Mist swept across her vision, and suddenly what was real was lost in the dream.
She felt as if she were drifting through the corn, borne on the breeze as the mist settled over the cornfield, strangely dark against the clear light of the autumn day. She found herself looking down from above, and she fought the vision, terrified to let it win.
This wasn’t a dream, this was real. She wasn’t floating above the cornfield, she was walking into it. Her car was just behind her, steps away. Any minute, someone from AAA would show up to fill her gas tank, and then she would resume driving into town to see Joe, and then she would meet Jeremy and his friend Brad for lunch.
She had to walk into the cornfield and kill the fear.
No, she had to walk into the cornfield because the crows were calling her, because one of the scarecrows was close, and if she didn’t go and look it in the face…
The day suddenly grew darker as a cloud passed over the sun, and she shivered.
Idiot, she chided herself.
On the other hand…
She despised it in movies when the stupid heroine—who always seemed to be young and gorgeous and barely dressed—walked alone into what appeared to be certain danger.
She stopped and smiled. When the AAA guy arrived, then she would check out what was going on in the cornfield.
Not while she was alone.
She turned back to her car. A crow was sitting on the hood again.
It stared at her and cawed, then flapped its wings furiously as it arose, soared into the sky and landed atop a scarecrow that was just visible over the cornstalks where its fellows were still circling and shrieking.
She stood by her car, refusing to be controlled by either a dream or the haunting presence of the crows. She looked toward the end of the road, where she could see the end of the fields, and the beginning of brush and trees and homes. Anything other than the cornfields seemed very far away, but it was good to know that the fields did end, that people lived out there, that there were homes and trees and no scarecrows.
Golds, oranges, deep crimsons and softer yellows all dazzled from the distant trees. That was her home in autumn, the best of the seasons, the most beautiful, and she wasn’t going to let anything ruin that for her. She closed her eyes and thought of the nearby shoreline, of the way the granite rose above the windswept sea.
The road remained empty. Not a single car passed.
She hugged her arms across her chest. She could hear the wind shifting, and, just standing there, she could feel an edge to the weather. Soon enough, winter would come. But for now, she basked in the ethereal beauty of autumn. To take her mind off her disturbing visions, she forced herself to think of the warmth of a harvest bonfire. Of people laughing and hot cider. Pumpkin pie. Turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, whipped potatoes, green been casserole…
Where the hell was the AAA man?
When her phone rang, she was so startled that she actually dropped it. She picked it up quickly, answering a little breathlessly.
It was Jeremy.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey, yourself. Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Where are you?”
She winced. She didn’t really feel like telling him that she had run out of gas. That she hadn’t even checked the gauge when she started out—not that she could have done anything other than call AAA even if she’d noticed the needle hovering on E.
“On the road,” she said. That was true, at least as far as it went.
He was silent for a moment. As if he knew. Maybe he did know. She would bet anything that Joe had said something to him.
“I ran out of gas,” she said flatly.
It wouldn’t be good to be caught in a lie, she reasoned.
“We’re on our way, and we’re almost there. Just stay where you are, huh? Maybe you should lock yourself in your car.”
“Jeremy, there isn’t another soul around as far as the eye can see,” she told him dryly. “Certainly not the AAA guy,” she added with a laugh.
“Still…”
One of the crows suddenly came closer, almost dive-bombing her.
“What the hell was that?” Jeremy asked.
“Crow,” she said, and she couldn’t stop a shiver.
“I saw this. I saw…this!” Brad exclaimed, turning in the passenger seat to face Jeremy.
Jeremy was startled by his friend’s outburst. Every time it seemed as if Brad had started to pull himself together, he would go off on some crazy tangent as if he’d really lost his mind.
“In the crystal ball,” Brad said, and Jeremy could tell by his friend’s clenched fists and tense posture that he wasn’t feigning his distress.
“You saw cornfields in a crystal ball?” Jeremy asked.
Brad, staring out the window, nodded.