CHAPTER ONE

      As after school activities go, seeing the future beats the hell out of soccer practice.

      Yeah, that’s my gift, my blessing. Or, depending on your point of view, my curse. Because I can see everyone’s future.

      Except my own.

      Meanwhile, my gift just took a very strange, and frankly very frightening turn. More about that later.

      I say later because I sense that since you discovered I have a window to the future, you’ll want to know about your own and couldn’t care less about my problem. But before we go any further and you start asking questions like, “Will the married man I’m dating really leave his wife?” (No, dumbass. You don’t need a psychic for that.) I should introduce myself. I’m Jillian Spectre, seventeen-year-old crystal ball chick of the neighborhood. Said neighborhood is a bit unusual in that just about everyone who lives here has some sort of otherworldly talent. It’s New York City’s paranormal section. Little Italy has its Italian food, Chinatown has Asian culture, Queens has its chop shops, and we’ve got the real version of the Sci-Fi channel. (Don’t correct me. I know they changed their logo to Syfy, but it looks like it should be pronounced “siffee” and I refuse to accept it.) Our block is your one-stop shop for mediums, mystic seers, telepaths, and, for you fans of Shirley MacLaine, past life regression hypnotists. Some legit, some not. The con artists who tried to open a ghostbusters shop down the street failed miserably and the place is now a pizza parlor.

      Anyway, I’m sought after for my dead-on romantic readings of the future by every lovesick person in Manhattan, while my flaming red hair, sea foam green eyes and sparkling personality is Velcro to all the lovesick crash test dummies in my high school. I’m not the hottest girl on campus by any means, though this five foot five slender collection of freckles with a pug nose can turn a head when I get all gussied up. But for whatever reason I attract the shallow end of the male dating pool like a bug zapper draws in mosquitoes. I’m a teenage version of Miss Liberty; give me your tired, your poor, your geeky, your sophistication challenged…you know the type.

      Back to my talent, which hit me like a ton of bricks when I turned fourteen. I come from a long line of mystic seers, and on that particular birthday my mother Zelda (yeah, I know, talk about a stereotypical name for someone who reads the future) presented me with my first crystal ball. The ensuing torrent of views from the future knocked me for a loop until she taught me how to focus and control things. At sixteen I was inducted into the family business, and now for two hours after school I endure a parade of sexually frustrated housewives, lonely single men, and generally unattractive people who don’t have enough personality to work at the Department of Motor Vehicles. (By the way, as an apprentice I can only read romance right now, so, unlike my mother, I don’t have clients who want to know about their careers.) I can see exactly five years into the future, so my talent is not all encompassing, but enough to satisfy those who need a romantic lifeline. As for the people with no shot at finding a significant other (or even a friend with benefits), I’ve developed a wonderful talent of giving them false hope, even though the crystal ball says, “Seriously, Jillian? Fuhgeddaboudit! Give this poor schlub his money back.”

      Finally, back to the curse part of my talent. Can’t read my own future, but then again, neither can anyone with my talent. Sure wish I could, because after weeding out the parade of losers in high school, my heart is torn between two guys.

      I can tell everyone else how things will turn out, and it pisses me off that I’m flying blind when it comes to my own love life.

      But that's the least of my concerns right now.

      Because tonight I looked at a woman's future, viewing her activities five years from today.

      Right after I saw her die three years from today.

      Do the math.

      I saw the afterlife.

      ***

      “So, will I get caught?”

      The middle-aged homely New York politician (with ears that remind me of a taxi with its doors open) leans forward, his eyes filled with the hope that I’ll give him the “all clear” to continue cheating on his wife.

      What the hell, the media is biased, I may as well put my own agenda out there.

      I peer into the crystal ball and see the guy at a podium, a seriously pissed off wife next to him, giving a Tammy Wynette “stand by your man” Academy Award performance as he sadly delivers the standard mea culpa to the press about his “error in judgement” that landed him in bed with a stripper and his balls in a sling with his constituents.

      “Well?”

      “Shhhh,” I say, putting up one finger. “The image is clearing.”

      This is going to be fun. The sonofabitch licks his lips; the thought that he can install a trapeze in his secret apartment makes his beady dark eyes gleam. I begin to nod and smile. I’m going to seriously screw with this guy.

      I lean back and look up at him. “Your wife will never know. In fact, you’ll also have a second affair with a famous movie star.”

      Now the guy’s lips are twitching in anticipation. I give him the name of one of Hollywood’s serious babes, a girl who is light years out of his league, and his smile grows from ear to ear.

      Annnnnnnnd…Cue the big tip.

      ***

      “Do I have a shot with Adrianna?”

      Just like clockwork, our class supernerd Melvin Hendrick corners me at my locker between third and fourth period with a question about his crush of the day.

      “Hello, Melvin,” I say, without any emotion.

      “So, waddaya think? Me and Adrianna?”

      The question is beyond ridiculous. Melvin is five feet tall and wide, dark eyes peering through Coke-bottle glasses, constantly in a state of flop sweat. Adrianna is the prom queen, five-ten, blonde, legs up to her neck. A girl who not only stops traffic but makes it back up.

      “You and Adrianna?”

      Melvin’s face fills with anticipation. “Yeah. So, do I have a shot?”

      “Four words, Melvin. Out. Of. Your. League. Go find a girl who has things in common with you, maybe owns a pair of Vulcan ears. Stop shooting for supermodels.”

      His smile fades. “Maybe so. Thanks, Jillian.”

      I realize I’ve gone a bit