Page 9 of Flirty Fall Fling

My response pleases him. He leans back in the chair, and we hold a silent conversation. Neither of us interrupts the moment, and I test how long until he grows uncomfortable.

“How does someone become a witch?” he finally asks.

“I was born with the gift.”

“Right.” He studies me like a skeptic.

“And what is it you do for a living?” I ask.

“I’m a classified troublemaker.” He smirks.

“I believe you.”

Electricity streams between us, and I wonder if he feels it too. That sensation should be a warning bell, something I’ve never experienced before. While I probably should, I don’t end our session here. Not when I need to make fifty thousand dollars in less than four months.

Overhead, the floorboards creak from one end of the building to the other.

Jamie leans in. “Can I ask you something? Do you really believe this? It seems like a really good costume and a tourist attraction.”

I tilt my head. “What do you think?”

“I’m not sure. It’s hard for me to read you,” he admits.

“Ahh. But somehow, I see through you like glass,” I say, clearing my throat. “We should do your reading.”

I scoot my chair closer to the table, sliding the candles and my cup to the side. Our knees find each other under the little table. We freeze, but neither of us moves away. Flora taught me to get close and give a reading as if I were telling the person a deep, dark secret.

I swallow hard, tilting his cup to read by the lamplight.

“There’s a bird near the rim.” I grab my pointing wand to show him. “News is on its way. Something you’ve been waiting on or maybe even dreading.”

“More generic advice,” he says, but he leans in further.

“There’s a road under it, and there’s a man walking with a valley behind him. That’s you. You’re ready to move off the path that was set forth for you.” I turn the cup a few degrees. “In the past, you were forced to do something you didn’t want to do. It was meant to destroy you, but it only destroyed your ego. You felt like you needed to prove yourself or …” I close my eyes, taking in the energy. “Not prove. Discover. You discovered who you were without the identity you’d once known. It’s behind you, in the distance.”

His jaw tightens. The easy charm slips, and what’s under it is a man who hasn’t slept soundly in months.

I lift my brow. “Shall I keep going?”

He says, “Yes,” but by how tense he is, I think the real answer is no.

“You’re respected. Well liked.” I laugh. “Oh, wow, really liked.”

Beside the road are scatters of fine, dark specks. They crowd the handle, dozens of them, reaching out like tentacles or hands.

“There are a lot of people who want pieces of you, and if you keep giving yourself away, you’ll have nothing left for yourself. Everything is an exchange.”

His eyebrows don’t lift this time. This is the moment the skeptic stops arguing and listens.

I let him sit with that for a few seconds, keeping my voice low and calm. “I’m sorry for what you’ve been through. It’s been difficult for you. Only the strong survive it,” I tell him, and I mean it. “But your eyes are open now. There’s happiness waiting for you on the other side. The darkness you’ve been living in, the lost feeling you’ve experienced, it won’t last. Change is happening.”

I turn the cup the last quarter, toward the love line.

“And your love life is …” The rest of the sentence dies in my mouth.

Flora drew this shape for me once, on the back of an envelope. It’s the symbol for those who will find their one true love. It’s the real deal, love that can’t be ignored or denied. Twin flames energy. I’ve never witnessed it in a reading, and here it sits, in a skeptic’s mug.

“You …” I don’t finish that one either.