The Hex Breaker's Eyes (3 page)

“Why do we have
to do this?” I say as I climb out of Ryan’s mom’s car. Ryan, the
only one of us with a driver’s licence, is our chauffeur.

“Because,”
Marlene says, “this lady’s legit. She correctly predicted the
course of my love life the last time I came to see her.”

“You don’t have
a love life,” I say.

“And that’s
what she predicted!” Marlene’s smiling. She’s been gushing praise
about this lady ever since Tam agreed that we would all come out
here. I’m not sure why I let everyone else force me to come. I
mean, it’s my head that they want this lady to examine, so why
should I let them vote for me to come out here when I clearly don’t
want to?

We’re walking
through the park, which is mostly made up of prefab homes and not
actual trailers, trying not to look so out of place. Ryan’s in nice
clothes and drove us here in a BMW, so he’s a little too rich for
this place, but if I was honest, I’m about one step away from
living in a trailer anyway.

Marlene is
leading us straight to a small white mobile home that’s pretty
close to where we parked at the visitor’s lot. In one of the
windows there’s a hand-painted sign that says
“Madame Knight
PSYCHIC READINGS.”
All of the curtains are closed, but on the
door there’s a little sign that says “OPEN, please knock.” Marlene
knocks and I just want to go home. The idea of everyone sitting in
a room, looking at me, picking my brain apart, asking me questions…
well, let’s just say I’d rather bury my head like an ostrich than
do this.

The door opens
and a fat, middle-aged lady squints down at us. She’s big enough to
fill the narrow trailer door, dressed in a loose grey tracksuit,
and smoking a cigarette. She’s wearing too much makeup and her
hair’s got so much mousse or something in it that it looks wet and
slimy.

“Come on in,
kids!” she says in an inviting, perky voice.

The others line
up to climb into the trailer, and I don’t move. Tam reaches out and
grabs my hand, pulling me into the psychic’s trailer. As I step
inside, Madame Knight is pulling on a silky robe like you might see
on a sorcerer character in a comic book. Half the trailer is hidden
behind a sheet she’s pinned to the ceiling. The half we can see
contains a small table, with three chairs: one for the psychic, and
two on this side of the table for the guests to sit on. There
aren’t enough seats, so Ryan and Tam lean against the back wall
while Marlene sits at the table and waves me to sit next to
her.

I sit down
while Madame stubs out her smoke and pulls a crystal ball out of a
cabinet and sets it on the table. She also hits play on a small CD
player on the side counter, which plays a generic instrumental
‘hypnotic relaxation’ sort of music. With all the curtains closed
it’s kind of dark in here, and the music makes it a little spooky.
Madame Knight sits down across from me.

“Marlene,
right? What brings you back to me?” she asks. I try to avoid the
old cliché about
you’re the psychic, shouldn’t you know?

“My friend,”
Marlene says, pointing at me. “Has had some strange paranormal
encounters.”

“Spirits? An
old relative hanging around with a message perhaps?” asks Madame,
turning to face me. I can’t begin to describe my experience, so I
just blush and look at the floor.

“No, no,” says
Marlene, “she’s like you. She saw the future and it came true.”

“Ahh.” She
says. “This is fairly common. Lots of people have a little bit of
precognition in them. Dream visions, déjà vu, things like
that.”

“Can you help
her? Help us to, I dunno, sort it out?” Marlene asks.

The woman with
too much makeup taps her fingers on the crystal ball and slowly
inhales for a moment. “A normal session, which is a reading, or a
connection to the spirit world, is twenty five dollars for a half
hour.”

For a second,
nobody says anything, and then I look at her. “So, you want twenty
five dollars?”

She shrugs. “My
time is my time.” She holds out a fleshy hand, palm-up.

I had already
told Marlene that since she wanted this, she was paying for it.
Marlene offers the money and Madame Knight takes it, opening the
robe to tuck the cash into her track pants pocket.

“Tell me what
you saw,” she says. I still can’t find a way to say it.

“She—” Tam
starts, but Madame waves at her.

“I want her to
tell me,” she says, leaning toward me. Her voice is soft and
understanding, very motherly. “It’s OK. I know this is all so new,
so uncomfortable. You’d rather crawl out of your skin than tell me
about it, right?”

I shrug. “I
guess.”

“I’ve been
there. I was your age when I started seeing these fleeting images
coming off people in the street. Turns out I was seeing bits of the
spirits who were hanging around, trying to communicate with the
living. Try explaining that to you mother at age sixteen,
right?”

“My mom’s not
around,” I say.

“That’s tough.
But how about this. You just try to describe the picture you saw
that got Marlene so worked up she dragged you out here, OK? Can you
just tell me what the image looked like? Think of me like a doctor,
honey. Anything you say here is confidential, and none of your
friends will ever repeat it, right guys?”

My friends all
agree, and I’m left with my nightmare: everyone looking at me,
waiting for me to describe how strange I am.

“I saw a girl
glowing in the dark.”

“Glowing?” asks
the psychic.

“Bright
yellow.”

“Where did you
see this? In a dream?”

“No. I saw it
in the real world. The girl goes to our school. She looks normal to
everyone else, but when I look at her, I see a yellow light all
around her.”

Madame Knight
smiles. “That’s easy, sweetheart. You’re seeing this girl’s
aura.”

“Aura?” I ask.
I know the word, but I’ve never really thought about what it
means.

“Everyone has
one. It’s the inner light. Some people are so sensitive that they
can actually see it. All auras are unique, just like people.
They’re different colours, sometimes it seems like the colour is
moving around. Is it like that?”

“Yeah, but hers
is just yellow.”

“And this girl,
is she someone special to you?” I wonder if this lady is asking if
I
like-like
girls, but I ignore it.

“No. she’s just
some girl. Older than us.”

“Dina
Jennings,” Marlene blurts out. “We found her in the yearbook.”

Madame nods,
but obviously the name doesn’t mean much to her. “And this Dina is
the only person whose aura you can see?”

“Yeah. I see it
every time I see her at school.”

“And you don’t
see this around anyone else? No red auras around boys, blue auras
around teachers?”

“Nothing. Just
this one girl.”

“Well,’ says
Madame, “I bet this Dina just has a particularly strong aura,
that’s all. And you’re a little bit sensitive to these things, so
you can see her aura but you can’t see everyone else’s. I bet as
you go through life, from time to time you’ll see others with auras
like hers. Nothing to worry about. Some people have a prophetic
dream every couple years, some people get gut instincts that tell
them not to get on a plane that ends up crashing. And some see
auras every once in a while.”

“But it
predicted the future,” Marlene says. “The yellow thing—aura—it was,
like, out to get her.”

“How’s that?”
the psychic seems puzzled.

“When I first
saw the aura,” I say, “it was sort of reaching out, touching the
streetlights as the girl—Dina—walked home. It made all the lights
go out. Then the next day it seems like it was focused around her
left foot, and that’s when Dina’s shoe broke and she tripped and
fell.”

“You saw that?
Before it happened, you knew something was going to hurt her left
foot?” Madame turns away from me, reaches behind the sheet that
blocked off the rest of the trailer, and retrieves a plastic bag
full of cheap Indian reservation cigarettes. She lights up, her
hands shaking just a bit so the lighter flame quivers, and then she
takes a long drag. “Then I’m afraid you’re not looking at an
aura.”

“What is it
then?”

“You’re looking
at a curse.”

“A what now?”
asks Tam, her voice just as sarcastic as usual. “Like abracadabra,
double double toil and trouble? That kinda curse?” She chuckles at
the thought. I’m still looking at Madame, but I just know Tam’s
shaking her head and making a “this is stupid” face.

Madame ignores
the sarcasm. “Witchcraft, yes. Well, curse is the wrong word. More
like a hex. And if you laugh one more time you’ll be waiting
outside.”

“Witchcraft.” I
say, waving my arms. “Um? You want to elaborate?”

“It’s a hex.
Hexes are someone’s ill will made real. Bad feelings brought to
life and set loose on some unsuspecting victim. A couple hundred
years ago, you’d see hexes hanging onto half the people around
here, but it’s not so common anymore.”

“So why can I
see it?”

“Like I said,
some people are just born that way and others get their gifts
around your age. Hexes are rare. This is probably just the first
time you ever actually saw a hex, so it’s the first time you
discovered that you
can
see them.”

I can’t believe
this. It seems way too crazy. “A hex.”

“Sounds like
it. I can’t see ‘em myself, but if this thing’s reaching out and
making life worse on this Dina girl, then yeah. She’s hexed.”

“So what do we
do about it?” I ask.

“What you mean
do?”

“How do we
un-hex her?”

“I’m not a
witch, I’m a psychic reader. I’m really no expert on this. But from
what I know, I can tell you this: it’ll go away on its own. Like I
said, a hex is one person’s bad feelings projected onto another.
But over time those feelings will level off and fade away, and so
will the hex. Turning off lights, tripping her, that’s pretty weak
stuff. I’d say whoever did this has no real power and they probably
just read about hexing on the internet. I bet they don’t even
realize that their hex worked. Give it a few weeks, and as the bad
feelings weaken, so will the hex.”

“But what if
the bad feelings get stronger? The hex will get worse? It already
upgraded from turning off the lights to making her scrape her knee.
I mean, what if next time it trips her into traffic?”

“Or maybe it
will make her spill her coffee. Oooh, scary!” says Tam. The psychic
shoots her a look that makes her shut up.

“This isn’t
funny, kid, and you will keep your mouth shut!” she orders.

“Oh come on,
guys, you don’t really believe all this?” Tam asks us.

“You can wait
outside,” says Madame.

“No, she’s
fine. She’ll shut up,” I say, looking over my shoulder at Ryan,
raising my eyebrows to say ‘control your girlfriend.’ I look back
at Madame and ask a question that I’m not sure I actually believe.
“You do readings here. See the future?”

“I see a likely
outcome, but the future’s never set. Like I said, sometimes you
walk right into the prophecy, like there was nothing you could do
to change it. Other times, my words are enough to change how you
act, and you avoid the prediction. I just try to give folks a
little guidance.”

That sounds
like a convenient way to say she makes no guarantees, but I’m not
looking to start a fight. I’d actually like to have some help. “Can
you see my future? Or, Dina’s? Can you tell me if the hex will go
away or if it will get worse?”

“I can try to
offer guidance, but I’ve never met this girl. What I see will be
for you, not for her.”

“OK.”

She slides the
crystal ball in front of me and tells me to place my hands on it,
then she puts her own hands on top of mine. “Just relax and let me
see what I can see,” she tells me.

“I see a yellow
light, lashing out. It’s like it has six arms.”

“Tentacles,” I
say, before I can even stop myself.

“Yes.
Tentacles. It’s strong, bright. I expected to feel the typical
emotions of ill will: jealousy, hatred. This is more like anger.
Someone’s very mad at this girl.”

“So it’s
getting worse?”

“Shh.”

The psychic
looks at me, and at the air around my head. It’s a strange thing,
having someone look through you. I’m just hoping that I’m not being
scammed.

“Oh for God’s
sake, all she did was repeat what you told her and make some stuff
up,” says Tam.

The psychic’s
nostrils flare. “You, Tamara, will get your ass kicked very soon.
Someone’s gonna put you in the hospital.” She doesn’t say it as a
threat, just a statement of fact. Tam goes silent, and I can hear
Ryan whispering something to keep her calm.

“Anything else?
Can I help this girl?” I ask.

“Your future is
very confusing,” she says. “I see two possibilities on top of each
other. Normally I see one image clearly but with you I never get a
single image. Always two, superimposed like a double exposure. It’s
hard to make out.”

“Convenient,”
says Tam, her voice absolutely icy.

“And the person
who kicks your ass will break your arm, too. You might want to look
into your parents’ health plan, kid.” Again, it doesn’t sound like
she’s threatening Tam, just offering a tough truth. She looks back
at me.

“It’s a mess.
Whatever’s ahead of you, it’s going to define who you are. And at
the end of this stream of double exposures there’s just one thing I
see. Well, not really a vision, more like a feeling. It’s very
familiar to me, since it’s the most common feeling people have me
seek out when they come here.”

“What?”

“At the end of
this, it’s your mother. If you listen to your mother, you’ll be
OK.”

I yank my hands
off the crystal and stand up. Tam gasps behind me and I’m already
heading for the door. “Something bother you?” the phony in the robe
asks.