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“Do you see my aura?” Charlotte asked off-handedly.
“Yes. I do,” Florentia said.
Charlotte’s throat grew tight. Naturally, she didn’t believe the woman; still, there was something ominous about being gazed at with such ferocity.
“What do you see?” Charlotte asked.
Florentia waved her hand. “It isn’t yet time for me to speak on it. The colours flow out of you slowly, as you give me more and more of yourself. You’re one of the more guarded people I’ve ever spoken to. Your friend’s aura poured out into my hands.”
“She’s giving, that one,” Charlotte said.
Florentia chuckled. “Are you always so hard on the people you love?”
Charlotte’s lips closed tightly. She turned her eyes towards the window, where rain continued to patter.
“I suppose the answer to that is yes,” Florentia continued.
“Perhaps,” Charlotte returned. “But perhaps you’re just good at reading people’s personalities in general. I don’t believe in the idea of future-reading. I don’t believe that you can peer into my eyes and know the date that I will die.”
Florentia adjusted her scarves. “As you sit here before me, I perceive darkness like clouds. They billow around you. I can hardly see your face.”
“I’m sitting no more than three feet in front of you,” Charlotte said. “It’s impossible that you can’t see my face, lest you are blind.”
“I’m only in-tune with the nature of your mind and your future, growing increasingly so as time passes,” Florentia said.
She continued to stare directly into Charlotte’s eyes, which Charlotte perceived as a sort of challenge. She stared directly back. A full minute passed.
Suddenly, Florentia smacked her cheeks with those horrendous hands, hands with fingernails as long as nails.
“My God,” she marvelled.
Charlotte longed to roll her eyes back. Still, she kept her eyes pinned forward, focused on Florentia’s. What sort of idiocy was this? Would she really pay money to stare someone in the eye?
“I no longer see you, my darling girl,” Florentia whispered. Her voice now fluttered, as though it didn’t fully come from Florentia’s throat and instead permeated in the air around them.
“I’m right here. As I said before.”
“No. There’s such darkness around you. It’s proof of something. Something horrendous coming towards you,” Florentia said.
“Approaching fear and death? I suppose that’s not outside the bounds of reason,” Charlotte affirmed. “Seems to me that those sorts of things lurk in the distance of every single life. I could very well leave your home and be struck by a carriage and never see the light of day again. Is that the sort of thing you see for my future?”
Florentia began to quake. Her fingers rattled against her cheeks, and her eyes seemed on the verge of popping out. Charlotte yearned to leap from her chair and hustle towards the hallway. Still, she was captivated with this horrible woman, with her seemingly consistent charade.
“You will live through the darkness coming towards you,” Florentia whispered. “But it’s not as though you’ll be happy to keep your life. Not for a great deal of time.”
Charlotte arched her brow. “Are you suggesting that I won’t want to live?”
Florentia smacked her palm over her mouth. She screamed into it, as though she’d become newly overwhelmed with the images she perceived in Charlotte’s future. Despite her annoyance, Charlotte stirred with apprehension.
“A man. A man you know well,” Florentia whispered.
“There are a number of those,” Charlotte said in irritation.
“A member of your family. He will soon be gone,” Florentia cooed.
Charlotte bolted upright. “My father?”
Florentia clucked her tongue. “No. I don’t believe he’s your father. What is this name …” She formed her lips into a round O.
