up her laptop and bringing it over to me. "This her?"
It was, except her hair had more red in it now than in her profile picture. She was slim with a smile so big that she looked like Miss America, all of her various pictures showed her in exotic locations and sometimes with other equally as beautiful people. She seemed very adventurous and outgoing. Jannie and I continued to cycle through her Facebook profile, trying to identify anyone as the man I had seen from my premonition. We found an album in her photos of Christmas from a few years ago, and after clicking through over one hundred pictures, I finally saw his face.
"That's him!" I exclaimed, pointing at the handsome face amongst all of her family members in ugly Christmas sweaters. "Does it say who he is?"
Jannie hovered her cursor over his face until a name popped up: Johnathan Shop. She didn't hesitate to click onto his profile, bringing up yet another display of someone who has lived a dream of a life. He lived in the city of Brook, which was about two or so hours away from Harrow Hall. His information said that he had studied Abnormal Psychology at the University of Colorado and that he had changed his relationship status from in a relationship to single in the last eight months. Like Hadley, Johnathan liked to travel a lot. He had numerous pictures of him in exotic locations, often accompanied by a gorgeous woman who went unnamed. After a bit more digging, we were able to conclude that Hadley and Johnathan were related, probably cousins. Seeing his life in such a personal way made my heart break, and I needed to pull myself away for a minute to calm down. I hated knowing that in just a few short months his life would come to an end in the worst way possible.
"He doesn't deserve this," I said quietly, trying to put together my thoughts. "Who would want to kill him? He doesn't seem like the kind of guy to make enemies easily."
"I don't know why anyone would want to kill him, but have you thought about why his death came to you? As much as I don't understand how or why your premonitions happen, they all seem relatively normal. You've never had one like this before, so why now?" Jannie asked.
"There has to be a reason, right? Before this, I've always felt like I was supposed to help the dying by keeping them company. But that doesn't seem like the case for Johnathan."
Jannie closed her laptop and rested it on the desk, turning to face me once more as a look of concern flashed across her face. "What do you think it means?"
I didn't want to admit the fact that deep down it felt as though I was supposed to intervene, that maybe the fates that be weren't supposed to take Johnathan Shop so soon and in such a brutal manner. But I knew better than to try to do that, as I had to learn my lesson the hard way. My gift allows me to know when and how people will die, but it doesn't allow me to stop it from happening. We all have a timer counting down to the moment of our deaths, it is unrelenting and unforgiving. No matter how hard I have tried to change the moment of death, fate has its way of changing to accommodate the timer. I like to think of it as traffic being rerouted to accommodate a roadblock up ahead, taking a detour but ultimately ending up at the same destination. Even though I may be able to change the way someone dies, they will still die from something else at the time which they were originally supposed to. I had seen it before when I tried to stop a young child from dying of an untreated lung infection, only to have her choke to death after swallowing a small part of her toy. I was able to inform her parents that she needed to see a doctor, but she still died the same day at the same time from a different cause.
In the case of Johnathan, maybe it wasn't that I was supposed to try to stop him from dying, but to stop him from being murdered. But how was I going to stop him from being murdered when I had no idea who was going to kill him?