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I can’t help myself, I say, “If you’re really psychic, wouldn’t you have known I was about to knock?”
ChapterEleven
Mira
“Youdidn’tknock,” says the woman I presume to be Josie the Great. She sounds pretty high and mighty for a woman whose lipstick is smeared. “And the sight doesn’t work that way.”
“So how does it work?” I ask. The man with the curly hair sighs as if he’s inconvenienced by my presence, which I suppose is true of his hard-on.
“You can’t expect her to tell you that,” he argues.
“Yeah, it’s like asking about someone’s cycle,” Josie tells me with a hard look. “Do you want to tell me aboutyourcycle, Mira?”
“Sure,” I say. “The last time I got my period, it was super bloody, and my Moon Goddess cup leaked all over—”
“Jesus, I can’t believe I quit the law for this,” the guy says, but his expression is bemused, like he maybe doesn’t mind. I guess he doesn’t, because Josie the Great’s lipstick’s all over his mouth, and he’s not running for a mirror.
“You were a lawyer?” I ask him.
“Sure,” Josie answers for him. “We all make mistakes. Shauna tells me you’re here to talk about yours.”
I shoot Shauna an accusatory glance, and she shrugs. “Byron was a definite mistake.”
Not going to argue with her there.
Josie gestures to a table set up in the back of her shop. There’s a group of black candles in the center that’re basically a pool of melted wax, and a crystal ball she probably brought from Party Depot. This is a racket, obviously, but I’m not above taking part in it.
Josie eyes my crutches as I make my way to the table. “You had an accident.”
It’s a statement of the obvious—people don’t carry around crutches for fun—but goosebumps shiver up my arms nevertheless. Damn it, I really am getting suggestible.
“No shit,” I say, taking a seat by the head of the table, balancing my crutches against the side.
The used-to-be-a lawyer sighs again from behind the front desk and pulls a book out of a leather satchel. I can’t see the cover well from where I’m sitting, but judging from the self-important font, I’m guessing it’s not a romance novel.
Shauna sits opposite me, Delia takes the chair next to mine, and Josie the Great takes the spot at the head of the table.
“So, Shauna said you might be able to tell me if I’ve been hexed,” I say, since there’s no point sitting around and singing kumbaya.
“Oh, you definitely were,” Josie says.
I choke on nothing. It’s not that I buy it, just that I didn’t expect her to be so direct in her lies. “You can…see that?”
She shrugs. “Sure, but that’s not why. Your ex-boyfriend came in here around Halloween.”
Shauna gives Josie the Great a look that has claws. “Why the fuck didn’t you say anything when I called you?”
“I figured you knew. You’re the one who made the appointment with me.”
It’s coincidental,toocoincidental, and I feel an uneasy shiver work down my back.
“How do you know it was him?” I ask.
Josie shrugs for a second time. “I could say it’s because I’m psychic, but he also had a photo of you. So let’s say it’s both things.”
That’s creepy. Really fucking creepy. I’ve always been a fan of Halloween—of pretending to revel in darkness, but I’d prefer to keep it on a hypothetical level. Witchcraft is something that belongs in books and spooky stories told around campfires.
Delia pokes at the black wax on the table, and I notice her face has lost color. But then her lips tighten and she says, “You cursed my sister?”
