—The Viloki Sun, January 2014
NONI
NEW YORK, 2014
Two blocks from our home, an underground psychic was waiting for us with a secret message. Her basement shop blends into the row of dirt-encrusted town houses on West Tenth Street during the day, but at night the shop’s magical features come alive: carefully painted wood paneling; a neat row of budding, overgrown plants; and a buzzing neon sign of a purple crystal ball.
“You have the money, right?” Tai whispers to me, between blowing on her hands, that shock of cherry hair in her face.
It’s been five years since Mama disappeared, but strangers still notice us on the street sometimes, whispering “Is that…?” to their friends with that sideways-sneak look, so we had decided to wear plain brown wigs tonight to stay incognito. But then Tai wanted to use the red one from her devil costume, and Tai gets what she wants. You’re only thirteen, Aunt Marion cried, when she saw the crop top and leather miniskirt my sister was wearing. Mama wore a thong swimsuit in a movie when she was thirteen, Tai snapped back.
I hike up my loose jeans and pull the envelope out of my fleece sweatshirt’s kangaroo pocket. “Two hundred big ones,” I whisper back. We had been saving for months.
Tai grabs my shoulders and squeals, this infectious grin spreading from one bubble gum–pink cheek to the other. There’s so much innocent hope in her lined-and-mascaraed blue eyes, so much it makes me quiver, but of course I’m smiling back before I know it. Tonight could give us clues, if not answers. My stomach hasn’t felt settled in days.
Tai follows me down the steps, and we push inside the storefront—a bell jingles. The entry room is dark: patchy red velvet seating and finger-thick vines crawling everywhere. The smell of patchouli mixed with something heady and sweet, like cloves in hot wine. A stained, paisley curtain fringed in golden thread blocks our view into the back. A lone television on the wall plays a grainy video of spooky nature scenes on silent loop: a duck moving across a shadowy pond, wet red leaves falling from a tree, a lush forest that looks familiar.
“Hello?” Tai calls, scratching at her wig’s netting.
Wind chimes tinkle in the back. I pull Tai onto the lumpy love seat up front just as a black cat pushes through the curtain—a furry lump in its mouth—and bounds up onto its window seat in between two ferns. It drops its catch and paws at it.
“Ew,” Tai whispers, before rubbing at her bare legs. “What time is it?”
“It’s eight-oh-one,” I whisper back, just as she walks through the curtain, short and squat and dressed in black silk from head to toe: the imposing Madame Morency.
“Carmela!” She claps at the cat. “You promised your days hunting young and delicate creatures were over.”
The cat yowls, and Madame Morency notices the two of us, clutching hands on the love seat, our hearts beating too fast in the small room.
“You’re my eight o’clock, ladies?” she says in her deep rasp, head tipping to the side. “Sisters. You’re very young. What loss could you have possibly suffered?”
Tai’s purple nails dig into my skin.
“How old are you, exactly?”
“Aren’t you a psychic?” Tai says, before I even open my mouth. “We’re eighteen,” she adds, with that confidence of hers that springs up from nowhere.
Madame Morency’s lip quirks. “I will not begin any session without honesty and an open mind. It’s best you see yourselves out.”
“There’s no legal age requirement to visit a fortune-teller in New York State,” I reply, sweating hands squirrelling into my sweatshirt pocket. My lips snag on my braces. “Telling fortunes in general is a class B misdemeanor, anyway, though, and—”
“Fine,” Tai interrupts, just as Madame Morency crosses her arms at me. “We’re just kids. But we did lose someone important when we were really young. And we made this appointment because we need your help to reach her.” She holds out the envelope of money. “Won’t you help us?”
Madame Morency inhales and exhales, and as she does, something behind her eyes softens. I know it’s not just pity. Everyone softens when they look at Tai: Her daintiness, her toughness, and her beauty combine to make her special. Mireille Foix Hammick–special.
“Follow me,” Madame Morency says, taking the envelope and stuffing it into her waistband before shuffling back through the curtain.
Tai grabs my wrists and squeals again, eyes flashing brighter than neon.
The cramped back room is lit by dozens of candles. Two bookshelves overflow with rotten-smelling books and strange artifacts borrowed from a nightmare: a set of golden teeth, vials of amber liquid swirling with many-legged creatures, and a tiny, misshapen skull (the cat’s victim comes to mind). We settle at a rickety, black cloth–covered table, across from Madame Morency, who peers at us with the heavy-lidded yet sharp eyes of someone who sees too much every day.
“Where are your cards?” Tai asks, examining the empty table before us, like something will push through the cloth at any moment. “Or, like, your crystal ball?”
“I do things differently.” Madame Morency extends her veined, wrinkled hands across the table. “I don’t even need my eyes to have the sight. Now, give me your hands. One each. Don’t be afraid.”
Without hesitation, Tai gives her one, while I wipe the sweat off my left palm onto my jeans and reach out. Her skin is smooth and soft and fine, like a child’s.
Madame Morency shuts her eyes, humming to herself, and a breeze picks up, blowing through the curtain, flickering the candles, and bringing to life the blackened wind chime in the corner. I feel a chill; wasn’t the door closed? Tai looks at me, her eyes wide with the thrill of it.
“Silence,” Madame Morency snaps, and even the wind chime goes quiet. A minute ticks past, the kind that feels as gluey long as an hour. The air is thick with lost memories, with that decayed scent of crumbling brick walls.
When Madame Morency speaks again, her voice is a curious, rasping thing coming from the deepest part of her. “Why did you tell me your mother was dead, girls?”
The hair on the back of my neck pricks up.
“We didn’t say that,” Tai whispers back.
We didn’t say anything about mothers at all.
“The message I am receiving is not coming from the other side,” Madame Morency continues, her hand cooling in mine. “It’s coming from the film between our worlds, the pond scum separating us from them. It says she is not gone.”
I can feel Tai swallow next to me, see the goose bumps colonizing every inch of bare flesh. Her fingers are pale in Madame Morency’s grip, and I can’t feel my own. My eyes are glued to the woman in front of us, with her tightly shut eyes and her craggy face. Looking for signs of mystical truth, of anything at all I can cling to hard.
It says she is not gone.
“Her energy is mirrored across the globe,” she continues. “So strong in places that a lesser psychic would mistake it for the true source. When and where did you last see her?” Madame Morency asks in this wheedling, odd voice. “Be precise.”
I know we both remember: Mama tucked us into bed, wet-eyed, that night at Stökéwood, five years ago. Tears from a migraine, she’d said, shrugging on her favorite gray cashmere housecoat, petal-pink gloves in hand. I didn’t know if she was telling the truth then, and I still don’t. But I never saw her again, so I couldn’t ask.