Abigail sat in her screened in porch, and she hated that she did. A quilt her grandmother had made her was wrapped around her legs. She had been nursing the same cup of the tea for an hour, and it was bitter cold.

Carson had decided to leave, and she didn't blame him. What kind of lunatic tells you she knows the future? What man ever wants to hear who he's going to marry, how he's going to marry, and how many children he will have? Not to mention that she sounded crazy telling him how she knew of Mrs. Winters’ illness, and the fire.

What she had to remember, was that they had saved her life. They got there before she could have walked out to the hallway when the house was engulfed.

Later, when the chaos around her settled a bit, Abigail would go to Mrs. Winters. Why had she been the one to give her so much information? Carson said because they were kindred souls, the shared birthday. But she didn't know if that was true. Plenty of people were born on October fourteenth. If it was, in fact, a day of the sixth sense, wouldn't the world know about that?

Sunday was a day of peace and quiet for her, but in her head, it was anything but quiet. She missed him already, and she hated that she did. It shouldn't matter that he walked out the door. There was no reason for him to come back through it either.

News of the fire had gotten to Clare. She had called and wanted to know what she could do. There was nothing to do, Abigail told her. Mrs. Winters was in the hospital, and Abigail was sitting alone wallowing in self-pity. It shouldn't have been surprised her that Clare drove over with a crockpot full of soup. At least it made Abigail laugh. Only Clare would always have a crockpot of soup ready to go. Then again, so had their grandmother.

As she sat at her kitchen table, still in her pajamas at three o'clock in the afternoon, Clare handed her a bowl of soup.

Clare sat down across from her with her bowl. "Grandma said there were always reasons for soup.”

Abigail laughed. "I sometimes wonder if she'd still be around if they'd they found that tumor.”

"Well, I can guarantee you if you ever tell a family member they have a tumor, they'll listen.”

"Fantastic. I'd rather not know. Look what good it's done for me." She lifted her soup to her lips, blew, and slurped. "I decided I either need to shut myself up in my house forever and never talk to anyone again, or open some ten dollar psychic reading stand."

“We can set you up a table at the tea shop," Clare joked, and it lightened the mood.

"It wouldn't work for every person. I didn't see things when I touched Carson. Not even when we…"

She noticed her cousin stopping mid-spoonful. Her eyes wide open.

"Don't act like you didn't know that was coming. I told you I was going to marry him, right?”

Clare took a napkin from the holder on the table and wiped her mouth. "You did. I didn't think you liked him. He's going to tear down that church.”

"I suppose now I can focus my efforts on that. Maybe if he saw me at the meeting coming up, he'd walk out. Leave the whole project and go,” she said with her hands in the air in a grand gesture. “Who knows, I might just save the town.”

"So you're not going to marry him?"

Abigail pushed back her soup and rested her arms on the table. "I doubt it. I wouldn't want a lunatic for a spouse.”

"Does it work that way? Can you change fate?”

"I don't know. Later, I'm going to visit Mrs. Winters. Maybe she can tell me.”

Clare held up her spoon, using it to gesture towards Abigail. "You think she knows something. More than just transferring the premonition to you. You think she understands it.”

Abigail shrugged. “I have nothing to lose, right? Besides, there was a moment in her bedroom when we were getting her out of the fire. She kept talking to Jeffery, her grandson and Carson's best friend. He's been dead for sixteen years or more. Carson thought she was confusing him with Jeffery. But I think she was talking to Jeffery.”

“As if he was there in the room with you guys?”

"Something like that. Anyway, it was contact with her that made me see Carson. I just want to know what happens now.”

---

Carson decided that Sunday morning was the perfect time to start the flooring in the kitchen.

He took the old beat up pickup truck, which he used for renovation, and spent the morning at the Home Depot. He wanted to go to Mrs. Winters, but he opted to call her son instead. After having her call him Jeffery, he didn't want to confuse her any further.

Her son had confirmed that she was fine. But they had decided to get her some assistance. The house would be uninhabitable for a while, and at least she wasn't arguing about not getting to go home.

The tile in the kitchen would take him days. Mostly because he wasn't very good at it, and because of his impatience he'd already cracked two of them. But, it would keep his mind off Abigail.

He couldn't decide how he felt about what she had told him. Part of him wanted to call her crazy and have her locked up. The other part of him wanted to kiss away any pain she may have.

If everything she had said was true, he had decided that was a terrible way to live. She had a gift that could help other people, but most of them, like him, were skeptical. How badly had she been treated back home to make her move this far away? He didn't believe that she had killed Katie Meadows. He might have for a few days, or had hoped she hadn't. But now, he truly didn’t believe she did. But how many people back home still thought she had?

And now, what would come after the fire and Mrs. Winters’ house? Surely once a fire investigator was in there, they would know that Abigail was innocent.

God, he hoped that's what they would find.

Later, much later, he would go back to her and apologize. He hadn't stormed out, as she asked him not to. He hadn't said much either. There was too much to sort out in his head.

As he lined up the tiles and inserted the spacers, he thought about the church on Ford Street. If they’d had a prior argument, it was about that church. Why was it so important to her that it didn't get torn down?

He’d love to keep the integrity of the building. However, it needed to be gutted. The structure was unsafe. There were a few things he could probably do to keep some of the church, which they hadn't figured into the designs, but—he dropped another tile and it shattered.

“Shit!” He sat back on his heels and looked at the mess around him. This wasn't clearing his mind as he had hoped it would. He needed a good long walk. The mess could wait.

Carson walked back to his bedroom and pulled out his running shoes. He’d take a walk to the top of the stairs at Mother Cabrini's shrine. The view always inspired him and cleared his head. Perhaps a brisk cold walk to the top would do just that.