A young man wandered in looking for a book on bike rides on our island. He had a lopsided smile with a lot of teeth and black hair in a ponytail. He was with two young women. They were all in biking clothes. They were chatting, enjoying my yellow bookstore, trying to choose which desserts they wanted to buy.

I saw it then, a clear flash. The young man was going to end up with a broken neck. I saw him in a ditch, unconscious, one of the young women screaming, racing down to help him, the other biking away for help.

I closed my eyes for a second and studied the premonition. Yes, today he was in the same clothes as he was in the premonition, which meant that it would happen today, probably. It could happen the next day, if he wore the same clothes. That’s another torturous part of premonitions. I can look at what people are wearing during my premonition, but they might be wearing those same clothes another day, too.

But I couldn’t take a chance. As they studied the raspberry tortes, the giant chocolate chip cookies, and the chocolate peanut butter cheesecake, I took in every piece of his clothing, down to his socks and shoes. He probably thought I was checking him out. Whatever.

I smiled at them. “Biking, huh?” Yes, they were biking. They rode up from the ferry, they loved the island, so many places to bike to!

“What kind of bike are you riding?” I stared right at the young man so I would be sure to get his answer.

He cheerfully told me the type of bike he had, and I was familiar with the brand. “What do you ride?”

I told him the type of bike I had, that it was blue.

“I went with blue, too. My mother’s favorite color is blue, so I thought, what the heck? Honor mom, right?”

“Always,” I said. We chatted more, then I said to Tiala, “Could you help these three find the book by Genesis Ringold? She’s a local, she’s been all over all the islands, hiking and riding her bike, and she knows the best places.”

“Yes, no problem,” Tiala said, and the three followed her. I noticed one of the women stopped at the mystery shelves and the other stopped at nonfiction best sellers.

I went out to my deck overlooking the bay and closed my eyes. I made myself repicture the accident in the ditch. His socks didn’t match. They were both white. But one had a brand name written across the top and the other had a different brand name. Obviously this wasn’t foolproof; he could wear mismatched socks again, but today his socks were the same mismatched pair as in my premonition.