Page 9 of Divine Oaths

Thankfully, I was relieved from the undue burden of explaining how I’d lost another job when Louisa finally returned. And as Jojo had warned, she’d brought a group of shoppers with her.

There were four of them; two of them were men in their fifties, dressed as if they were going golfing, while the others, also similar in age, sported designer athleisure tracksuits and full-body tans.

Louisa herself was dressed in a robe that looked like a Party City version of a fortune teller costume; the dress was floor-length, with a shimmering coin belt that she wore draped over a layer of skirts, along with a long-sleeved ruffled shirt she’d topped with a vest. She’d styled her goddess locs into a bun and had woven cowrie shells and beads through the strands. In her arms, Louisa carried two large boxes that contained the consent forms she made her customers sign, along with props for the booth.

“I hope we didn’t interrupt anything?” Louisa said, placing the boxes in front of me.

Jojo threw his bag over his shoulder and sidestepped the chair.

“I should get going,” he said. “Since you’re here, the booth is officially manned.”

“Will I see you later?” I asked, standing with him.

He shook his head. “There’s a lot going on. Maybe I’ll see you at home? At the crossing?” he added, smiling to lighten the mood.

There was a fire escape that connected the floors between the apartment building we all lived in. We’d started meeting there, at “the crossing,” whenever we were too lazy to go knock on each other’s doors.

“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe.”

But I followed him as he left the stall, catching him just before he could take the escalator.

“I won’t go to Westfield.”

Again, his answer didn’t change.

“That’s your decision.”

“I know,” I said. “And I’m telling you what I choose.” The rest of my sentence, what I’d meant to say, remained caught between my heart and my lips. But there was no other answer, no other path for me, when he was here.

I wouldn’t strain my powers to help some Westfield heir I didn’t know, even if it might mean not getting the money I so desperately needed to stay in Virginia, to stay closer to Jojo. After all, Rhode Island wasn’t that far. We’d at least have this summer, and then, when fall came and his residency ended, I’d find a way to visit him whenever I could. We’d find each other again. We always did.

CHAPTER THREE

Doubt truth to be a liar

I SPENT THE REST OF the day working at Louisa’s stall. Time passed excruciatingly slow. For most of it, I channeled into people’s pasts, using my visions to interpret their futures.

At lulls throughout the day, when foot traffic died down and I needed to unwind, I took my usual spot at the old grand piano on the second floor of the mall. I never really played, just fiddled at tuning the piano or running through refrains that I still remembered. From the windows nearby, the view of the horizon was perfect as the sun began to set. Two floors down, the parking lot was vast and endless, and the nearby department stores formed an eclectic set of alleyways all around Center City Mall.

But on my last break before closing, I saw them from a distance: two figures in the parking lot near the mall’s exit. The first was familiar, but it took me a moment to pinpoint him as the bodyguard I’d seen with the Saint James heir.

The second figure was undeniably Jojo.

He argued with the bodyguard, each of them shouting something frantically. Eventually, the bodyguard went off in a separate direction, while Jojo hurried to his car.

Questions burned at the back of my mind. I texted Jojo, asking if everything was all right and if he could help us close down the stall. His response was brief.

Sorry. Can’t make it back tonight. I wanted to probe him more. But an announcement blared over the speakers. The mall was closing for the night and all stragglers needed to leave the premises.

At my side, my phone pinged with a text from Louisa.

Where are you? You were supposed to be back ten minutes ago.

Closing the piano’s fallboard, I grabbed my things and hurried back to Louisa’s stall. We were packed in minutes, and when we exited Center City Mall, the cool rush of air grazed our fingertips and the boxes we both carried. Louisa made one-sided conversation. During my shift, I’d told her that I’d move to Rhode Island with her, and she couldn’t contain her excitement.

The rain had stopped. The parking lot was nearly empty. But there in the distance, a familiar sedan was parked near an alleyway.

“That’s Jojo’s car.”