LOT'S MOUNTAIN

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: Scars

Now it's my turn to stare at her with my jaw hitting the floor.

"It's okay, Dylan. I have a secret, too." She takes a deep breath and then lets it out real slow and says, "I can see how people die."

And I'm waiting for the punchline or at least a ba-DUM-chuh drum roll. She has to be full of shit. Yeah, she's screwing with me.

"You don't believe me," she says.

No, I don't and that makes me feel like a total asshole. What's wrong with me? I can believe in monsters and I know that people can do weird shit, but this ... this isn't Jamie. Jamie is the girl that cries sometimes. She sits at the lunch table and watches out for everybody. She's normal. I need her to be normal and not to be a freak like me.

"You can do things. That means you're like me," she says. She sounds relieved.

"Jamie." That's all I can manage to get out.

"I'll show you," she says. Still holding my hand, Jamie's fingers tighten, like they're going to dig through palms. "You'll see."

And I do. BAM! It's like a lightning bolt through my skull. Now I can see what's inside Jamie's head, can see what she sees.

... A guy (I don't know who he is) ... It's sunny wherever he is. And he knows he's going to die ... Blood oozes out from a gash in his leg. A tornado of emotions rips through him. He wants to give in to the darkness, to just slip into unconsciousness. The pain ... it won't stop until he passes out. Soon it'll be over. NO! He doesn't want to die, doesn't want to curl up here in the dirt and broken things ... Someone has to come ... please ... but it's too late ... he's ... dead—

Jerking back, I scoot away from her and bump into the pile of dolls. They flop onto me, their limp bodies falling across my lap. Pushing them away, I get ready to make a run for it. I freaking saw into her head. I looked in there and saw what was in her mind. Not because of my curse or whatever it is, (well, maybe a little), but because she let me.

I find things, but she let me see this, let me see what she can do, what she hides from everyone else.

"The first time it happened, it didn't have anything to do with people and dying. I just saw the answers to tests before I took them," Jamie whispers as she cradles one of the dolls. Its checkered dress drapes across her arm, fanning out with the lace ribbons it has for trim along the hem.

"Saw the answers to tests? Tell me you cheated," I say, trying to make her laugh.

She doesn't. "I studied harder because I wanted to be the reason I got an A, not because of this. I'm pretty weird, that way, Dylan."

Yeah, that is kinda weird. I almost say that, hoping it'll make her smile, but don't.

"And then?" is what I say instead.

"Then I started seeing people, how they died. There's never anything I can do. Just watch." She straightens the doll's dress, and then smoothes out her black yarn hair. "Sometimes it's when they die or right before. But either way, they die. I never know them or where they are."

"Have you told anybody else?"

"No," she says. "Because I figured they'd react like you did."

Now I feel lower than dirt.

"How many times has it happened?" I ask. The dim light shining from the corner of the room makes her look like she's floating in the darkness.

She touches one of the scars on her wrists. "A lot."