Chapter 51

DEADLY VISIONS

WHITECHAPEL—1957

“What you seen, girl, what you seen?” said Bet, shaking her daughter by her shoulders. “Tell me what you seen.”

Grace yanked herself free and said, “Nothing, Mum, leave me alone.”

The girl, nearly fourteen now, threw herself on the bed.

Bet said, “What did you see?”

“I saw nothing.”

“You dreamed something . . . or you had a vision.”

“Mum, don’t . . . ” Grace curled up on the bed. She sucked her thumb and shut her eyes.

Bet watched her daughter with horror. She knew what the girl had seen. She’d seen it herself.

“You dreamt Derek, didn’t you darlin’?”

“Mum . . . ”

“You dreamt your dad.”

“Oh God, Mum . . . ”

Bet seethed. She cursed her gift. She damned her family. For so long she had rejected her visions. But they kept coming, flooding her brain and sending waves of panic surging through her. She only saw the bad, only saw death.

The death of her daughter.

Her heart raced. Cold sweat soaked her back. She grabbed her daughter and shook her again. Anger pulsed through Bet, and she couldn’t contain herself. She slapped Grace across the face.

“It’s your own fault, you little tart, your own fault.”

The girl screamed. Bet threw her back on the bed and wheeled away. She put her fist in her mouth and bit down to stop the tears. But they came. Her body trembled with grief, with jealousy, with shame.

Behind her on the bed, Grace whimpered.

When Derek came back in ‘53 and said, “This time it’s for keeps, darlin’’,” Bet thought everything would finally be all right. He’d been back and forth over the years, showering her with those promises he made, promises that were never fulfilled.

“This time, darlin’’,” he’d said, standing on the doorstep, the rain pelting down. “This time it’s for keeps. I’m done with running around. I’m on the straight and narrow from now on, and I’ll make an honest woman of you. Country’s got a queen, now I want mine. And I’ll be a dad to that sprog of ours.”

Remembering his words made the tears come harder, made her shake even more.

I’ll be a dad to that sprog of ours.

But he’d done more than that.

During that time, Grace had grown. From ten to thirteen, she changed, showing the first glimpses of what she would look like as a woman. Men stared and saw that too. Some wanted to taste it early. And Derek Cooper was one of them.

“I don’t feel much like her dad,” he’d told Bet one morning. At the time, Bet thought little of it. But a few months later she realized how significant his words had been.

Nearing her fourteenth birthday, Grace became pregnant. And when Bet found out, Derek once again vanished.

Then, the visions started to seep into her brain. They disturbed her when she was asleep and when she was awake. They came in nightly dreams and daily hallucinations. They made her faint in the street, the blinding white pain in her head overwhelming. They drenched her in sweat and gave her stomach cramps. They made her sick with fear. They were terrifying. They showed a terrible future—they showed Grace’s death in childbirth.

And now, the girl was having them too.

Grace dreamt her own destruction. And the worst thing was, she knew her dreams were real. She knew she had a gift, because her grandmother had told her. If Grace had thought they were merely dreams, it would’ve been bearable. It would have been horrible to think of her daughter suffering nightmares. But that was all they would have been—nightmares. But Grace’s visions were more than that. They were real. Just like Bet’s. Just like Bet’s mother.

And just like her grandfather, Jonas.

Now Grace said, “I’m not going to die, am I, mum?”

Bet bit her lips. She said nothing.

“Mum, please say I’m not going to die. Please promise me I’ll be all right. Please say my baby will be all right.”

Bet stayed quiet. Hot tears ran down her cheeks. Cold sweat ran down her neck.

Grace sat up and her face twisted with dread, and she screamed, “Tell me I’m not going to die, Mum, tell me.”