“Yeah, I sort of heard all of it,” he said quietly. “It just didn’t make any sense to me until our conversation in the car, and even now, it’s hard as hell to wrap my head around. I’ve never believed in ghost—or spirits, or whatever.
“So you really don’t know what to think about this, do you?”
“Nope, not really, I’m just kinda rolling with it,” he said, shrugging.
I looked down at my feet, at the unique pattern of brick I stood on, and then raised my gaze to the storefront next to us. It had a flashing neon sign advertising mango daiquiris and pizza by the slice. It was the third one I’d seen in just as many blocks. Everyone believed pizza was a New York thing; I was starting to think everyone was sorely misinformed. I reached behind me without looking back and felt Drew’s hand slip into mine. Four blocks later we’d reached our destination, and I turned toward him as we stood outside of a little gray one-story building. It looked like a shack in comparison to the older, multileveled, historical buildings around it. There was no sign on the door, and the only window housed a portable AC unit that made a noisy, whirring sound and dripped water onto the sidewalk.
“Is this the place?”
I nodded, and he scoffed, which made me glance up at his face.
“What—are we hiring a hitman,” he asked sarcastically.
I rolled my eyes because that didn’t even warrant a response. Instead, I knocked, and then pushed the door open. Drew followed me inside and let the door close behind us. We were standing in what must have been the world’s tiniest foyer. Off to one side was a little round table draped in green silk with brochures and business cards fanned out on it. The scent of sage and honey wafted through the air with the subtle undertones of sandalwood incense. Strands of wooden beads hung from an archway directly in front of us. The strands were spaced so close together that I couldn’t see what was on the other side of them.
“Well, now, didn’t your parents teach you that standing in the doorway is rude?” It was a sultry woman’s voice that had a natural sexy rasp most women would kill for. “Come in, Come in, I’ve been expecting you, Eden. Who’s your friend? You didn’t tell me you’d be bringing along a companion.”
Drew looked at me in surprise. He had no way of knowing that I’d already had a couple of phone conversations with Madame Clarisse. Even so, that didn’t explain how she knew he was with me. It was a good thing, as far as I was concerned. It just added to her credibility as a fortune reader. Not waiting for any further invitation, I walked through the beaded curtain and into the cool reading area of the shop. It was surprisingly bigger than it looked from the outside.
“Sage and honey tea, for either of you,” she asked when she saw us enter, “It clears the mind, not to mention it is calming. You know, with sage being in the mint family and all. I use it before every reading to clear out the cobwebs or residual emotion from previous readings.”
“No, thank you,” I said as I walked further into the room. There were plush solid-colored velvet chairs in a deep earthy green and a mystically dark blue. They were adorned with white and black silk runners. Books lined the shelves of the cottage-like setting, and a fireplace sat on the other end of the large room. The place was very homey with its matching rocking chairs and baskets of yarn in every imaginable color. I sat at the table searching the walls for something that would suggest this was the workspace of someone who practiced in the arts of divination, perhaps a poster of the third eye or a diagram of the different lines on the human palm. Yet there was none of that anywhere to be seen. The only thing that graced the walls was shelves with various herbs and books. There were stones here and there, as well as small jars containing lord knows what. I saw no voodoo dolls or anything even remotely hinting toward a sinister craft among the potted plants that graced the floors and most every flat surface. Fat, brightly burning, off-white candles shared the spaces the plants occupied.
“Not what you expected,” Madame Clarisse asked me.
“To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect,” I said, looking at her face closely for the first time. My breath hitched when I noticed in the flickering of the candlelight that her eyes were a deep violet color.
She winked and giggled, “Yeah, that’s the reaction I get from everyone. Not to worry, having violet eyes is simply a rare mutation. She took out a small, carved, wooden box and opened it, removing a black velvet bag. “Hold these,” she said, pulling a deck of tarot cards from the velvet sack.
She put both the bag and wooden box next to her bare feet under the table. I looked at the colorfully detailed cards I held in my hands. They were bigger than a deck of playing cards by two to three times. They were also thicker, heavier, and crafted from a high-quality card stock that appeared to be hand-painted. I turned them over to look at the card backs. They were a deep chestnut brown with tan marbling to match the intricately swirled lines at the cards’ centers.
“Explore the cards, examine them, open yourself, and your energy to them,” Clarisse instructed. “Allow yourself to feel the natural energy in the room and be as relaxed as you can be.”
In the center of the table was an interesting piece of material. It looked like linen and was black with a gold Trinity knot at its center and a matching golden Celtic knot
