JOAN'S FLASHFORWARD

Chapter 4 The Visionary

"Joan, keep calm. Things may be looking totally weird to you, but you will not be harmed."

Joan was hearing the still, small voice in her head. God had never communicated with her like this before, but it was obvious why He was doing this. She had no control over her body, including its senses, and it terrified her. But with God's assurance, she decided to accept what her senses told her and hope that a solution would come. What was more, she was feeling emotions that seemed imposed in her from outside, a sense of love and triumph utterly at odds with her current panic.

She was in a large room. She was holding somebody's arm, but she couldn't tell who, because she could not turn her head. What she could see of that opposite wall was a large field of white dabbed with color; then her eyes refocused and she realized that she was looking at paintings hanging on the wall. An art gallery. A number of people were standing in front of her, with cameras, cell phones, and various electronic gizmos.

"Mr. Rove, can you tell us what inspired your painting?"

"The credit for that goes to my wife Joan," said Adam's voice. "She was my muse as well as my model."

Joan felt her mouth smile and her head turn. She was indeed standing next to her husband, and he showed no sign that there was a cosmic crisis going on. But then, since she had no control over her body, her own face was probably equally calm.

"Could we have a picture of you and Joan looking at the painting?" asked a photographer.

"Certainly," Joan heard herself say. "I love looking at my husband's work." She and Adam turned around.

Joan was looking at a large painting on the wall. At its center was her own image, with a rapt expression on her face, sitting in a beautiful landscape. There were some other images floating around the Joan-image, but Joan couldn't get her eyes to focus on them. Instead they dropped down to look at the name of the painting, displayed on a brass surface under the picture. THE VISIONARY.

"Thank you. And now let's snap the two of you with an image of the check."

They handed Joan and Adam a big cardboard cutout, a blown-up image of a bank check. It was made out to ADAM ROVE, and the description said AWARD, FIRST PRIZE. The amount of the check would have made her eyes bug out if she had any control over them in the first place.

FLASH.

She was still holding onto Adam – but now they were lying on their bed in their apartment again. Joan once more had control over her body, and she held her beloved in a tight embrace. After a minute they relaxed their grasp, and Adam muttered "What just happened?"

"I don't know – I had the weirdest dream."

"We were in an art gallery—"

"And you had just won an award for a painting called—"

"—THE VISIONARY," concluded Adam.

"We had the same dream? That's crazy!"

"Grace and Luke have been able to do that, with God's help."

"But He's never done that for us. I'm calling Luke, see if he can make any sense out of this. " Joan got out her cell and punched in Luke's number. Like her, he was in his senior year, but at a far more prestigious college: Harvard.

"H'lo?" Luke's voice, sounding odd.

"This is Joan, with Adam. Something odd happened. A peculiar dream."

"I know. I had a nightmare. It was horrible, horrible---"

"Luke, are you crying? What the hell happened?"

"It was Grace. She was dying. Like Kevin. And I was helpless. I couldn't save her life, I couldn't even MOVE!"

"Luke, get a grip. It didn't happen, it was a dream – but if it was like ours, it was probably very vivid. Call the real Grace immediately, make sure she's OK!"

"Yeah—"

"JANE!" yelled Adam. He was looking out the window.

"I'm on the phone!"

"LOOK OUTSIDE!" he insisted, scarcely hearing her.

The imperious yelling was utterly out of character for Adam, and that told Joan that something extremely important was out there. Joan punched her phone OFF and joined Adam at the window. She gasped.

Cars all banged into each other, on what was normally a quiet side street. One car had left the street altogether, and rammed into a tree, crumpling the metal. Including the driver's compartment. And that car looked frightening familiar.

Joan grabbed her coat and dashed outside. She didn't need a vision from God to tell her that her help might be needed. Adam followed at her heels.

On the street, she could hear screaming, ranging from mere panic to actual agony. She punched 911 on her cell, and got a busy signal.

Unsure which emergency needed her attention most, she decided to run to the tree and check the damaged car.

"Oh my God!" swore Joan.

It was half a curse and half a plea. There was a body in the driver's seat, mangled and definitely dead. Her friend and classmate Agnes Mertz.

TO BE CONTINUED