The Comeback

Chapter 24 - The Fortune-teller

Chapter 24 - The Fortune-teller

“Do I want to know how it is that you know about this place?” I ask trying not to look at Zayn as we make our way down a street that doesn’t look too nice. Tall buildings and very narrow passages and it’s kind of dark. Like in movies, those kinds of alleys where the character dies in the opening scene.

“I don’t know if you’re prepared for that kind of knowledge, my little padawan,” Zayn jokes and I snort, which makes him laugh. “Once we were with the guys getting drunk, you know, and we dared Josh to come to a medium at midnight for a séance. And you know Josh, you say ghost and the bloke pees himself.”

“Did he come?” I ask.

Zayn starts laughing so I assume Josh came and he probably did more than just peeing himself. I wish I had been there. I don’t know when this happened but it probably was at the beginning, when Zayn and I didn’t use to hang out, when we were just roommates. We became friends later.

We keep walking until Zayn stops in front of a little shop. It has a neon sign that says “Katrina’s” and nothing else. It has three tarot cards below the name and that’s it. Although I don’t think it needs anything else.

Zayn opens the door and a bell rings. Inside it’s very dark and it’s filled with esoteric decorations. Books, voodoo dolls, some amulets, I think, and jars with things I don’t want to find out. From behind a curtain an old woman comes in, her hair is white and messy and she’s wearing gypsy clothes and I feel like snorting. As if the place wasn’t enough, she looks exactly like a medium from movies. I don’t know what I was expecting, but this is too cliché for my liking.

“May I help you?” She asks with a thick accent I can’t recognise.

“You tell me,” I defy and I see the old woman raising her eyebrows in surprise. I’m not normally this rude but what can I say? She makes me sceptical.

“You seek answers,” she tells in an ominous way and Zayn elbows me but I don’t react. That is not specific enough.

“Can you give me the answers I need?” I inquire, folding my arms and she laughs.

“We’ll see, little boys.”

She steps back and grabs the curtain before she waves with her hand so we follow her inside. It’s a dark room with a small table with a dark purple tablecloth. There are two chairs, one across the other and there are a few lit up candles that give the atmosphere a gloomy effect. Again, it’s too cliché for my liking.

She motions to one chair as she takes seat on the other one, I copy her and Zayn stays behind me. She grabs the cards she has at the right and scatters them across the table in one fluid movement and I can see she has loads of practice.

“Pick three without turning them,” she instructs and still sceptical, I do.

One by one, she turns the cards I picked. “You are a lucky man and you know it, you walk by the path of light,” she speaks and yes, I know I’m lucky. Not many people come back from the death like I did. And by the path of light I guess she means the world of the living, not like Jake. “Yet sometimes you do feel like things are not okay,” she adds when she flips over the next card. “And you’re not that lucky in love because your girl is not really yours… yet,” she finishes and yeah, I can see she’s right in many things, but she’s not saying anything I don’t know already.

“What about my future?” I ask, because so far she hasn’t said anything.

“Your future brings complications, young boy. You’ll have to sort out your own feelings because these may not even be yours,” she says and that makes no sense to me. This woman is just making me waste my time.