“Tell me the truth. You won’t get in trouble unless you lie to me…and that includes lying by omission. Don’t try to weasel out of it.”
She must be able to read minds.
“Yes, I can. Now don’t make me search your mind for the information I want. It can be a little painful for you and disgusting for me. A person’s gray matter is slimy and jiggly.”
“Ewww… Okay, I’ll tell you what I know. I don’t know everything, of course. Just what I’ve been taught and experienced firsthand.”
“I understand. Please go on.”
Dawn pushed the swing with her foot before thinking to ask the goddess. “Oh, do you mind if we sway a bit?”
Gaia chuckled. “I’d enjoy it. Go ahead.”
Dawn pushed off with both feet and enjoyed the breeze while moving through the air. “Okay. Here’s what I know. One day, I was desperate to get out of the circumstances I was in. I’d been involved with the local gang in my old neighborhood. I didn’t know how to get out. I was doing everything I could to straighten out my life, but it just wasn’t working. I’d stayed in school and was going to college. As many times as I tried to separate myself from the gang, they kept dragging me back in. They said I was their ‘early warning system’ because of my psychic ability. They used me to alert them to the cops as they made their drug and gun deals.
“I desperately wanted help to get out but had no one to turn to. I tried to get my grandmother to move, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She was raised in that house, and when my mother went to jail, she raised me there. I couldn’t break her heart by telling her I could be following in my mother’s footsteps, so I protected her by pretending that everything was fine. But it wasn’t fine. I hated being used by the gang, but I was powerless to stop them.
“One day, I was really wishing my circumstances were different, out loud. I said something like, ‘Fuck my life. I wish I could start over and pretend to be useless to the gang.’ I began to cry and hug my pillow. Nothing happened right away, but about six months later, I was approached by an old woman. We chatted for a bit, and then she twirled and became a beautiful young woman. She told me they had been watching me since that honest plea for help. It took them a bit of time to respond, because they had to research my past.”
“Who is ‘they’?” Gaia asked.
“Oh. The Karma Cleaners. It’s a group of goddesses and former graduates who are based over an actual dry cleaner.” She chuckled. “My supervisor, Lynda, said their motto is ‘We can get the stains out of your clothesandyour soul.’”
“That’s very interesting. Tell me more,” Gaia said.
Dawn bit her lip and hesitated. Gaia just lifted one eyebrow. “Okay. Here’s the rest. I’m a graduate of the program. I worked in a community youth center and helped kids avoid getting into gangs, quitting school, dealing drugs, and all the other dangers kids living in the inner city face.”
Gaia gave her a slight smile, then schooled her features. “That’s good. It seems like you managed to turn your life around. Did Karma Cleaners do that for you?”
“They just guided me so I could change my own karma. My actions after that naturally improved my karma, and good things began to happen.” She gazed at the back door of her rented home. “One of the best things to happen to me was Luca. I went from avoiding the cops to working with them. I helped find and rescue a missing four-year-old girl. It was dangerous, but I didn’t hesitate. My karma was officially clean after that. As a graduate, they offered me a position like Lynda’s. Finding people with rotten karma who really, really want to change.”
“And what do you do when you find them?”
“Well, nothing at first. I spot people I think might be candidates and recommend them to the main office. Then they do the watching and researching and get back to me if they feel I should intervene.”
“I see. How do you spot them?”
“Oh, that’s easy now that I’m a psychic detective. We get people looking for help all the time. I can see out of their mind’s eye, get flashes of their future, and read their aura. I know if they genuinely want help or have other agendas.”
“Interesting. Well, thank you so much for your time, Dawn. I’ll let you think about my offer. I could really use your help—even temporarily.”
Dawn smiled her relief, thanked Gaia again for the swing, and was ready to bid the powerful goddess a warm and sincere farewell when a question only the goddess could answer occurred to her.
“Mother Nature, may I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Why did you let a hurricane devastate Puerto Rico?”
“Oh. That. Yeah… Did you hear about the giant earthquake that dropped half of California into the Pacific Ocean at the same time?”
Dawn’s jaw dropped. “No! How could I not have heard about that?”
Gaia smirked. “Precisely. I was a little busy holding together tectonic plates that day. As soon as I was free, I grabbed hold of the tail of that hurricane and unwound it. You and the rest of the western Caribbean are welcome.”
* * *
“Karma?” Gaia bellowed into the ether.
