On my way downtown I saw her a block away, too late to go to the other side of the street. I readied myself, with an excuse that I was late for an appointment, though that never worked.
“Clara, how are you?”
The sun so bright on this late February day, we both had to squint.
Not the best opening. She’d take it literally, and it invited a recital of her litany of woes. Starting with her headaches, working down to midsection problems like indigestion, all the way to her bunion, with lots of stops in between. I tried to get to the toes sooner, but she didn’t want me to miss anything.
I’ve been getting back to the piano, I said. But that only served as an inflexion point to open another area of personal disclosure. She was on her way to the grocery store to pick up some soup, and litter for her cat. I feigned interest in Brady, who was starting to shed his winter coat far too soon.
I’d deployed my late-for-a-meeting story with no effect and my restless feet worried the pavement in anticipation of escape, but suddenly her gesticulating hands went still at her sides, and she said in a gray neutral voice, “Today at 5:20 the woods in Brightmoon Park will catch on fire and the grand racoon will escape with his family at the entrance. It will spread to the houses nearby and burn down half a block.”
Then she was in motion again, and pulled out a woolly mass from her shoulder bag, needles still attached. “Want to see my new scarf?” It danced around her knees in the wind.
I relaxed my escape position and dared ask, “What was that you said about racoons?”
“What are you talking about Reyna?” She looked into my eyes, as though to examine the size of my pupils, which had to be tiny in this sunlight.
Might as well go for it. “You just said something about racoons and fire.”
“I wonder about you sometimes, Reyna. Working on other people’s travel plans is giving you strange ideas. You should take up knitting, it will calm your nerves, and everyone needs a hobby.”
Clara entwined her fingers in the purple depths of the scarf. “Merino wool, straight from Scotland.” She moved her body side to side, as if she were on the fashion runway. “Just six inches to go.” Then, as though still describing the scarf she said, “The female possum will escape but her mate will singe his tail.”
The transition was so quick this time I barely noticed the way her voice went flat, her body motionless. But it didn’t last long, and she continued with her discussion of wool.
I heard footsteps approaching, some jogger? “Clara, thought I might see you on your walk.” Then to me, “Oh hi, Rita is it? From the contradance? A couple of weeks ago.”
“Close, Reyna,” I said.
“Sorry, brain cells not quite in gear today. I’m Spence.”
“You were the best spinner I had that night.”
It had to do with feet being close together, and leaning out from the waist.
The three of us made a little triangle, like an unconscious agreement to keep the wind out, and it made a shadowy space between us..
“I was just showing Reyna my scarf.”
She held it up towards him, and continued on about the weight of the yarn, the size of the needles, how she’d do a cable stitch at the top to be like tree branches. My feet still longed to escape, but my curiosity was stronger. Would Clara keep on this way or spill another oddity? Maybe the presence of a third person would put an end to it.
But minutes went by and now it was my brain that begged me to escape from the dead weight of Clara’s daily concerns. Without any semblance of a graceful exit I said. “Have to run.”
And I did. But half way down the block I turned back to see Spence topple backwards, preventing a fall by a series of frantic steps.
I had to find out, but didn’t need to go back because Spence approached me, leaving Clara to continue her walk in the other direction. His face, shaded under his jacket hood, looked so bloodless I thought he’d collapse right there on the sidewalk.
“Spence, what happened?”
He was breathing hard, with nothing more than a short walk. This guy who could contra all night on a single breath. He stopped next to me, and I put a hand on his shoulder, to steady him.
In a rough whisper he said, “She’s the oracle, and doesn’t know it.”
I scanned the rooflines of the old houses, with circular windows at attic level. Old snow crusting over the edges of the eves.
“She was going on about Brady needing just the right brand of canned food, when she stopped mid-sentence, with this strange faraway look and said the world would end, but not today, we still have twenty-four hours.”
I felt a chill, not from what she said but because Spence was so spooked.
“Waiting for more, she came out of the trance and told me that Brady needs allergy shots against humans.”
“Was that it?”
“No, it was like she’d gotten an injection to go limp again. She spoke like a zombie about how the Yellowstone caldera would explode and cause a great dying.
I asked him, “What would she know from calderas, or even Yellowstone?”
“Exactly. When she came out of it I asked her and she looked at me like I was the crazy one. Then, “You are as full of nonsense as Reyna is.”
We looked at each other straight on, and I put my hand on his shoulder to steady both of us. But I tried not to look freaked and said, “Sounds like those nuts that tell us to repent because the end of the world is nye.”
He laughed, which brought a little color back to his face. “She didn’t say “nye.” But then he pulled on the drawstrings of his hood, and that made me feel chilly too so I zipped my jacket up to the chin.
Spence’s face looked puffy with the hood so tight around it. “She’s different. She says exactly when, and, she has no idea she said it.”
I tried a laugh but only succeeded in a puny trailing giggle. “You came by because you expected her to say something weird didn’t you?”
“Last week she told me I’d get a knock on my door at 11:30, with a box of Christmas goodies from my sister. And that was the precise time the UPS dropped by.”
“It’s months after Christmas.”
“She always runs a little late.”
“Cheeses? Olive spreads in little jars? Two pieces of chocolate in a box big enough for ten?”
“Yeah, like that. I’ll never get through it. Then he looked at me, “Unless you want to share it.”
I smiled too, but didn’t answer. He didn’t expect it. Instead I looked at the snow piles on the boulevard, gray from street dirt. Then I turned back to him.
“OK, maybe she can do little predictions. But natural disasters?”
I told him about the fire that was supposed to happen this afternoon, and Spence said let’s call the fire department, but I said, “Let’s see if we can get a little more info from Clara first.”
It took some serious jogging to catch up with Clara, but she didn’t seem the least surprised when we arrived out of breath saying we had some more questions for her. “Sure, would you like to know more about the pattern I’m using for Brady’s sweater?”
“That would be great,” said Spence. We could walk along with you for a bit.”
To me she said, “I thought you had to be somewhere, Reyna.”
“It’s OK, I can put it off.”
Clara looked at me with a tilt of her head, but it didn’t last when Spence started to tell her about his ailing cat. I wondered if he really had one.
“Beatrice can’t even jump up to my lap anymore.”
“Brady was like that last year till I took him to the vet for his hip pain.”
I walked backwards in front of them, listening. Clara would be dodging into the grocery store soon, so if we wanted to know more, I’d have to think of something.
“Say why don’t we treat you to lunch, where we can continue this conversation?”
It was agreed to meet at Rollie’s Cafe after Clara and Spence did their grocery shopping, but before we got there Clara’s speech went wonky again. She was describing the difficulties making the holes for Brady’s legs in the cat sweater when she said, “First I’ll cast off some stitches and knit the two sides separately for a while. Then I’ll have to cast on again but I might not be able to get that far before the volcano blows.”
By now both of us knew not to interrupt her, but in our concentration slowed down which meant Clara kept walking on by herself, until we caught up with her again. Luckily the stoplight helped out.
There on the curb she kept on. First she stopped talking, as though listening to something inside her head. Then, “You forgot where the decimal point was? So not tomorrow. Not 24 hours but 24 million hours? That makes a difference. OK thanks.”
Then back to her knitting voice, “I’ll have to drop more stitches than in the book because Brady’s getting to be a little fatty. I know I shouldn’t give him human food, but he’s such a good beggar.”
So we were saved? My body felt like a cooked noodle and apparently Spence felt the same, collapsing against the light post. But of course all this was ridiculous, wasn’t it?
We stuck to the lunch plan and I longed for a change of subject, but if we wanted any more from Clara we’d have to let her run on. Spence ordered soup, but I stuck to a sandwich so as not to be encumbered with something sloppy. Clara had the ham ball special with sourdough, to honor her Norwegian ancestry. That of course became the topic. Great grandparents on her father’s side came through Ellis Island.
I longed to ask Clara where she got her prophecies, so I talked about disasters, like when a meteor impact wiped out the dinosaurs. Clara looked at me like she was in some lecture hall, trying to stay awake. The talk flipped back into cat mode.
When we parted, Spence and I hung back on the sidewalk, while Clara started her walk to the library. Spence fiddled with the zipper on his jacket. “I can’t believe how relieved I was when it turned out her source was off by millions of years.”
“So you believed her.”
“You too by your ghost-like pallor,” he grinned.
“It is absurd, isn’t it. But we can put this to rest by following up on the local prophecy.”
“The one that we don’t have to wait 24 million hours to see?”
“Nope,” I looked at my phone. “Just 3 hours.
“And twenty minutes.”
“I was giving it a little play.”
“So,” he said, “Meet at the park entrance at 5:00?”
“With just twenty minutes to kill.” I detested waiting for things, but could put up for that long.
So we went off to our jobs, Spence to his para legal job, me to Roaming. But I had a hard time concentrating on a tour of Greece for an older couple who liked to watch the world go by. I stopped thinking about the fiery end of the earth, but even a forest fire took my mind off coordinating connecting flights.
I left work early and drove the few blocks from downtown to the park that sat on the edge of town on a wooded ridge overlooking the river. Not one of those mid-city lawn parks with playground equipment and picnic benches, but a protected woodland.
Waiting at the entrance it was all I could do to keep from plunging in on one of the frozen trails. The sun ducked in and out of clouds, taunting me like a spirited child. Spence was late. My own commitment to this mission began to flag, and I felt embarrassed to take any of this seriously. I was about to give up and take a little walk since I was here anyway, when I heard a car pull in and my focus came right back.
In great ground eating strides, Spence joined me. “Sorry I was late, my boss is having a conniption over prepping for court tomorrow.”
I decided not to ask. “I’m glad you came, I was beginning to feel weird for both of us.”
“I get it. Could be nothing at all.”
Spence leaned against the sole picnic bench at the entrance, and I sat down with my back against the table.
“Wouldn’t you know, I’ve been helping a couple plan a trip to Greece, so it was natural to think about oracles.”
“Those people were really into prophecies.”
“Got to admit I get hooked on election polls, where the hurricanes are gonna land.”
We decided to walk in a ways, still in sight of the entrance in case the coons came by, then back to the entrance.
Spence shortened his steps to match mine. “Sort of like doing laps.”
I could see him as a runner, long legs, trim torso. He could tie up all that hair into a pony tail if he wanted to.
I checked my phone. “It’s 5:20.”
Back at the entrance, we listened, sniffed the air, scanned the woods, old snow thin over the leaf covered ground.
Nothing yet. I didn’t want to talk and hoped Spence wouldn’t either.
Then, from the bushes on the side of the trail, something rustled. We’d held still while a large racoon shambled onto the trail heading toward the park entrance, where we stood.
My heart sped up. I had no idea this would mean so much to me. And when two young coons sprang along behind, I thought it would send chills zapping around my spine but instead I felt this surge of warmth. A prophecy come true.
Their furry bodies waddled past us two feet away, like we were part of the vegetation.
“That was amazing!” Spencer shouted to the sky.
Heart throbbing, I managed to speak. “Ok, we got the coons but what about the fire?”
“Wait, I think I smell smoke.”
“OK, let’s follow your nose.”
So we started down the path. Spence, in the lead turned back to grin at me. “We should have taken a picture of those coons.”
“What would Clara think about all this?”
“Apparently nothing, since she has no idea what she said.”
But just then Spence started running. A little ways ahead smoke rose from a fire ring in a clearing, moving with the breeze, strong even here in the woods. Not much chance of it spreading through the winter woods, but with feet and gloved hands we scraped frozen leaves out of the way in a big circle around the smolderings just in case.
It felt like the end of the quest, and time to retreat to mull it all over in a tavern downtown, but Spence said, “I think I’ll go for a little run, maybe scan the border with the Foster addition.”
“I’ll join you, or come lumbering along if you don’t mind.” I appreciated that he modified his pace for me, to a speed where we could converse. “What do you do when you’re not chasing down legal bits or running?”
“I’ve got a sculpture studio in my garage, work in stone mostly.”
“Any room for your car?”
“I’ve got a feral car. And you?”
“With my job I find out about different places, and study history, so I can be a tour guide someday. I love to figure out what makes a place the way it is.”
“Have you figured it out for this burg?”
“Much easier if it’s somewhere else like Spain or south Florida.”
“Why is that?”
But I didn’t answer because I smelled smoke, much stronger this time. We went off path to the border with that new housing development, all roads and concrete where corn used to grow. There on the edge of the woods a mass of brush spouted flame.
“What’s that horrible plastic smell?” Spence covered his mouth with his sleeve.
“Maybe they threw in some broken sleds along with the brush.”
We ran to see, and incredibly, we saw the burn pile so close to a garage, that flames blistered the paint on the wall.
Unattended.
As I pulled out my phone I caught the look in Spence’s face, like the blank stare of Clara’s trances except for those scared eyes. I felt like I was looking into a mirror.
We banged on the door of the house, ran back to the garage for rakes while a man ran out in his sweatpants and T and fiddled with the hose. The water didn’t come, but a firetruck did.
After it was under control, I caught up with one of the firemen, a guy I knew in college, even dated. Warren told me that we came just in time.
“Lucky you happened to be here. Otherwise we’d be copying LA.”
He took off his helmet in the same way he doffed his visor years ago when we stopped on a bike trip to look over the river. Then wiped the sweat off his face with a bandana. He still used bandanas.
“Sure,” Spence said. “Luck, that’s what it was.”
We started jogging back to our cars, but when our conversation made me think harder, I slowed down, and Spence did too. It was Spence who spoke first.
“What the hell do we do now?”
“I don’t know, something. I think for sure we need to be friends with Clara.”
His laugh was a surprise, made me realize how much I needed it. But then he said, “Do I dare ask, how does she do it?”
I slowed even more. “She’s an oracle, like you said.”
“But she doesn’t know what she’s saying, is that how it was in Greece?”
“If the message is accurate, does it matter?”
His pace got even slower than mine. “And if it isn’t?”
“That’s why we need to keep track. How many are true, how many not.”
Spence stretched his arms over his head. “We’ve already seen the end of the earth one be wildly wrong.”
“Just a decimal place error.”
“You crack me up.”
“She corrected herself.”
Spence let his arms fall to his sides again, then hands to hips. “Still, no way of testing that one, good thing we had one at our fingertips.”
I began to think of its parts: “So let’s look at that one. Coons yes, fire yes, time yes.”
“Yup pretty good, but what about those possums?”
“They could have gone out another way.” I must have wanted it to be true.
Spence sped up again, and I had to jog to catch up.
“Reyna, from now on whenever I see a possum I’ll think it has a singed tail.”
To make it a regular thing, we decided to cover Clara at least once a week, sharing the job of randomly running into her. Gradually we brought in a few others, and secretly called our group the Oracle Watchers, deciding not to put Clara’s name in it because it was too creepy.
We lucked out that day with two prophecies about the coons and the fire, but had only one new one in the next two weeks. Out of the blue, Warren gave me a call and we went to a movie. Some of that old spark kindled. Turned out he was one of those ghost chasers who went into haunted houses with detecting gear. That didn’t turn me off as it might have before all this happened.
The new prophecy predicted a hurricane of such magnitude that all coastal cities would have to evacuate to higher ground. Or to their sister floating cities. On planet Grmxicon, a world on the other side of the galaxy. This would happen Saturday afternoon, earth time.
About the Author
Mary Lewis has an MFA in creative writing from Augsburg University. In 2023 one of her stories was nominated for a Pushcart, another for both the Best of the Net Anthology and the Best American Series. A sampling of journals: Allium, Antigonish Review, Blue Lake Review, Cleaver Magazine, Feels Blind Literary, Ginosko, Inscape, Main Street Rag, Map Literary, Minerva Rising, Nonbinary Review, North American Review, Persimmon Tree, Rivanna, Rundelania, Sensitive Skin, Sleet Magazine, Superstition Review, Taj Mahal Review, The Opiate, The Woven Tale Press, Thieving Magpie, Toasted Cheese, Wilderness House Literary Review and Wordrunner. Forthcoming: BlazeVox, Euphony, Flora Fiction, The Pasticheur.
