A field of flowers.

Adelaide had the gift of prophetic vision and, like Cassandra before her, was cursed with no one believing she did.

It had been a simple discovery, she dreamt that Jimmy from down the road would careen his bike into the smithereens of darkness and woke to her mother crying at the kitchen table. Adelaide remembered the tears staining her mother’s face, eyes rimmed red and Adelaide had known immediately that Jimmy was dead and his penchant for reckless riding was at fault. Perhaps it was her age, the precocious youthful time where not much is denied, she had never questioned her dreams could foresee the future.

Telling her mother had been a different story, she’d quietly informed her at breakfast that the family dog would escape that day and be adopted by someone else from across town. Her mother, a quiet tense God Fearing woman, had hushed her, wiping her chaotic hair down and instructing her to braid it before leaving for the bus. By her return from school the dog was gone, his escape through the ripped screen door complete and absconsion without any trace.

Of course this was suspicious to her mother, who perceived herself as having a nose for childish deviances, began to sniff out what she considered a darkness emerging from her daughter. She was the age for it, her mind thickening into adulthood and learning the tricks of femininity. When she was born, her mother had been disappointed she was not a boy for this very reason. Even with the strictest of parenting, girls could still turn sour through no fault of their parents. It was obvious what had happened in her mother’s eyes. The girl had tired of caring for the creature and, of course, shipped it off somewhere else to be rid of it. Despite Adelaide’s protests, this is what her mother believed and spent the next few months deciding on the level of concern she should be exhibiting. If Adelaide had killed the dog, there would have to be boarding school or the police or /something/ but if she just relocated it then her mother could chalk it up to teenager tomfoolery.

In that moment Adelaide realized she would never thrive under her mother’s apprehensively watchful eye. A constant vigilance around every minute sign of sociopathy, a heavy blanket that suffocated the entire home.

She left at fifteen, a simple suitcase and coat during the summer exit. Although she spent the next few months laying low, the reality was her mother was vaguely relieved that the burden of deciding if her daughter was a danger to society had been lifted. If she committed some atrocity elsewhere she could not possibly be held responsible for it as it was no longer under her roof.

And Adelaide continued to dream, each night filled with swirling colors and unearthed political movements. People dying and risque betrayals. She told these prophecies to cats in the alley ways, whispering the answers to the future into their mite infested ears before they were overcome with their feral nature and bolted. Sometimes, when men were drunk enough that they slurred into non-reality she would whisper in their ears as well and they would laugh and laugh but wake with a dread that they had touched something not meant for their minds. She would tell them how they were going to die, a blurred dream made fuzzy with liquor, a secret they would not remember until right before this demise. A sudden understanding, a flash of when her hardened lips pressed against their ears and spoke of this exact moment.

Adelaide knew how she was going to die too. Though, cruelly, the timing of her death was never revealed to her. All she knew was that it would be in a field of marigolds and she would, for a brief breath, feel peace. As the years wore on, as her hair became thin and gray, her face crackled with sun exposure and isolation, she searched for this field. Adelaide searched and dreamt and searched and dreamt. Every gold shimmer a jolt of hope, a devastating realization it was sunflowers or metal or something other than the flower that promised her peace. Forever hunting for this elusive place that would finally make her free.