The sky bleeds red as the last light of the roasting day fades into night. I walk out of the tree line made up mostly of towering maples and willows and into the circle of cut grass that surrounds Glory’s home.
The cottage is the original homestead built hundreds of years ago when a Lachlin made it over the Appalachians. Gran let Glory live here rent free because she said Glory was family. Family in the eighteenth-cousin-twice-removed type of way, but still family. Blood meant everything to Gran; so did this land. That’s the reason why I have my grandmother’s maiden name.
The place isn’t much—a living room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. There’s a staircase that leads to an attic that’s fit for boxes and spiders. The original stone fireplace works, but I wouldn’t light a match in it without fear of the place going up in flames.
Only way here is by foot or to take U.S. Highway 25 to the narrow, broken road that leads to the winding dirt path that ends at Glory’s. Moral to the story—you have to want to find the place. For someone who runs a con business that requires people locating her, her choice of residence is irrational. But that’s Glory to the core—strange.
I didn’t drive, I walked. Since the funeral, I haven’t been able to take a lungful of air, but by walking on my land the strangling sensation has been downgraded to a minor choke. When I can’t breathe, the land breathes for me. And Marshall wonders why I don’t want to give it up.
Two cars are parked off to the side. One is Glory’s blue Beetle. The other a shiny black Escalade with out-of-county license plates. People come from all over the state, some across the country, to meet with Glory. They’ll pay good money, too. What a waste.
The door that needs to be stripped of the peeling, blue paint is closed, and the porch light is on. All nonverbals Glory is knee-deep in a session and knocking would disturb the “spirits.”
I climb the wooden stairs and cross the porch for the swing. Faint light pushes through the layers of white sheer curtains of the window, and beyond that I can barely make out two silhouettes settled at the round wooden table Glory claims was made out of some tree that helps with psychic energy. Odds are she picked it up from the Salvation Army when she was twenty.
I adjust the cap on my head, stretch out my booted feet and lay an arm along the swing. The shadows behind the curtains move then the front door opens with an ominous squeak.
Out walks a thin woman in her sixties who wears a pantsuit and oversize sunglasses. Her and Glory say goodbyes in hushed tones. The older woman dabs the corner of her eye behind her glasses with a handkerchief and then lightly runs it along her nose. Glory offers her a comforting hug and then the lady ambles down the steps.
The two of us stay silent as we watch the woman start her car and pull away with the slowness of one who has no idea which way to go—even when there’s only one way out.
“She lose someone?” I say.
Glory leans her shoulder against the beam of the porch. “Her son died several years ago.”
“Do you ever feel guilty about what you do?”
“Are you referring to the serenity I gave her by letting her know that her son is at peace?”
“How much did peace cost? One hundred dollars for an hour? Two hundred for two?”
Glory examines me—head to toe. Hat, Guns N’ Roses T-shirt, jeans, to work boots. She gets that faraway look in her eye—the I-tout-lies-stare—and I raise a hand in the air. “Mention you’re sensing Gran’s spirit, and I’ll convince Marshall to evict you by the end of next week.”
“It’s too early to see Suzanne. Souls need time to build up energy before I can sense them.”
I click my tongue in admonishment. “There’s a flaw in your perfect gift after all.”
“We all have flaws. Some of us don’t mind admitting them. Your gran asked me to read your palm after her death so I could help guide you. Would you mind giving me your hand?”
My gran believed in Glory, but I don’t. “I have no interest in knowing my future.”
“That sounds like you believe I have the gift, and you’re scared of what I’ll tell you.”
“I believe you’re a hustler who makes a buck off people who are easy reads.”
“Nothing about you is easy. In fact, everything about you is very difficult.”
“Let me guess, I’m a tortured soul, and next week I’m going to see a bluebird and that bluebird’s going to represent a dead family member of mine who is there to tell me to be at peace with my soul.”
The ends of Glory’s mouth edge up—sarcastic and dry. “It’ll be a blackbird, actually, and the bird will not bring peace to your soul. The sight of it will trouble you.”
Another keen observation based on things every person in town already knows—my soul is always troubled.
“You believe you are cursed. Is it so hard to stretch your belief in the Lachlin curse to thinking there are those of us who possess a supernatural gift?”
“I’m cursed because I have to listen to you spew lies about spirits beyond the grave.”
Glory has the balls to smirk at me. “I know what you really believe, and I know how you think you can break the curse.”
She doesn’t know anything, and I’m ready for this conversation to be done. “Gran told you about the tribunal.”
“Yes, and I also know you can’t evict me so your threats are hollow.”
True story. I read the entire file Marshall left behind, and Glory can stay on the land for now. “But I can evict you when I inherit the land.”
“If you inherit the land,” she corrects. “Come inside, and I’ll warm up some leftovers.”
The mention of food causes my stomach to grumble, but pride keeps me full. “I’m good. Tell me who’s on the tribunal.”
“We used to be close. It seems like yesterday when you and Scarlett Copeland were playing in my garden and smuggling cookies out of my pantry. You’re grieving, I’m grieving. Let’s eat and remember Suzanne together.”
Anger tightens my muscles. I don’t want to remember Scarlett or Gran. “The tribunal.”
Glory sighs heavily. “Your grandmother didn’t want you to know who the two other members of the tribunal are.”
“Then why am I here?”
“Because I spent last night searching your future.”
I roll my neck as my shoulders cramp. “Gran may have believed in your fake gifts, but you don’t have to play with me. I know you’re a con.”
“There are too many variables to predict your future,” she continues as if I hadn’t spoken, “but the odds of you keeping the land improve if you know who is in the tribunal. If Suzanne knew this before she passed, she would have told you the truth.”
Those words—the truth—are a hook to the head and a front kick to the gut.
“I’ll tell you who the two other members of the tribunal are, but I have two conditions.”
I’m sure she does. Glory’s all about payment. “What do you want?” Because if it’s money, she’ll be a sad, sad psychic.
“First, if you inherit the land—”
“When I inherit the land.”
“If,” she emphasizes. “Because your future is still very unclear . . .”
“You’re a nutcase.”
“If you keep the land, then you’ll let me remain in the cottage, rent free, and you will leave the surrounding acreage alone. I need the privacy and the energy the woods provide.”
For the first time since Gran passed, I find clarity. Negotiating, manipulating situations to my favor—this is my world. “Fine. Number two.”
“Before I get to my last request, you should know that one of the members has no idea the tribunal exists. They’re to be told a few days before the vote. Your grandmother and uncle felt it would be unfair to this person to have such a decision weighing on them for so long.”
Whatever. “What’s your last condition?”
“That for the next hour you do absolutely everything I ask of you. Even in the moments you’d rather set yourself on fire, you are to stay and do everything I tell you to do.”
She wants to have dinner, we’ll have dinner. “Fine, but you tell me the names first and which one knows and which one doesn’t.”
A breeze drifts over the trees, and wind chimes of varying sizes hanging from the roof clink together and create a tinkling symphony. The scent of lavender fills the air and the smell reminds me of the times Gran dragged me to Glory’s to plant, weed and help harvest her garden.
“I’m assuming you already know Marshall is one of the members,” Glory continues.
“Yeah.”
“The second person is the man who performed Suzanne’s funeral, Pastor Hughes. He’s aware he’s a member of the tribunal.”
I yank hard on the bill of my baseball cap. From his increased visits with Gran over the past six months, I should have seen that one coming.
“You have your work cut out with him,” she says. “But he’ll be easier than your uncle.”
“No kidding. Who’s the third?” Because I need this one to be a slam dunk.
“It’s the passenger of the car coming up the road, and when this person comes into my house, you will follow and that is when your hour will begin.”
I glance down the driveway that’s now fallen into darkness. There’s no car, no sound of an engine, or tires crackling over rocks on the road. There’s crickets singing, frogs croaking and the high-pitched chirp of a bat flying out into the night.
“I’ll warm up the leftovers and leave them in the microwave. Eat as soon as you come in as things will move quickly. I’ll see you inside in a few.”
The screen door closes behind Glory with a clap. On cue, there’s the purr of an engine and then headlights poke through the trunks of the trees. Got to give Glory credit: she’s a con, but she’s a good con. Timing on that was perfect.
The car parks awkwardly a few spots down from Glory’s car, and I hitch my thumbs in my pockets as I wait to see who the third person is deciding my fate. The mailman? The receptionist at Gran’s doctor’s office? The guy down at the hardware store?
The driver’s side door opens first, but it’s the passenger side door I watch. Scarlett Copeland emerges, and the moment her eyes meet mine, my gut twists and the smile that had been on her lips fades.
I am screwed.