“Do they keep you up at night?”

“Yes.”

“Do you sleep much?”

“No.” He turned to me. “Do you?”

“I have insomnia. I read until I sleep.”

“And you have premonitions.”

There it was. What we hadn’t talked about, but I’d known he knew. “Yes.”

“All the time?”

“I have them sometimes.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Do you really want to hear about it? You’ll think I’m out of my mind. Flat-out crazy.”

“I have never thought that about you, and I won’t when you tell me.”

I told him, watching his face carefully so I could determine if and when he thought I was a lying loon, a delusional daisy. I told him when it started as a child and the premonitions I had then, through my teen years, and a few recent ones. I made sure I told him about a few premonitions that came through that could also be proven by others. For example, the little girl who was almost hit by the white truck.

“I heard about that one.”

“Do you believe me, Marco?” Please believe me. “I don’t want you to think I’m lying. I don’t want you to laugh at me.”

“Yes. I don’t know why you have premonitions. If you were to ask me before I met you if I thought anyone could have premonitions, I would have said no. But I do believe you, Evie, and I would never laugh at you.”

I wanted to sink into him, to hold him. “Thank you. It’s a curse. I wish I didn’t have them. I never wanted them. I try to control them as best I can, to shut them down.”

“You said your premonitions eased up when you moved back to the island.”

“Yes.” I told him about moving suddenly to the island as a child, the whispering my parents were doing then, their arguments. “I think they wanted to get me to the island in hopes that the quiet would quiet the premonitions down, and they were right. I have fewer premonitions here. When I go to Seattle or the mainland, they ramp right up. It’s like getting hit with a Mack truck, only the Mack truck is carrying visions of the future for many people. The ocean is calming. The beach in front of my home is calming. The stars, the deer, the elk, all of my animals, especially Sundance, are calming.”

He asked a few more questions, gently.

“I have no idea why I have premonitions about one person and not the other. I have no idea why I might have several in a week, then none for weeks or even, now and then, none for months. It happens out of the blue, and I can see someone’s future, clear as if I’m watching it on TV.” Except for that one recurring deathly crash premonition....

“It sounds”—he paused—“awful.”