Little Red Gem (5 page)

Besides, something had
drawn me here and it wasn’t letting go. I had to find out
why.

The storefront was
prettily decorated with paintings of ivy wrapping around the
painted-on trunks of painted-on trees. Inside, shelves were formed
from recycled windows including colored-glass windows that had once
belonged to a church. Each wall was painted in a different scene –
a green forest, a pink sunset, an underwater scene, and a dragon’s
fiery lair. The tourist brochures claimed that the paintings on the
walls depicted the four elements – earth, air, water, and fire. Mom
was always bringing home brochures from work. I swear I knew
everything about this town except how to love it.

In a wispy-styled font
above the door was the name of the store – MYSTERIES. A painted
moon sat at its left and a sun sat at its right. The owner, Teri
Adams, though her customers called her Miss Teri, had made a pun
out of her name. I couldn’t argue with puns, only inwardly groan at
them like the rest of the planet. I also couldn’t argue with the
obvious; my parents had called me Ruby because I was born with a
luscious patch of deep red hair. There ought to have been a law
against stating the obvious.

Before I could press the
buzzer the door swung open and a vaguely familiar face greeted me.
I blinked rapidly, as if the art of blinking triggered the area of
the brain skilled in sorting mental images. Yep, this was Teri
Adams, AKA Miss Teri the clairvoyant. Her flouncy dress and messy,
curly hair only heightened the aura of tranquility she radiated. I
imagined cinnamon and other spices, though possibly because I’d
spied donuts on the counter and I hadn’t eaten breakfast
yet.

Miss Teri eyed me
suspiciously. My surprise at being here outshone hers. I’d won a
psychic reading in a local radio competition by accident after I’d
phoned the station to find out about another competition being held
in Providence, and I’d happened to be the tenth caller. I wasn’t
into the occult, but I was into free stuff. Besides, Leo had
demanded – by way of his post-it note – that I visit the psychic as
payback for making him go with me to the annual cheese fair a few
weeks earlier.

Waiting in the doorway, I
quickly calculated whether to take a chance on this woman’s
perceptive abilities, or remove chance from the equation and steal
the nearest car, drive to the cabin, and find out for myself if Leo
and I were officially over?

Teri settled the decision
for me when she waved a hand in the air. “Come inside. There’s
nothing to be afraid of. This is a house of good
spirit.”

Why would I be
afraid?

A loud hiss at my shoulder
made me jump. I spun to see a giant cat on top of a bookcase
arching its back and growling. Wild bears were less intimidating. I
sensed I’d come off the worse if I tangled with Teri’s cat so I
hurried inside and kept away from the wall. Teri swung the door
which launched the cat into the air where he expertly landed on all
fours on top of the counter, before diving under a pile of
boxes.

“
Don’t mind Oleander. He
senses things other cats don’t.”

Sneaking a look behind, in
case I’d accidentally let in a snarling, rabid hellhound, I saw
nothing to cause the cat to act so violently toward me. The insult
stung; animals usually adored me. To add further insult, the cat
stuck its head out a box and let forth a series of meows from deep
within hell’s bowels, warning me to stay away. I’d have been stupid
to ignore the hint, so I gave Oleander a wide berth again, almost
crashing into shelves and display counters to follow Teri across
the swirly-patterned carpet, passed shelves of candles, crystals,
and fairy figurines, and finally through velvet drapes of the
deepest purple.

She stopped and pointed to
a chair. Obediently, I sat down. Teri stayed standing. Her eyes
traveled over my face, my hair, my clothes. I took in Teri’s
slept-in hair, her brightly colored dress, her sandals adorned with
jewels and shells. Our eyes met somewhere in the middle. With a
frown, she honed her wizard-stare on my crumpled dress and I
inhaled sharply at the critique. She’d have resembled a dishcloth,
too, if she’d suffered my bad breakup.

Teri continued staring
until it finally dawned on me that she was looking for payment. I
reached into the tiny pocket of my dress and pulled out the
folded-in-quarters gift certificate. Teri took little notice of it,
so I smoothed out the piece of paper and slipped it along the
tablecloth and wedged it under the crystal ball.

Little by little she eased
into the chair on the opposite side of the table.

“
Are you comfortable?” she
asked.

I nodded. The small back
room was neither hot nor cold. She ran her hands along the fabric,
smoothing the cloth as though she was avoiding eye contact.
She’s nervous!
This only
confirmed that coming here was a huge waste of my time.

“
Can I get you something
to drink?” she said, and immediately laughed it off. “Of course you
don’t want anything. What am I saying?”

Okay, so she could read
minds; I wasn’t thirsty. But I told myself not to be too impressed.
The number of choices in that area wasn’t that
exhaustive.

“
Do you have a specific
question you’d like to know the answer to?” Teri asked, gliding her
fingers over the crystal ball and sneaking a look at me from
beneath her long lashes.

“
Ummm, not really. This is
my first reading.”

Hardly fair to lure me
here only to give me one question, though. Still, I only needed the
answer to one question, didn’t I?

Maybe Teri could tell me
what Leo couldn’t.

From the corner of my eye
a familiar face popped into view. Audrey Adams. We weren’t friends
but I knew her. She was the clairvoyant’s daughter. She was also my
half-sister.

My father, David Parker
and well-known, wealthy portrait painter, was Audrey’s father. Dad
had left me and my mom when I was two years old. The memories were
vague, but my mom told me I’d cried nonstop and that I wouldn’t
accept her cuddles or kisses for weeks. He’d moved in with Teri
Adams, who’d speedily become pregnant with Audrey. They’d married
and Audrey and I had spent the next eight years playing happy
sisters every alternate week, which, according to Mom, only
exacerbated my temper tantrums. Not long after Audrey’s tenth
birthday, however, my dad flew to Japan to put on an art
exhibition. While there, he fell in love with the curator, a tiny
raven-haired beauty who went by one name – Mishi – and he started a
new phase of his illustrious career. Teri had resorted to her
maiden name, Mom had made snide remarks about how the psychic
hadn’t seen that one coming, and Audrey and I had no more reason to
hang out.

Teri smiled and seemed to
relax a little. “I can give you a general reading. The first
readings are often the most informative. I’ll begin with tarot
cards, unless you’d rather I start with numerology or
astrology.”

“
Whatever.”

“
Or, if you’d rather I
exchange the reading for something else, I’d be happy to do
so.”

“
I want the reading.
Please.” Not like I could operate a crystal ball.

Teri carefully folded and
set aside a piece of orange cloth that had been used to shroud the
cards. She handed the deck to me and said, “When you shuffle the
cards, be calm. Focus on the cards. And only stop when you feel the
energy tells you to stop.”

I closed my eyes and tried
to remain calm, but images of last night kept flashing across my
mind, dark and disturbing visions that seemed more real than I’d
have liked.

Leo cradling my head in
his arms.

Leo shouting for
help.

Leo crying a river of
tears.

When I couldn’t take any
more of the gloomy visions, I handed the cards back to Teri.
Expertly, she spread them on the table into the shape of a cross.
Although the cards lay face up, I viewed them from upside down.
Upside down, right side up, who was I kidding? These cards meant
nothing to me and I wished I’d stayed curled up in bed.

“
A pattern has emerged.
These cards—” Teri’s finger tapped the three centre cards one after
another, “—are Tower cards. They mean a sudden and unexpected
disruptive change. Life will never be the same again.” She waved
her hand over the remaining cards. “And these are Moon cards. They
signify dreams and illusions. Everything may not be as it appears
to be at face value. Does this mean anything to you?”

I squirmed beneath her
expectant gaze. “I had a fight with my boyfriend. We’ve broken up.
I guess that’s pretty disruptive and unexpected.”

She tilted her head. “What
makes you think you’ve broken up?”

Oleander the cat grabbed
this opportunity to launch his fat body onto the table, scattering
the cards and crystal ball onto the floor. The cards just slipped
off, however the crystal ball exploded and shattered glass flew in
every direction. Then, adding salt into my already wounded pride,
Oleander arched his back and hissed at me. His reptilian eyes
drilled into mine with such hatred that I pushed the chair out from
under me.

Teri grabbed the cat
unceremoniously by the collar and used her foot to hold the back
door open. Then she flung it through the air.

“
Bad cat. Ungrateful as
the day I saved you from the dumpster.”

When she returned to the
room I had almost made it to the exit via the velvet
curtain.

“
Please stay,” Teri
begged. “I’d say that Oleander doesn’t mean to be horrible, except
sometimes I think he does it on purpose. It’s like he’s possessed
or something. Please, don’t go. I’ll do an astrology reading
instead?”

Tears nipped at my
eyelids. Mom had often said Dad loved his art more than his family.
It made perfect sense that I would fall for a guy like my
father.

“
What’s the point?”I
moaned. “I already know the future. It’s bleak and lonely because
Leo loves his music more than me.”

Teri smiled and crossed
her hands over her heart. “Oh, Leo loves you, all right. And he
always will.”

Now
this
was what I’d come to hear. I
threw myself back onto the chair. “Are you for real?”

Teri had been a
step-mother to me for about eight years. We were like family. Maybe
she’d have told her customers what they wanted to hear, but surely
she wouldn’t lead a susceptible teenager who had once been family
down a desolate path.

Audrey chose this moment
to make another appearance, this time sticking her head around the
hallway. She put her finger to her lips. I understood the universal
sign for ‘keep your mouth shut’. I just didn’t see why she would
make a fuss about sneaking out of the house when she could easily
have taken the stairs leading down from their home which was
located above the store.

Teri stiffened. “Is anyone
here?”

Audrey quickly disappeared
behind the door. Teri snuck a wary look over her shoulder, as if
sensing someone was hiding from her. By now my patience had worn
thin.

“
Maybe I should go,” I
said, pushing the chair out from under me.

Teri looked up at me with
tears in her eyes. “I wish I could have been more help to
you.”

“
Yeah, me too.”

I refrained from asking
how she had survived in this business as long as she had: she
hadn’t told me anything I didn’t know or couldn’t have figured out
for myself; the cat had insulted me; and Audrey was playing a
childish game of hide and seek. People came here for answers, not
theatrics.

***

I stomped out of
Mysteries, livid over being cheated out of a free reading by a
clairvoyant who was obviously having a nervous breakdown. By the
time I reached Main Street I could only muster up pity for Audrey’s
mom. My mom was right; never mind that Teri hadn’t predicted my
future, she hadn’t been able to predict her own.

At least she’d freed up my
morning.

This time, while waiting
to cross Main Street I kept my gaze off the sign on the museum and
I eyeballed the sign to the café across the road instead. Two
stores down from the corner and a haven for bored teenagers, I
headed there in search of a friendly face.

I found two. Natalie and
Shanessa sat inside at our usual table, closest to the counter
where we could drool over chocolate muffins and cheesecake. White
ceramic cups and empty plates sat on the table in front of them. I
couldn’t blame them for eating without me. Having lost my phone
they’d probably been texting me for hours. But that wasn’t why I’d
come here. Natalie had a car, a peacock-blue Mazda which she’d
gotten for an early eighteenth present, and I aimed to borrow it to
drive out to the cabin.

I lifted my hand to push
through the glass door when a voice from behind startled
me.

“
I wouldn’t go in there if
I were you.”

Audrey stood on the
sidewalk.

“
I’ve had enough theatrics
for one day,” I told her.