Day 191 of 365 Days of Writing Prompts: Someone predicts a character’s future.
Erin: “Hello my dear,” the palm reader immediately grabbed my hand.
“Hello,” I echoed. “I’m here because…”
“Don’t tell me with your mouth, tell me with these,” she smiled at my palms.
“Okay,” I obliged mentally zipping my mouth shut.
“I see you are in love.” She smiled up at me and I tried not to give away anything with my face. “But you are questioning your heart. Don’t fall into societies expectations my dear. Just because the brain is what we test, it does not mean it is any wiser than the pull of your heart. Don’t fight instincts.”
“That advice is helpful,” I stood up feeling our minute was up, or about to be.
“I’m glad, good luck with your love.”
I was thinking for some time she was a complete sham, but that sentence changed my mind. I had no romantic prospects, but I did have a love. I had my passion and my dream and a job that I could see being the rest of my working career. For a person like me that may have been the most important love of all. “I think we’ll be just fine.”
Shannon: “Why are you looking at me like that?” my boyfriend questioned, catching me staring longer than usual.
I looked away and scanned the rest of the museum again. “Are you sure we’ve never been here before?”
He shook his head. “It’s a new exhibit.”
“But I dreamed about this exact room. I saw all of these painting,” I explained, feeling like a crazy person. “How is that possible?”
“Did you look up the museum online?”
I thought for a second if I had ever accidently stumbled upon it. “No.”
“Maybe,” he was hesitant, “you saw the future?” He shrugged. “And, play along with me, let’s say you did. What happens next?”
“You find something under…” I paused, feeling the same way I did in the dream. The odd case he found under a statue’s foot made me feel uneasy, like I was seeing a different side of him, a darker side.
“Under what,” he pressed, a little too eager.
“Under one of those rocks outside the building,” I lied to see how he would react.
He tried to hold back his excitement, but I saw the slight smirk before it disappeared from his face.
You are not the only one who knows what the future of your character’s holds.
Pelky Sisters 
Dressed in flowing, gauzy materials and surrounded by a mystical, ancient scent that hung in the air and reminded me of dusty antiques and metallic paint. As she swept through the beaded curtain, scattering rows of sacred stone and bland bamboo beads that sounded like rain falling on a straw roof, I took an involuntary step back. With a veil of deep purple taffeta that she couldn’t possible see out of, combined with an outrageous number of gaudy necklaces of oxidized metals and hand-carved stones, she appeared out of a novel. Waving her fingers wildly, decked out with more garish rings than she had fingers, the woman took the first seat at the tiny table as the uncomfortable silence dragged on.
I glanced around the small, heavily-scented room, searching for anything that would let me off the hook to join this woman, and felt my breathing becoming shallow. “You know what?” I spoke with trembling lips and hugged my arms across my chest nervously, “I was just waiting for a friend so, you know, I’ll just wait for her outside, okay?” Around the room were crystals and warm salt lamps that winked at me as I quivered, just a few feet from the door.
With a deep chuckle, the woman whispered in a heavy accent, “You wait here for your friend; she will be here soon. But first,” gesturing to a large lump in the middle of the table, she continued in the same hazy voice, “I shall tell you your future.” From here, and without the ability to see her likely-homely face, I could hear her eyebrow rising articulately.
Still shuddering viciously, I pretended to not hear her, instead choosing to become insanely interesting in a set of three incense sticks that were trailing an intoxicating scent into the murky air. I took a few steps toward a particularly large crystal sculpture when the woman coughed loudly, attracting my attention. Waving emphatically at me, she whipped the cloth from the table, exposing a perfectly spherical crystal that seemed to glow. As I watched it with fascination, I suddenly realized I was standing over the table with my fingers almost touching the smooth surface of the orb. When I glanced up at the woman’s face, all I could see was a mess of tangled hemp cords and gauzy material that covered her face; there might not have been anyone under there for all I knew. But, as I was already there, I gently sat on the stiff wooden chair with my hands clasped in my lap.
After a moment of sustained silent deliberation, the woman wiggled her fingers about and asked, “What, my dear, do you want to know about?” Again, I could practically hear the definite expressions in her voice.
Sighing deeply, I replied with a roll of the eyes, “Well, I’d really like to know when Lay will be coming back out because she was just gonna be a minute.” Adding an irate, bored look around the room, I sat back in the chair, which protested.
Suddenly, the woman reached up for her veil and I braced to see the hideous face beneath it, unable to look away. “Really, Tanya, you didn’t know it was me?” asked Lay in her normal, melodious voice that was rich like dark chocolate. Throwing the fabric aside, she leaned forward on her elbows as I snorted out loud, piercing my abruptly jovial façade. “Alright, well, since we’re here anyway,” she began, gesturing toward the crystal ball, “what do you want to know about your future?” When her face cracked into a wide, toothy grin, she started painstakingly slipping the rings from her fingers into a little glass bowl that was meant for incense.
“Seriously?” I asked, preparing to leave.
Dropping the last of the metal jewelry into the bowl, Lay glared into my eyes with her dark irises pools of molten gold that glittered in the setting. “Yes, Tanya, come on. My aunt won’t be back for at least a half an hour; it’s not like we’ve got anything better to do without her car anyway,” she prodded, removing the woven-grass tiara from her head and shaking out her plaits. “Look, I don’t really believe in any of this ridiculous stuff either, but it’ll be fun. Come on,” she begged, pouting with her whole face and I caved.
Nodding, defeated, I dropped my purse to the floor and leaned forward to consider my options. “Hmm, how about you tell me where I’ll be in ten years, huh?” Mirroring the look of superiority, I leaned forward on one elbow and stared into the murky depths of the orb.
“Alright, ten year; I can so totally do that,” she murmured, wringing out her fingers and stretching her neck like an athlete preparing for a trial. With her eyes barely an inch away from the glass, she moved her body from side to side like a cobra and squinted at whatever she was seeing. “Okay,” she began, keeping her gaze locked on the divination tool, “you are going to have a wonderful, tall husband and, and, uh, it looks like a baby on the way? Could just be a boyfriend,” she added, still glaring at the ball. “And you’ve got this career in, uhm, in publishing!” When she was finished, she cracked the same full-feature smile and giggled hysterically before she got herself under control. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see anything in there; I don’t know a thing my aunt’s talkin’ about. You wan’ a go?” she asked, raising her eyebrow enticingly.
Though I normally would have just let it go, having already decided that this divination crap was a load, I couldn’t resist the lure of the shimmering orb. Leaning forward, I looked over the top of the ball and asked in a sultry tone, “Alright, Layla, what do you want to know about your future?”
A pause that seemed to last a lifetime as she decided and, as she stated her answer, I realized it had been obvious, “What will I be up to in ten years? I really like that one.”
Turning my eyes back to the mystical item before me, I tried wiggling my fingers above it and noticed that I could actually see the strange movements in the reflection. I stopped, frowning slightly, and tilted my head to one side, then the other, to get a better view of the refracted images. When nothing happened for a few minutes, I groaned and made something up. “Well, I see that you will have a successful business where you sell things to people,” I stumbled my way through, “and you will be happily single because you can date whoever you want to. You don’t have a pile of debt racked up so you can take vacations and do things you want and you have a lovely circle of professional friends who you rely on for stability and comedic relief.” Smiling at her over the crystal ball, I couldn’t help but laugh at our silliness.
Headlights streamed through the heavily-draped window as Lay’s aunt arrived, laying into the horn as it rang out a horrendous melody. “Well, I will get these clothes off and then we can head out, eh?” she asked, already stripping off the top layers of dusty bohemian garments. As she disappeared, the lights outside died out and there were a few seconds of raucous rock music blaring through the open car door as the aunt strode into her home.
“Ah, Tanya dear, so nice to see you again. Lay tells me you two are headed to a movie in the next town over; aren’t our movies good enough for you two?” she asked, throwing her feathered purse into a fluffy chair without looking at it.
I smiled sincerely and lied through my teeth, “Oh, yeah; I don’t know why they’re not showing it here. It just seemed a shame to not go just because we couldn’t see it on that one ancient screen with the projector that stops running if someone’s not right there.” Though I mean it as a joke, the statement came off harsher than I’d intended.
With a wave of her tattooed hand, Lay’s aunt dismissed my muffled apology, “It’s alright dear, I understand completely. You’ll give my best to whatever rock band neither of your folks will let you see, won’t you?” she winked.
“Layla?” I asked, unable to keep the amazement from my voice. As the dark eyed woman strode across the grand office, I set down the manuscript and leaned back in my wing-back office chair.
Grinning in the same whole-face way she always did, Layla’s teeth sparkled as she spoke, “Tanya, how long’s it been? Ten years already?” she asked, gracefully taking the seat before me and glancing around at my pristine desk. “You’ve made quite the name for yourself in publishing, eh? As soon as I was looking to get my children’s books on the market all I could hear was your praise.” Lay had always been great at flattery.
“Wow, well, thanks. My husband sure does appreciate it, and hopefully the baby will appreciate me reading your books to him or her,” I conversed, pointing to her completed manuscript as I placed a hand protectively over my swollen belly. “What have you been up to?” I asked politely.
“Oh, well, I’ve got a small chain of children’s shops going in the city, as well as the next few. We’re actually hoping to sell my books in them,” she replied happily, adding, “Congrats on the pregnancy; I don’t think I’ll ever get there.” There was no jealousy in her voice as she spoke and I supposed she saw enough babies and young children in her line of work to not want any of her own.
It wasn’t until I was walking in my door at home that I realized we were both living out the exact prophecies we’d joked about some ten years ago.
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August pockets the card. “…Um, how do I get out of here?”
“…Oh, right,” Dr. Strange then transports them to the front door of the sanctum.
“…Thanks,” August holding his stomach. ‘Thought he said he wouldn’t again, but he’s the one person who helped me.’ He opens the door.
“Mr. Evert,” Dr. Strange calls. August turns back to him. “I understand you have your own trauma from the past. But, I sense both great anguish and great reward in your future.”
August shrugs, “Never been one to believe in magic. Thanks for the card.”
“That card is because of magic,” Dr. Strange states.
“Yeah,” August steps out of the door, “But I’ll tell you a wise woman has told me many times; the future isn’t written in stone.” He then closes the door and goes on his way.
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