Chris Kuzneski - The Prophecy

He watched her lips as they moved silently, slowly sounding out the words as she tried to decipher their meaning. In the middle of the message, she paused, as if she’d noticed something that no

‘Who wrote this?’ she demanded, her voice filled with concern.

‘Why? What’s wrong?’

‘Who wrote the letter, Jon?’

Payne shrugged. ‘We don’t know who wrote it. Why? What’s bothering you?’

‘The letter,’ she said as she sank into Payne’s chair. ‘I know who it’s describing.’

He stared at her and noticed the blood had drained from her pale face. ‘Who?’

Megan glanced up at him. ‘The letter is about me .’

45

‘Not to doubt you,’ he said, ‘but what makes you so sure?’

She didn’t speak. She simply pointed to the third line, tapping it repeatedly.

Payne put his hand on her shoulder. He could feel the tension building in her neck and back. ‘A filly with no mother? That’s what has you so shaken?’

He thought back to their late-night conversation at the hotel. They had talked about losing their parents at such an early age and how tough it had been on them. If he remembered correctly, a mugger had killed her mom when Megan was only ten.

‘Trust me when I tell you this,’ he said, ‘I know exactly what you’re going through. I do. Not a single day has passed since the death of my Nothing .’

Megan grabbed his hand and squeezed. Somehow she felt better knowing he cared enough about her to open up even though they had only just met. For an ex-soldier like Payne — someone who had been taught to bury his emotions in order to survive — she knew it was probably a difficult thing to do.

‘Come here,’ she said as she tugged on his arm and urged him to sit down on the corner of the desk. She wanted to look him in the face while she spoke to him. ‘I appreciate you telling me that. That had to be tough for you.’

Payne said nothing. He simply focused on her eyes, which were moist with tears.

‘Last night,’ Megan said, ‘when we talked about our parents, I didn’t tell you everything about my family history. We had just met and all, and there’s

‘What is it?’ he asked gently.

‘The parents I told you about were my adoptive parents. They took me in when I was just a newborn, so they were the only ones I ever knew. But they weren’t my biological parents.’

Payne studied her face, trying to figure out why this detail seemed so important to her — why it had knocked her off her feet and shaken her so deeply. But before he had a chance to ask, she wiped her eyes and continued her explanation.

‘When I was still a little girl, my mom decided it was time to tell me that I had been adopted. I’m not quite sure why she had chosen that particular moment — maybe she was afraid I was going to find out from someone else, and she wanted to make sure that didn’t happen. Whatever the reason, she came into my bedroom, sat down on my pink bed, and told me I was her precious little gift from heaven. Keep in mind I was only eight at the time, so I didn’t know much about adoption or childbirth, but she took her

Payne smiled warmly, appreciative that she had shared such a wonderful memory with him. Yet in the back of his mind, he couldn’t help but wonder what her story had to do with the letter. Why had the line ‘a filly with no mother’ affected her so deeply? Obviously there were thousands of adopted women from Philadelphia, and many of them had lost their adoptive parents over the years — just like Megan had — so why was she so confident the message was about her? Couldn’t it have been about any of them? Unless he had been focusing on the wrong aspect of the story. Maybe her emotional connection with the third line of the poem had nothing to do with her adoptive mother. Maybe it had something to do with her biological parents.

‘I don’t mean to pry,’ Payne said, ‘but what do you know about your birth mother?’

Megan blinked a few times, and when she did, tears ran down her cheeks. Slightly embarrassed, she brushed them away with the sleeve of her

‘That’s quite all right. Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.’

She managed a slight smile. ‘Ironically, I never even knew my birth mother, yet she’s the reason I’m crying. She’s the reason I’m so certain the poem is about me.’

‘Go on.’

‘You’ve heard of mothers dying during childbirth? Well, my birth mother has that beat. She actually died six hours and seventeen minutes before I was even born.’

Payne furrowed his brow. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Yeah,’ she said, sniffling, ‘I thought that would get your attention.’

‘Hold up. How did, um, I mean—’

Megan explained. ‘According to medical records, my birth mother was eight and a half months pregnant with me when she had a severe brain aneurysm. They rushed her to the hospital and tried to save her life, but she passed away in the emergency room. For the next six hours or so, machines kept her heart beating while they pumped her full of drugs that would help me survive a Caesarean section. Whatever they did must have worked because I came out healthy.’

‘There aren’t a lot of us, that’s for sure. That’s why I got so emotional when I saw the third line of the poem. ‘A filly with no mother’ — that has to be about me, right?’

Payne stood up and walked round the room, trying to figure out some other explanation for the quatrain. Yet the more he thought about it, the more he became convinced it was referring to Megan. It simply had to be. But why would someone take the time to write a poem in a series of ancient languages and send it to a total stranger?

Furthermore, why were people willing to kill for it?

None of it made any sense.

46

Once the commercial hub of the city, the Grote Markt is now a traffic-free square, surrounded by picturesque buildings and small cafés with matching green awnings. Whenever the weather cooperated, Dubois would sit outside for hours at a time, conducting business by phone while his bodyguards looked for potential

Recently, tourism in the city had increased significantly thanks to the award-winning movie In Bruges , which starred Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes. Much of the movie had been filmed in the old city and Grote Markt, including a climactic scene at the top of the belfry. Dubois had never seen the film and never would — he preferred operas and symphonies to the silver screen — yet several filmgoers had told him the movie had presented the city in a favourable light. To Dubois, that was a blessing and a curse. He was delighted the rest of the world could see the beauty that he got to see every day, but he loathed the sudden influx of tourists.

Despite the falling temperatures and the chance of snow flurries, Dubois bundled himself in a tailored coat and made his way to the market place for an early dinner. His driver stopped the car as close to the café as possible, and Dubois waited for one of his bodyguards to open his door. A few minutes later, he was sitting in a window seat, staring at the neo-Gothic provincial court on the northern side of the plaza. The building had been built on the site of the old water halls and had been reconstructed in 1878 after a fire destroyed most of the complex. Critics argued that the neo-Gothic style conflicted with the medieval architecture found in the rest of the city. Ironically, that was the reason Dubois found comfort in the building. In many ways, it reminded him of the cathedrals back in Paris, a city he loved deeply but rarely got to visit.

‘Good evening, Mr Dubois,’ the waitress said in Dutch.

He nodded but refused to address the help. It was beneath him.

She unfolded his cloth napkin and carefully placed it on his lap. Then she handed him a leather-bound menu. ‘Would you like to hear our specials?’