A Thorn Among the Lilies (3 page)

C
HAPTER
3

T
he psychic's shop turned out to be a very small building that me and Dewey had ridden by on our bikes many times and had not noticed. The shop couldn't have been more than ten feet tall with a sign in the window that read:

The pink blinds behind the sign were pulled closed, so you couldn't see inside. A large shrub hid most of one side of the building. The rest of the building was painted black, which was obviously the reason me and Dewey never saw it. You don't normally look for small black buildings while out on bike rides.

The only really strange thing on the outside of the place was this statue right beside the door. It stood between the sidewalk and the steps leading up to the door, facing down toward the hustle and bustle of town. It was a frog standing on his hind legs. It stared wall-eyed down Main Street at all the other shops. In its hands it held a top hat, and its mouth was wide open with a bright red tongue. It seemed so out of place it took a minute for my brain to even figure out what I was looking at. Me and Dewey must've missed it because it was set back a bit, and you had to look right at the building to see it.

“Why is there a frog standin' here starin' off down the street?” I asked my mother. “It looks kind of creepy.”

“I don't rightly know, Abe, but I think maybe we should all go inside before we freeze to death,” my mother said.

“Reminds me of that frog from that cartoon,” Dewey said. “The one that will only dance and sing for one guy. Only this one wouldn't fit in a shoebox.”

“I agree with Abe for once,” Carry said. “It's really creepy. No wonder she was available for a readin'. She probably scares off most customers with this frog.”

“Now, don't go writin' her off just because of some crazy statue outside her shop,” Uncle Henry said. “Look at her sign. It says, ‘
True
Psychic Medium.' Not only that, she'll refund your money if you ain't satisfied. I'd say that's pretty darn good. I also agree with your mom. We should go inside before we freeze.”

“I guess,” my sister said.

Uncle Henry looked up at the roof; then his eyes fell to the door. “So what do we do? Just knock?”

“I dunno,” my mother said. “Maybe try the door.”

Of course, before anyone could say another word, Dewey's hand was on that doorknob. He turned it and the door opened. A bell on the top of the door rang out, announcing our arrival.

We shuffled into a small room that was more like a landing for the top of a narrow stairway. A beaded curtain hung at the entrance to the stairway. The small room we found ourselves in smelled funny, and the walls and ceiling were all colored red, matching near on exactly the tongue of the frog statue outside. The floor was white with repeating red diamonds. Nobody seemed to hear the bell that rang because we stood there, all crammed together on that small landing for a good five minutes and nobody came to see us.

“What's that smell?” I asked.

“Incense,” my mother said.

“What's that?”

“It's supposed to have mystical powers, I reckon,” Uncle Henry said. He sneezed. “I think I might be allergic to it.”

“It has mystical stink,” Dewey said.

“What do we do now?” my mother asked.

“Hello?” Uncle Henry called out. “Anybody home?”

From downstairs, behind the beaded curtain, a heavily accented woman's voice called up. “Come downstairs!”

We pushed our way through the curtain. The beads were all glass and very beautiful. Green, red, blue, yellow, with the light reflecting inside of them. They made a loud swishing that sounded almost like water as we went through them. The stairway wound down in two tight circles. I was behind Uncle Henry. It was too narrow to go any way but single file.

About halfway down, Uncle Henry bumped his head. At that exact moment, from the bottom of the stairs, in a much quieter and lower voice than she had used before, we heard the woman say, “Be careful of head. If you are tall, those stairs are like plague.”

“You'd think, bein' psychic and all, she'd have told me that
before
I hit my head,” Uncle Henry whispered before letting go with a big sneeze.

“I heard that,” the woman replied.

When we made it to the bottom, there was another beaded curtain to go through that exactly matched the one at the top. Again, it sounded like a waterfall as we all pushed through it and came to our final destination. I felt my eyes grow as big as paper plates. We had descended into the weirdest room I'd ever seen in my entire life.

Everything was a deep golden yellow. The room was maybe twice the size of the small landing we managed to squeeze onto at the top of the stairs. On one side were rows of shelves holding candles of all different types. Every one was lit, and that was the only light in the room, so it cast an eerie, flickering glow on the yellow walls, yellow curtains (which hung on some walls and were obviously just for show as we were underground), and yellow tablecloth that covered the round table on the other side of the room. The cloth came right down to the floor, which was a deep pile carpet, also in golden yellow.

On the other side of the table sat who I assumed to be Madame Crystalle. I had no idea how she got in to sit on that chair. From where I stood, it looked like she would have to spend the rest of her life seated there, as there was no way in or out.

She wore a leather headband with gemstones set along it, and had long strands of beads in her curly, deep auburn hair. It hung down past her shoulders. Her lips were very red, and her eyes were very blue and they sparkled in the candlelight. I immediately liked her because of her smile. It was one of the warmest, friendliest, and reddest smiles I'd ever seen.

The first thing she did was look straight at Carry. “You must be Caroline,” she said, and extended her hand without standing. I didn't think it was possible for her to stand from where she sat.

“I am,” Carry said happily.

“I understand it's your birthday,” Madame Crystalle said.

“Well, not for another week or so, but we wanted my uncle to come along and he's leavin' the mornin' after Christmas.”

“Ah! Early birthday present. So nice!”

“You talk funny,” Dewey said.

“Shut up!” I snapped in a whisper to him.

But Madame Crystalle just laughed. “I am from Persia. Everyone talk like this in Persia.”

“And I bet she speaks better English than you speak Persian,” Carry said to Dewey. Uncle Henry sneezed again.

“I always thought Persians were cats,” Dewey said.

Once again, I told Dewey to shut up, but Madame Crystalle laughed very loudly at what he said. “We are people, too. Oh, and also carpet. Or, how you say? Rug. Persian rug.”

“How come you ain't got no crystal ball?” Dewey asked.

I wished he'd stop asking questions.

“Oh, crystal balls don't work,” Madame Crystalle said. “They're all just hocus-pocus, fluff stuff. You either real medium or you're not. If real, you don't need crystal ball to tell you anything.”

“Oh,” Dewey said.

“I'm Leah,” my mother said, extending her hand with a smile. She did it quickly, before Dewey could say anything else.

Smiling, Madame Crystalle went to shake my mother's hand, but as soon as their hands locked Madame Crystalle's face changed immediately.

“What's goin' on?” Dewey asked.

“Please,” Madame Crystalle said. “Sit in chair.” Her face was very serious as she gestured to the chair across the table from her.

“No, this is for Caroline,” my mother said. “I'm just here to watch.”

“There will be no charge. There are things you must know. Sit. Now. Before I lose them.”

Reluctantly, my mother sat in the chair. I could tell Carry felt a little put out just by the expression on her face.

“You . . . you work in justice, no?”

“Yes, I told you that on the phone. I'm the detective for the Alvin Police Department.” I figured my mother had just caught the psychic in a trap. She was using information she gained ahead of time from the phone call my mother made to set up Carry's appointment.

Madame Crystalle closed her eyes and held both my mother's hands. “I see something almost indescribable. It is someone . . . a sort of, how you say? Maniac. A tailor. Deprives those of their sight. Very dangerous.”

“Who are you talkin' 'bout?” my mother asked. I could tell she had grown a bit anxious.

“Just listen, before it goes away,” Madame Crystalle said. “I see a body in darkness, waiting. I see writing. Writing on the body.”

“What does the writing say?” my mother asked, but Madame Crystalle shushed her.

“I can't see enough to read it, just to know it's there. But remember the number seventy-eight. It is important. Remember the maniac tailor. Knowing this can save many lives over the coming times. I . . . I see a name on a sign.... ‘Welcome to . . . to . . . Gray . . .'” She paused again. “‘Gray . . . Gray . . .'” Then she stopped.

She let go of my mother's hands. “Sorry, it's gone.”

“What
was
it?” my mother asked, her voice shaky.

“Did it not mean something to you?”

“No, can you give me some more information?”

Madame Crystalle shook her head. “No, I can't tell you what it was I just saw. I don't remember details, the visions come like that. I just knew I had message and it was for you. If not useful now, I am sure you will find useful soon. It was a very powerful message the way it came through.”

“That freaked me out a little,” I said.

“Me too,” Dewey said.

Uncle Henry sneezed.

“You still up to doin' yours?” Uncle Henry asked Carry.

“Yeah,”
Carry said as though he just asked the stupidest question ever. “Mine better not be in code like Mom's was, though. I want to actually understand it.”

“I will try do better for you,” Madame Crystalle said. “Please, take seat.”

My mother got out of the chair and let Carry take her place. I noticed my mother was shaking, especially her hands. I think she was more freaked out than anyone. It was pretty spooky.

Madame Crystalle took a deck of cards from somewhere beside her and handed them across the table to Carry. She had them with the backs up and the backs were pretty neat. They were black with a silver ring painted on the center. Inside the ring was a red dragon curled up with its wings hanging down over the bottom of the ring. The deck looked thicker than a normal deck of cards.

“Shuffle these,” Madame Crystalle said. “Use overhand shuffle, though. I don't want my cards bent.”

Carry did as she was told. “When do I stop?” she asked.

“Go for as long as feels good to you. You are imprinting your future onto the cards.”

Carry shuffled some more, then came to a stop. She looked like she was about to set down the deck, then she started shuffling again for another minute or so. “I just felt compelled to,” she said.

Madame Crystalle smiled. “This is good. It means you go with your instincts.”

Finally, Carry actually did stop. “Okay, what do I do now?”

“Hold the deck in your left hand and make three piles of cards on the table from left to right.”

Carry did and then Madame Crystalle leaned over and picked up the piles from left to right with
her
left hand. I couldn't figure out what was so important about everything being done using lefts.

She laid out seven cards in all and in the end they formed a T shape. First she laid out five cards in a straight row and then two cards beneath the center card in the row. Some were upside down from me and others weren't. I wondered if that mattered. And boy, if I thought the backs of the cards were neat, the fronts were even better.

Each one was different. The first looked like an old scraggly tree with a green gem tangled in its root. It read “Ace of Pentacles” on the bottom.

The second was the Five of Cups and showed a dwarf drinking something out of a bottle with his back against a tree and five cups in the grass around him. The dwarf looked drunk to me.

The third one was The Lovers and showed two dragons looking like they were about to kiss. That one sort of disturbed me. Dragons don't kiss. They go and burn down castles and collect treasure.

The fourth one was the Four of Cups and showed a lady with very long ponytails standing at a table where four little lizards were playing with four golden cups. Two of the cups were on their side, the other two were standing.

The fifth one (which was the last one along the top row) was the Queen of Wands and showed an older lady with a beautiful dress made from purple and gold silk. She was seated on a tall wooden throne with a blue dragon sleeping at her feet.

The remaining two came down from The Lovers card. The first one was the Knight of Wands, which showed a younger-looking man riding a dragon in the moonlight. This one was pretty awesome. I would love to ride a dragon. Especially at night.

The final card, at the very bottom of the
T,
was the Two of Cups, and it showed a young man and woman holding hands in a garden with a huge moon over their heads and the face of a dragon inside the moon. It almost looked like they were getting married or something.

“What do they mean?” Carry asked, anxiously, just as Uncle Henry sneezed for what seemed like the hundredth time.