Oracle of Doom

by D. J. MacHale

  They approached the turn doing nearly sixty miles an hour. Not that fast for a real racetrack, but on a flat suburban road, it was beyond reckless. The Mustang flew into the turn, cutting in front of the Corvette.

  “No no no!” the orange-haired kid screamed in surprise.

  The girl had boldly cut off any chance the Corvette had of taking the turn inside of her, for it would have broadsided the bigger car.

  For the first time in the race, the orange-haired kid had to downshift. He decelerated fast, then popped the clutch to try and throw his car back into gear. But the high-performance car wasn’t used to being treated so rudely, and the engine stalled.

  Just like that, the Corvette was dead.

  Or was it? The Mustang skid and slid, much the way it had on the previous turn. But this time the driver had pushed it too far. The car careened across the road, going more sideways than straight ahead. The girl tried to regain control, but the tires didn’t cooperate and she kept drifting.

  Behind her, the Corvette’s engine roared back to life.

  “Yeah yeah!” Orange Hair yelled with a laugh. “Here I come!”

  He was seconds away from being back in the race.

  MR. AND MRS. MCLEAN reached the street that passed in front of the church and stepped off the curb to cross as…

  The black Mustang slid into the turn, fifty yards to their left.

  “My God!” Mrs. McLean said with a gasp.

  “Fools,” Mr. McLean added.

  They watched the scene unfold, mesmerized, as they continued to slowly walk across the street.

  Too slowly.

  THE MUSTANG WAS DOOMED. The car slid sideways with no hope of regaining control. It hit the curb at a forty-five-degree angle, bounced up onto the sidewalk, and slammed straight into a fire hydrant. Instantly, multiple jets of water shot from the damaged device. A high-pressure geyser launched into the sky, fountain-like, while a steady stream of water spewed into the street ahead of the accident.

  The McLeans stopped and watched, stunned, in the dead center of the road.

  “This can’t be happening,” Mrs. McLean whispered in shock.

  Lu and I sprinted along the sidewalk until we got to the empty parking lot of Saint Paul’s Church.

  “That’s their car!” Lu exclaimed.

  There was a single car in the vast parking lot. A maroon Volvo wagon. The McLeans’.

  “So where are they?” I asked.

  Boom!

  There was a screech, followed by what sounded like a nasty collision…the kind I saw in the crystal ball. The violent shriek made us both jump with surprise.

  The church was on the corner. Whatever had crashed, it was on the next street, around the corner, beyond the church, out of our sight. We didn’t need to see it to know that something horrible had happened.

  My heart sank.

  “We’re too late,” Lu said softly.

  I took off running through the church property, going behind the building to cut the corner and get to the street beyond. Lu kept pace. I dreaded what we would find.

  We ran from behind the church and onto the sidewalk of the next street to witness the mayhem. Far to our right, maybe fifty yards away, Mr. and Mrs. McLean stood in the middle of the street, staring at the destruction. Mr. McLean was wearing a bright blue shirt, just like the one I saw in the crystal ball.

  Check.

  The sight made my stomach twist.

  “They’re okay!” Lu exclaimed.

  I wasn’t ready to celebrate. Another fifty yards beyond them was the accident scene. A black Mustang was up on the curb next to a fire hydrant that was spewing water everywhere. Water. Just like I saw in the crystal ball.

  Check.

  It was obvious that the car had skidded off the road and hit the hydrant.

  “It’s over, right?” Lu said hopefully. “The McLeans are okay. They weren’t in the accident.”

  As if in answer, another car came screaming around the corner behind the crashed Mustang. It was the red Corvette.

  “Unless there’s gonna be another accident,” I said, and took off running for the McLeans.

  “Get out of the road!” I shouted.

  They must have had a deer-in-the-headlights thing going on, because they didn’t budge. They were square in the middle of the road with a high-powered car headed right for them. A red car.

  Check. Check. Check.

  “Move!” Lu screamed.

  It seemed as though Lu’s shout woke them up. They finally snapped out of it and moved. The two hugged each other while hurrying to the right side of the road, and safety.

  We had intervened. We had changed the future.

  “We did it,” Lu exclaimed. “They’re gonna make it!”

  But the Mustang wasn’t done. It suddenly sprang to life and bounced back onto the road…directly in the path of the oncoming Corvette. The Mustang wasn’t moving anywhere near as fast as the red car, so the Corvette was on it in a second.

  We hadn’t changed a thing. The accident I’d seen in the crystal ball hadn’t happened yet.

  But it was about to.

  I cringed, waiting for a collision.

  There was a squeal of brakes. The Mustang accelerated and the Corvette had to brake or it would have slammed into it from behind. At the exact moment the driver of the Corvette hit the brakes, the red car reached the water that had spread across the road. It was like trying to stop on a sheet of ice. The Corvette kept coming, skidding sideways at full speed, wheels spinning, heading straight for the McLeans, who hadn’t yet made it to the safety of the sidewalk.

  “Oh my God, no!” Lu exclaimed.

  It seemed like it was all happening in slow motion. The confusing images I had seen in the crystal ball were being knit together into one horrible whole. All the missing pieces of the puzzle, pieces that Baz hadn’t needed to see in order to understand what would happen, had now shown themselves.

  The crushing truth became clear. As much as we tried to beat it, destiny was too powerful. It couldn’t be changed. We were just spectators going along for the ride, pretending the things we did mattered. But they didn’t, because we were just actors walking through our own predetermined dramas.

  It was a dark, disturbing realization that was about to be driven home by the deaths of two innocent people.

  Lu buried her head in my shoulder. She didn’t want to see.

  Too bad, because she missed seeing the ultimate puzzle piece slipping into place. It was a piece that wasn’t expected or foreseen. This last piece proved that destiny was not an inescapable life sentence after all.

  We really did have control.

  Theo came sprinting toward his parents from the back end of the church property, running faster than I’d ever seen him move in his life. His parents were focused on the Mustang as it sped off, thinking they’d dodged a bullet. They had no idea the Corvette was careening toward them from behind.

  But Theo knew.

  He ran in like a charging linebacker and hit his parents without breaking stride. He locked up and drove forward, knocking them back into the road. The three fell to the wet pavement as the Corvette skidded by, its wheels spinning uselessly. It slammed into the curb, which finally stopped the car’s forward motion. There was no crumpling of red metal. There was no crash. Nobody’s life was changed.

  Theo had made sure of that.

  The guy driving the car looked like a kid…with orange hair that was all spiked up like it was on fire.

  Final check. Or maybe I should say checkmate.

  I thought he’d jump out of the car to make sure everybody was okay, but all he did was slam his fists into the steering wheel in frustration. He then hit the gas and took off. Tool.

  The Mustang driver wasn’t any better. She
had no clue about how close she’d come to disaster and I’m guessing she didn’t care. When the Mustang flew by us, I took note because I knew the police would ask about it. I wanted to remember the girl behind the wheel with long dark hair that had a purple streak in it. The Mustang was followed soon after by the red car. The Corvette. There was no mistaking that one and the orange hair of the driver. I planned on doing everything I could to help the police find those two jackwagons.

  The two cars continued past the church and made the left turn that would bring them to their finish line. Part of me was actually happy about it. If things had played out the way Baz had predicted, they never would have finished the race, and two people would be dead. Maybe more.

  But nobody died. Life as we all knew it would go on.

  Thanks to Theo.

  Lu and I ran to the three people who were lying in the street.

  Joe McLean ran up. Harry joined us too. The four of us stood over Theo and his parents. They all had their arms wrapped around each other.

  There was a tense moment when nobody knew what to say.

  Finally, Theo turned his head and looked up at us. “So?” he said with a big smile. “Can I get a ‘happy birthday’?”

  “This one’s yours, T,” I said to Theo. “You earned it.”

  Theo couldn’t help but smile. He’d been waiting for me to say that.

  “I’d call it Oracle of Doom,” he said with conviction.

  “Whoa,” Lu said, chuckling. “Drama.”

  “Well, yeah,” Theo said with a shrug.

  Everett looked to me, I nodded, and he slid the black book across the circulation desk of the Library toward me.

  “Oracle of Doom it is,” he said, and handed me the ancient black pen I had used to sign out the book to begin our adventure.

  I knew the drill. With Theo and Lu watching, I opened the front cover of the book to reveal the card I had signed that allowed me, an agent of the Library, to check out the book and enter the story. With one bold swipe of the pen, I crossed out my name. With that, the book now called Oracle of Doom was complete, and Everett could move it from the shelf with all the unfinished books, to the finished section.

  “How are you going to categorize it?” Theo asked.

  Everett took the book and held it to his chest as if it was precious, and in some ways it was, because it represented the completion of multiple disruptions.

  The mystery of Baz’s death had been solved, allowing his spirit to be released from Playland. The truth had been revealed that Eugene Derby had nothing to do with the fire and Baz’s death, which also allowed his spirit to be freed. Lu’s cousin had been found, though she was never in any danger. Most important, the McLeans were safe, and Theo’s life as he knew it would go on.

  It was only one book, but we finished a whole lot of stories. Not too bad.

  “I believe this will go under the heading Fortune,” Everett said.

  “Fortune? How do you figure that?” Lu asked. “Because Baz was a fortune-teller?”

  Everett rolled off his stool and lumbered around the desk, headed for one of the aisles that held the completed books.

  “In part,” he said. “But fortune can mean a lot of things. It’s about destiny and fate. Even luck. Many of the stories here in the Library are about folks whose fortunes have taken a turn for the worse. Their stories will never be finished until they come to realize that fortune is truly in their own hands.”

  “Or somebody from the Library helps them figure it out,” Theo said.

  “Aye,” Everett said. “Everybody needs a little help sometime.”

  He slipped the book between two others on the shelf and came back to the desk.

  “You all did a fine thing here,” Everett added. “For the spirits in the story and for yourselves.”

  “Too bad that Daring Donna lady never got caught for what she did,” Lu said. “In real life, I mean.”

  “Aye, but now the truth is known,” Everett said. “Hers is a spirit that may no longer be resting in peace.”

  “What about those idiots who were drag racing?” Theo asked.

  “The police are all over it,” I said. “Lu and I told them everything we saw, and there’s video from security cameras at the church and the middle school. They’re not gonna be driving anywhere for a while.”

  “Then I guess we’re done here,” Lu said, and moved to get up.

  “Wait,” Theo said. “I don’t know if it’s too late to make this part of the book, but I want you guys to know how much I appreciate what you did for me.”

  “You’re the one who saved your parents,” I said.

  “But you wouldn’t let me give up,” he said. “I felt really helpless, like there was nothing I could do to save myself. But you two wouldn’t listen.”

  “We never listen to anything you say,” Lu said with a straight face.

  Theo gave her a hurt look, but she smiled and squeezed his arm.

  “I’m kidding,” she said. “I just couldn’t believe our lives are planned out like some movie script, no matter what a crystal ball says. Nobody’s future is written.”

  “And like I said, we make our own fortunes,” Everett added.

  “You think that machine at Playland is still going to spit out predictions even though Baz’s spirit is gone?” Theo asked.

  “We could always go back next summer and find out,” I said.

  We all looked at one another, then burst out laughing.

  “Yeah, right,” I exclaimed. “Like that’s gonna happen.”

  “No way,” Theo added.

  “I’ll pass,” Lu said.

  There was nothing left to do except get back to real life.

  “What’re you thinking, Marcus?” Everett asked. “Will I be seeing you again soon?”

  Theo and Lu both looked my way. They wanted to know too.

  “I need a break,” I said. “We all do. It’s been pretty intense. I still want to get into what really happened to my birth parents, but I also think we should go back to being normal for a while.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” Theo said.

  “Sounds good to me,” Lu added.

  “I’ll keep hunting for any stories that might tell us something about your folks,” Everett offered.

  “Thanks, Everett,” I said.

  “Then we’ll say good-bye,” I said. “For now.”

  The three of us got up and headed for the door that would lead into my bedroom. Part of me was relieved. I really did need a break. The idea of sitting in a boring classroom, listening to a lecture on something I didn’t care about, was actually sounding pretty good right about then.

  On the other hand, I also had a wistful feeling. We were leaving a library filled with unfinished adventures. What else was waiting for us on those shelves? Where would we go next? Whose story would we try to finish? I had gotten a taste of what it was like to jump into these stories, and to be perfectly honest, I liked it. Leaving it behind made me feel as though I might be missing out.

  “Lots of books in this Library,” Everett said. “They’ll all be here waiting when you get back.”

  It was like he had read my mind.

  “See you soon,” I said, and led my friends through the door and back to normal life.

  * * *

  —

  We stepped into my bedroom and I closed the door behind us. Just to be sure, I re-opened the door and took a quick peek inside to see…my closet. Without the Paradox key, it was just an ordinary closet door.

  “What day is it again?” Lu asked, half-serious. “I’ve lost track.”

  “Monday morning,” Theo said. “We’ve got school.”

  “Oh,” Lu said, sounding disappointed. “That. How…dull.”

  It did sound dull. Perfectly, wonderfully dull. />
  We grabbed our packs from my bed and headed downstairs. We were alone in the house, since my parents had already left for work. It was shaping up to be a bland, normal day.

  I opened the front door and stood back for my friends to go through first, but neither moved.

  “What’s that?” Lu asked.

  Sitting outside the door was a cardboard box about the size of a big gym bag. I leaned outside to get a closer look and saw that there was something written in bold letters on top:

  FOR: MR. MARCUS O’MARA

  “That’s you,” Theo said.

  “Yeah, no kidding,” I said, and reached down to pick it up. The box wasn’t all that heavy. “There’s no return address. No shipping address either. Somebody must have dropped it off.”

  “It’s not your birthday,” Lu said. “Is it?”

  I put the box down on the floor inside the house while Theo closed the door. The three of us stood around the mystery box, staring at it in wonder.

  “Well, it’s not going to open itself up,” Lu said.

  I took my house key out of my pocket and used it like a knife to cut the paper sealing tape. When I lifted the flaps, a sharp odor drifted out. It wasn’t bad, but it was definitely strong.

  “Ooh, weird,” Theo said. “It smells like the beach.”

  “Yeah,” Lu added. “Like seaweed.”

  The contents were covered by a sheet of brown paper, on top of which was a beige envelope with Marcus written in fancy, old-fashioned lettering.

  “Sure looks like a birthday present to me,” Lu said.

  “Yeah,” Theo said, sniffing. “Maybe somebody sent you some fresh lobsters.”

  I opened the envelope and slipped out a heavy paper card that had the same fancy handwriting on it. It said:

  See you soon.

  “That’s it?” Lu asked. “ ‘See you soon’? Not who it’s from?”