Visions (Cainsville #2)(28)

—

“Gabriel’s running late,” Rose said as she let me inside. “He had a call from a client.”

“I’ll phone him,” I said. “We don’t need to do this—”

“He’ll be here in fifteen minutes. It’d be a bigger inconvenience if he has to turn back.”

True. A light was on in Rose’s parlor, so I headed in there.

“What’s wrong?” she said as I took a seat.

“Nothing.”

“Do you remember what I said about the key to being a good psychic?”

“Being willing to make guesses and be proven wrong? Yes, you’re wrong this time. Sorry.”

“I meant observation and interpretation.” She sat down across from me. “You have never walked into this room and not taken advantage of the opportunity to poke about. Something happened today.”

I hesitated, then said, “I saw the hound again.”

“Where?”

“In Chicago. The thing is, I wasn’t alone, and the person I was with saw it, too. But . . . something about it bothered him, more than it should have, and I’m worried. For him.”

“Was it James?”

“No. Ricky Gallagher. He’s—”

“Don’s son. Does Gabriel know you’re seeing him?”

“I’m not. It was just coffee.”

“I see. While I’ve never met the Gallaghers, I do follow them in the news, since they are my nephew’s primary clients. I’ve seen photos of young Mr. Gallagher.”

“I’m trying to reconcile with James.”

“By going to coffee with an attractive young man? I would offer to do a reading to see where that will lead, but I don’t need the cards for that.”

I glowered at her. “Can I talk about the hound? Or are you testing out a career move? Advice to the lovelorn?”

“That wouldn’t help you at all. Love doesn’t enter into this choice. Lust versus duty. The perfect conundrum for a student of Victorian literature, though, one would hope, less of a struggle for a modern young woman. May I suggest that James Morgan is a wonderful catch . . . for someone else, and that if you persist—”

“So Ricky and I saw this hound.”

She sighed but waved for me to continue.

“It seemed to . . . confuse him,” I said.

Now she leaned forward. “As if he recognized it?”

“No. And yes. It was like . . . Hell, I don’t even know how to explain it. Like when you catch a scent and it’s familiar but you can’t place it. When I see an omen, I know it means something. What do other people sense? They must trigger something, or there wouldn’t be superstitions about them. Ricky did sense something about the hound, which paid no attention to me. It was staring at him.”

“And the other times?”

“It looked at me. My concern is that it is a fetch. A harbinger of death.”

“Ricky’s death.”

“Right. You see it: you die. For me, it’s a warning, because I can read omens. But if Ricky saw it . . .” I exhaled. “I texted him, tonight, pretending I just wanted to say I enjoyed our coffee, but I let out a huge sigh of relief when he texted back. Which feels crazy.”

For ten seconds, Rose didn’t respond.

“So . . .” I finally prodded.

“I’m deciding how to tell you this without giving you ammunition to think you really are imagining things, which is what you’d prefer.”

“I don’t want—”

“I’ve told you the sight runs in the Walsh family. When I started having prophetic dreams, my relatives all told me how lucky I was, how they wished it was them. They were lying. They were thanking the gods it wasn’t them. People think it would be wonderful to see into the future. Just as, I’m sure, they think it would be wonderful to see warnings and signs. But it’s not. For every ounce it makes your life easier, it makes it a pound harder. You have a gift you cannot share without being locked in a mental institution. Which is one reason I’d urge you to mend fences with Gabriel. He accepts what you can do, and you will need someone like that in your life. Besides me.”

“I—”

“My sales pitch for my nephew ends there. Back to the point. While this is clearly no ordinary beast, others can see it. So it exists and seems supernatural in nature. But is it a fetch? Patrick’s correct—that’s the most common meaning of a large black dog. And yet . . .”

“What else is there?”

“You keep calling it a hound. But it doesn’t resemble a typical American hound dog, and that term’s not used in traditional folklore. It’s called a Black Shuck in eastern England, barghest or gytrash in northern England, moddey dhoo in Manx, Church Grim throughout England . . . but never hound.”

“Conan Doyle.”

“Ah. Hound of the Baskervilles. Of course.”

She nodded, but I sat there, thinking, until I finally said, “I thought of it as a hound before Patrick said Black Shuck. But I also thought of The Hound of the Baskervilles before he said Black Shuck. ‘There stood a foul thing, a great, black beast, shaped like a hound, yet larger than any hound that ever mortal eye has rested upon.’ So . . . I don’t know. I guess I was thinking Baskervilles.”