“I thought you said that was a rainbow cat,” said Mom, smirking at me. “These were just normal little kittens, as far as I could tell. The whole thing was just a coincidence. Besides, it all worked out just fine, so let’s drop it, okay?”

But it wasn’t so easy for me. The older I got, the more intense the visions became and the fiercer I was punished for telling Mom about them.

Sometimes, though, I had to tell her about them. There just wasn’t any other choice. I mean, it’s one thing to keep quiet about a rainbow cat in your living room. It’s something else to ignore your own doomed future flashing before your eyes.

Like once when we were riding in the car and I had a vision of the three of us dead and mangled after our car had struck a deer. I’d seen the whole thing—the deer running in front of us, the Jeep flipping, the death of each and every one of us. Now I was sitting in the passenger seat, Murphy in the back, begging Mom to be careful, that we would all die if she didn’t stop the car right then.

“What have I told you about these goddamn daydreams of yours?” said Mom.

“But they aren’t daydreams, I swear!” I said.

Mom turned to me and pointed her finger right in my face. “I have just about had it with you.”

That’s when the deer leapt into the road.

It was a big one, maybe an eight-point, and it raised its head all regally, the antlers like a woodland crown, its eyes gone green in the headlights. It looked like a forest spirit, like some kind of ancient lord of the woods come out to meet us. Fate is what it looked like.

“Mom!” I screamed.

She slammed on the brakes, yanking the wheel hard.

We spun, skidding across the cold, wet road. We clipped the deer, the antlers smashing into the hood of the car. We hit it so hard the car flew the other way, slamming into the metal barrier on the side of the road.

The airbags deployed, breaking Mom’s nose. Mine hit me too, but it didn’t hurt much.

Murphy got whiplash.

We stood on the side of the road then, huddled together, the three of us, waiting for the ambulance. Shattered glass was all over the highway, reflecting the moonlight like diamonds. The deer’s head had been ripped clean off, a long trail of blood and gore slathered on the pavement between the body and head like a grotesque stretched neck. Its antlers were snapped off, gouged into the hood of the car like claws.

I was crying. I said, “I told you, Mom. I told you there was a deer in the road.”

Mom looked down at me, her face all busted and bruised.

“What you saw was wrong, Lee,” she said. “We didn’t die, not Murphy or me or you. Whatever you saw, it wasn’t the truth.”