Marina set the box of food on the floor beside her chair. “I didn’t realize the room would be so quiet and my food would be so loud. Please go on,” she said, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin.
“I should have warned you to bring soft food.” River winked and then pulled another card. “Page of Swords.” She looked around the group. “Someone having some issues with communication? Maybe with a good friend?”
Zac raised her hand a little. “That’s me.” She looked around. “Unless it’s someone else?” A couple people shook their heads, and everyone remained quiet. “Just me then.” She sighed and stared at her balled-up fists in her lap.
“Hey now.” River tapped Zac’s foot with her own. “Unclench and talk to us.”
Zac proceeded to explain the fight she’d had with her best friend, who wanted her to go on a double date with boys from their class. “I’ve told her I’m gay. But it’s like she goes deaf every time I say it.”
“I hate that.” Keith, a young transguy frowned. “Like, they don’t know how to handle it, so they just pretend you haven’t said anything. They just…ignore you.”
River pulled another card. “Five of Pentacles. You’re feeling left out, ignored?”
He nodded and looked at Zac. “I get it.”
She glanced at him and gave a small, sad smile. “I know.”
There was an energy shift, and River looked up from the deck. Marina wiped at her eyes. Her energy had gone from angry rubble to sad quicksand, like she was being pulled under by the weight of the kids’ emotions.Good. She needs to remember how to feel.
The rest of the hour went on that way. The kids talked a little, and River used the cards to keep them going. At the end, she put the deck in the middle of the floor, between the candles, and thekids all picked one. They’d focus on whatever that card had to teach them until the next time they got together.
“Okay, guys. Don’t forget to grab a baggie and share out the rest of the cookies to take with?—”
There was a shriek, and then a crack, and then a thud.
Marina’s chair had given way, one of the legs snapping in half, and it had flipped her backward and sideways, dumping her in a heap.
River swallowed her laugh as the kids jumped up to help. She caught a glimpse of thigh, thanks to Marina’s skirt riding up, before the kids were there haphazardly trying to help her to her feet. Guess the chair wasn’t okay after all.
Marina stood, and the kids moved away. Only then did River notice the thick cheese acting like glue as it stuck uneaten nachos, complete with black olives, to Marina’s hip.
“Justice,” Leo fake-whispered to River as they walked by, tray of dirty mugs in hand.
River couldn’t help but agree. She grabbed a roll of paper towels and handed them to Marina. “I need to get the kids set to head home, and then I’ll come down and help you clean up…” She grinned and raised her eyebrows, then backed out of the room as Marina glared at her. But there was a twitch to her lips that suggested she just might smile once River left the room.
She took the stairs two at a time and stood on the sidewalk, watching carefully as one group of kids walked off, heading toward the L train station, and another group piled into Leo’s car. They’d all check in using the WhatsApp message board set up specifically for them to say they were home safe.
She breathed in the chill in the night air, nodded toward a ghostly woman drifting down the street, her hands held up in a pleading gesture. River watched her disappear into the night and then turned back to go into the shop.
“Turnips and cheese!” she yelled as she nearly crashed into Marina, who was standing silently behind her. She put her hand over her chest. “You’re as silent as the dead.”
Marina winced and stepped back. “Creepy comparison.” She followed River back into the shop, and then, once River had locked the door, back down to the basement. She was still limping slightly, but River made sure not to offer assistance.
As River started stacking chairs, Marina began gathering plates. “So, can I ask you something personal?”
River shrugged. “Why not? You’ll probably find out most everything about me when you try to pull this place from under me.” She blanched a little at the touch of vitriol in her tone, but she didn’t apologize.
Marina was silent for a moment. “Tell me about your…powers. Or whatever it is. What do you do?”
River glanced up, unsure if she should divulge that. But then, what they offered in the shop was on the website. If Marina wanted to use it against her, it wouldn’t be difficult to find that information anyway. “I’m a medium. I can see and speak to souls that have passed on. I’m also a clairsentient empath, meaning I can read energies and emotions, and I’m an intuitive tarot reader. That last one is mostly easy because of the other stuff.”
Marina continued to gather the detritus of the evening, and she looked thoughtful rather than judgmental. “Can you read the future? Or thoughts, like Audrey?”
“No. I use the tarot cards to get an idea about someone’s path, and my openness to the spiritual realm means it’s usually pretty accurate. And I’d hate to have Audrey’s gift. It nearly drove her to—” River shook her head. It wasn’t her story to tell, and certainly not to Marina.
Marina’s eyebrows rose, but she didn’t respond right away. They headed back toward the kitchen in silence. Finally, she shook her head. “I wish I could understand it. I don’t believein ghosts. I think once you’re dead, you’re worm food. The soul is a fiction, something made up to help us understand human behavior.” She looked at River steadily, clearly waiting for an argument or a rebuke. When none came, she sighed. “And as for energies and emotions…that’s just learning to read body language. It might be a talent for seeing the minute expression changes or even physical shifts in someone’s posture, but there’s no…woo-woo involved.”
River half smiled at her. “Woo-woo?”
