Glimpse (12 page)

 

Inside the chapel, the man turned in his seat and glanced questioningly down the aisle at us. He had close-cropped hair, the same color as Mr. Vidmar's, and wore a white button-up shirt with a narrow black tie and a black leather jacket.

Colin nudged me forward. “Say something.”

We shuffled nervously to the front of the church.

I cleared my throat. “Dmitri Vidmar?”

Dark crescents marred the skin under his eyes and two days of stubble accented his pale skin. He stood as we neared, his eyes narrowing in scrutiny. “I wondered if you'd come,” he said. “You're that kid who saved my brother.”

Saved his brother?
My eyes flashed to the coffin at the front of the room.
Obviously not
. “I'm Dean, sir, Dean Curse. These are my friends, Lisa and Colin.”

Dmitri gestured to the pew behind him. “Have a seat.”

“We're really sorry about your brother,” Lisa said as she slid into the pew. “He seemed like a nice man.”

“Thank you.” His gaze never left my face. “The nurses at the hospital told me you three visited him on the day he died.”

I nodded.

“I was out of the country.” He hung his head. “I was trying to get here before… I didn't want him to be alone when he died.”

A brief silence passed. “He mentioned you,” Colin said finally.

Dmitri looked up and smiled. “Did he?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“I wish I had been there.” His gaze lingered on the coffin before turning back to me. “What did he say?”

“Sir.” My palms were wet and I wiped them off on my pants. “He said I should ask you to tell me about Preepyad.”

Dmitri blinked. “What?”

I glanced at Colin and Lisa, who both nodded in encouragement. “Pree-pi-yad,” I repeated slowly, trying to pronounce each syllable the way Mr. Vidmar had. “He said to ask you about it.”

“Why the heck would he say that?” his voice took on an angry edge and he shook his head. “Nothing good can come from talking about that. No. My brother's dead, I won't have the memory of him tarnished with that story or his association with those people.”

 

I cleared my throat. “Sir, when I helped your brother in the alley… um… he… well… he said—”

“I'm sure I can guess what my brother said to you,” Dmitri interrupted.

“You can?”

He nodded. “And I'm sorry. He wasn't well.”

“He wasn't?” Colin prodded.

Dmitri shifted in his seat and rubbed his palms on his jeans. “Listen, my brother was a good man. I'm grateful that you came to his aid. After everything my brother's been through, all the time he spent with psychiatrists, all the injuries, all the suicide—” He caught himself midsentence and flushed, seemingly embarrassed that he'd let his words get away from himself.

“Sir,” I said, “what is it you think your brother said to me?”

“No doubt he told you that you were going to die.”

I gasped, and Dmitri looked confused. “Isn't that what he said? He says it to a lot of people.”

“N… no, sir. He only said ‘glimpse.'”

“Glimpse?”

“That's right.”

Dmitri looked thoughtfully at the ceiling for a moment. “Are you sure that's what he said?”

“Completely sure, sir. Do you know what that means?”

Lisa and Colin leaned in.

“No,” Dmitri answered.

“
No?
” Colin rocked back in the pew.

“Colin, be quiet,” Lisa hushed.

“No, I won't be quiet. We need some answers.” Colin turned back to Dmitri. “Sir, I'm sorry about your loss, but something's happening to my friend here, and we're pretty sure your brother cursed him in some way.”

“Cursed him?” Dmitri stood up and straightened his jacket. “Did you just say that my brother
cursed
your friend? Are you suggesting he was some kind of witch?”

“N… no, sir,” Lisa said. “Dean's just been having some difficulties lately, and they seem to have started after your brother's attack.”

Dmitri regarded us for a few moments as if trying to work out if we were being serious or not. “What kind of problems?”

“He's seeing things,” Colin answered.

He shook his head. “Don't tell me you three are part of that stupid cult too.”

“Cult?” Lisa stiffened. “What cult? We're not part of any cult.”

“Cult, society, organization, whatever you want to call it. I shouldn't be surprised that they would stoop to recruiting kids.” He turned to me and spoke through clenched teeth. “Let me guess. You have visions of people who have twenty-four hours to live, right?”

I gulped and managed a quick nod.

Dmitri's face reddened. “You think this is some kind of joke?” he exploded. “Those Patronus psychos ruined my brother's life! They're the reason he's dead. I couldn't protect my brother from them when he was alive, but I am going to make sure he's safe from them now.” He gestured furiously toward the door. “Get out. Now!”

Dmitri's expression flicked between rage and grief, and I was pretty sure with one more word from any of us he'd have a meltdown. I nodded, grabbed Lisa and Colin by the arms, and pulled them out of the pew and down the aisle. “We didn't mean any disrespect,” I said. “I'm sorry.”

“Out!”

We rushed out of the church and didn't stop running until we were around the corner.

“What a psycho!” Colin said once we were a safe distance.

“His brother just died,” Lisa said. “Give the guy a break.”

“A break?” Colin straightened up. “You're nuts. He looked like he wanted
us
in caskets.” He unknotted his tie and threw it on the ground. “What a waste of time. We didn't learn anything, and now an angry Russian probably wants us dead.”

“What do you mean we didn't learn anything?” Lisa shook her head. “Weren't you listening to him?” Lisa didn't give him a chance to respond before continuing. “First”—she lifted a finger—“we know that there's something called a Patronus Cult or Society or something like that. Second, Mr. Vidmar was locked up for some kind of mental illness, which I remember reading in his hospital records.” She paused and looked off to the right as if considering something, and then turned back to Colin and added, “And third, it sounds like Mr. Vidmar was seeing the same things as Dean. I think that's pretty important stuff.”

“Why?” Colin demanded to know.

“Because, Colin, if you're right and this
is
a curse, maybe someone gave it to Mr. Vidmar, and maybe the visions were the cause of his illness.”

“We learned something else too,” I added reluctantly. I didn't really share Lisa's excitement about our visit with Dmitri, and some of what we had learned was downright frightening. “I think Mr. Vidmar tried to commit suicide. You two heard him in there, didn't you?” I wondered how many more screaming twisting faces I'd have to see before I went nuts too.

They nodded.

“He's not you, Dean. That won't happen to you.” Lisa placed her hand on my arm. “And at least now we have a place to start. Don't you think so?”

“I'll tell you what we need to do,” Colin said a little too enthusiastically. “We need to get rid of that curse and we need to do it quick.”

“Yeah,” Lisa sneered. “And how do you propose we do that?”

“Easy.” Colin turned to me. “Mr. Vidmar said he
gave
you the curse, right? So maybe that's all you need to do. Just go find someone and give it to them. Just think it in your head, ‘I give you this curse,' and that's it!”

“That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard,” Lisa said.

Colin ignored her and added, “You said the guy whispered, ‘Glimpse,' right?” He didn't wait for me to respond. “So you should do that too.”

“And what if it's like a cold, Colin?” Lisa said with a huff.

“What do you mean?”

“I can give you my cold by sneezing on you but I don't lose mine.”

Colin chewed his lip for a moment, and then shook his head. “That's not how curses work.”

“We don't know for sure that it's a curse—it might be something else entirely.”

While Colin and Lisa continued arguing, the horror of my situation set in. Like Mr. Vidmar, I'd slowly go crazy. I'd probably spend my life locked away in some padded room. And when I did get out, I'd be so nuts I might just try to kill myself too. My stomach flipped, and cold beads of sweat formed on my forehead.

I shoved past Colin and Lisa to the edge of the sidewalk and vomited in a bed of daisies.

 

Lisa offered me a Kleenex from her pocket and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder while Colin laced his fingers behind his head and paced along a section of the sidewalk. “Pull it together, Dean,” he said. “We can do this. In fact, we can do this right now.” He gestured down the street as I wiped my mouth. “There's a group of people over there. Go grab one of them, concentrate on giving up the curse, and say, ‘Glimpse.'”

“You really think it's going to be that easy?”

He shrugged. “Isn't it worth a try?”

“And how exactly is he going to know that it worked?” Lisa asked.

“I guess he won't have any more
visions
now, will he?”

“Great idea, Colin. You really thought that one through, didn't you? And let's say your little plan works. What then? Is it even
fair
to pass something like this to someone else?”

“It's not like he had a choice in the matter. Why should he care if someone else does?”

“Stop it, guys,” I said. “Lisa, do you have another idea?” Part of me wanted to take Colin's suggestion and run with it, but another part of me agreed that it wasn't fair. If a drug dealer had walked by at that very moment, or some other criminal-type, I'd probably have tried. But if Lisa was right, if it could be like a cold or virus or something, then maybe I'd just be giving more people the same problem as me. That wouldn't help anyone.

“Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do.” She turned, shielded her eyes with the butt of her hand, and looked down the street. “We're not far from the library. I think we should go there.”

“Why?” Colin said. “We're out of school. We passed, remember?”

Lisa sighed and rolled her eyes. “So we can figure this out. There's bound to be something in the library about that secret society. The library computers have different databases. You can search stuff on their computers that you can't get without a subscription.”

“You're right,” I said. “I remember my dad talking about that once. That's where we should start. We find out how to get rid of this curse.” Lisa looked at me nervously, and I added, “Preferably without passing it on to someone else. Otherwise…” I started, reaching out for Colin.

He realized what I was doing and screamed, “Don't touch me!” He staggered back, eyes wide, and dove into the bushes. Lisa and I laughed when we realized he very nearly landed in my vomit.

 

***

 

After three hours in the library we weren't any closer to understanding the mysterious Patronus Society. Except that the word Patronus wasn't Russian—it was Latin. It meant protection. The Protection Society. Colin thought “society” didn't sound dangerous enough and wanted us to refer to it as a cult. “It has a better ring to it,” he said. “Plus, it's what Dmitri called it.” It really didn't matter. Society, cult… both terms produced the same number of results. Zero. We used the computers, searched the databases, and even had the librarian help us search the archives for any mention of the society in newspapers or journal articles. Each time, our searches returned blank. We even tried to search for Preepyad—Google corrected our spelling to Pripyat—but we only learned that it was the name of some teeny-tiny town in Russia. No mention of any society or cult. If the Patronus Society existed, they'd done a wonderful job of keeping it secret.

“It doesn't make sense,” Lisa said. “If Dmitri knew about them, then others should too. There should be a record of it.”

“Unless it doesn't exist,” I said.

Colin and Lisa looked confused.

“If the society did exist, we'd have found something, at least some obscure reference to indicate it was real. Let's face it… maybe Mr. Vidmar was nuts.”

Lisa shook her head. “He wasn't crazy, Dean.” She glanced at Colin and then back to me. “You had visions of people, people who died exactly twenty-four hours later. Your visions came
true
. There's nothing crazy about that. It's miraculous. Not crazy.”

“I agree,” Colin said. “We're just missing something.”

“Shush!” A young woman wearing a dark skirt and button-up sweater was suddenly towering above us. The gold lettering on her name badge identified her as a librarian, and the tiny cart of books at her side confirmed it. She didn't look like any librarian I'd ever seen. With her high ponytail and perfect row of white teeth, she looked like she could've been a cheerleader—well, an angry cheerleader who hated noise. She leaned over our table. “If you're going to have your little fantasy club meetings in the library, you're going to have to keep your voices down. Understand?”

“Fantasy club?” Lisa looked offended. “This isn't a fantasy club.”

The librarian waved her hand dismissively. “Well, whatever you're doing, keep your voices down. The rest of the library doesn't need to hear about your visions of dead people or secret societies.”

Lisa huffed, then glanced at her watch. “We were just leaving anyway.”

We stood, and something to the right caught my eye. A sudden movement. I turned just as a sleeve of dark leather disappeared behind one of the shelves. I caught a glimpse of a figure—he seemed familiar, but I couldn't figure out why. I was about to go investigate when Lisa tugged my arm. “C'mon. Let's go.”