Mystery, Visions, and Doomed Love

The city buzzes beneath, in between revelry and oblivion. Firecrackers scribble over the dusk as ancient gods throw tantrums, and the streets pump with people cheering, laughing, and dancing. It is the engagement party of the year. Of the decade.

In every shining screen and every screeching radio, they talk about the golden couple – Julian Cross, the heir to the Cross shipping fortune, and Delia, the super-model whose smile sells moonlight.

They are walking on the red carpet, hand in hand. Julian is in a custom navy tux, and Delia is in some gauzy dress that hangs on her body like fog off the side of a river. They're radiant. Unreachable. Unaware.

Next to me on the rooftop, Mira lights another cigarette, and one eyebrow goes up. "You have that look in your eyes as if you'd like to commit a murder again."

"I'm just saying," I begin.

"You're always saying." She blows a curl of smoke and smiles. "Floods, fire, thunder. And tonight—what is it? A plague of hornets?"

"War," I mutter. "Massive, bloody war."

She snorts. "Wow, we jumped all the way to the big leagues."

"No one's listening," I say. "It's not a joke."

Sitting up, Mira brushes ash off her jeans. "Alix, babe. I'm your best friend. I love your weird brain. You just gotta stop trying to fuck with the world before it breaks."

I glance toward the horizon. The city is diffused in haze, the skyline in gold with twilight. And I already see it – columns of smoke wailing up from shattered buildings, bodies in streets, the taste of blood in the air, metallic. I watched it two weeks ago. I've seen it every night since.

They always start with flashes of images, such as lightning in closed eyes. Then faces. Then screaming.

"I had the dream last night again," I whisper. But this time, Julian was putting on that blue suit. The one he's wearing now."

Mira pauses. Her face tightens just slightly.

"You have stress dreams. You read too much. You're grieving."

"I'm not grieving," I snap, and it is not quite true.

Mira and I have lived together as roommates since college. She is sensible, razor-smart, and soft where she should be. She is also the closest I can get to family now.

"You have yet to believe these visions started because of Ellis," she says softly.

"Ellis" floats in the air like a smoke. My brother. The one who passed away three months ago due to a car accident that cannot be explained by anyone, least of all me.

I don't answer. I do not want to speak about Ellis.

"Look," Mira says, Delia left an older rich man for Julian." Big deal. The tabloids are always messy. But you are behaving as if she threw a bomb.

She might as well have," I say, and my voice becomes cold. "Do you even have an idea of who her ex is?"

Mira shrugs. "Some South African mining guy?"

"Matteo Dray. CEO of Viresa. Has control over ten ports, half of the copper trade in North Africa, and finances private militia for 'security.'

Mira freezes.

I press on. "You think he could not start something? He's got money, weapons, allies. Dad has been lobbying to stop Viresa's expansion to the East Med. This isn't just heartbreak. This is bloodlines and leverage."

She waves her cigarette. "That's… very international-thriller of you."

"It's true. And you know what's worse?"

Getting up to the edge of the building, I peer down and see Delia's silver dress flashing in the last of the light like a net.

"She's not herself."

Mira frowns.

"I mean it," I say. She is hardly looking like she wants to be there. She looks dazed. As if she's playing the role of someone else's writing."

"You're projecting."

"Am I?" I ask. Is it more likely that a woman whose face is on every billboard would fall for Julian Cross, who, despite his success, can only think Qatar is a cocktail?

Mira laughs, but I don't.

"There's something unnatural here. Like she's being manipulated. Controlled."

"And by whom? Cupid? A witch?"

"Aphra."

Mira blinks. "The publicist?"

I nod.

Since the beginning, Aphra Reed, elegant, pale, and always a step ahead of anyone – has been arranging the PR acts by Julian and Delia. But there's something else. Something in her regard creeps into my skin.

"She's not human," I whisper.

Mira closes her eyes. "Alix."

"No, listen – once Aphra walks into a room, it is colder. The same she extracts heat from the air. And the way Delia looks at her – like a pet waiting for orders".

Silence.

I didn't want to say it out loud.

Mira looks at me carefully. "You need to stop. Soon, people are going to start thinking you have lost it.

"What if I have?" I whisper. "What if I am really going crazy?"

She takes my hand. "Then I'll wait with you until you its rediscovery."

That's Mira. Always picking me, even when I'm half-mad.

However, I know what I saw. I know what's coming.

—

Later the same night, at a party where the swells and the laughter shower the city, I find myself in the stairwell, clutching for the railing as though it might save me.

Someone comes up the stairs.

It's Delia.

At first, she does not notice me. She's barefoot. Her hair's a mess. She looks... scared.

"Delia?" I ask softly.

She turns.

For just a moment, she flares, as does a candle in the wind. Her eyes search mine. Desperate.

What is happening next, do you know?" she whispers.

I swallow. "Do you?"

"I dream of fire," she says. "And I wake up crying."

I stretch out, and she flicks. Then, suddenly, she walks up to me and grabs my wrist.

"How can I prevent it from happening?".

Her voice cracks like glass.

Behind her, up on the rooftop, the music rolls on. Laughter roars. Julian calls her name.

"I can't," I whisper. "I've tried. No one listens."

She stares at me. And then she's gone – gone back into the glittering carnival of her engagement."

I sit for what seems like hours on the cold staircase.

—

It is close to dawn now that I go back to the rooftop. Up there, Mira is still there, wrapped up in a blanket and drinking lukewarm coffee.

She taps the space next to her.

Did you know, she says in a whisper, "That there's a flower called yarrow?".

I glance at her.

Soldiers would pack it into wounds to stop them from bleeding.

"Sounds bitter."

She nods. "It is. But it helps."

I can imagine the golden petals that paved Delia's parade: the bright yellow and the buoyant whites. I wonder if they are going to fill the graves with them.

"Do you believe in fate?" I ask.

"No," she says. Then, "Maybe. I believe in choices."

"And even if no one decides to make them stop this?"

"Then you and I survive it," she says. "We try to. That's all we can do."

The sun comes up slow and broad, casting reluctant warmth over the sky. Down below, the city unfolds and fusses.

I close my eyes and hold her hand.