“I’ll keep that in mind,” she says softly. I can tell she doesn’t believe me, but hopefully, she will over time.
I put my fern down on the sidewalk then, needing a minute and taking a deep breath. It’s so hot out that the air seems to get caught in my throat. Standing still is hardly a reprieve. Holly takes a rest as well, glancing around until her eyes lock on something over my shoulder. “Hey, look,” she says. I turn around to see what caught her attention but only find a row of storefronts.
“What am I looking at?” I ask.
“There. There’s a fortune teller.”
My eyes focus on the smallest and least conspicuous of all the stores. It seems more residential than commercial, minus the tarot cards and other mystical insignia hanging in the windows. The images send a nervous chill shooting down my spine. When I went to a sleepover at Angela Murkowski’s house when I was twelve, her dad cut the power while we played with a Ouija board, and I’ve honestly never been the same. To this day I’m convinced a homicidal spirit is chasing me through the apartment when I switch the lights off every night, and I’d rather die than let my feet dangle off the mattress while I sleep.
If I wanted the bloodthirsty monster living under my bed to bite my toes off, I’d straight up ask him.
I think about explaining all this to Holly, but her visible excitement stops me.
“Would you want to go in?” she asks.
My palms start to sweat, prompting me to wipe them on my shorts. “Are you sure? We don’t want to be late.”
“It’ll be fun,” she says, scooping up her fern. “And it’ll be so quick, I promise.”
She starts crossing the street and I pick up my fern with far less vigor as I follow suit, telling myself that my fear isn’t rational and at least we’ll get out of the sun.
“I can never resist a psychic,” she says as she pulls the door open.
A series of wind chimes twinkles and clangs as we step inside, and a wave of stagnant heat passes over us. It’s sweltering-attic hot. So much for my naive hope of cooling down.
“Hello?” Holly calls, peering around the dimly lit space and then shifting toward me. “Okay, so now that we’re in here, I may regret my decision. If someone leaps out of the shadows and bludgeons us to death with a handful of sage, I apologize in advance.”
“We can go,” I whisper in response. “We can totally go right now.” I’m two steps ahead of her and am already in the process of turning to leave when a woman bursts through a wall of beads hanging from an unseen hallway beside us. Holly and I scream and all but leap into each other’s arms as the woman screams in response toourscreams.
“Perche mi stai strillando?”she asks, clutching her chest.“Mi farai venire l’infarto.”
“I’m sorry, we don’t speak Italian,” I stammer. “We’re American.”
“Americane,”she repeats, rolling her eyes.
Holly and I look at each other. We have no idea what the woman said, but we can tell it wasn’t a compliment.
“We were hoping to get a reading,” I tell the woman. “If you’re free, that is. If you’re not, that’s more than fine. We can go.”
“You have cash?” the woman asks, now in perfect English.
“We have cash,” Holly assures her.
“Then sit down. I am Madame Mathilde.” The woman goes to the window and pins one of the heavy curtains to the side, allowing us a better look at the room. The space itself is small but seems even smaller due to a bloodred rug that covers the floor and the dark upholstered walls. There’s a standing fan in the corner that’s running on low, but all it’s really doing is pushing around the musty air. It smells like powder and flowers—eerily similar to a funeral parlor and I want out ASAP.
In the center of the room there’s a round wooden table with four chairs surrounding it. Holly and I sit next to each other, and Madame Mathilde takes a chair across from us. “It’s twenty euros for a group reading or fifteen euros each for an individual.”
“The group reading is fine,” Holly answers, reaching into her bag. I dig into mine at lightning speed and beat her to the punch.
“My treat,” I tell her, placing the money onto the table. “You can get the next one.”
“You see another tarot reading in our future?” she asks.
“Don’t ask me, ask the cards.” Holly shakes her head with a grin and puts her wallet away. As far as I’m concerned, Holly will never spend a penny on me. I don’t want there to ever be an ounce of doubt in her mind regarding our friendship.
“Before we begin,” Madame Mathilde says, “you both must clear your minds. Relax and stay open. We must act as vessels to the energy around us.”
Holly nods and I gulp. I don’tphysicallyfeel Lucifer slow-breathing down the side of my neck, but I don’t not feel him, either.
