7
The Crystal Reader
Sammy
The crystal reader’s stall was tucked between a fabric merchant and a seller of dried herbs, easy to miss. It had a low table draped in navy cloth, with an assortment of objects arranged on its surface in no order I could determine. Stones, crystals, carvings, a scattering of what looked like feathers from a variety of creatures. Shades of color from bright red gems to burnt orange feathers to ivory figurines turned the tabletop into a kaleidoscope.
The reader was small and round, with a pointed snout and bright black eyes. I had never seen her species, but she carried the still quality of someone listening to things other people couldn’t hear. She appeared, in the best possible way, like a hedgehog who had taken up a spiritual practice.
“Traveler,” she said, when I stopped at her table. Her gaze moved to Guruk, then Berry, then back to me. “You are looking for something.”
“Yes.” I didn’t bother denying it since I’d asked half the market by now. “Humans. They may have come through the veil recently.” I described them in the order they came to me: Mako first, then Abby, then Tia, then Robin, then Valeria. I had described them so many times at so many stalls that the words came without thinking. Their hair, height, the tiny details that a stranger might notice. “And one more,” I added. “Her name is Raine. Blonde, blue eyes, she has an expression like she’s already decided she’s right about everything and is waiting for you to catch up.”
The crystal reader’s whiskers shifted. “I have not seen them,” she said, her black eyes widening from beads to saucers. “But I can tell you what I feel.”
I glanced at Guruk. He raised his brows as if to say,your call.
“Okay,” I said.
She reached across the table and touched one finger to the back of my hand. Her fingertip had a sandpaper texture. The contact lasted perhaps three seconds, but it sent a jolt through me. A tiny spark, like the mildest electric current. Then she withdrew, folded her small hands together, and went quiet for a moment that stretched longer than was entirely comfortable.
“One of yours,” she said finally, “is sleeping behind running water.” Her widened saucer-eyes were steady on mine. “Neither lost nor found. Held, but not harmed.” A pause. “The holding was not her choice. But she is not afraid. She does not have it in her to be afraid for long.”
The last part landed like a blow to my gut. I knew who that described.
“The water,” I gulped, barely breathing, “Running water. Like a…like a falls?”
The reader tilted her head. “I cannot say more than I see.”
My hand tightened on my notebook.The falls. The shining falls. Amethyst light. Sleeping behind running water, neither lost nor found.
“Thank you,” I managed with a squeak.
She waved me off with one small paw and turned to the next customer.
I stood at the edge of her stall for a moment, not quite ready to step back into the flow of the market. Guruk’s hand came to the small of my back.
“I know,” I muttered before he could speak.
His palm rubbed in small, comforting circles. “I wasn't going to say anything yet.”
“You were thinking it very loudly.”
His hand pressed slightly warmer. “The falls,” he said quietly. “We are going the right way.”
“Yeah.” I exhaled. “Yeah, we are.”
I reached for my notebook and wrote every word the reader had said, exact and verbatim, before any of it could soften in my memory.Neither lost nor found. Held, but not harmed. Not her choice. Not afraid for long.
“That's Raine.” The conviction of my words echoed in the air like the falling of stones. I had no doubts. “That has to be Raine.”
Guruk
Sammy wrote for a long while, lost in her thoughts at the crystal reader’s revelation. I stood guard, letting her ease her mind with her notebook, when I spotted him.
At the far edge of the market, near the western road, far from the village, far from any route his duties would take him, out of uniform and moving with purposefulness…the deputy.
I did not move. Did not change my posture or the direction of my gaze, letting my eyes track without my head turning. He had not seen me, or if he had, he gave no sign of it. He was moving between two stalls, pausing briefly at each, his attention directed east. Toward us, though not at us specifically.
