“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” Stormy suggested when we were alone before the centuries-old corpse, which was more likely to have been a figure constructed of plaster and wire and latex.

Nevertheless, I gave Gypsy Mummy a quarter, and she presented to us the message that Johnny and his fiancée had hoped to receive: YOU ARE DESTINED TO BE TOGETHER FOREVER.

“She just winked at me,” Stormy said.

“Who did?”

“Gypsy Mummy.”

“How could a sewn-shut eye wink?”

“I don’t know, Oddie. But she did, she winked.”

I am superstitious, for good reason. But you don’t have to be superstitious to think that it’s a bad idea to doubt the reliability of a fortune-teller’s prediction when it is word for word the very assurance that you desperately wanted to hear. We had no doubts as, there in the arcade called ALL THINGS FORETOLD, we kissed each other to seal the promise.

I have written this brief memoir not merely at the encouragement of my friend and mentor, Ozzie Boone, but at his insistence. Because my paranormal talent must remain my secret, nothing that I write can be published in my lifetime. In fact, I doubt that I will ever write another piece like this, for my life with Stormy Llewellyn will be too full to allow time for memoirs. I will have my work as a short-order cook, the griddle and the deep fryer, and she will have her ice-cream career, and we will both have the needy spirits of the lingering dead to deal with in the years ahead. I believe there will be children, too, each of them as beautiful as she is, perhaps one or two as strange as their father. She and I will grow old together in Pico Mundo, too busy for the wider world beyond, grow old here with our many friends, in the warmth of family that she hardly knew before being orphaned, that I never knew with my troubled parents. We will grow old together, for so it is promised by Gypsy Mummy, and if God is good—which He is—I will be with Stormy on the distant day, decades hence, when she leaves this world. I will hold her hand at the end, and I will pass soon after, for we are one heart, and neither of us would be of use without the other.

You’ve witnessed the beginning. Join us for the end.

Don’t miss Saint Odd, Dean Koontz’s stunning conclusion to the Odd Thomas series.

Coming in hardcover and eBook on January 13, 2015.

BY DEAN KOONTZ

The City • Innocence • 77 Shadow Street • What the Night Knows • Breathless

Relentless • Your Heart Belongs to Me • The Darkest Evening of the Year

The Good Guy • The Husband • Velocity • Life Expectancy • The Taking

The Face • By the Light of the Moon • One Door Away From Heaven