• The past cannot be changed—everyone knows this. What Patricia Sanders didn’t know is that the future is also engraved in stone. Trish, as she is known by some, can see events of the future, though usually no more than a day ahead, and only in random occurrences or dreams.
    Tonight she dreamt of her death.
    The images and sounds resonated in her head. At the mall. A musty smell from the arm wrapped around her neck. His sour breath condensing on her glasses. Her head throbbed from where his massive hand gripped her thin, mouse-brown hair. Yelling at the mall security. A deafening roar, which she did not hear, followed by a sharp, excruciating pain, and…darkness.

    She awakened in a cold sweat, but however hard she tried, she could not remember any single part of the dream, only that she had had the dream but knew something was very wrong and something was going to happen.
    And soon. As all her premonitions, it would happen very soon.
    After some time of vainly trying to remember, she admitted defeat to her memory, showered, dressed, and ran downstairs to the warm breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage, and toast with grape jelly she had been looking forward to since the evening before. Trish loved such meals, which could account for the extra she carried around her waist—not too much, but she definitely didn’t possess the hourglass frame of perfection. Indeed, she wasn’t the most attractive girl at Middle Creek High School, but an envied physical appearance was nothing in comparison to her ability to foretell the future.
    Unfortunately, for her, memory was just as important.
    “Hello, sweetie,” her father said as he placed the warm plate of food on the table, “you’re just in time for breakfast.” He had taken several consecutive days off from work since her mother died three weeks ago—an event she hadn’t foreseen. At times she worried about his job. As long as he’s been out of work, it’d be a stretch to say that his boss wouldn’t consider firing him at least once.
    “Good morning, Dad,” she replied, inhaling the savory aroma.
    “Surprise.” He paused, and then continued, “Is it a surprise?”
    “No, Dad, sorry, but I saw it yesterday at dinner.”
    “Oh,” he grunted, then sighed.
    “Though it was much larger in my vision,” she teased.
    “Well, now, sixteen years old and your magic’s getting rusty, huh?” he laughed. “Y’know, we’ve gotta work on our communication with your ability. Couldn’t you have told me?”
    “Nope.”
    “No? Explain please.”
    “Well, if I had told you, you…uh, it would be a possibility that you would decide not to make it, and then you wouldn’t make it, so I wouldn’t be able to tell you, and then since I couldn’t tell you, you would make it, and then I would have the vision, and it would come full circle until I don’t tell you,” she explained, hiding a smile. “It’s a very complex situation.”
    “Oh, really now?” her father said, “or did you just make that all up?”
    Trish chuckled, “Yeah.” She was always amazed at how he accepted her as totally, perfectly normal. Everyone else that knew treated her, well, differently.
    The laughter soon faded, and again the issue of the dream that still eluded her came to mind. It must have showed on her face, because her father asked, “Is everything alright?”
    She snapped back to the here-and-now. “Oh, yeah, everything’s fine. I was…just trying to remember something, that’s all.” His eyes studied her with a sincere concern until she continued, “Everything’s perfectly fine, Dad; you needn’t worry.”
    “Okay, whatever,” he said, mimicking the way she talked when told to do something she didn’t really want to do, right down to rolling his eyes.
    “Dad,” she dragged the word out.
    “What?” it was his turn to chuckle. “Oh, hey pumpkin, we’re going to the mall today to get the last of the Fourth of July sale.”
    Between a strip of bacon and a forkful of eggs, she said, “It’s, like, three days past the Fourth.” Again something tickled in the back of her mind, but she ignored it.
    “Don’t tell me; I don’t run the show.”

    Three hours later, they were in the mall, going to the cash register of a Claire’s. Yet again, she felt something was terribly wrong. In front of her was a tall, white man with jeans, a black leather jacket, and a black cap. He was fidgety, continuously talking to himself in a low, inaudible voice and looking around. One time she followed his gaze to where he usually looked. It was a security officer.
    Then, the dream flashed back to her, though everything except herself was a moving shadow. Then the thought occurred to her, What is a guy doing in an accessories store anyway?
    “Dad,” she said, listening to her voice crack. She set everything in her arms on the nearest rack, “Dad, we’ve gotta go, now.”
    Without questioning he turned, and was shoved aside. His head hit the corner of a glass free-standing cabinet, and then he fell to the ground—limp. Trish stared at the corner of the glass, which was now stained in crimson. “DAD!” she shrieked with her hands in front of her mouth.
    The man who had pushed him reached for her, and the guy in the leather jacket delivered a powerful blow to his face. The attacker fell to his knees. Trish glanced the hands of the man who had been in line to find iron knuckles in one, and then a necklace of diamonds and pearls, with the word “WIFE” engraved on a silver panel.
    The next second there was a hole in his white shirt and chest, and a growing trickle of blood. He looked at his wound, the attacker, then his eyes skipped over to Trish, their eyes met, and he collapsed as she stared in horror.
    Then an arm gripped her neck, choking her. The assaulter pressed the barrel against her forehead, and she felt the heat from the shot. Her eyes instinctively shut tight, and she knew she couldn’t open them, not that she would. The man shouted demands, at the cashier and the security guards, and the gun pressed harder.
    Then her eyes relaxed as the bullet found her brain.