Witch Water

Maybe I better start.

The next bad chord came from the doorknocker. Mounted on the door’s center stile was an oval of tarnished bronze depicting a half-formed face. Just two eyes, no mouth, no other features. It seemed morose, even foreboding.

Fanshawe actually considered turning back. He glanced over his shoulder—You gotta be shitting me!—and saw Mrs. Anstruther watching him, waving.

But what was he afraid of?

Nothing, he thought and rapped on the creepy knocker.

He expected someone marmish—like Mrs. Anstruther—or a foreigner, but instead the door was opened by a tall, gaunt woman—late-thirties, probably—with jet-black hair cut so severely across her bangs and neck it looked like a helmet. She seemed dull-eyed and blanched. A baggy kaleidoscopic T-shirt that read CHISWICK RECORDS hung limp on her shoulders, covering small unbra’d breasts; she also wore a black-denim skirt hemmed by safety pins, and clunky black boots. Fanshawe found the woman gawky, awkward, nerdish, yet interesting in some way. Thick black glasses made her a hybrid of a librarian and an over-the-hill punk rocker.

“Are you here for a reading?” she asked in a reedy voice.

“Yes.” He had the idea she was rattled by him being there. “But if it’s inconvenient, I can make an appointment and come back later.”

She yipped a laugh. “In a recession? Are you kidding? I’m just shocked to have a customer this early. Come on in.”

Fanshawe entered an old-style parlor crammed with old portraits, old furniture, and smoke-stained wallpaper. He liked the cliche. A bumper sticker over a transom read CHIROMANCY IS SEXY. Fanshawe guessed this was another name for fortune telling. “So I guess you’re Letitia Rhodes?”

“Yes, and—” She turned quickly to glance at him. Her eyes looked absurdly large behind the thick glasses. “And you are…well, your first name either starts with an S or an F, but I’m leaning toward the F.”

He remembered the word PSYCHIC in the window. A con, he suspected. She could easily have found out my name. “Better to lean the other way.”

Her shoulders drooped. “Aw, well. Can’t get ’em all.” Her long white hand bid a scroll-couch of some loud red velvety fabric. “Have a seat…S.”

“It’s Stew, Ms. Rhodes.”

“Just call me Lett.”

Lett… He sat down, waiting for her to close her eyes, touch her forehead, and suddenly divine his last name, but she didn’t.

“Sorry it’s so warm”—and she rushed to a wall unit and turned it on. “The damn power company—they raise the rates for no reason.”

“They’ve been known to do that.”

She sat down across from him and pulled out an antique wooden box the size of a toaster oven. She smiled at him, but Fanshawe got the vibe that she was unsettled. By me? One way or another, though, the smile was manufactured. “What kind of reading are you interested in?”

“Well, the palm-reading sounds all right—”

“I can do charts, too,” she added quickly. “Costs more but—” but the rest fell away.

“Let’s try with the simplest first,” Fanshawe said.

Another stiff smile. “That would be palmistry, which is probably the oldest form of fortune telling, and the most widespread. It’s twenty…dollars per palm”—she fidgeted through a pause—“but there’s a summer discount! Fifteen?”

Fanshawe needed to break some ice. She’s not very good at making herself credible. “I’ll pay the twenty…if it’s good.”

“Well, I can’t promise you a favorable reading, but I can promise an accurate one.” She didn’t even look at him when she continued, “More accurate than any reading you’ve ever had.”

“I appreciate confidence,” he said, “and I’m sure you’re right. I’ve never had a reading before.”

She peered at him, obviously doubting him. “No? Never? Never in your life?”

Then it dawned on him. “Oh, yeah. Coney Island, when I was a kid.” Am I supposed to think that she sensed that? He crossed his legs, hoping he didn’t look too disheveled after spending the night on the hill, but at the same moment, she quickly got up, came over to him, and brushed off his shoulder.

“You’ve got some grass there,” then she offered another crumpled smile and sat back down. “Did you sleep in the woods?” she added with a giggle. Fanshawe frowned. Actually—yes. From the box, she withdrew a fancy square of ornately fringed linen that had a sandalwood scent, and spread it on the low table between them. Fanshawe squinted; sewn into the fabric were letters and designs like he’d seen on the Gazing Ball’s stand, and in the portrait of Wraxall and Evanore.

“So other than Coney Island, you’ve never had your fortune told in any way?” she asked, still puttering a the table.

“Nope”—he tried to make a joke that turned out not to be very funny. “Just at my stock broker’s.”

Letitia grumbled, and muttered, “Fuck…”

Fanshawe peered at her.

“Sorry,” she said. “The reason I’m sucking wind is because of this damn recession. Every time I think about all those stock brokers and CEO’s and bank presidents and mortgage lenders who caused this because of their own greed—I wish I could put an exsanguination hex on them.”

Fanshawe laughed a bit too loudly. “A what hex?”

“Oh, I’m just bitching. It’s a medieval curse that makes corrupt people bleed from all their orifices. The bastards. They’re all like that jackass Madoff—could care less about who they destroy as long as they fill their coffers.”

Fanshawe, still chuckling to himself, at least felt sure he was not one of the “Madoff’s” she referred to. I never ponzi’d or short-sold. I never cheated investors, did I? No, no way. I earned my money the old fashioned way: I gambled on long shots and got REALLY lucky.

Lett sprinkled something like dull glitter over the linen. “Seramef dust,” she said. “It jacks up the psychic ambience, kind of like using higher octane in your car.” When she looked up, she started, then gawkily went “Oooo! You have a very pronounced aura. But don’t ask me what color it is. I never tell.”

Fanshawe sighed. “Come on.”

“Nope. Sorry.” She shrugged. “It’s low class.”

Aura, huh? “All right, Lett, then tell me this”—Fanshawe had to know. “Does Mrs. Anstruther get a cut of your fee if she sends someone over?”

Lett’s face tensed in a displeasure. “That old biddy! I told her she was hard-selling people too much!” Then her lips pursed. “Yeah, I pay her five bucks for each customer.”

“I knew it!”

Lett made a single, silent clap. “She’s a kick in the tail, I’ll tell ya, but I guess I shouldn’t complain; she does bring in some business.” Still, the woman seemed flustered. She exhaled hard. “All right! We’re ready! You said both hands, right?”

“I didn’t say, but let’s do both.”

Very quickly, she grabbed his left hand. “It’s best to start to your dominant hand.”

Fanshawe was left-handed…, But she could’ve determined that by watching me, he knew.

“Left-dominant people are more subjective, and they respond more deeply to intellectual stimulus and ethereal provocation.”

Fanshawe winced at the latter term.

“They’re also more sensitive to spirituality and para-naturalism.”

Fanshawe could only stare in response.

“And…they’re more attuned to non-physical realms.”

“Jeez, I thought you’d look at my lifeline and tell me how long I’m going to live,” he said, expecting the usual