Readings were an everyday activity for Madame Zelda. She spent most of her days going from one house to another, giving detailed descriptions of past, present, and future events to her clients. Her clientele was as varied as imaginable; from the mayor’s wife and her suspicions of his adultery, to the struggling single mother of four living in Tuscaloosa’s Deer Lick trailer park who wondered when she’d ever get her head above water financially. Zelda always told people the unglorified truth, even when it was dreary, which was exactly the reason people kept coming to her for guidance. Zelda learned one great truth from her many years as a professional psychic— Everyone has a challenging life, according to them, and everyone is looking for a magical fix for it.

  As Zelda was getting ready to go to bed after another long day of readings, she went through her usual routine to clear her mind of other people’s problems. It was a taxing endeavor to see the dark places of other people’s lives. Joys were few and agonies always outweighed them. It stood to reason—no one seeks advice when they are happy. Cleansing her clients’ woes from her mind took some doing if she ever wanted to sleep. Chamomile tea, a chapter from a trashy novel, and a little Michael Buble on Spotify. The latter always worked—once Seth had shown her how to use the app. Zelda was just winding down when a knock came at the door.

  She was more than a little surprised to find Beryl Blanchard standing on her doorstep seeking information. Beryl was a witch, but a scientist as well. Facts and faith are usually bitter enemies, and Beryl had the difficult burden of having to reconcile both because she belonged to both worlds. Zelda liked to call people such as Beryl, “tritches” because some witches were never satisfied with believing, they wanted truth. The quest for logical explanations for things that could not be explained was a hard road to wander. Zelda always felt like the world is better when left a mystery.

  Zelda led Beryl to the living room where they both sat down at the little round table where Zelda performed at-home readings for clients who came to her rather than the other way around.

  “What brings you here, Beryl?”

  “I need your help. I couldn’t talk to you at the house yesterday morning with everyone around. Then tonight, I decided to just come to you.”

  “Well, you know I’ll do anythin’ I can to help you. What’s it all about?” Zelda asked.

  Beryl hesitated before speaking. Zelda could see how difficult it was for someone like Beryl to bring herself to someone like Zelda for assistance. The Beryl Blanchards of the world rarely asked for help and almost never asked for guidance. “I need you to try and see Fable’s future for me,” Beryl requested. “Or her present.”

  “I don’t think I’m a’followin’ you, Beryl.”

  “You see, Fable is seeing this man we know absolutely nothing about.”

  “Ain’t she always?” Zelda laughed. “You know I love me some Fable, but she is kind of a tramp. You ain’t ever meddled in her life before. Why you doin’ it now?”

  “There is something very wrong about this one,” Beryl confessed. “Mother feels it too, and you know Mother is never wrong about her feelings.”

  “Why don’t your momma try to look into Fable’s head or this guy’s?”

  “She has tried. He is a steel trap. And you know Mother can’t see the future, just the past and the here and now. Zelda, you are the strongest psychic witch I know. I’ve come to you for some peace of mind.”

  Zelda rose up a little in her chair, puffing her chest. It wasn’t everyday she got such a compliment from the most reasonable and humorless Blanchard. She patted Beryl’s hand and nodded. She settled herself comfortably in her chair and dimmed the overhead lights with a switch attached to the top of her table. She closed her eyes to begin, but quickly opened them and raised a brow towards Beryl.

  “You know, when I open up and do my visions, I don’t just see what you come here for. I see it all. My clients’ secrets all pour into my stream. Lying, cheating… kinky stuff too. If I open the wavelength…”

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  “I understand,” Beryl exhaled. “I have nothing to hide. No kinky secrets. Wish I did.”

  “Then let’s start,” Zelda said.

  Beryl reached into her purse and removed a hairbrush. “This is Fable’s. I swiped it from her bathroom. I didn’t know if you needed something physical.”

  Zelda withdrew a deck of tarot cards from a drawer under the table and began shuffling them. “These cards don’t really do nothing. But my clients seem to appreciate the theater of it. I’ve shuffled and laid these things out for so many years during readings, I just tend to do better if I’m fiddling with them.”

  The telephone rang.

  “Excuse me,” Zelda said exacerbated as she grabbed the phone from a nearby chair. “That’ll be Melinda. She always calls before bed.”

  Beryl listened to the short exchange from Zelda’s end. “Hello? Hey. I’m about to do a readin, so I can’t talk…I know its late…special customer…hurry up and tell me quick then…No, that’s a dumb idea…I don’t care if Hanley Motors is looking for a girl to do their TV commercials; they ain’t gone hire you. You ain’t no girl no more…Melinda, don’t nobody wanna see you selling Honda’s on TV…well, go try out for it if you want to, but you ain’t near young enough to breakout in television anymore…talk to you in the morning…Bye.”

  “You know you could try being a little more encouraging to her,” Beryl remarked as Zelda returned her attention back to the reading.

  “I guess,” Zelda replied. “I tried back in the day. But I just never could take to her. When she was born and the doc put her in my arms, I looked at her face and thought Crap. Nine months of back aches and vomit and this is the best I could do!”

  Zelda zoned back in for the reading. Beryl observed her taking deep breaths while closing her eyes in concentration as she tried to enter a trance—and she looked like someone trying to enter a trance--or use the bathroom. Beryl wasn’t sure which might happen first. She wanted to laugh at how ridiculous the faces the old woman was making were, but she made sure not to. She respected the fact that Zelda, no matter how ridiculous she looked, held great power. Real power. Besides, Zelda’s farcical mannerisms and sense of style were one of the things that endeared her to people. She was loud and boisterous, yet also genuinely kind—except when it came to her daughters.

  Watching Zelda’s theatrical attempt at trancing made Beryl compare her own mother’s psychic abilities. Her mother never made such a show of her powers, but then again visions happened to Demitra; Zelda’s talents lay in the fact that she could will her visions whenever she pleased—something Demitra could occasionally do but had yet to master.

  “I see a man,” Zelda began to speak. “A grim man. He walks with Fable. He is slowly seducing her.”

  “His intentions?” Beryl asked. “Does he care about her?”

  Zelda strained her face as she searched for an answer. “I see great love in him.”

  Beryl’s shoulders dropped slightly as she released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Perhaps everything was all right. “So, I was wrong to be worried.”

  “Wait!” Zelda shuddered against the chair, her hands scattering a few of the cards she’d yet to begin laying out on the table. “Mother of Hera, I see blood! He has blood on his hands.”

  “Blood?” Beryl cried, the tension returning. “Fable’s blood?”

  “Blood that nourishes. Blood that feeds. Blood is the nectar he craves.”

  “Is he a vampire?” Beryl asked. “Is he a werewolf?” Suddenly she thought of Lana Leighton with her clawed face and torn neck. Lana, whom she could not heal.

  “There are many blanks,” Zelda continued. “He has many blank spots in his field. As if he doesn’t exist at moments. I need to focus harder. I see his eyes. So black, those eyes. No!” Zelda screamed. She clutched the table with both hands, her eyes still pressed firmly shut.

  “Zelda, what is it?!”

  “He’s looking back,” Zelda gasped. “He’s looking at us. He knows what we’re doing. He can see us too! He knows I’m in his mind.” She opened her eyes frantically. She looked afraid, truly afraid. Beryl had never seen Zelda afraid of anything. “What door have we opened?”

  “I don’t understand!” Beryl cried.

  Zelda grabbed Beryl’s arms across the table and shook them. “He’s coming to get us Beryl! And he’s angry.”

  “Patric?”

  “Whatever I saw is not human. And he now knows exactly where we are.”

  Beryl grew frightened, but reason stepped in and reminded her how impossible all this was. There was no way he could have seen Zelda reading his mind. No way he could possibly know where Zelda lived.

  “We have to do something!” Zelda wailed.

  “Hold on Zelda, there is no way he could possibly—”

  “Beryl, I am telling you this man is not human. And he’s on his way here now. He rides the night like a train, and he’s coming to kill us.”

  Beryl was beginning to believe her. Beginning to become hysterical herself. She looked around the room. Windows all over, flimsy front door. No real place to hide. “Can you stop him, Zelda?”

  “No,” the old lady grinned. “But you can. Freeze time! Give us the chance to get away before he gets here.”

  “I can’t freeze time. That’s Salem!”

  “Then we’re fucked.”