I don’t know how I talk Diego into it, but I do. There’s no danger, I tell him. It’s a public park! There will be two- and three-year-olds running around with their parents! It will be broad daylight! And most of all, I tell him, hammering the point home until he begs for mercy, we know what we’re heading into. Whoever that girl is that I saw on the bench—she doesn’t have a clue.
Technically, Shay hasn’t given Diego permission to take the car to Seattle. Okay, definitely, Shay hasn’t given permission. Diego isn’t crazy about not telling her again. He got away with it once, but he doesn’t want to push it. That’s the toughest part of convincing him. He just doesn’t lie to his mom. Ever. I’m not sure why he gives in, but he does.
We don’t say much on the drive. Even though there’s nothing to be nervous about in a certain way, there’s everything to be nervous about in another way, so we just sit, listening to the radio and vibrating along with the tunes and our nerves.
We park. We hang out by the Sno-Cones for a while, seeing if a young girl buys one, but only a couple of people come by.
“Let’s scout out the bench,” Diego says.
We walk through the gardens, looking at the benches. When I see the one that was in my vision, I stop dead. There’s something so real about it. I’ve never been in this part of the park with Shay, but I know this bench. I know the texture of the wood and the curve of the slats. This is the first time that something in my vision really comes true, something I can see. The pattern of the leaves overhead, the trampling of the grass in front, everything is just as I had seen it. It spooks me.
“This one?” Diego asks. He looks kind of spooked, too.
I nod.
Toddlers are beginning to arrive in the gardens, along with their parents. A pair of guides appear and start talking about “nature’s marvelous wonders.” They speak in that overly animated way that people do when they’re around kids, and most of the toddlers are ignoring them while their parents are enthralled. The parents keep trying to drum up their kid’s enthusiasm, saying, “Listen to the nice man, Dylan!” and “Remember how much you like ladybugs, Marina!” The sun is filtering through the leaves, and suddenly it seems like the worst thing that could possibly happen here would be a two-year-old throwing a tantrum.
The toddler pack moves off down the path, but we can hear them. We stand there for a moment, but it’s obvious that we can’t remain.
We can’t scare off whoever is coming.
“We’d better keep moving,” Diego says. “If we stay between here and the entrance to the garden, nobody can get around us. If only we had a toddler for protective coloration.”
I bend down and pick up one of the brochures that a parent had dropped. I hand it to Diego. “Try this. At least you don’t have to buy it ice cream.”
There’s a place to hang by the entrance where we can stay behind some trees. I fidget. The shadows on the ground are telling me that this is it, this is the time my vision took place.
I see someone familiar heading toward us.
To my surprise, it’s Dora.
I elbow Diego and point.
“She’s in the computer camp,” I say.
I notice now that she’s eating a Sno-Cone. I feel a shiver rise all along my body.
We’re on the right track after all.
Dora doesn’t notice me. She walks past us, looking at her watch.
She is meeting someone.
Diego and I give each other a “what should we do now” look.
“I’ll go scope out Dora,” I say. “You stay here. If you see Marcus or Ryan, follow him.”
Diego frowns. “Be careful. Is your cell phone on?”
“It’s on.” We’ve already decided to call each other only in an emergency. I take off down the path.
Dora sits on the bench, eating her Sno-Cone. I stop. She hasn’t seen me yet, and I could keep going and pass her by, but I can’t.
I tell myself Dora can take care of herself.
I tell myself that the important thing is to wait to see who shows up.
But I see her bitten fingernails around the white cone, how her toes are dirty in her sandals, and suddenly I can feel her as well as I see her.
I know her unhappiness is deep and wide.
I know that her mother is an alcoholic.
I see Dora, wearing a short nightgown, pick her mother off the floor and put her to bed.
I know that she thinks she’s at a dead end, and this is her only way out.
She spots me. I could have waved and walked away, but I come forward.
“Hi.”
“Hey.”
Not a promising start. I sit on the bench. “Nice day.”
She half-turns. “Look, hello and everything, but I’m meeting someone, so if you don’t mind?”
“Excuse me, are you my mother?” Dora asks nastily.
“Just making conversation.”
“Don’t bother. Do you mind?”
Dora leans over and dumps out the rest of her Sno-Cone. I am not surprised when she doesn’t crumple it up. She puts the empty cone down on the bench upside down, like a tent, just the way it was in my vision. She slams it down as though she’s marking her territory, making a kind of barrier between us.
I look down at the cherry ice seeping into the ground. The red color is so intense. The stain grows in my mind and I flash into the vision of the blood on the beach.
And suddenly, I know this:
Dora has to get out of here.
“You’ve got to go,” I say.
Dora narrows her eyes. She has lined them with black pencil, and she’s wearing lipstick. She has fixed herself up.
“Is it Marcus? Is it Ryan? Who is it?”
“What is wrong with you?” she asks, leaning back to put distance between us.
“Tell me who it is!”
“It’s Marcus,” she says. “Jealous?”
Marcus. It is Marcus.
“Listen, I’m psychic,” I say. “Really. And I see things.”
She smirks. “You see dead people?”
“I see your mother lying on the kitchen floor,” I say. “She needs help, and you can’t give it. You can’t save her. You tried and now you’re just angry.”
Her expression changes. “Hey…”
“Your kitchen has an orange sink,” I say. “Your nightgown has yellow flowers. You have a birthmark on your knee. A butterfly tattoo in the small of your back. Once your mother left you alone for two weeks, and you didn’t tell anyone because you were afraid she was dead.”
“Nobody knows that,” Dora says, a look of fear on her face. "Nobody knows that.”
“Your dishtowels have green stripes,” I say. “Your dish drainer is white. Your mother’s blanket is blue.”
She is pressed back against the bench now. “What do you want?”
“Get out of here,” I say. “Run. What do you think happened to Kendall and Emily? If you see him, don’t stop.” The danger is like the roar of surf in my ears. "Get out of here!”
Dora shoots to her feet. She gives me a last look, and then she takes off. Running. I don’t know if she’s spooked by me, or my warning. It doesn’t matter.
I notice that my hands are trembling. I tuck them in my armpits. I expect Diego to show up at any moment, running, to tell me that Marcus has entered the park.
But instead, Jonah Castle rounds the bend, sees me, and smiles.
“Dora?” he says.