Chapter 12 #2
“I don’t know. I’ve only felt him in the house, but he’s pretty much left me alone, I think because of Sybil. She’s protecting me, too.”
“Unless you decide to confront him.”
He gave me a sidelong glance. “Yeah. Unless I confront him.”
“Are those the only spirits in the house?”
He nodded again. “As far as I can tell. Unless there are others who keep hidden because they’re afraid of…whatever that is.”
I thought for a moment. “But that could be good news, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, since you don’t sense Jessica, Lynda, or Mark, they’re possibly still alive, right?”
“Possibly. Or not. Not everyone who dies comes back. Haven’t yet figured out why, but that’s my understanding.”
“There’s only one way to find out for sure.”
He gave me another sidelong glance. “Yeah. I was thinking the same thing. I just don’t know if I’m ready for that.”
“Problems don’t go away just because you ignore them, you know.”
Beau barked out a laugh and edged out of the driveway onto Broadway. “Right. Coming from the poster child of avoiding unpleasant things…Otherwise, we would be talking about Cooper and why you haven’t yet asked him about the angry woman I saw hovering around him.”
“It’s because I haven’t had a chance because he’s been so busy traveling, and then last night…”
“Exactly,” Beau said with infuriating calm. “Because if you really wanted to hear the answer, you’d find a way to ask.”
I started to tell him he was wrong, then stopped, knowing I’d lost the argument before it had even started.
We drove in silence until we’d reached a parking garage in the Quarter, not far from the Past Is Never Past, then walked the short distance to the cathedral and Jackson Square.
Despite it being November, the temperature hovered in the mid-sixties, and the blue sky and bright sun promised a beautiful fall day.
Vendors had set up shop around the iron fence surrounding General Jackson on his horse, and a few of them had customers getting their silhouettes sketched or having their tarot cards read.
It seemed every season in New Orleans was tourist season.
I turned to Beau to ask him about his suggestion that we have coffee and beignets before we met with Madame Zoe, but I stopped midsentence as I followed his gaze to where the fortune teller sat in front of the iron fence.
She was perched behind a round table covered with a black satin tablecloth sparkling with scattered glitter that made it mimic the night sky.
Two empty chairs sat waiting on the side of the table opposite her.
The crystal ball I remembered from my visit with Sarah and Jolene sat in the middle of the table, a shape or movement causing ripples inside the clear glass before vanishing so quickly that I thought I had imagined it.
“That’s Madame Zoe…” I began.
“I know.” He took a step forward, then stopped to look at me. “You coming?”
I nodded, and because it seemed like the right thing to do, I slid my hand into his. He reached into his jeans pocket with his other hand and withdrew a small gold object. When we stood next to the table, he dropped it onto its surface. “I think this is yours?”
She looked up and smiled, showing white, even teeth, not a single one gold or missing.
I wasn’t sure if street performers had benefits, but Madame Zoe definitely visited a dentist on a regular basis.
Or maybe I was just projecting my own stereotypes.
Or, as Jolene might tell me, I was overthinking so that I could distract myself from facing something unpleasant.
The woman grasped the earring with fingers that had long, manicured nails painted a dark purple. Without expressing surprise at its sudden appearance, she said, “It is. Thank you.” Indicating the two chairs opposite her, she said, “Please sit.”
While we made ourselves comfortable on the too-small wooden folding chairs, Madame Zoe lifted her headscarf and reattached the earring. She shook her head, displaying the matching pair on her ears.
Her dark eyes studied me. “Adele said it would take longer for you to convince Beau to come.”
Beau leaned forward. “You’ve spoken to my mother?”
Their gazes locked. “Yes. The same way she speaks to you. Except you don’t listen.”
His knee bounced against the table, making it shake. It was a nervous habit I’d come to recognize. I placed my hand on his knee, and he stopped. “What did she tell you?” he asked, his tone defiant.
Madame Zoe sat back in her chair, her earrings reflecting the sun. “The same thing she would tell you if you would stop being so stubborn and listen.”
His leg tensed as if he were preparing to stand, so I squeezed, eliciting a scowl in my direction, but he remained seated.
“And what would that be?” I asked, because Beau remained silent.
Madame Zoe focused her unsettling gaze on me, making me want to bolt. But I remained seated, rooted by the warmth of Beau’s leg beneath my hand. “I need you each to place a palm on the crystal ball, and don’t move it. The small fingers on your hands should touch.”
“Do we really—” Beau began, but I cut him off with another sharp squeeze of his leg, this time using what little fingernails I had to get his attention.
I did as the fortune teller asked, and after a pointed look at Beau, he did the same, but with a heavy sigh. I stretched my pinkie close to his, and after a brief hesitation Beau touched mine with his.
Ignoring Beau, Madame Zoe placed both her hands on top of the ball and closed her eyes.
She took two deep breaths, then opened her eyes again and stared into the crystal ball.
Odd streaks like contrails began to form inside it.
Or like apparitions flitting past a doorway.
“She talks about a girl named Emmaline. She wants Beau and Emmaline together, because Emmaline makes Beau stronger in all ways that matter—and not just his ability to see that which others cannot.” Madame Zoe frowned.
“But Beau is afraid to be stronger. He’s afraid that he won’t be able to control his gift if it becomes bigger than he is. ”
I pulled my hand from Beau’s knee and placed it in my lap.
“Are you sure she didn’t say ‘Samantha,’ or ‘Sam’?
” I wanted to ignore Madame Zoe’s theatrics and dismiss her lucky guess as thorough research.
With the increase of my presence on social media, due to the success of Jolene’s YouTube channel, anyone with access to a computer could find out that Emmaline was my given name.
“It’s just that those who’ve been able to…
speak with Adele say she is hard to understand. Like she’s speaking through water.”
Black streaks swirled inside the ball, like droplets of ink added to water. As I watched, the stain spread, obscuring the inside of the glass and turning it opaque.
“How well did you know my parents?” Beau asked, a slight belligerence to his tone. I didn’t fault him for it. He’d gone through so much since his parents’ disappearance. It was almost absurd that he might finally find them through a fortune teller named Madame Zoe in Jackson Square.
“Your mother was a regular. She only brought your father once, and he was as skeptical as you are. He didn’t return.
Your mother came to me often before the storm.
And then once afterward, for help finding her little girl.
” Her face wrinkled in concentration. “Sunshine, I think. The little girl’s name was something like Sunshine. ”
“Sunny,” Beau said, his tone dismissive. “A lot of good that did.”
“I can only tell you what I see. As I explained to your mother, how you choose to interpret that information and what you do with it is completely up to you.” She tapped her long fingernails against the globe.
“Adele didn’t come to me after that. Not alive, anyway.
” Her face softened as she lifted her eyes from the ball and looked at Beau.
“I’m telling you things that you already know. Things you know in your heart.”
“Things I know in my heart,” Beau repeated, his mouth turned down as if he’d just eaten something rotten. “Even though—”
“Even though others tell you differently. Some people will think they are being truthful because they cannot face the truth. And others…” She stopped and frowned at the ball, which now resembled my little brother’s Magic 8 Ball, its obsidian surface missing only the small window and the triangle-faceted die with raised white lettering spelling out rote, noncommittal responses.
“Reply hazy. Try again,” Beau said, quoting one of the twenty responses available from the iconic toy. Despite his flippancy, he didn’t remove his hand from the crystal ball.
“And others because they don’t want to face the truth,” Madame Zoe continued, as if she hadn’t been interrupted.
“The truth?” Beau said. “I’ve accepted that my mother is dead. If you can tell me where her remains are, so my family can lay her to rest, then this visit won’t be a total waste. Or tell me where my father is. Because I’d like to stop this hocus-pocus right now and get on with it.”
“It doesn’t work that way. Spirit only shows me a part of the message.
The rest is up to you. Buddy is alive. But you already know that.
He’s just…” She squinted at the globe, as if trying to discern a picture in the churning blackness inside.
Madame Zoe shook her head. “He’s lost. He…
” She peered into the crystal. “You need to find him. There are those who mean him harm if you do not.”
“Right. Did you get that from the Magic Eight Ball? You had a fifty-fifty chance of guessing about my dad. Now tell me something that you couldn’t easily guess or find out, and then maybe I’ll listen to what else you have to say.” Beau tensed, preparing to pull away from the table.
Her gaze turned to me. “Your sister. I saw her before. She has a strong gift, yes?”
I nodded, not surprised that she would remember Sarah from when we visited Jackson Square the previous month.