Natural Witch

I grimaced and checked the time, then the sky. When the weather turned nasty, the managers of the village would usually stroll through and tell us it was time to leave. Anyone who left before she gave the okay might find themselves out of a space. And while this line of work only made me as much as a low-paying job, it was better than stocking shelves or working in an office. At least until I figured out what I wanted to do with my life.

“I might hang on a little longer,” I said, dropping my hands into my lap.

“Little Miss Rule Follower,” Geraldine said with a smile, and turned toward her booth.

But a half-hour after Geraldine tugged her wagon past, my resolve had weakened considerably. The patter of the occasional raindrop splatted against my tent. More plunked off the dirt path. Only one or two souls wandered by, and that was to head out. The day was done, regardless of whether anyone had bothered to tell us.

A strange surge of power amped up the energy rolling around my body, the effects of the premonition. I glanced down at my gems and stones, wondering if it was them. It could’ve been the weather. It was hard to say when the atmosphere was so wound up.

I needed to make a decision.

I glanced back up and started.

His footsteps had been silent, his approach sly. Yet there he stood, a muscular man a few years older than me, looking at me with an impassive face.

“Hello?” I asked, like I’d answered a phone call.

He moved forward with a sure step. The wind worried the dusty blonde hair that fell across his broad forehead. “Are you still open?” he asked, his eyes not leaving mine, even to glance at the table full of objects. It felt like he was assessing me, reaching in through my eyes and down to my soul, finding and reviewing all my secrets along the way.

“Oh.” I glanced out through the opening to the angry sky above. “It’s probably going to rain soon.”

He stood just behind the client chair. Clearly he was waiting for me to give a solid answer, and his patient silence had the odd effect of drawing the words from my mouth.

“Sure,” I said, shrugging. I had an umbrella. I’d chance a few drops for another paying customer.

Without a word, he stepped around the chair and sat, not flinching or hesitating when it whimpered in warning. His intense stare never left my eyes, and his face remained perfectly impassive. Like a serial killer’s.

I had the sudden thought that there weren’t enough closets in the world to save me from him.

“What…would you like?” I asked, running my hand over the table like Vanna White. “Tarot?” I touched the cards before glancing at the crystal ball. I weakly gestured that way instead of actually saying the words.

His gaze followed the movements of my hands, eyeing the tarot deck first and then the crystal ball. Without warning, he palmed the ball with a large, calloused hand and held it up for inspection.

“Ohhh…” I said like a tire losing air. “You’re not supposed to touch that.”

He squinted into it, as though trying to see the middle.

“I have to…” I made a circle in the air with my pointer finger. “I have to evoke the images, actually. They can’t just be gawked at like that. They won’t show.”

The corner of his mouth stretched into a half-smile before loosening again, back to stoic and serious. He dropped the ball onto the table, next to the stand.

“That just needs—” I flinched as he reached out, fast as lightning. My tarot deck was whisked away. “I’m not sure what experience you’ve had with these sorts of booths, but this level of manhandling is usually forbidden.”

He flicked through the deck, looking at various cards, before dropping them in a mess next to the crystal ball.

“This isn’t off to a great start,” I mumbled, at a loss. I’d never had someone so confidently wreck my setup before. Clearly this was the same guy that had visited Geraldine. The situation was a little off-putting, yet strangely gratifying.

His gaze landed on my newly acquired opal.

“Nope.” I jabbed my hand in front of it before his quick-draw-McGraw snatch could take hold. Instead, his fingers curled around mine.

A bolt of electricity blasted up my arm and into my chest. It stopped my heart and fried my insides as it shot down to my feet. I sucked in a pained breath. Adrenaline rushed into my body. The tug on my ribs that I’d felt in New Orleans was back, only this time it felt like a thick cable attached to my bones was being pulled by a semi.

The turning of the world ground to a halt. The wind died down to nothing and the canvas that had been whipping in the wind fell straight. The murmur of voices deadened.

We were two people moving in a frozen world.

Chapter Eight

His eyes widened as he stared at me, and it felt like that was a big deal. Like he was a man not surprised by much, and this had blindsided him.

I was a woman surprised by a whole lot. But after New Orleans, this didn’t seem like much. Just another weird thing following me around like an elephant I pretended not to see.

I drew back my hand. My arm stung from the rush of electricity, and my body trembled from the flash of pain. But I kept my composure and watched the stone, for no other reason than that I didn’t want him to take liberties with my gems. That seemed really important for some reason.

“So no on the tarot and crystal ball, then?” I asked lightly.

As suddenly as it had stopped, the turning of the world resumed. The wind rushed back in, pushing at my shabby tent. Birds squawked, probably yelling at each other before finding a place to hunker down for the rain. The chatter of booth workers and the clang of the others putting their things away filled in the background.

His eyebrows dipped low over his expressive eyes and he slowly withdrew his hand.

“Not much of a talker, huh?” I asked.

He leaned back slowly, and the chair leaned back with him. He didn’t seem to notice. “Do you know how to read tarot?”

“Yes,” I said confidently. “Would you like me to…” My words dried up under the force of his straightforward stare. Silence once again filled the space between us. Just as before, his waiting had the effect of drawing the words out of me. “You caught me. I really don’t. I just make things up based on the pictures. When people get the death one, things can get a little dicey on the communication train.”

He tilted his head, and it seemed like a nod of approval.

“The ball?” he asked, back to his serial-killer expression.

“I mean, do any crystal balls really show images?” I chuckled.

“Yes.” His eyes took on a haunted look and his face shut down into a block of granite.

I was out of my league, and I had no idea why, how, or even what league I had wandered into. “Right. Well then, no, that is not a crystal ball. It’s a cheap lump of glass.”

He nodded again. “So what is it you do…”

“Penny. Penny Bristol.”

“What is it you do, Penny Bristol?” He spread his hands, indicating my whole setup.

“Well, I…” I looked at my table. With the tarot and crystal ball cleared off to the side, all that was left was a haphazard layout of gems and stones. My chances for getting paid for this visit were diminishing. “I play poker, really.”

“Poker?”

“Yeah.” I shrugged. What was the point in lying? He’d seen right through me, I could tell. “I read people and tell them what they want to hear. That’s what I do.”

“And what do I want to hear?”

“I have absolutely no idea.”

A smile slowly worked up his face. “This isn’t the right job for you, Penny Bristol.”

“Tell me about it.”

He leaned forward and put his forearms on the table. The loud creak didn’t seem to bother him as he gazed at the various items laid out before him. “May I touch your rocks?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. The way he’d said that sounded dirty.

When his eyes came up, though, they were inquisitive instead of filled with mischief.

“They don’t really like to be handled.” I clenched my teeth, realizing what I’d said. “I mean, I don’t like them to be handled. That’s what I meant.”

“No, it isn’t.” Another pocket of silence, and I got the distinct impression he wanted me to wave my weird flag.

“Fine, you want the whole shebang?”

“Yes.”

“Each of those rocks holds power. They like to be laid out in various ways, which changes nearly every day. If I get it right, this game of poker is much easier. The right words come to me. If I get it wrong, I get very little tips on what my customers want to hear.”

“Do you ever get it wrong?”

“In the beginning, I did, yes. They were for decoration, so I just placed them randomly.”

“What changed?”

“I spent more time at the library, researching power items. One day I got it right, and it felt…balanced. Peaceful.”

“Powerful.”

“Yes,” I said, shivers coating my body. “Powerful.”

“I have some knowledge of power rocks, Penny Bristol, though the ones I use are significantly larger than these.” He ran a hand over the table. “You are wrong. They like to be handled. They like to be used, some more than others. But you are right in that they have a will of their own.”