Foretold by Violet Lumani

Author:Violet Lumani [Lumani, Violet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Uproar Books

Chapter 17

A dragonfly as big as my forearm flits in front of me. It hovers for a moment, massive eye reflecting the street light I’m standing under, before it zips away into the churning, swirling dark. Another halo of light appears ahead of me, and the dragonfly waits, its beating wings an aquamarine blur.

I follow, with dread but unable to resist, from one street light to another as they flick on ahead and extinguish behind me. No going back.

Suddenly, the light that next pierces the night is at the top of a long staircase. I climb, but the dragonfly is gone by the time I reach the top. The door in front of me creaks open, like every horror movie ever made.

I’m in an entryway I’ve never been in before, but there is something familiar about this place. I run my fingers over a delicate hall table. A vase of fragrant black orchids sits in the center. To its right is a bowl of rotting oranges.

My stomach rumbles. Naturally, I move to the kitchen. A plate piled high calls to me, but as I approach, it blows away, crumbling to dust. I grab at a loaf of bread next to the plate, but it squeezes through my hands like wet sand.

Humming—a gentle, soft sound, vaguely like a lullaby—is coming from somewhere in the house. I head back the way I came and climb the stairs, higher and higher still, until I reach an open door and step through.

It feels as though the whole of the universe is curving around me, a canopy of light punching through dark, galactic swirls all rotating at a dizzying speed.

The humming again. I climb over a small barrier to my right, and there, in the pale light, is my mother.

I reach out to her. Her hair is longer than I’ve seen it. It flows around her like a shroud. Her humming stops.

“Cassie.” Her voice is music. I rush to her and she enfolds me in her arms. It is quiet there. It shuts out the light.

“Time to choose,” she whispers, pulling away. She lifts her hands, and in her outstretched left palm is a fistful of grapes, in her right a lush red fruit resembling a plum. I grab for the strange plum eagerly, my teeth piercing the firm skin, the thick ripe juices coating my tongue. It tastes of iron. I drop it, gagging, and look down at my hands. They’re stained red.

She smiles with my mother’s mouth, a sad smile, but it’s not her, and she parts her curtain of hair to reveal a dripping chest cavity, ribs splayed like a butterfly’s wings, the center devoid of its heart. “I’d give my heart for you. What will you give for him?” she whispers.

I stumble back. The juices bubble up, blood, pouring past my lips, running down my neck. My teeth begin crumbling in my mouth, and my hands fly up, trying to keep them from falling out.

“Easy! You’re okay. It’s a dream. It’s not real,” I dimly hear a familiar voice say.

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