The Den (2 page)

-Two-

The Psychic

Skyla honestly did not know where to start.  She could usually tell Brooke anything, but this was different.  Skyla remembered the day when Yvette had walked into the room.  Skyla held the door open and Yvette took one step in.  She was a few inches shorter than Skyla, maybe five foot one.   She had dark hair that was pulled up into a messy little bun on top of her head.  Strands of wispy hair stuck out all around her head like a halo.  She had on jeans and a short-sleeve sweater that hung down to her knees.  She wore leather flip-flops and carried a fringed bag over her shoulder.  Skyla thought she looked ready to hang out in a field and listen to some music. 

Yvette took note of the room.  She looked around and absorbed all the little signs of a life.  She took two steps to the right to study the pictures that were on Skyla’s desk.  There were two pictures of Craig.  One had been taken at that year’s winter formal.  The other had been taken the previous summer at a Newport Beach party, the night they’d met.  There was one of her parents taken during her high school graduation.  It was a rare capture and the only one Skyla had of her parents together since they’d divorced eighteen years ago.  Her father rarely made it to any big occasion.  He always sent lavish gifts or ample funds to make up for his absence.  He was now living with his fourth wife in Hong Kong.  Her mother never missed a celebration, especially one that called for a toast.  On another part of the wall hung a collage of pictures.  In it Brooke and Skyla were pictured at various parties from elementary school through Skyla’s twenty-first birthday party.  It had been a gift from Brooke. 

Yvette walked farther in and circled the tiny space.  She settled on the floor between Brooke’s and Skyla’s beds.  Yvette sat with her hands folded and legs crossed, and she waited for Skyla to join her.  So Skyla closed the door and went over to sit facing the woman.  Then Yvette reached into her satchel and took out a pack of seemingly harmless cards.  She held them in her right hand and covered the pack with her left.  Yvette looked right into Skyla’s dark brown eyes and straight down into Skyla’s soul.   

“Usually I ask if the client has a question,” Yvette explained.  “However, I see that you are at a crossroads.  I see many beings around you.” 

The woman waved her arms in the air in Skyla’s general area as if to illustrate the point.  Skyla looked around the room hoping not to see any ghosts.

“It is clear,” continued Yvette, “that you need to know what is next in
this
life for you.  You are about to graduate, after all.  Our question is, how do you find your life path?  Yes?”  Yvette held a finger up to warn against an answer.  She placed the cards down between Skyla and herself but just a bit closer to Skyla.  “Pick those up and cut the stack in half,” she said.

Skyla obliged with a little smile and a nod.  Skyla swept the cards up and then leaned forward and placed the two stacks right in front of Yvette.  The cards were shuffled, and then Yvette repeated the request.  Skyla cut the deck again.  Yvette picked them up and stacked them together.  One by one she began to carefully lay the cards down in the little space between them.  Skyla had no idea what the pictures meant, so she kept her eyes on Yvette.  There was no reaction from the psychic.  She just narrated as the cards went down. 

The first card went directly between Skyla and Yvette.  “This is the present issue,” Yvette explained. The second one was placed on top of the first card so that a cross was formed.  “This is your test at this point of your life,” Yvette said.  The third card went down in line with the first card, closer to Yvette.  “This—this is the root of our question.” To the left of the first card, Yvette placed the fourth one. “This card represents your most recent past.”  The fifth card was placed in the column with the first, second, and third cards.  It was placed down right in front of Skyla.  “This will tell us of your potential.”  The sixth card was placed to the right of the first card.  Yvette slapped it with her right hand and explained, “This shows us what is happening for you now and in the next few weeks.” 

The last four cards were placed all the way to Yvette’s right, in a column that stretched from Yvette to Skyla.  Yvette explained them in the same monotone as she had done with the first six. 

“This seventh card represents your true inner feelings or inner conflicts.  The eighth card represents the feelings or energies of those who are surrounding you.  The ninth card shows us what you are wishing for in your heart.  The tenth and last card that I am placing down will show us the outcome.”

Yvette’s face never gave a sign of what the pictures on those cards meant.  Skyla had no idea what to make of the elaborate illustrations, so she busied herself by twirling a lock of her curly hair.  The psychic looked down at the cross and column formations on the floor and placed the rest of the cards to the side.  Yvette took a deep breath in and let it out in a little huff.   She kept her eyes on the cards and pointed to the first one.  Life for Skyla would never be the same.

“So!”  Brooke banged her now-bare feet against the hard ground.  Skyla jumped.  She had to blink several times before Yvette faded and Brooke’s image appeared before her.

“Okay, okay.  I am just trying to get it straight,” Skyla said. 

Skyla would tell Brooke the gist of what was told by Yvette.  The reading was so personal.  Skyla didn’t usually keep any secrets from Brooke; actually, she couldn’t remember one thing she ever had kept a secret.  This was different, though.  How could she talk about something that she really didn’t understand?  She had gone over parts of the reading before with Brooke.  She had told Brooke the stuff about Yvette’s thinking she was a witch.  It was something that Brooke and Skyla had always suspected anyway.   Skyla would move on to one of the other things that were touched on:  The essence of the first four cards signified what was happening around Skyla now.  That’s the part that Brooke was interested in anyway.  Skyla remembered all the cards.  It had been difficult to determine the pictures and the writing, because all but one had been facing Yvette.  They had been upside down to Skyla. 

On the first card was a picture of a man standing in the middle of two roads.  “The Fool” was written below his feet.  The second card had a picture of a beautiful woman with wavy red hair that swirled around her face.  A black cat sat at her side.  “Queen of Wands” was printed in bold.  The third card pictured a man hanging upside down and read “The Hanged Man.”  The fourth card was the only card that had faced Skyla.  It was an illustration of a man surrounded by ten swords.  The Roman numeral X was written above his head.

Skyla began, “Yvette told me that I was about to go through a breakup.  It had not happened yet, but it was already set in my life plan—an inevitable breakup with my present boyfriend.  He is not ‘the one.’  Guess she is pretty good, huh?”

Skyla tried to laugh, but the thought of Craig still brought a pang to her chest.  She put a hand over her heart.   Skyla closed her eyes, and Brooke rolled hers. 

Skyla continued where she’d left off.  “She saw that I was definitely at a crossroads in this life.  She also spoke about a previous life.  A life where I was extremely popular, beautiful, fun, and fabulous.”

Skyla coughed a little laugh.  It was quite a contrast to this lifetime. 

“It wasn’t my very last lifetime, and she wasn’t sure how many I had lived since then.  But during this time she saw a lot of rich jewel colors and velvet because I dressed and acted like royalty.  I was probably part of an elite class of people, a socialite.  I had a busy nightlife, with lots of party people around me all the time.  She said those party people were always gravitating towards me.  They would seek me out or wait impatiently until I arrived at the ‘it’ place each evening.  They were my groupies, sort of.  I called them friends.  These friends just happened to be”—Skyla took a deep breath and shook her head back and forth—“vampires.  Not the vampires that you see in the movies, though.”

“Oh, what are these vampires like?” Brooke tried to smirk.

“Uh, I don’t know.  I guess I added that part about them being different.  She didn’t seem to make them the typical Dracula types in her description—something about drinking people’s energy.  She didn’t say drinking blood.”

“Energy vampires?” Brooke said.  “I wonder how that works anyway.  Don’t you think they need blood, too?” 

“I don’t know.  It’s ridiculous really.”  Skyla sat quietly for a while.  Brooke let her be.  She knew that Skyla was trying to bring the story together, and she could tell that the details were starting to become blurred in the retelling. 

Skyla put her head in her hands and closed her eyes.  She pictured Yvette in front of her.  It was a very vivid image.  It was as if the woman were following her—staying with her.  Skyla wondered how long that would last.  She could see Yvette pointing to that first card.  She heard her say, “Are you ready?” 

-Three-

Cursed

“Yes,” Skyla had responded to Yvette’s question.  Skyla wasn’t ready, though.  She could never have been ready for what Yvette had to say. 

Yvette began.  “Well, obviously you know that you are a witch.  I can see that you know that about yourself.  I see that you are a very powerful and insightful witch.  It runs on your mother’s side, of course.  You are the most gifted, though.  I see your aunt was quite a talented medium.  She often had premonitory dreams.  Is this right?”

“Yes.  That’s probably Aunt Terry,” Skyla said.  Skyla knew that the females in her family were special.  Skyla’s mother, Vera, always brushed the stories off.  The last time Skyla had approached her mom was the night before high school graduation.

“Mom, have you ever … known what someone was going to say before the words came out,” she’d asked.  “You know, have you ever … read someone’s mind?”

“What kind of question is that?” Vera snapped.  “Always asking about that damn curse,” Vera mumbled as she walked straight to the liquor cabinet. 

Skyla’s father, Joseph, was scared to death of Aunt Terry, from what Skyla understood.  Skyla remembered her grandmother and Aunt Terry giggling about him from time to time. 

Skyla knew that strange things often happened in her own life.  She thought that Yvette was greatly overestimating her abilities, though.  Nothing
really
spectacular had ever happened. 

“Hmmm.  Look at this card.”  Yvette tapped the third card with her pointer finger.  It jumped a little under her touch.  “Yes, there is also a type of sickness in this line.  You worry you will suffer, too.  Don’t.  You will be fine.  Do you understand me?”  Yvette looked up to wait for an answer. 

“Yes.” That was all that Skyla could get out.

Yvette looked back down at the cards. “Yes.  You are going to escape the sickness.  It is not a true genetic disorder that these women in your family suffered from.  They were afraid of their gifts.”

Skyla knew what Yvette meant.  She had never said it out loud.  She had never allowed herself to explore the idea fully, but Skyla knew she shared talents with some of the women in her family.  She knew that a couple of these talented women didn’t handle the gifts well.  A contradiction existed in these women’s lives.  The nuns in Catholic school taught that insight into other worlds was not a gift from God; it represented the workings of dark forces.  Skyla had heard stories of her great-grandmother’s being beaten with rulers in school.  Then after she graduated from high school, she had been in and out of hospitals.  It wasn’t that these stories were told—Skyla had just picked up bits and pieces over the years.  Shock treatments were used, along with heavy drugs, to stop what doctors called “the hallucinations.”  One of her grandmother’s sisters had also been diagnosed with a mental illness. 

Skyla’s mother spoke about the “family curse” only on rare occasions, one of which had been Skyla’s thirteenth birthday.  Vera told her that she believed an illness plagued the lineage.  She swirled her wine in a goblet and looked right into Skyla’s eyes.  “Something evil lurks about this family.  Too bad your great-grandmother is not around to …” Vera took a sip.  “I dare you to ask your grandmother about how my
gift
showed itself.” 

Skyla had never dared.  She thought about it often, though.  She came to the conclusion that eventually one could become insane with doubt and guilt.  She wasn’t entirely convinced that her great-grandmother and great-aunt did not have a true sickness brought on by their own fears.   However, Aunt Terry had obviously found a way to rectify the gift with her faith.  She was always giving Skyla crucifixes, medals, and rosaries as gifts.  Skyla carried one of the medals in her wallet even though she didn’t feel inclined toward any religion.  It helped her remember that Aunt Terry thought it was normal to have abilities that no one else seemed to have.   Skyla tried to hold on to this view. 

“You okay, Skyla?”  Brooke had interrupted her thoughts again. 

Skyla looked up, but her eyes were far away.  Yvette’s image blocked the view. 

“Skyla?  What about those energy vampires?  Do you remember any more about that?” Brooke prompted.

Skyla blinked hard and tried to pick up where she had left off.  “Well, the vampires would work off of my energy.  They really required my presence to be able to party and dance all night.  They got some kind of charge off of me.  It is hard to explain, because Yvette kind of lost me after
vampire
.”  Skyla took a deep breath.  “I know these old souls miss me.  Anyway, they want me back with them.  I guess some of my old friends are stuck between lives.  They are searching for me, coming for me.  That is why I should avoid anywhere that ghosts might linger.  Did I tell you that part before?”  Skyla looked at her apologetically.  She knew that part had been left out.  This was the part that was truly frightening. 

Brooke's face turned white.  She obviously thought this part was the most terrifying as well.  “Where would ghosts linger?”  Brooke spoke so low that Skyla wondered if she really wanted to know.