and Deanna started to rise.
“There is only room in the tent for one—I’m sorry. The crystal ball is quite different from the palm and the cards.”
Susan waited gravely, and at last Lauren followed her into the tent, the sounds from the street and the night receding. As she sat in the chair opposite Susan, the world outside all but disappeared.
“Your fiancé, he was a soldier?” Susan asked, staring into the crystal ball.
Startled, Lauren looked at her. “Yes.”
“I’m very sorry, truly. But…there are those who believe there are certain fates we cannot avoid, and others who believe we have a hand in our own futures. Perhaps many people lived because your young man died,” she said softly.
“Thank you. I like to think that,” Lauren murmured.
“You don’t date much.”
“I’ve dated.”
Susan smiled enigmatically.
“What?” Lauren asked.
“You don’t date much because you feel that you meet nothing but dimwits and users since you lost your man.”
“It’s hard to meet the right person.”
They had been chatting casually, almost as if they were engaged in a normal conversation at any one of the smaller cafes or bars in the city. But Lauren realized that something had been subtly changing since she had come into the little tent.
The crystal ball had begun to glow, to fill with a red mist.
She stared at it, unable to tear her eyes away. She only dimly noted Susan’s face, registering as if from a great distance that the other woman looked tense, even distressed.
“You must leave here…you and your friends…must go.”
“Yes,” Lauren said.
But she couldn’t move. It felt as if she were frozen where she sat, as if her very muscles were paralyzed.
There was something dark at the core of the crystal ball, dark and red, finding form as the milliseconds ticked by.
It was a bird. A winged thing.
Then it was not.
It took the shape of a man. Tall, the face dark, the figure imposing.
A sound seemed to rise in her ears, and she realized that it was laughter. Deep, rich, taunting-and cruel.
She heard words.
So soft at first that she couldn’t understand what was being said. Then she knew.
“I’m coming for you. I’m coming to get you.”
“No,” Lauren murmured, struggling for sanity, for reality. Someone had heard them talking earlier. Someone had heard the words that Deanna had spoken teasingly.
“Lauren…” The dark figure called her by name. “I’m coming to get you, Lauren….”
“No!”
“I’m coming to get you, and you’ll be mine in a world of blood and death and darkness.”
Susan suddenly jumped up, as if she, too, had suddenly broken of the invisible bonds holding her there.
She made a strange sound and her arm flew out.
The crystal ball flew off the table and shattered on the ground.
But even as it flew into a thousand pieces, it seemed to Lauren that she heard a husky whisper of evil laughter.
2
She wasn’t sure how she’d gotten there, but Lauren found herself outside the tent. It seemed so normal now, nothing more than a little red canvas tent again.
She was back outside just as if they had finished their session completely normally,, as if she had casually strolled out after hearing some nice normal prediction for her future. She was back outside, in the midst of the neon light and movement of the night. The very normal night. She could hear footsteps and laughter, bits of conversation, the sound of mules’ hooves as they clattered on the pavement, drawing carriages filled with tourists.
Both Heidi and Deanna were staring at her in surprise, and that wasn’t normal at all.
Lauren turned to look back inside the tent. The images she had seen now seemed ridiculous, but the shattered crystal ball was there as proof that something out of the ordinary had happened.
“Lauren!” Heidi said, shocked. “Susan, we’re so sorry. We’ll pay for your crystal ball, of course. What on earth happened?” She stepped forward, slipping an arm through Lauren’s, lowering her voice to a whisper. “I knew you weren’t exactly into this, but did you have to break her crystal ball?”
“It was an accident!” Lauren protested.
It had been an accident-and she hadn’t even been the one to break it. But beyond that, she couldn’t have seen what she thought she had. She had been tricked. It must have been some kind of a parlor trick, though that seemed impossible now, with all the light and noise around her.
Even now, the details of what she had seen, what she had heard, were slipping from her mind. She tried to hold on, but they were all escaping her. And she was beginning to feel like a fool.
Was she worse off-mentally or emotionally-than she had thought?
No!
Susan was still staring at her. And she didn’t seem to be concerned about her crystal ball but about Lauren herself.
“Where are you girls staying?” Susan asked.
“The Old Cote,” Deanna said.
Susan frowned in puzzlement. “I don’t know it.”
“It’s a lovely place, made up of several cottages. It was kind of a family compound before the storm, but they’ve opened it up as an inn now as way to recoup some of their losses. The grandmother—the family matriarch, I guess—is enjoying it, so I guess the place will stay around for a while. I found it on line,” Deanna said, her enthusiasm for their little discovery evident.
“But where is it?” Susan asked.
Deanna seemed a little surprised by the fortune teller’s persistent tone. “Off Conti and a good bit back from Bourbon, luckily. The noise is great when you’re part of the party, but when you’re trying to sleep, it can be a bit much.”
“You have to move. Move into the biggest, most crowded hotel, and room together, stay together, until you can get out of New Orleans,” Susan warned.
“But we’re not leaving,” Heidi said. “Not for several days. This is my bachelorette party.”
Susan
