Knox
Miss Mara stares down Sylvie through her huge purple-framed glasses, cards arrayed before her, curls of Dragon’s Blood incense smoke framing her face.
“You must claim yourself. You fear aloneness.” She says it as though it pains her to be burdened with such insight; such ability to peer into someone’s soul.
Sylvie nods noncommittally and murmurs, “I mean, everyone kinda does.” She doesn’t sound convinced by herself.
And Miss Mara is not. “You especially. You cannot fear walking your own path. Even if you entered into this world having shared a womb with someone, you must have the courage to forge your own way. Even if it means buying them out of their partnership share for way more than they ever put into it in terms of sweat equity. We’re talking about twenty percent.
” Her voice transforms from moony mystic to business mystic in the space of seconds.
“That is . . . very specific,” I say.
Miss Mara glares at me. “I speak as I am moved to speak.”
I raise my hands in surrender. “Sure, sure, go ahead. Sorry.”
She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes.
“A great celestial event is coming. An . . . eclipse. There is power in such conjunctions of heavenly bodies. You should find a way to witness it in its totality so that it may serve as a portal for the universe to reach out its hand of wisdom to you. A strange prophet may sweep into your life that night, a vanguard of the eclipse.”
“A strange prophet? Like, another psychic?” Sylvie asks, curious.
Miss Mara’s lips are thin. “I take issue with the word ‘strange.’”
“I’m just repeating what you said.”
“Yes, but there was judgment in your tone.”
Sylvie shrinks. “Sorry. Okay. I’ll watch the eclipse.”
“Where it will appear in its totality. You cannot do this halfway as though you are some lazy partner in a business enterprise with the universe where you let the universe do all the work and outlay all of the capital and put its credit rating on the line and take out a second mortgage all while criticizing the universe’s judgment at every turn. ”
“No,” Sylvie says. “I sure won’t do . . . any of that.”
Miss Mara closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and turns her focus on me. “There is someone special at the end of your current journey. Someone who you need.”
“How is she doing?”
“Did I say it was a she?”
“No.”
“It’s a she.”
“Okay. How is she doing?”
Miss Mara draws a long inhale through her nose. “She needs you as much as you need her.”
“Like healthwise though. How is she?” I try to sound casual, but the question is inherently uncasual.
Miss Mara pauses for several moments before offering maybe the most unnerving thing a fortune teller can say. “I don’t know.”
“Oh.”
“She owes a debt, and someone is coming to collect.”
My mind immediately goes to the Grim Reaper. “What kind of debt?”
“I don’t know,” she says again.
“That’s not really helpful,” I tell her, more rudely than I mean to.
“I’m not going to lie to you and tell you something I can’t see clearly. Some fortune tellers will do that, you know. Less scrupulous ones. They might even resemble me superficially in many ways, but not in my integrity.”
“I guess you can’t believe anything a fortune teller like that would say.”
“Oh, don’t be so sure,” Miss Mara says quickly. “That fortune teller might be very gifted and have true visions most of the time. And if she’s a skilled enough liar—and she is—you’ll never know the difference. Until, of course, it’s too late.”
“Too late,” I repeat quietly, to myself.
“And you catch her sleeping with your husband,” Miss Mara says so quickly I almost think I imagined it. “She is quite beautiful, after all.” She glances at the clock. “Anyway, that’s our time. I can offer you ten percent off another half hour if you wish.”
“Oh that’s okay,” Sylvie says quickly. “We really gotta hit the road.”
We stand and Miss Mara walks us to the front door across the sea of mismatched and threadbare oriental rugs covering creaking floorboards. “Before you continue on your journey, I leave you with a caution—”
“If we see another billboard for a fortune teller, we should not be waylaid or deceived but we should continue driving?” I say.
Miss Mara stares at me, agog. “Um . . . yes. I wasn’t going to use those exact words, but . . . yes. How did you know?”
“Little voice told me.”
“Are you possessed of the gift of sight?”
“Something like that.”