The night before the funeral and wake, I left Jaimie and F_ entertaining themselves with a video game, surrounded by popcorn and soda, explosions and squeals, while I set out into the night. I knew that their focus on the game was a distraction from thoughts of the coming day, and had read once that children navigate grief and loss differently from adults, pendulating between sorrow and play to manage their feelings and not allow themselves to be overwhelmed.
I have no reckoning why I felt so drawn to visit the Grim Sisters that night; it felt like an itch in my brain that had tingled to life when M_ told me about what lay in his cards. From there it had festered like a dry patch of eczema that had spread after that first conversation with D_ during our deathwatch in the capital and now I needed to scratch it back to extinction.
As I pulled into a visitor’s stall across from our resident mystics’ home and place of dark commerce, I felt a quiver deep inside me that was the beginning of relief from that itch.
All three sisters sat shadowed under the yellow lightbulb on their porch and as I approached, Selena and Amaris arose and withdrew silently into the trailer, leaving Gabriella alone to greet me.
“The B_, at last.” Gabriella smiled as I sat down across from her, the cards stacked neatly before her face down, “Full to the brim with questions, yet afraid to lift the fog that lies between present and future.”
I was unnerved that she knew my mind so clearly.
“I didn’t come for a reading, but I’ll pay for answers to those questions.” I said and laid a hundred dollar bill beside her cards.
“I believe I just said that. And here I heard you were the clever one.” Gabriella laughed.
“You’ve done readings for M_ and B_.” I said.
“And just tonight for D_.” she revealed.
“D_?” I was surprised, and it threw me off seeing her dark eyes twinkle, I knew Gabriella was enjoying my discomfort.
“Make your asks, B_.”
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