Sleep No More
Page 5

But you know what’s harder? Not doing anything. Standing back and letting bad things happen. Letting people die because they’re supposed to.
I remember asking Sierra once, soon after she moved in, why we didn’t act. “We could be superheroes,” I argued with her. “We should help people. Isn’t that the right thing to do?”
“Look what happened when you tried to save me,” she said so gently I couldn’t be angry.
Just sad.
In the end, it’s not the right thing. Ever. And so I stand back.
Before I gained control—when I saw my visions more often—I foresaw a few deaths. Usually it was something like car accidents, heart attacks, that kind of thing. Things I probably couldn’t stop even if I did try.
But murder? Just a word of warning to Bethany. To be careful. How much could it hurt?
Especially when the other option is to let her die a terrifying death.
“You’ve got your thinking face on, Char,” my mom says, pulling my mind back into her well-organized office.
I make myself smile. “Lots of homework,” I lie. Not that I don’t have a bunch of homework. Just that it isn’t what I was thinking about.
She pauses and glances up at me, her face so soft and caring it makes me want to cry at the thought of all the lies and half-truths I tell her on a daily basis. “You work so hard,” she says quietly.
I bite the tip of my tongue. The last thing I deserve is her sympathy. I don’t take advanced math and science and every AP class the school counselor will let me into because I’m some brainiac who’s all self-motivated and ambitious. I do it because if I tire my mind out enough, I don’t have time to think as hard. About the visions, about my utter lack of social life, about the fact that I ruined my mother’s life and now we’ll grow old together, two lonely spinsters.
Three if Sierra stays with us.
“Gotta get into Harvard,” I say in the lightest tone I can manage. It’s another lie. I’ll go to Rogers State in Claremore, about twenty miles away, so I can live at home. For a million reasons. Because Mom needs me and I’m responsible for her. Because it’s dangerous for me to drive to Massachusetts, at least semiregularly, on the freeway, where I can’t pull over at the first sign of a foretelling.
Because I could never live with roommates.
But Mom doesn’t need to know any of that. Not yet.
“Is Sierra home?” I ask, changing the subject. Even though Mom’s basically self-sufficient now, Sierra’s never left.
And even though I hope it’s not because she thinks she still has to babysit me, she kinda does anyway. I don’t mind. Much. It means she’s there to talk to, and the three of us all get along really well. Like Gilmore Girls plus one.
And a big-ass secret.
Mom often reminds Sierra that, although we love her and she’s welcome to stay as long as she wants, we don’t need her anymore and she can go out and have a “real life.”
But Sierra and I know the truth: Sierra’s an Oracle too, and her “real life” is inside her head. There’s not really a possibility of anything else for Oracles. Getting married? I’m pretty sure a spouse would notice all of the weird things we aren’t allowed to explain. I’ve always hoped that maybe someday Sierra would find that perfect person who she could trust enough tell everything to. But even assuming Sierra would be willing to go against the rules, would finding out the truth chase someone off? And if it did, would they keep their mouth shut about it? Not likely.
Or, let’s say they did believe her—it would take a pretty big person not to start prying about their future. Everyone thinks they want to know the future.
Everyone is wrong.
So it just . . . wouldn’t work.
Similarly, there’s no perfect soul mate in my future either. Only a lifetime of hiding. I didn’t choose this. I wouldn’t choose this. But it’s the hand I was dealt. The hand Sierra was dealt. Some people are short, some people have freckles, some people see the future. It’s all genetics.
“I think so,” Mom says, and I’ve forgotten what it was I asked.
Oh yeah. Sierra.
“But you know how she is; she sneaks in and out and I don’t hear a thing.” Mom grins at me over her shoulder before turning back to her work. “Check her office.”
I pull Mom’s door closed and walk down the hall to the room Mom always refers to as “Sierra’s office”; but it’s really her room/office/work/life. When Dad died, we didn’t have the money to move—especially not with all the medical bills—but Mom couldn’t handle sleeping in the master bedroom anymore, so she gave it to Sierra. It’s a big room with a small sitting area and private bathroom and . . . well, Sierra doesn’t leave it very often.
At least not when I’m home.
Her desk is set up in the sitting area and about half the time I bring dinner in to her so she doesn’t have to stop working. The walls are covered with bookshelves stuffed full of books about history and mythology and other Oracle stuff that she is constantly pulling out to use as references. When I was twelve, I asked what she would do if Mom came in and really took a look at her books but Sierra shrugged and said, “I’d tell her it’s research.”
Then I asked what she would do if I started coming in and borrowing books. She said she’d start locking the door.
Two days later when she caught me with Oracles of Rome, she started doing just that.