Whispering Tempest

Chapter Eight - Lucky Me

Chapter Eight – Lucky Me

“I am sorry I could not see you yesterday,” the Emerald apologizes. “Had I known you’d be willing to return so soon I would have cancelled all appointments. I knew you’d be back eventually, just not when.”

“Appointments,” I question. Fiona moves about the gypsy-looking office in her simple but silky dress and describes her numerous jobs. I should have realized she needed to make money somehow. This house can’t just be here without some sort of payment for it, right? That kind of stuff only happens in bad fiction.

Many of the things she does I’ve never heard of but it’s still pretty cool. My gaze travels the shelves lined with crystals and books and rustic figurines. They are all so disorganized yet that’s what makes it mesh so well together. I sit in the client’s chair while she keeps to her normal seat. The Emerald hands me a business card featuring her face on the side. I take my hand from fiddling nervously with my long silver key necklace and hold it out in front of me.

Fiona Wirth – Professional Clairvoyant & Psychic Medium.

On the back it reads off an impressive list of trades: Dream Analysis, Fortune Telling, Past Life Readings, Spiritual Advisor, Channeling, Palm and Tarot Readings. Mauve lettering swirls over a black background with sliver edges. The card is quite beautiful.

“Most of the time, if I cannot read their futures or pasts, I take a glimpse into their mind and recite things to them they would want to hear or answers to questions they do not admit to themselves,” she explains. Fiona sighs in frustration from her clientele. “Too many people come to me only to ask of their relationships.”

I hand the card back to her but she tells me to keep it. After being properly introduced to the house known to witches as the Regal Haven, the Emerald leads me from the foyer to another part of the house. We pass the living room full of rose bushes and butterflies to a room much less decorated but as strange nonetheless. Rather than an indoor wonderland, this spot reminds me of a greenhouse. The plants all rest in pots and planters along the shelves of what used to look like a kitchen.

“An apothecary,” the Emerald tells me. “As a witch you are charged with the duty of healing those of our kind in need.”

“Our kind?”

“I am going too fast. I tend to forget you are not learned,” she said as leading me past bottles containing what I think are potions. Now I’m wondering when I get my first cauldron. I hope it doesn’t come with a free set of warts. Ew…

“So what kind of powers do I have? And do I need a broom to fly?”

The Emerald doesn’t take too well to my sarcasm. I follow her past the dining room and up to another part of the second floor. The air up here is still infused with that lavender scent making me sleepy. But Fiona takes me to the right instead of left to the Tranquility room and I find myself in another, very large hall filled with the same wondrous scenery used in the entire house. This place however is definitely the library so the greenery is kept to a minimal.

“Since you know of nothing, it is brought upon me to teach you of our ways,” she says. “Usually a witch’s parents are the ones who prepare their child. Considering the circumstances…” The Emerald cleared her throat realizing her words made me feel uncomfortable. My weight shifts from foot to foot as she removes an older looking book from the shelves. “I am honored to be teaching you. This will be a first time for the both of us,” she adds with a smile.

The Emerald places the faded violet spine of the book on the mahogany stand in front of her. I come closer with the wave of her hand and she flips through the pages.