Waiting For Sunrise - The Books Of Beginning AU

25. A Gathering Storm

Kate was weaving her way through the stalls filling the Magical Quarter marketplace, idly scanning the wares available, when a shout broke through the background din.

"OI! KATE!"

Kate turned on heel and saw, across the street, the young seer who was friends with Rafe, Ling Chao. The girl was waving visibly from her blue tent, a serious look on her face. It was that expression that had Kate moving quick, pushing her way through the crowd. She got to Ling's booth and worriedly asked, "What's goin' on?"

"I... come inside, please. I just... I need to talk to someone from the Savages. I was gonna come by the church later today, but then I saw you, and, well..."

Kate's worried frown only deepened. It was odd to see the young fortune teller so very frazzled - usually, Ling was quietly confident, at ease in the life she lived. Though Kate had only spent time with her on a few occasions - saying hello to her in the market, and seeing her at the church twice when she dropped in to visit with friends - she knew this wasn't normal. To see her in such a different state made Kate's stomach turn, but she kept her voice calm and light for Ling's sake. "Of course I'll come in."

Ling let out a sigh of relief. "Follow me, then."

Kate complied, rounding the booth and following Ling up the stairs to her tenement building. They left Ling's grandmother manning the stall and went inside, going in the first door to Ling's apartment. The room was dim, lit by a handful of candles and sunlight streaming in through a tiny window beside the little woodstove. There was a little alcove with two cots, the woodstove itself, a few cabinets, and table cluttered with dishes. Other rooms just like this one were down the hall, on the other side of the door that Ling closed behind them. 

The young fortune teller smoothed out her gray muslin dress with worried, birdlike hands. Kate noticed there was a stubby pencil stuck through Ling's tightly wound bun. The wood of it was littered with bitemarks, as though the girl had been chewing on it. It reminded Kate of biting her own fingernails when anxious, and it only served to reinforce this new, frazzled image of Ling that was so very worrisome.

"I'm going to make some tea. Do you want any?" Ling asked, throwing open the cupboards and pulling out a tin of leaves, and reaching for the cups. 

"That sounds nice," Kate said. "Do you need any help with it?"

"No, I've got that."

Ling put the kettle on the stove and added the tea leaves. The fragrant sent of chai filled the air, and some of the tension seemed to slip from the young seer's shoulders. She slumped down into a hard backed wooden chair. Kate sank into the one across from the younger girl.

"What's goin' on?" Kate asked again.

Ling rested her chin in her palm. She let out a heavy sigh. "I've been seeing things. Strange things. It's all just weird, and a little disturbing."

"The future?"

"I think so. It's hard to tell," Ling sighed. "Usually, the things I see are crystalline. Clear. But these latest visions, they're blurry and uncontrolled. That's not normal for me. My power is very disciplined, I've honed it to be so. It's been years since the images have been so fleeting, and yet now..."

Kate frowned. "What can you see?"

"Most of it just mundane stuff, people going about their days, shopping. Jake and Beetles blowing smoke rings, Abigail picking pockets, Mr. Lewis from down the street cleaning up his storefront. It's just the way that it feels is all wrong. It feels like I'm watching these everyday things happening underwater. It feels like there's a layer of fog, some sort a' barrier between me and the future. And that's never happened before, even when I was young. It's like I'm looking into a different world, Kate," Ling said.