Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she'd been told that she would kill her true love.

Her family traded in predictions. These predictions tended, however, to run toward the non-specific. Things like: Something terrible will happen to you today. It might involve the number six. Or: Money is coming. Open your hand for it. Or: You have a big decision and it will not make itself.

The people who came to the little, bright blue house at 300 Fox Way didn't mind the imprecise nature of their fortunes. It became a game, a challenge, to realize the exact moment that the predictions came true. When a van carrying six people wheeled into a client's car two weeks after their psychic reading, he could nod with a sense of accomplishment and release. When a neighbor offered to buy another client's old chainsaw if they were looking for a bit of extra cash, she could recall the promise of money coming and sell it with the sense that the transaction had been foretold. Or when a third client heard his wife say this is a decision that has to be made, he could remember the same words being said by Maura Sargent over a spread of tarot cards and then leap decisively to action.

But the imprecise nature of the fortunes kept them from feeling complete. They could be dismissed as coincidences, hunches. They were a chuckle in the Wal-mart parking lot when you ran into an old friend as promised. A shiver when the number seventeen appeared in an electric bill. A realization that even if you had discovered the future, it really didn't change how you lived the present. The predictions existed in one world, and reality in another. They were truth, but they weren't all of the truth.