She knew a bit more about palmistry than the average person- but only a bit more.
Her own eyes half closed, she was seeing something far different from the girl's hand. "I see the boy in your mind," she murmured. "He is wearing a uniform. Baseball, not football. He is a pitcher."
The girl gasped audibly.
Samantha tilted her head to one side, and added, "He will ask you out, Megan, but not to the homecoming dance. Another boy will ask you to the homecoming dance."
"Oh, no!"
"You will not be disappointed, I promise you. This is the boy you are meant to be with at this time in your life."
"When?" Megan whispered. "When will he ask me?"
Samantha knew the exact day but also knew how to make her revelation sound more mysterious and dramatic. "On the next full moon," she said. She glanced up in time to see a baffled look cross the girl's face and was tempted to dryly advise her to look at a calendar. Or to look up at the sky, since the late-afternoon storms had passed and a bright nearly full moon shone hugely.
Samantha couldn't remember if it was a harvest moon or a hunter's moon, though the latter struck her as either an apt coincidence or a deliberate sense of timing by the kidnapper.
"Oh, Madam Zarina, thank you!"
As Samantha released the girl's hand, she couldn't help but add, "Choose the blue dress. Not the green one."
Again, Megan gasped, but before she could say anything, Ellis appeared from the draperies behind Samantha and swept the girl out of the booth.
Samantha rubbed her temples briefly and drew a breath, trying to keep focused. Then Ellis returned, alone.
"What, am I done?" Samantha demanded.
"Are you kidding? You've got at least a dozen people waiting in line, and Leo says another dozen tickets have been sold so far tonight."
"Well, then?"
"I told them you were taking a ten-minute break. Word's spreading about your accuracy tonight, so nobody's complaining." Ellis vanished behind the draperies again, then returned with a big mug. "I've brought you some tea."
She had known Ellis too long to waste time arguing, so Samantha merely accepted the tea and sipped it. "Sweet. I'm not in shock, you know."
"No, but you need fuel and I know damned well you won't eat anything until you're done tonight. You've been at this two hours nonstop, and it doesn't take another psychic to feel your energy draining away."
"I'm a little tired. It'll pass."
Sitting down in the client chair, Ellis said, "Judging by the reactions-yours as well as theirs-I'm guessing you've been getting hits all night. Psychic hits, I mean. Yes?"
"Yeah. It's sort of weird, really. Not full-blown visions, just these flashes of images. And knowledge. I've never been so… on… before."
"Why, do you think?"
"Dunno. That weird vision earlier today might have changed something. Maybe left me more plugged in than usual, for however long it lasts."
"You're not doing any cold reading at all?"
Samantha shook her head. It was something she had done in the past and would undoubtedly do in the future-and it was the sort of thing that made cops like Sheriff Metcalf suspicious. Because a really good "seer" could read the body language and "tells"-physical tics and gestures, usually unconscious-of her clients, weaving a subtle pattern of guesswork and half-truths into something that appeared to be genuine psychic ability.
Or magic.
She wasn't particularly proud of that but, as Ellis had noted, Samantha had a highly practical nature and she did what she had to do in order to make her way in the world. The sign outside her booth clearly stated that she read for entertainment purposes only, and she weighed her clients carefully before offering them anything more than a show, wary of those who were too desperate or too gullible.
Usually they were like young Megan, anxious to know about their love lives, or whether a promotion at work was forthcoming, or where they could find the strongbox full of cash supposedly buried somewhere in the backyard by Great-Uncle George.
But sometimes… sometimes their faces were pale and beaded with desperate sweat, and their eyes were glazed, and their voices were so strained it was like listening to an animal in pain. Those were the ones Samantha did her best to recognize early, before already-intense emotions got out of control.
Half a lifetime of experience helped; she had more than once given a deliberately vague reading in order to avoid either upsetting or encouraging a client in a fragile mental state.
"Then everything you've told the clients tonight has been the truth?" Ellis demanded.
"Pretty much. It's been harmless, mostly. Though I did see a couple of things I didn't think they could handle, so I kept them to myself."
"Tragedies?"
"Yeah. I saw one lady die in a car accident about six months from now-and knew there was nothing I could tell her to change the outcome." She shivered and took another swallow of the hot, sweet tea. "You want to tell them to go hug their kids or make peace with their mothers, or make that list of the ten things they want to do before they die and damned well do them now. But you know-I know-they'd only fall apart if they believed me at all, and that would just make the rest of their lives miserable. So I don't tell them. I just look at them… and hear the clock ticking off the time they have left. Jesus, it's creepy knowing stuff like that."
"I guess it would be. Do you believe in fate, Sam? You've never said."
"I believe some things have to happen just the way they happen. So, yeah, I guess I do. Up to a point."
"Free will?"
Samantha smiled wryly. "That is the point. I wouldn't like to think my every move and decision had been mapped out before I was born. But I do believe the universe puts us in a position to make decisions and choices that will determine the next fork in the path. Change your decision-and you find yourself on a different path."
"Is that why we're here in Golden right now?"
Samantha drank more of the tea, frowning.
"Or you could just tell me to mind my own business."
"It is your business. You're here too."
Ellis smiled faintly. "So… are we here because of your path, or Luke's?"
With a slight grimace, Samantha replied, "Six of one and half a dozen of the other."
"So you're both on the same path?"
"No. Our paths just… intersected. The way they did once before. And I'd really like to be able to move on this time without feeling like I've… dropped acid and been half eaten by a lion."
Both Ellis's brows shot up. "Lovely imagery. Dropped acid? That's more my generation than yours."
Samantha frowned. "Maybe I picked it up from you. But, anyway, the gist stands. When it was over, I felt like I'd been out of my mind and got mauled because of it. By something with teeth and claws."
"I wouldn't have thought Luke was that ferocious."
"You weren't close to him."
"Were you?"
After a moment of silence, Samantha drained her mug and handed it back to Ellis. "I think my break is over. If you'll please tell the next client he or she can come in, I'll let you go off and check on the concessions." Ellis oversaw food and snacks at the carnival as well as serving as their nurse.
She got up without protest, saying merely, "You can avoid the question when I ask, Sam, but you'd better be honest with yourself. Especially now. Because I've got a hunch it would have taken a pretty strong reason for you to deliberately cross paths with Luke again. Like maybe… a life-and-death reason? And when a moment like that comes, the decisions are pure instinct, straight from the gut and the heart."
"Lovely imagery," Samantha muttered.
Ellis smiled. "The gist stands." She turned toward the front doorway of the booth, adding, "Your turban's crooked."
Swearing under her breath, Samantha reached up to straighten the hated thing. Her fingers lingered on the old, fragile purple silk and skimmed over the glittering rhinestones, and she sighed.