Rushing to catch the train, I dropped my phone at the station. An old gypsy woman pressed it into my hand and whispered, “Don’t board the train.-hongtran

“You heard me, girl.” The corner of her mouth twitched—not a smile, exactly, but something softer than the chill in her fingers. “If you want to stay alive and whole, you go home. Now. You hide. Closet. You do not ask why.”
“I…” I forced a laugh that sounded thin even to my own ears. “Is this some kind of—”
“Later,” she cut in. “You will remember I told you. That’s enough.”
A train announcement crackled overhead. 6:40 service arriving in three minutes. Commuters shifted, stepping closer to the edge of the platform. The smell of cold metal and old dust rose as a draft swept through the station.
“I need to catch this train,” I said automatically, almost apologetically, as though I were telling her I couldn’t make coffee plans.
She shook her head slowly, firmly. “You don’t.”
“Look,” I said, adjusting my bag strap, slipping into logic like armor, “I really appreciate you picking up my phone. But I don’t believe in—”
“I didn’t ask if you believe.” Her eyes sharpened. “I’m not a church. I am telling you what is waiting on that line tonight. You can walk toward it or you can walk away. That’s all.”
I was late. Daniel hated late. He was the kind of person who checked his watch when people told stories, who timed Uber rides in his head.
We were supposed to finalize wedding details that night: seating charts, menu options, confirming the ridiculously expensive flowers his mother adored. He had texted me three times that afternoon.
Don’t be late.
Remember the 6:40.
Traffic’s crazy, babe. Be smart. Take the train.
The old woman watched me think. For a second, I felt as if she could see my inbox, my calendar, the color-coded stress of my life.
“Go home,” she repeated more gently. “Hide in the closet.”
She turned away without waiting for a reply, slipping through the crowd like smoke. Within a few steps, she vanished behind a wall of people lining up along the platform edge.
I stood there, phone clutched in my hand, my pulse loud in my ears.
This is ridiculous, I told myself. Trains do not explode because an old woman says so. Closets are for coats, not for hiding from nothing. I was tired. That was all. I’d been working long hours, juggling client reports and wedding appointments and a constant droning sense that if I relaxed, even for a second, everything would fall apart.
Still, my feet didn’t move toward the tracks.
Instead, I found myself backing away.
One step. Two.
A man bumped my shoulder and muttered an apology. A teenage girl laughed at something on her screen. The world kept turning, uninterested in my sudden paralysis.
You’re rational, I reminded myself. Logical. You manage risk for a living. What’s the actual risk here?
Train accidents happened. Not often, but they did. I’d seen headlines about this line recently—delayed maintenance, signaling issues near the bridge. I’d shaken my head and scrolled past. It was like reading about plane crashes while waiting at your gate: statistically unlikely, but still enough to make your stomach flip.
And yet, if she hadn’t said anything, I would’ve boarded without a second thought.
That realization lodged in my throat.
The 6:40 announcement repeated. People began filing into position.
I should board. I should roll my eyes at myself, at her, at all of it, and step onto the train and arrive at Daniel’s apartment and drink a glass of wine and argue about table linens.
But the thought of opening my apartment door later that night having ignored her warning left a sour taste in my mouth I couldn’t shake.