The Seer (Chapter 01)

Charlie was... different. he was just one of the kids, and yet he wasn't. One day we were playing baseball against the Glenwood nine. Awaiting our turn to bat, together there on that pine bench, and Charlie turned to me and said I hate spaghetti and Mom is fixing spaghetti for supper. Then he took his bat to the on-deck circle and Eddie turned to me and said Charlie has been with us all day so how does he know what his mom is fixing for supper? I said, Oh, his mom fixes spaghetti every Saturday night. That was a lie. His mom rarely fixed spaghetti. The truth was that Charlie always knew things he had no obvious way of knowing. Whenever he said something like that, it always turned out to be true. The first time I became aware was when just the two of us were swimming at the hot springs in Monroe. Suddenly he said I think we better get out of the water. We'll get rained on soon. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. I told him he must be crazy. He just shrugged and got out of the pool and went and got dressed. Minutes later big clouds came out of nowhere, white at first, and then darker and darker. I jumped out of the pool as well, and before I got inside, the raindrops were already starting to fall. A flash of lightning and a crash of thunder, simultaneous almost, split a huge Russian Olive tree and sent half of it into the pool where we had been. I never doubted Charlie after that. to be continued...