I don't know what, but something bad has happened. I stare at the painting in front of me on the easel, ignoring the tourists as they wander by. They always make me laugh, stopping and often standing right on top of you while they discuss your art, not with you, mind ya, no just around you. I study the painting, looking at it closely for the first time. It's often like that while I'm painting -- when the vision is in my head, I don't even look at what I'm doing. When I'm finished, it's just as much a surprise to me as it is to anyone else is looking at it. Of course they don't understand what it is or what it means, and hell, most times I don't either. Not for a while, at least.

This one is dark, something bad has happened and something worse is coming. I recognize Cora, of course, and there's Aislin and Emma, but the others, I don't know. Except for that one right there, front and center, he's in another painting. That painting that I want to ignore but couldn't. I can't even remember how many years ago I painted that; I do remember how it broke my heart. Until then, until that painting, I was sure she was mine. The girl I had painted my whole life.

I chuckle when I think about my reaction that day she set her table up beside my easel. I was painting just a normal picture of the Quarter, listening to the music coming from the guys down on the corner, when she started setting up. I see her in my mind, dressed just the way the tourists would expect a fortune teller to look. She made quite a bit of noise trying to get that table put up, dropping things and cussing up a blue streak. I just kept looking at her from the corner of my eye, this tiny little woman who took up so much space. When she finally got settled in her chair, she shifted, turning towards me in a flurry of bright colored fabrics, and thrust her hand out like a weapon. “I'm Cora,” she said. That's it, just a name, and she sat there grinning, waiting for my response. Then it happened; I turned to look at her to shake her hand and introduce myself, and there was the girl I had been painting since I was a child.

We've been friends ever since. Of course, in my mind, we would have been more, and then four years ago, I painted him. His granite eyes met mine, staring at me, laughing at me, and daring me to try to take her from him. My aunt, who also has the sight, warned me a long time ago that we didn't always have all the information that we needed from a vision. That didn't stop me from falling in love with a girl with hazel eyes and full lips. But that girl is gone now. I saw the proof the other night when all the sudden, she looked up at me with silver eyes. Not grey, no, silver like platinum, and I knew then that the girl I had painted was not meant for me.

I focus again on the painting, trying to make out exactly what it all means. I need help. Throwing my paints and brushes in my box, I gather my things up and put them on my cart. Picking up the wet painting carefully, I start my walk out of Jackson Square and towards my aunt's place. It doesn't take me long to get there. She's been here in the quarter since long before I was born. I pull my cart into her courtyard, shutting the gate behind me.

“Aunt Colleen?” I call out and moments later, I hear the jingle of the bells she wears around her ankle. Aunt Colleen is really my great aunt. She is my grandmother's oldest sister. I don't know how old she is exactly, but she's pretty damn old. I pull out a chair and sit at a little patio table in the shade and wait for her. She arrives some minutes later, shuffling towards me while leaning on a beautifully carved cypress cane.

“Hey, child. Well, let me see it.” She settles her thick glasses on the end of her nose, squinting as I place the painting in front of her. She studies it and murmurs to herself. I try to make out the words, but half are in the old language, and I suck at it, much to her dismay. She finally lays it flat on the table and slides the glasses off her face as she makes a clucking noise. “You paint it this morning?” She asks, looking at me closely, so I nod. “Ain't this your girl?” I nod again. “You listen to me, Remy. You need to go talk to your mama and get her and everyone else packed up. It's time for y’all to be leaving here. Go in yonder to the back room, there's a black book tied with a silver ribbon. You bring that out here.”

I know exactly what that book is -- it’s her journal where she writes down all of her visions. She's done forgot the time I got in trouble for reading it when I was little. I go down the hall of her shotgun house and turn into the little room where I know the book is at. I handle it gently, as it is almost as old as she is, the pages yellow and brittle. She’s still looking at the painting when I get back. Handing her the book, I pull my seat closer. She unties the ribbon, and I imagine it will take her awhile to find what she's looking for but I'm wrong. She flips right to the page, and I realize she has it marked. She has been waiting for this day.

She hands the book to me, her arthritic finger pointing at her writing. I read the entry as my heart begins to pound, fear creeping in. “You need to come with me, Aunt Colleen. Let's get your stuff together.”

She shakes her head and says, “No, child, I want to die right here. After the war, when we finally got here and made our home and we were treated with respect, I said I will never leave and I'm not. If it's my time, then it's my time. We all got to die. But you, Remy, you got more to do. Now you keep that book but don't you read it right now. Everything you need to know, everything that I know and that I've seen, is in the pages after the one I just showed you, so mark it down. You'll know when the time is right for you to read them.” She hugs me tightly, holding onto me, and I want to scoop her up, make her come with me, but I won't. I've heard the stories of how they got here, of what life was like before they did, and she deserves to stay, if that's what she wants.

She finally releases me and pushes at me to go and when I get to the gate, she calls out. “You make sure that little Rye is in that vehicle with you when you drive out of here. You hear me? He’s special, like us. You make sure now.” I promise to do just that and then I walk out the gate. I'm blocks away before I realized I've left my cart but I don't go back for it. Sliding my hand into my jacket pocket, I feel tears spring to my eyes as my fingers close around tiny silver bells.