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You couldn’t see the peak of the mountain from here, only the steep slope of the forest climbing above the cable car station, firs closely packed to form a carpet. I took a breath, the air cold and dry on the back of my throat, making my skin feel tight across my face. My head felt slightly muzzy, which I put down to the altitude.
‘Up or down?’ Zed asked, gesturing to the slope.
Best to get the worst over with. ‘Up first.’
‘Good choice. I’ve a favourite place I want to show you.’
We passed under the trees. Most of the snow from a light fal earlier in the day had slid off the branches, melting away to reveal the dark green of needles and lighter shade of larch. The air was clear, bril iant like the dazzle of a crystal bringing the stars into sharp relief against the sky, pinpricks of light. We took it slowly, winding our way through the trees. A little higher and we hit snowdrifts, edging down the mountain as winter made its claim.
‘Snow doesn’t stay lower down til around Thanksgiving,’ Zed explained.
We walked on hand in hand for a few more minutes. He gently brushed my knuckles through my glove. I found it strangely sweet that this boy, reputed to be the toughest nut in Wrickenridge, seemed content to walk like this. He was intriguing in his contradictions.
Unless, of course, Tina was right and he was just being what he thought I wanted. Way to go, Sky: how to spoil a lovely moment.
The snow was now ankle-deep and my val ey shoes were not doing a very good job at keeping my feet dry.
‘I should’ve thought,’ I grumbled, kicking a clump of ice off my canvas toe cap before it could melt through.
‘My sight isn’t much help for practical stuff like that
—sorry. Shoulda told you to bring boots.’
He was one strange boy sometimes. ‘So, what powers do you think you have, aside from the telepathy thing?’
‘Various, but mainly I can see the future.’ He paused at a particularly beautiful spot, a clearing in the forest where the snow lay deep and pristine.
‘Wa
He dropped it so casual y into the conversation, I was stil reeling. ‘You go ahead. Don’t let me stop you.’
He gri
‘Come on—I know you’re going to.’
‘Because you can see?’
‘Nope, because I’m go
He sat up quickly and tugged me down beside him before I had a chance to brace.
Wel , now I was here, I had to make an angel, of course. Lying on my back, looking up at the patch of stars, I tried not to let my worries about being a savant and the possible danger coming for me sour the breathtaking beauty of the forest at night. I could feel Zed beside me, waiting for me to make another step towards him.
‘So what can you see?’ I asked him.
‘Not everything and not al the time. I can’t “see”
my family’s future, or only rarely. We’re too close—
there’s too much interference, too many variables.’
‘Do they do the same thing?’
‘Only Mom, thankful y.’ He sat up, brushing the snow from his elbows. ‘The rest have other gifts.’
‘You’ve seen my future? In that premonition?’
He rubbed a hand over his face. ‘Maybe. But if I tel you exactly what I saw, I might either change things or be the reason it happens—I can’t know that for sure. My sight gets more precise the closer I am to an event. I only know with any certainty something is going to happen a second or two before it does.
Yet it can go real y wrong. That’s what happened in the raft—by interfering I helped cause what I was trying to stop.’
‘So you won’t tel me if I’m going to be a good skier?’
He shook his head and tapped my forehead. ‘No, not even that.’
‘Good, I think I’d prefer not to know.’
The breeze rustled the branches. The shadows were deepening under the trees.
‘What’s it like? How can you bear knowing so much?’ I asked softly. He was my opposite in many ways: I knew so little about myself, about the past; he knew too much about the future.
Zed got up and pul ed me to my feet. ‘Most days, it’s a curse. I know what people are going to say—
how the film wil end—what the score’s going to be.
My brothers don’t real y understand, or don’t want to think, what it’s like. We’ve al got our own gifts to handle.’
No wonder he was having problems getting along at school. If he was always ahead of the rest, always knowing, then he would be weighed down by a terrible sense of futility, not being able to change outcomes, like the pizza burning. It made my head hurt just thinking about it. ‘This is al too weird.’
He put his arm round me, tucking me under his shoulder. ‘Yeah, I get that. But I need you to understand. You see, Sky, it’s like, I du
I decided it sounded more like a curse than a gift.
He’d be a little ahead of everyone when he tuned in.
Then I realized.
‘You bloody cheater!’ I elbowed him in the ribs.
‘No wonder you are unbeatable when you pitch or kick goals!’
‘Yeah, it does have that fringe benefit.’ He turned to me and smirked. ‘Helped you out, didn’t it?’
I remembered the fluke save. ‘Oh.’
‘Yeah, oh. I sacrificed my perfect goal scoring record for you.’
‘Hardly—you scored, like, twenty or something.’
‘No, real y. What are people go
‘Idiot.’ I swatted him.
He had the gal to laugh at me. ‘That’s done it. I’l have to distract you again before you hit me a second time.’
As he leant forward to take a kiss, he abruptly lunged, knocking me backwards. A tree trunk splintered five feet behind us. Simultaneously, I heard a report like a car backfiring.
Zed dragged me behind a fal en tree trunk and pushed me under, sheltering me with his body. He swore.
‘This isn’t supposed to be happening!’
‘Get off me! What was that?’ I tried to get up.
‘Stay down.’ He swore again, even more colourful y. ‘Someone took a shot at us. I’m getting Dad and Xav.’
I lay quiet under him, my heart pounding.
Crack! A second shot struck the trunk not far above our heads.
Zed slid off me. ‘We’ve got to move! Rol out the other side of the trunk and run for the big pine over there.’
‘Why don’t we just shout to tel them that they’re shooting at humans?’
‘He’s not hunting animals, Sky: he’s after us. Go!’
I squeezed under the trunk, scrambled up and ran.
I could hear Zed just behind me—a third shot—then Zed tackled me from behind, his elbow co
‘Damn. Sorry,’ Zed said as stars whirled. ‘Saw that one almost too late again.’
Better stu
Yeah. But still I’m sorry. Just stay still. Dad and Xav are hunting our hunter now.
I think there’s more than one.
‘What?’ He lifted his head a fraction to look at my face. ‘How do you know?’
‘I don’t know. I just feel them there.’
Zed didn’t question my instinct and relayed the news to his father.
‘I’ve told him to be careful.’ Zed stayed over me, refusing to let me risk being in the line of fire. ‘It could be a trap to lure him out. We’ve got to get back to the house. There’s a stream just over that ridge. If we get there, we can stay hidden and circle back. OK?’