Her eyes went wide, but behind them there was the look of a heavy burden lifted. “This is crazy…”
“No it isn’t. I’m paying for your knowledge, just like Karswell. Consultation fee?” He thought of his own business and smiled. “People pay for information all the time. It really does make the world go round.”
“As much as I need it—”she looked longingly at the check—“I can’t take it.”
“Wouldn’t you be foolish not to?”
Moments ticked by; Letitia’s hesitation was nearly palpable. “What’s your question?”
He answered at once, as if it had been on his mind all along. “Earlier. You almost sounded amused when you told me not to ask you the color of my aura. Well, I want to know.”
She exhaled as if exerted. “Of all the questions, you would ask that.”
“Come on. I don’t even really know what an aura is, or even what’s it’s supposed to be if I believed in such things…”
Letitia seemed to squirm where she stood, still looking at the check. “An aura is a detectible emanation of a person’s life-force, or soul,” she said, exasperated. “Not everybody has one, but those that do—”
“Are what?” he jumped in, thinking the obvious. “Psychically inclined?”
“No. Just sensitive. The color of a person’s aura suggests their nature. Orange means passionate, red means quick to anger, blue means meditative, white means benevolent, like that. But some experts insist that it’s more than that. They say that the color of one’s aura reflects the true character of their heart….”
Fanshawe’s throat felt dry when he asked, “What color’s mine?”
“You don’t really have one,” she said. “But it’s something I tell anyone who comes to have their palm read. It sounds genuine. It puts customers in good mood, and when they’re in a good mood, they tip better.”
Fanshawe slowly shook his head. “Lett, I think you’re making that up just to close out the topic.”
Her posture drooped. “All right, I am! Jesus!”
“What’s the big deal?” he asked, astounded by her reluctance. “What, it’s some ethical thing, a palm reader’s creed? Come on.”
“Well, it sort of is. Doctors have their Hippocratic Oath, palm readers don’t tell people about their auras. It kind of…crosses a boundary, I guess you could say. It’s the mark of a jaded fortune teller.” She eyed the check again, moaned, then offered it back to him.
“You’re kidding me!”
“No. I wouldn’t feel right about it. Take the check back.”
Fanshawe chuckled, amazed. You sure don’t see this everyday. He was impressed, yes, but also…
Very disappointed.
“You really walk it like you talk it, Lett. Thanks for your time. And keep the check.” He turned and began to head down the sidewalk.
“Hey!” she called out.
He turned to see her fuming.
She pointed a finger right at him. “You asked, so don’t blame me! It’s black!” and then she ran across the street, check in hand, to the bank.
(II)
Black, he thought.
Black aura. Black heart.
Go thither, if thou dost have the heart, to the bridle—
A heart so black as to be stygian, sir, a black blacker, too, than the very abyss…
Fanshawe’s reaction to Letitia’s parting words was nothing like what he’d expect. He felt neutral about it, not confused, not scared or foreboded. A psychic just told me I have a black heart—that’s not much of an endorsement, is it? The color black brought negative connotations: corruption, dishonesty, greed…
Evil.
He scoffed as he moved leisurely down the sun-lit sidewalk, then he laughed aloud to himself. I’m not any of those things, and I’m certainly not EVIL. However, as he thought more on it, the more irresistibly he found himself reflecting back on the entire meeting. She’d mentioned something revelatory, hadn’t she?
There’d certainly been revelations in her parlor.
The Gazing Ball was also called a bridle, something akin to a magic circle. It evolved from the times of the Druids, a very occult bunch. Last night he’d found a second and more secure diary of Wraxall’s, while today he’d seen a corroborating diary: Callister Rood’s. Rood himself had committed suicide, by hanging, while Fanshawe had seen the man’s image hanging by the neck last night. And Wraxall probably hadn’t been executed after all. He’d been butchered by Rood, his own apprentice.
Now, all that he’d learned began to swirl about consciousness, and when his elbow brushed his jacket pocket, he felt the tubular bulk of the looking-glass. The glass worked last night—I KNOW it did…
And if that were the case, everything else was real too, not superstitious invention.
It was real.
The acknowledgment of that brought the drone back to his head. I’m NOT crazy, so that can only mean…
But how could this be?
“Well, ’ow’d your session go at the palmist’s, sir?” greeted the enthused, elderly voice.
Fanshawe had been too wound up over his thoughts to even see that he’d just passed Mrs. Anstruther’s information kiosk. It took a moment for him to snap out of the daze.
“Ah, Mrs. Anstruther—yes, it was very entertaining. I appreciate your suggestion.”
The high sunlight filled the creases in her face so sharply with shadow-lines she looked like a grinning sketch. “Cheery news on your horizon, I hope, sir.”
Well, I’m told my riches will increase a thousandfold and I’ve got a black heart… “I think you could say that, yes.”
“And what might your estimation be of Ms. Letitia Rhodes? Hope ya don’t got the notion I steered you improper.”
The tiny drone remained in his head even as he engaged in the talk, as though his current concerns were being intruded upon. “Not at all. She seems very genuine, maybe even a bit too genuine, if you know what I mean.”
The old woman laughed. “Aye, but I do, sir. Just like I said to ya!”
Fanshawe’s mood darkened; he lowered his voice. “Yes, but I felt awful at one point. I saw the picture of her baby on the wall and made the mistake of asking about it.”
Mrs. Anstruther’s eyes turned instantly regretful. “Oh, dear me, yes! What a ’orrible, ’orrible thing to happen, I must say. The poor little tot, he caught hisself a fever so’s Miss Letitia, she rush him to the hospital but”—she crossed herself—“he die in her arms ’fore she got him there, not two months ago it was. Certain I am, though, sir, certain as I’m certain the day’s long, the Lord’ll bless ’is little soul. The tot was buried in the town churchyard, sir, and the entire town show up to show their respects,” and then she crossed herself again. “We all pitch in some to pay for the tot’s embalming and coffin and all, on account Miss Letitia ’erself were sufferin’ from empty pockets at the time.”
Died from a fever… The added information only made Fanshawe feel worse. My God, what a terrible thing to happen… “I can’t imagine what a blow it must’ve been to Letitia.”
“I don’t imagine none of us can. A dreadful thing like that? And not no one there to help her through it.”
“Yeah, she told me the child’s father abandoned her,” Fanshawe recalled. He didn’t want to be rude, but he couldn’t wait to leave and be back with his own thoughts.
“Ah, but did she tell ya any more about that scoundrel of a chiseler who walk off on her?”