Sylvie
I’m pretty sure this psychic hates me. And that this psychic, who hates me, is about to tell Knox all kinds of things I need him not to know.
“Me?” I ask, stalling for time. “But I’m sure there’s lots more to say about Knox—”
“Nope.” He leans back in his chair, crosses his arms.
“—we still haven’t gotten to his trauma. About the plane crash.”
Miss Tara’s eyes flick to him and back to me.
“And how”—I’m warming up to this now—“it stranded him and the other members of his high school choir in the Adirondacks for six weeks with no food other than what they could catch with their hands.”
Miss Tara’s left eye is blinking rapidly. Is she going to take the bait and leave me alone?
“But,” I say. “I’m sure everyone heard all about that on the news, right? So it’s not like you’ll have any new secrets to tell.”
With difficulty, Miss Tara says, “We will return to this subject later.”
“The post-crash cannibalism?” I ask sweetly. I am going to get out of this alive.
“You,” she says, and now she’s not screwing around, she’s looking me dead in the eyes.
“Me?”
“You wish for things and they come true.”
Easy to deflect. “I mean, really? Like, I don’t have my apartment in Paris just yet—”
“You wish for death and death comes,” she says.
“Slowly, but it comes. It’s visited you once, and recently.
Still it clings to your hair, your skin.
You wished for it. You wished for an end.
A blank page, a book shut. But you wished too for a companion and now he’s arrived, here to bear the burden. ”
“Oh?” I say, because she seems to expect an answer. My voice sounds like a glass breaking.
“His name,” she says, “escapes me.” Her gaze drifts up to the ceiling.
“He will be the making of you. He will bring you every good thing. Away from the mess of death, he will take you out into the wild together. He will teach you joy. And how handsome he is! A fair man. Fair of hair, fair of spirit. And you love him, even if you feel that you cannot express it.”
It is impossible not to look at Knox but I stare straight ahead. He straightens his shoulders. I straighten mine. Don’t look, I tell myself, my heart racing, don’t look, don’t look—
“How romantic,” she says, and she’s watching us again. “His name. I can hear the spirits whispering it. A soft sound, like a willow. Willow. Is your name Willow?”
“Willow?” Knox says. “No.”
Hearing him, the penny drops. Willow, so much like— “Winslow?” I ask incredulously.
“Yes,” she says, snapping a finger. “Your soulmate.”
I am dizzy with the beautiful stupidity of it all. “Wow. Thank you,” I tell her. “Seriously.” When I stand up, I look sideways at Knox. “You ready? Maybe we can go get you a treat.”
Knox is caught between glowering at me and trying not to howl. Miss Tara sweeps by us, little bells tinkling from somewhere on her getup, and when I step out of her way I collide with Knox’s chest.
“Or we could go for a walk,” I say. “A long one. Tire you out.”
“Sylvie,” he grumbles.
“Are you a good boy? Do you listen?” The collar of his shirt is all mussed up. I reach to straighten it, like it’s all part of the joke—collar? collar!—and his hands come up fast and cover mine. His brows are two fair lines on his face, his eyes deliberating.
“Most of the time,” he says, too quiet.
Maybe the fortune teller dragged some secrets out of me after all.
I’m dizzy again. I’m a traitor. Pull away from him, push through the curtain.
“That’s sixty even,” Miss Tara calls, “including tax, and the extra three minutes you just tacked on flirting over there.”
Knox is right behind me, but I can’t look at him at all. “Do you take credit?”
“Of course. I take Square.” She pulls on her dragon vape and exhales an atomic cloud.
“Thanks,” I tell her. “It’s been . . . weird.”
She nods. She too finds this a fair assessment.
Knox is holding the heavy door open for me with his good shoulder, looking down, vibrating with some energy that Miss Tara could probably identify but that I can’t.
Behind us, she says, “I offer a caution: if you should see another billboard for another seer such as myself, continue driving. Do not be waylaid or deceived by those advertising false gifts.” Then she looses her parting shot.
“By the way, Winslow?” she says to Knox.
“Your broken arm? That’s payback. And you know exactly what for. ”