The paved plaza – actually referred to as a piazza according to a nearby sign although there didn’t appear to be much Italian about it – held all manner of people with such diversity of physicality and cultural heritage that just watching them all pass by my table made me feel like I was traveling around the world while sitting still. Or maybe that was just the combination of jet lag and clotted cream making me whimsical. This was my favorite part of travel, settling into a new place and learning its particular rhythms and flavor. Every new destination brought with it a new palette of flavors and scents and sights to discover while I tried to figure out how I fit within the whole. 

Watching a group of children dart in and out around the shoppers, playing tag and using the crowd as an obstacle course to make the game more fun, I felt the uneasy sensation of being watched in return. That was when I noticed a massive black dog seated on its haunches nearby, so big and still that it reminded me of a guardian lion at a temple, but it seemed to be guarding the children more than the entrance to the arcade. And it was staring directly at me.

I recognized immediately that the creature was no normal canine. Even from across the square, I could smell its otherworldly aura. I had learned how to recognize the signs, and even though the last thing I wanted was more evidence of how I didn’t truly belong in the world as it was, I kept stumbling upon reminders everywhere I went. Breaking eye contact with the dog, I looked down into my cup and took another bitter sip, deliberately doing my best to ignore the weight of red eyes.

My father’s journals contained multiple entries about ghostly black dogs, but I didn’t need to do any research to know that no matter its particular identity, it was a bad omen. While such dogs might protect children or women walking alone at night, most of its appearances were associated with death, a warning that you or someone close to you would die within the year. Shaking my head, I finished the dregs of my horrible coffee and returned the empty cup to its saucer with no regard for the grounds left at the bottom or whatever ominous messages they might also be sending me. I’d seen too much death already for such omens to scare me.

Then my phone buzzed and I flinched so badly that I nearly flung the coffee cup over the side of the table. Delicately releasing the handle, I took a deep breath before retrieving my phone from my pocket. I wasn’t used to getting messages these days. Everyone who had ever called or texted me had been left behind along with the life I’d abandoned in Korea. I hadn’t gotten to know anyone in my travels well enough to keep in touch after I moved on, and even though I’d expected to stay in touch with some of the other connections I’d made over the years, as the time and distance between us grew, the thought of starting a conversation after such a gap seemed too daunting to attempt. 

The only person who messaged me much at all these days was my younger brother, mostly in the form of photos rather than text. His messages were proof of life more than true connection, snapshots of him on campus studying in a particularly picturesque spot or selfies with friends at a restaurant. He’d started hiking recently, so I got a lot of images of sunsets from the top of a mountain with his lean frame silhouetted against the golden sky. Sometimes he was there with someone else although I could never make out enough details to identify the other person.

This time the notification wasn’t from anyone I knew. It was a news alert I’d set up while I worked for Yun Seo. I thought I’d deactivated all of my alerts but apparently something had gotten reset in a recent update. Staring at the headline, I tried to decide if I wanted to click on the story and learn more.

Ye Kwang resigns amid fraud accusations.

The story started loading before I realized I’d tapped on it. 

Second generation chaebol and prominent philanthropist Ye Kwang has resigned his position at Kwang Pharmaceuticals after accusations of fraud broke on Requite. The anonymous post makes detailed accusations of backdoor business deals between Ye Kwang and other prominent business figures, the details of which have been removed from the site while the claims are being investigated. 

Liminal CEO, Jang Yun Seo, has issued a statement in response to this measure. “We are cooperating with law enforcement under protest and have temporarily removed the post, but we feel strongly that hiding this information from the public is against the very spirit of our platform. Requite was designed to cut through the divides between classes and ensure that every voice gets heard with equal weight, especially those without traditional means or power.”

I looked up from the phone, staring unseeing across the square as I tried to calm my suddenly racing heart. Ye Kwang had always been the finale of Yun Seo’s revenge plot, the last person he would target once every other enemy had fallen. When I stopped working for him, Yun Seo still had copious amounts of work to do before he would be ready to bring Ye Kwang to justice, but now that I was doing the math I realized that nearly eight months had passed since I left, plenty of time to finish that work and then some. Regardless, his endgame was obviously in motion.

None of this news had anything to do with me anymore, and yet I had been so deeply involved in all of it for so long that I felt more alone than ever learning how far Yun Seo’s plans had progressed without me. I’d always suspected that Yun Seo hadn’t really needed me, but it was still jarring to know how little my involvement had mattered. What was worse was that it was obvious that in order to defeat Ye Kwang, Yun Seo had used intel from a source I’d wanted to protect. My absence may not have made a difference to Yun Seo, but it certainly made a difference to Dae Hak Kun and his wife. I could only hope they would survive the fallout. 

“Mind if I join you?”

I was so buried so deep within my own thoughts that I didn’t realize the woman was speaking to me until I heard her pull the chair across from me out from beneath the table, the metal feet clattering against the bricks along the way. Blinking at her, I looked around to confirm that the rest of the tables were still empty and tried to figure out why she was asking to sit with me.

Then I noticed the exotic scent wafting from her, familiar and yet strange. Another Unseen. And another omen of death if I was judging correctly, dressed all in white with long, red waves of hair that fell nearly to her waist. She was skeletally thin, her pale bony hands clasping atop the table as she perched on the edge of the chair, sunken, bloodshot eyes peering out at me from within bruises of exhaustion. Her age was impossible to judge, the vivid red of her hair giving her a youthful look while her parchment-thin skin made her seem ancient.

Thin lips curved as she nodded at me. “You know what I am, don’t you?” Her words lilted with a musical accent. I wasn’t adept enough at English to identify it, but there was a sobbing note to her voice that verified my suspicion.

“You’re a banshee,” I replied. 

A chuckle like dry leaves on cobblestones made me squirm with discomfort.

“I suppose you’re here to warn me that someone I love is about to die. You’re too late. I’ve already lost all the people I care about.” That wasn’t strictly true, but it was close enough to the truth for me to hope the lie wouldn’t matter.

“Everyone has something to lose,” she insisted, reaching out to pet the shuck’s head as the dog padded up to her and sat silently down on its haunches at her side. “Even someone as lonely as you.”

I sighed, sitting back in my chair. “Fine. Give me your warning so I can get on with my day.”

Her smile was terrifying, her teeth sharp and white behind pale lips. “Death is a transition, the end of one sort of existence and the beginning of another. Your steps are overshadowed by death, but I’m not here to give you warnings you’ll refuse to heed. I am simply curious. So few recognize us anymore.”

“My father studied people like you,” I said, keeping my explanation brief. 

“He taught you how to recognize us?”

I shook my head. “He wasn’t the one who taught me.”

Tilting her head as if listening to something I couldn’t hear, she closed her eyes. “The one who taught you… He’s running out of time.”

A chill washed over me from head to toe and suddenly I wished the sun was shining. “I thought you weren’t here to give me warnings.”

Giving me another horrifying grin, she cackled through another sob. “I can’t help what I am.”

“I don’t care what happens to him,” I said, and this time even I could tell that my lie was obvious.

The sympathy was obvious in her expression as she replied, “You will cry when he dies.”

And that was enough for me. Tucking payment with an undeserved tip beneath the saucer, I stood up and shrugged my backpack over a shoulder. “Next time, ask if someone wants a prophecy before sharing.”

“That’s not how it works!”

Ignoring her protest, I turned my back on her and her predictions and lost myself in the crowd, trying to go back to pretending that I didn’t care.