A stark thread of lightning illuminates the window like the crackling bony hand of Death reaching toward us through the curtains, followed almost instantaneously by thunder that I can feel reverberate in my chest. I am afraid now to look again at the skeletal rider, fearing that this time he won’t have a face.

“We left the wine in the kitchen,” says my mother, apropos of nothing. She goes to sweep up the cards in her hands, but I grab her wrist.

“We aren’t finished.”

She shakes her head. “I’m getting a very negative feeling. I think the electricity in the air is throwing off the energy. This was a bad time. We ought to try again another time.”

“Just finish it. I have to know.”

“What is it you’re hoping to see?”

My hands are itching for a good-luck charm; I nervously bite my thumbnail, tear off a pearly crescent, and put it in my pocket. Mother is watching me, expectant. Can I tell her without spoiling it all?

“What if I told you I’ve seen the future?”

She picks up the deck, contemplating. “I would say you’ve finally opened yourself up spiritually. That you’re finally understanding this place.”

Her words send a bolt through my heart. I force myself not to chew on my other nails. “I’m not talking about telling someone’s fortune. I’m talking about … literally seeing the future. It’s not possible, though. It must be something else. Someone else.” I laugh without humor. “That, or I’m losing my mind.”

My mother only nods. “You aren’t losing your mind, Sam. The future, in this house … I admit, it’s rare. It only solidifies as time progresses. But once a certain choice is made or a certain event takes place, then the future decides itself. And just as memories of the past drift through these halls, so too does the future, in glimpses and shadows.” She fixes me with her gaze. “But it is there. The future is all around us, just as much as the past. If you’ve seen something that hasn’t yet come to pass …” She shrugs.

My stomach has twisted itself into a knot like one of Elizabeth’s old guitar strings. If my mother is right, then that means my faceless boy is who I think he is after all.

I could hide from this, pretend I’d never seen him, but that would be cowardly. I cannot turn my back on the truth. Better to stare the future in the face, then, even if the future has no face. Better to face it myself and spare my mother the heartache.

“Flip the last card.”

My mother seems reluctant to continue, now that we’ve gone down this rabbit hole. “I’m telling you, Sam, we really oughtn’t take this reading to heart. The air … the storm …” She trails off with a sigh when she sees I’m not going to budge. “The last card is the outcome.”

A woman sits up in bed, hands over her face, nine swords perched horizontally on the wall behind her head.