Odd Thomas: You Are Destined to Be Together Forever Read Online Free PDF Page B

warnings they had received were THE FOOL LEAPS FROM THE CLIFF, BUT THE WINTER LAKE BELOW IS FROZEN ; and more ominous still, THE ORCHARD OF BLIGHTED TREES PRODUCES POISONOUS FRUIT ; and not least troubling of all, A STONE CAN PROVIDE NO NOURISHMENT, NOR WILL SAND SLAKE YOUR THIRST .
    “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” Stormy suggested when we were alone before the centuries-old corpse, which was more likely to have been a figure constructed of plaster and wire and latex.
    Nevertheless, I gave Gypsy Mummy a quarter, and she presented to us the message that Johnny and his fiancée had hoped to receive: YOU ARE DESTINED TO BE TOGETHER FOREVER .
    “She just winked at me,” Stormy said.
    “Who did?”
    “Gypsy Mummy.”
    “How could a sewn-shut eye wink?”
    “I don’t know, Oddie. But she did, she winked.”
    I am superstitious, for good reason. But you don’t have to be superstitious to think that it’s a bad idea to doubt the reliability of a fortune-teller’s prediction when it is word for word the very assurance that you desperately wanted to hear. We had no doubts as, there in the arcade called ALL THINGS FORETOLD , we kissed each other to seal the promise.
    I have written this brief memoir not merely at the encouragement of my friend and mentor, Ozzie Boone, but at his
insistence.
Because my paranormal talent must remain my secret, nothing that I write can be published in my lifetime. In fact, I doubt that I will ever write another piece like this, for my life with Stormy Llewellyn will be too full to allow time for memoirs. I will have my work as a short-order cook, the griddle and the deep fryer, and she will have her ice-cream career, and we will both have the needy spirits of the lingering dead to deal with in the years ahead. I believe there will be children, too, each of them as beautiful as she is, perhaps one or two as strange as their father. She and I will grow old together in Pico Mundo, too busy for the wider world beyond, grow old here with our many friends, in the warmth of family that she hardly knew before being orphaned, that I never knew with my troubled parents. We will grow old together, for so it is promised by Gypsy Mummy, and if God is good—which He is—I will be with Stormy on the distant day, decades hence, when she leaves this world. I will hold her hand at the end, and I will pass soon after, for we are one heart, and neither of us would be of use without the other.

    You’ve witnessed the beginning. Join us for the end.
    Don’t miss
Saint Odd
, Dean Koontz’s stunning conclusion to the Odd Thomas series.
    Coming in hardcover and eBook on January 13, 2015.

BYDEANKOONTZ
    The City • Innocence • 77 Shadow Street • What the Night Knows • Breathless
    Relentless • Your Heart Belongs to Me • The Darkest Evening of the Year
    The Good Guy • The Husband • Velocity • Life Expectancy • The Taking
    The Face • By the Light of the Moon • One Door Away From Heaven
    From the Corner of His Eye • False Memory • Seize the Night • Fear Nothing
    Mr. Murder • Dragon Tears • Hideaway • Cold Fire • The Bad Place
    Midnight • Lightning • Watchers • Strangers • Twilight Eyes • Darkfall
    Phantoms • Whispers • The Mask • The Vision • The Face of Fear • Night Chills
    Shattered • The Voice of the Night • The Servants of Twilight • The House of Thunder
    The Key to Midnight • The Eyes of Darkness • Shadowfires • Winter Moon
    The Door to December • Dark Rivers of the Heart • Icebound • Strange Highways • Intensity • Sole Survivor • Ticktock • The Funhouse • Demon Seed
    ODD THOMAS
    Odd Thomas • Forever Odd • Brother Odd • Odd Hours
    Odd Interlude • Odd Apocalypse • Deeply Odd
    FRANKENSTEIN
    Prodigal Son • City of Night • Dead and Alive • Lost Souls • The Dead Town
    A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog Named Trixie

PHOTO: © THOMAS ENGSTROM
    D EAN K OONTZ , the author of many #1
New York