by AnonYMous
Strange. She tucked her palms into her armpits to prevent more collateral damage, then focused on the cashier. Scan faster. You can do it. She couldn’t be late again. She’d done the figures last night, and she was drowning in debt. Defaulting on debt, to be precise—$49,085, compounding every second, all of it from her undergrad and master’s. She’d been admitted to the PhD program at Stanford, but she couldn’t enroll until she got back into good financial standing. She had to make next month’s payment.
She could not get fired.
More people were staring now. She could feel their eyes on her. Maybe it was her sweat rings. Kate could feel dampness suffusing her cheap cotton peasant blouse. What the hell was wrong with the weather? Nobody in Berkeley even owned an air conditioner; it wasn’t supposed to be this hot.
The line moved a step, and her eyes fell on the free weekly sitting above the candy rack.
Horror broke over her. It washed like ice down the backs of her knees. With a shaking hand, she reached out and snatched up the newspaper. PSYCHICS ‘R’ US, blared the headline—right beneath the glamour shot Luna had taken of her nine weeks ago, when she’d started working at Crystal Visions.
Revealing the future and divining the past for fifty bucks a pop, the subtitle read. A voyage among the supernaturally sensitive.
“Yeah, that’s what I was talking about,” the man behind her said. “Come on, that’s got to be you!”
Could she deny it? In the photo, she was wearing a beaded headdress, rhinestones glued along her eyebrows, and Cleopatra eyeliner. Also, a mysterious smile and fake tattoos of the sun and moon on her cheeks. In a serious Photoshop Fail, her curly brown hair had been lightened to auburn, and her hazel eyes looked neon green.
Nevertheless, it was unmistakably her.
“No,” she said, and stuck the newspaper back into the rack. “Not me.”
He looked skeptical.
“My twin sister. She’s a total freak.” She hefted her shopping basket. “See these Cheetos? She thinks they’re tools of the devil. I hide them in her tofu for fun.”
“Really?” He blinked. “That’s . . . interesting.”
“Even more interesting are the human sacrifices.”
“No, but seriously. Is she talented? Does she really have the gift?”
He looked like a normal guy—sandy hair, pleasantly inoffensive face, polkadot tie. But if she had learned one thing from her long, torturous childhood, it was the ubiquity of freaks masquerading in business casual.
With a sigh, she said, “It’s all a load of crap. If you want to know where you’re headed, spend your money on a therapist.”
A minute later, when she slammed her items onto the belt, the cashier looked up. “Oh, honey, it’s you! You got any lottery numbers you want to recommend?”
The cashier in the next aisle snickered. Her microphone was on. The snicker reverberated over the loudspeaker, tinny, mocking.
Kate’s cashier took this as encouragement. “And while you’re at it, how about you tell me if my man is ever gonna propose?”
Kate slapped ten bucks on the belt, stuck the Cheetos in her purse, and shoved the Gatorade under her arm. “You’ll die alone,” she said. “Keep the change.”
*
North lifted the binoculars again. Human technologies did sometimes come in handy. At present, they gave him an excellent view of Harmony “Kate” Marsh: dark-haired, mid-twenties, and conspicuously human. Even from two blocks and six stories away, he could make out her foul temper. It lent her movements an aggressive edge. She stomped to her car, hauled open the door, and threw herself into the driver’s seat.
His childhood tutor had once told him that short-lived creatures were designed to feel with violent abandon. After all, they had so much less time for experience—and consequences. But the woman below, now launching her car into traffic with tire-squealing abandon, came from unusual stock. And North had learned not to underestimate the species, because on rare occasions, they did surprise him.
He handed the binoculars back to their owner. “You’re certain she’s talentless.”
“Oh, Gods, yes.” James laughed. “Her mother won’t shut up about it.”
It was not a laughing matter. By a fractional lift of his brow, North let his face express this opinion.
James sobered promptly. “Apologies, sir.”
A hot wind scoured over them, massaging James’s silk shirt, combing through the thick graying mane that he sported as a nod to his age. He looked, to his mundane clients, to be sixty-five or so. A fine age in the human world, generally the sweet spot for masculine authority. James enjoyed a sterling reputation as the region’s premier auctioneer; both the mundane and the Seeing looked on him with respect.
This week, however, his professional standing had taken a knock. North had given James the keys to his family home—a dilapidated house that had survived two earthquakes in the last century—for cataloging and disposal. But James had confused a Valuable for a mundane antique. In short, he had auctioned to the human world what should have been kept for the Seeing.
In the hands of most humans, the witching orb would have emulated a paperweight. But its buyer, Harmony Marsh’s mother, was no ordinary human. She had a small but ambitious talent. Judging by the weather in the five days since her purchase—a building heat spell, fierce sudden rains that triggered mudslides along the coast—she was experimenting with an object that disliked to be abused by amateurs.
North rather liked the coastline as it was. If Pangaea Marsh remained in possession of the orb, he wasn’t sure it would survive the month.
James had already tried to retrieve the orb. But Pangaea was refusing his calls. Like so many marginally talented mundanes, she mistrusted the Seeing world, expecting only their condescension and contempt. Meanwhile, Old Law prevented the Seeing from using physical force on the Fifth Tribe, mundane humanity. What North required was an intermediary whom Pangaea trusted.
“Well.” North rose, his knees faintly registering the hot bite of the tar roof on which he’d been kneeling. “The girl should serve.” She would introduce him to her mother, whom he would persuade to return the Valuable. Thus the matter would be settled.
James stood with a spryness that belied his apparent age. “Sir, if you do think the matter near to resolved . . . well, it would be my utmost pleasure and deepest relief to consider us Reconciled.”
A clumsy and overly bold statement. North hid his grimace. James spent a great deal of time among the mundanes. His civility had eroded. “Once I have the orb,” he said, “you may ask me that again. Until then—your mistake is Remembered.”
He felt James’s frustration like a thousand pinpricks as he turned away.
“Sir . . . I must warn you. The girl does not speak with her mother.”
“A point in common,” North said dryly. His family’s retreat from the mundane realm still grated. Since the beginning of time, his lineage had been committed to the caretaking of History, both of the Seeing world and the mundane. One did not abandon one’s duties when they grew onerous.
But his family had done so. He still could not believe it.
James cleared his throat. “What I mean is, she won’t assist you willingly.”
North glanced over his shoulder, amazed and mildly amused. “She has no talent, you say. So what problem could she possibly pose me?”
James shifted, his discomfort clear. “From what I hear, she is a very sullen young creature.”
“We should get along, then,” said North.
Chapter 2
That hadn’t been a nice thing to say to the clerk, Kate told herself as she pulled up near Crystal Visions a few minutes later. You’ll die alone. In fact, it had been downright mean.
Her therapist said she was depressed. Maybe he was right. But did it make her sick that she saw the world for what it was? Bleak, tedious, perpetually disappointing.
The cashier would die alone. In the end, everyone did. Especially women who’d b
een made into poster children for Freakdom.
She could not believe Luna had shared her photo with a local weekly. “Unbelievable,” she muttered. Even if she turned out to be the most talented doctoral student in history, how would she find a position afterward? Every Google search of her name would turn up that article now. What university wanted to hire an assistant professor-cum-psychic?
When her mother saw that article, she’d be over the moon with joy.
With a groan, Kate slumped forward, pressing her forehead into the steering wheel. The shriek of the horn went on and on, kind of like the nightmare she was living in.
Someone knocked at the window. She turned her head, not letting up on the horn. An old, toothless bum was standing by her car. He scowled at her.
“You thop that,” he said.
“Okay,” she said meekly, and sat up.
He shuffled back to his shopping cart. King of the road, she thought. Wild and free. His cart was missing a wheel.
The tears came out of nowhere. I used to be on my way somewhere good. Now I’m a two-bit charlatan who gets etiquette lessons from homeless guys.
She drew a breath. PMS. It must be. Her life wasn’t a total trainwreck. This thing with Luna was just a temporary gig. Stanford was holding a place for her. It was one of the best departments in the country, and the professors were excited about her proposed project, a neo-Foucaultian take on mental illness in neoliberal America. Her face was on a magazine—so what. She knew a professor who wrote romance novels on the side! There was no reason for this breakdown.
In the distance, the bells of the Camponile chimed the half-hour. She removed the keys from the ignition. Time to get to work. Such as it was.
*
The front door was locked, but once Kate stepped inside, it was clear that she’d just missed Luna. Sitar music played softly in the waiting room, which was the size of a shoebox—and about as claustrophobic, thanks to the old saris tacked up on the walls. Questions of cultural appropriation did not keep Luna up at night.
Kate pushed through the beaded curtain into the reading room. A note waited for her on the divining table, propped up against Luna’s favorite crystal ball.
I noticed yesterday that your reading for Maria seemed a little cold. Please review Chapter Eight before your six o’clock session. Blessed be! – L.
Kate started to trash it. Then, on second thought, she glanced at the window set into the back wall. It was painted black on this side, so customers couldn’t see through to the office. From the office, however, it offered a pretty clear view into the reading room. She wouldn’t put it past old Loony Tunes to hide out and watch whether Kate did as instructed.
With a muttered curse, Kate crossed to the bookshelf—covered by, what else, a sari—and pulled out the employee manual.
Chapter Eight: Empathy and a Willing Ear, or, Making Clients Comfortable.
Yeah, the chapter on body language. Funny how this problem kept following her. Last job she’d had, as a receptionist, the boss had told her that patients found her too brisk, not caring or giving enough. A few boyfriends had said the same, though usually what they meant was that she didn’t give enough head.
She made a show of staring at the page. Willing ears, she could manage. That was the main requirement of a psychic, or she’d never have made it through the first week. Most customers didn’t really pay to hear the future. They paid to talk about their fears, and to have their rent-a-mommy tell them it would all be fine.
If Kate were a better person, she would have told them the truth: things probably wouldn’t be fine. In reality, there were no miracles, no magic, no crystals you could wear to prevent the inevitable. Fairy tales were for kids, because only kids (the lucky kids: the ones whose parents bought them clothes for school, instead of taking them dumpster diving) got to duck the consequences of their actions.
Adults, on the other hand, had to deal with the fallout all on their own. If little Timmy fell sick with whooping cough right after Hubby gambled away the week’s wages, not even the prettiest deck of Tarot cards was going to help.
The doorbell chimed. She yanked her feet off the divining table, threw on her love-beads, and shoved the binder into the bookcase along with her bag. With one last tug on the musical skirt, she smiled and stepped through the curtain.
An Adonis was lounging on the couch.
“Hello,” he said, and rose to his feet.
You’ve got to be kidding me. Stunned, she looked up past a GQ jaw, a pair of coverboy lips, cheekbones of Himalayan precision, and two slightly tilted, sloe-dark eyes. His white-blond head nearly brushed the ceiling.
Well, hell. Maybe it was something about the way he held himself—or the exquisitely tailored, double-breasted, steel-gray suit. Either way, she wondered: had Luna pissed off the mob?
“Hi,” she said. “Can we do something for you?” She hoped that he noted her use of we. As in, she and her imaginary boyfriend Bruno, who was packing some serious heat in the back room.
“I hope so,” he said. “I’ve traveled quite a distance to see you.”
His voice was as amazing as his coloring. Rich, husky, slightly foreign—English or Irish, she couldn’t decide. Or was it Russian? “Not too far, I hope,” she said with alarm.
He gave an easy laugh, and like a rollercoaster, it took her stomach on a short, breathless dip. “Over from San Francisco. That’s far enough, in rush hour.”
“Right.” His smile reassured her. Crystal Visions didn’t normally pull in lookers; in fact, it didn’t traffic much in men, period. But an Italian suit did not a killer make. Her prejudices were showing. Blame it on The Sopranos, she thought, and drew back the curtain for him. “Come on in.”
He nodded and brushed by her, so close that she smelled his deodorant. Or aftershave, maybe. It was a little girly, like rain mixed with vanilla. A little delicious, in fact. Her stomach growled.
Blushing, she followed him inside. “Sorry about that. Haven’t had lunch yet.”
He gave her an odd look. With a start, she realized it was almost six o’clock. “Dinner,” she amended, and gestured for him to sit. As she followed suit, she pushed aside the crystal ball.
It jumped off its pedestal and started steamrolling for the edge of the table.
With a gasp, she lunged—missed—
He shot out a hand as it plummeted, then brought it up balanced on the tips of his fingers. “Nice globe,” he murmured, and rotated his wrist, examining it.
She’d never seen anyone move so fast. “Right.” She took it from him with two suddenly sweaty palms. “Let me just . . . tuck it away.”
She sensed his eyes on her as she reunited ball with pedestal and set both down on the floor. Turning back, she shot him a nervous smile. If this guy wasn’t an actor, he was wasting his talent; he had a presence that could fill the Cow Palace. And that face . . . the room was dark by design, but his hair and skin seemed to glow like he was sitting in a spotlight.
“You don’t use a scrying glass?” he asked.
Scrying glass? Kate felt her nerves abruptly subside. He was for real, then—a bona fide New Ager. With a sigh that sounded a little too disappointed to be polite, she retook her seat. “I’m the old-fashioned sort. No bells, no whistles; just a straight-up reading.” The only time she’d tried to use the crystal ball, she’d gotten distracted poking at a zit she’d seen in her reflection.
She took a moment to regain her composure by smoothing out the velvet tablecloth. When she looked up, he was still staring. It was pretty normal to get awed looks from believers, but his regard held a measuring quality that made her want to consult the mirror for mascara smudges. Maybe he disapproved of her MO. “I do like to look at the client’s palm,” she offered. “I find that touch aids the connection.”
He smiled like she’d said something dirty. “Indeed it does.”
Her face warmed. Maybe he was one of those jerkwads who thought hippies were easy lays. She briefly considered her mother—current
ly on husband number six—and decided he might be right.
“So.” She laced her fingers together to keep from chewing on them. “Your name is . . .?”
“North. And yours?”
Clearly he wasn’t in too deep yet, or he’d be going by Panther. Or Hawk. Hawk was a big favorite in her mother’s circle. Kate had also met a guy named River’s Edge once, but in general the waterways went to women, while the men stuck to carnivores. Her latest stepfather, for instance, was named Eagle-wing Johnson. “They call me Harmony,” she said, per Luna’s stilted script. “May I ask why you’ve been drawn here today? Is there some specific knowledge you seek from the spirits?”
He nodded. “I need your help in recovering something.”
She smiled encouragement. Keys, wedding rings, wills—she’d already heard them all. The trick was to coax him into revealing the item before she started the reading; otherwise, some jokers actually wanted her to guess what they were looking for. “Is it of personal significance, or does it belong to someone else?”
“Both,” he said.
She waited, but he didn’t go on. God, she hated this part. Once they started talking, they usually couldn’t stop, which was great for the fake psychic in search of information to sell back to the client. But until then, she was operating blind.
She cleared her throat. “Is there a timeframe or deadline involved here?” Last week, she’d gotten a pregnant woman searching for her ex-boyfriend. “Some people—” She jumped as she spied something moving at the periphery of her vision. That damned crystal ball was rolling toward the table! “Hold on a sec,” she said, and got up to catch it.
She studied the base of the pedestal, frowning. How had the ball fallen off? And when? She hadn’t heard a thing.
“They’re supposed to be covered, no?”
She slid him a sour glance. Obviously what she had here was a true expert on the proper care of psychic paraphernalia. “You’re right,” she said, and covered the globe with a black velvet cloth. “There we go.” She returned to her seat. “Sorry. You were saying . . .?”