The Raven Boys

Maura glanced at Blue, an eyebrow lifted. Blue lifted one shoulder in response. He didn’t seem like he was here to murder them or steal any portable electronics.

"And that," her mother said, releasing the beleaguered light fixture, "is a very strange way to enter someone’s home."

"I’m sorry," the young man said. "There is a sign out front saying this is a place of business."

There was indeed a sign out front, hand-painted — though Blue didn’t know by whose hand — that read PSYCHIC. And, beneath that:

"By appointment only," Maura told the man. She grimaced into the kitchen. Blue had left a basket of clean laundry by the kitchen counter and one of her mother’s mauve lacy bras sat on top in full view. Blue refused to feel guilty. It wasn’t as if she had expected men to be wandering through the kitchen.

The man said, "Well then, I’d like to make an appointment."

A voice from the doorway to the stairs made all three of them turn.

"We could do a triple reading for you," Persephone said.

She stood at the base of the stairs, small and pale and made largely of hair. The man stared at her, though Blue wasn’t certain if this was because he was considering Persephone’s proposal or because Persephone was quite a lot to take in at first glance.

"What," the man asked finally, "is that?"

It took Blue a moment to realize that he meant "triple reading" rather than Persephone. Maura jumped off the table, landing with enough force that the glasses in the cabinet rattled. Blue climbed down more respectfully. She was, after all, holding a box of lightbulbs.

Maura explained, "It’s when three of us — Persephone, Calla, and I — read your cards at the same time and compare our interpretations. She doesn’t offer that to just anyone, you know."

"Is it more expensive?"

"Not if you change that one stubborn bulb," Maura said, wiping her hands off on her jeans.

"Fine," said the man, but he sounded vexed about it.

Maura gestured for Blue to give a lightbulb to the man, and then she said, "Persephone, would you get Calla?"

"Oh dear," Persephone said in a small voice — and Persephone’s voice was already quite small, so her small voice was indeed tiny — but she turned and went up the stairs. Her bare feet were soundless as she did.

Maura eyed Blue, asking a question with her expression. Blue shrugged an agreement.

"My daughter, Blue, will be in the room, if you don’t mind. She makes the reading more clear."

With a disinterested glance at Blue, the man climbed onto the table, which creaked a bit under the weight. He grunted as he tried to twist the stubborn bulb.

"Now you see the problem," Maura said. "What is your name?"

"Ah," he said, giving the bulb a jerk. "Can we leave this anonymous?"

Maura said, "We’re psychics, not strippers."

Blue laughed, but the man didn’t. She thought this was rather unfair of him; maybe it was in slightly poor taste, but it was funny.

The kitchen abruptly lightened as the new bulb screwed into place. Without comment, he stepped onto a chair and then to the floor.

"We’ll be discreet," Maura promised. She gestured for him to follow her.

In the reading room, the man looked around with clinical interest. His gaze passed over the candles, the potted plants, the incense burners, the elaborate dining room chandelier, the rustic table that dominated the room, the lace curtains, and finally landed on a framed photograph of Steve Martin.

"Signed," Maura said with some pride, noticing his attention. Then: "Ah, Calla."

Calla blew into the room, her eyebrows quite angry at being disturbed. She was wearing lipstick in a dangerous shade of plum, which made her mouth a small, pursed diamond under her pointy nose. Calla gave the man a lacerating look that plumbed the depths of his soul and found it wanting. Then she plucked her deck of cards from a shelf by Maura’s head and flopped into a chair at the end of the table. Behind her, Persephone stood in the doorway, her hands clasping and unclasping each other. Blue slid hastily into a chair at the end of the table. The room seemed a lot smaller than it had a few minutes before. This was mostly Calla’s fault.

Persephone said, in a kind voice, "Have a seat," and Calla said, in an unkind one, "What is it you want to know?"

The man dropped into a seat. Maura took the chair opposite from him at the table, with Calla and Persephone (and Persephone’s hair) on either side of her. Blue was, as always, just a little apart.

"I would rather not say," the man said. "Maybe you’ll tell me."

Calla’s plum smile was positively fiendish. "Maybe."

Maura slid her deck of cards across the table to the man and told him to shuffle them. He did so with proficiency and little self-consciousness. When he was done, Persephone and Calla did the same.

"You’ve been to a reading before," Maura noted.

He made only a vaguely grumbling noise of assent. Blue could see he thought that any information would let them fake the reading. Still, she didn’t think he was a skeptic. He was merely skeptical of them.

Maura slid her deck back from the man. She’d had her deck for as long as Blue had been paying attention, and the edges were fuzzy with handling. They were a standard tarot deck, only as impressive as she made them. She selected ten cards and laid them out. Calla did the same with her slightly crisper deck — she’d replaced them a few years ago after an unfortunate incident had made her lose her taste for her previous deck. The room was quiet enough to hear the rustle of their cards against the uneven, pocked surface of the reading table.

Persephone held her cards in her long, long hands, eyeing the man for a pregnant moment. Finally, she contributed only two cards, one at the beginning of the spread and one at the end. Blue loved watching Persephone lay down her cards; the limpid turn of her wrist and the swick of the card always made it seem like a sleight of hand or a ballet movement. Even the cards themselves seemed more otherworldly. Persephone’s cards were slightly larger than Maura’s and Calla’s, and the art on them was curious. Spidery lines and smudgy backgrounds suggested the figures on each card; Blue had never seen another deck like it. Maura had told Blue once that it was hard to ask Persephone questions that you didn’t absolutely need the answer to, so Blue had never found out where the deck had come from.

Now that the cards were laid out, Maura, Calla, and Persephone studied the shape of them. Blue struggled to see over their huddled heads. She tried to ignore that, this close to the man, he had the overpowering chemical scent of a manly shower gel. The sort that normally came in a black bottle and was called something like SHOCK or EXCITE or BLUNT TRAUMA.