Excerpt from Itsy-Bitsy Spider
Book 13 of the Psychic Visions Series
“Hey, Queenie, you’ve got a hell of a line outside your tent tonight,” Booker called from the Ferris wheel station. “How come you didn’t see that coming?” And out came his usual full-belly laugh at his own joke.
Queenie waved and smiled, as inside she groaned. Somehow this never seemed to get old. And the jokes never seemed to get better. At least with the people she worked with here. Then again she was working as a fortune teller at an amusement park. She had to expect a certain amount of ribbing.
Still, she did what she could, and, for that, she was grateful to have a job. She finished her ice cream, tossing the last portion of the cone into the garbage. All around her, the noise of the park and the smell of super sticky cotton candy filled the air.
She had to stay focused. This wasn’t for her—this was for someone else. She stepped through the back entrance of her tent. After shrugging off her sweater, she picked up the huge headdress that went with the seer’s role and placed it on her head. Her glass ball was under the table. She put it on the table in front of her. Then she pulled back her chair and sat down. This booth made money. Because of that, the owners paid to keep her. Not much money, however, but it was easy work, and she got cheap food and a free place to crash as a side benefit.
She’d been here for over a year now. The trouble was, before this job, she had had a similar one at another amusement park in another place. Before that was another amusement park in yet another place. She was footloose, yet a long way from being fancy-free. Life sucked. But it didn’t matter because it was all for the right reason. She leaned across the table and opened the curtains that separated her from her customers. Close to six feet from the door, the line had formed, curling to the left. She smiled at the teenage girl standing in front and motioned for her to come forward.
The teen handed over her five-dollar bill. Queenie accepted it with a smile and asked, “What question can I answer for you today?”
“Will I get asked to prom this year?” She squealed out the question in a breathless voice.
Queenie chuckled inside. “Is there someone in your life already?”
The young woman shook her head. “Not yet. But I’m really hoping you say there will be soon.”
“Let’s find out.” Queenie held out her left hand and said, “Place your hand in mine.”
And then she waved her right hand around the glass ball. As soon as the young woman’s hand connected with Queenie’s, she smiled. Was there anything fresher than young love? She studied the ball, using it to formulate a story to tell the young woman. The ball was a prop for the people. She could see everything through her eyes right now. She said, “Somebody named Jake, by any chance?”
The young woman cried out again, as she gripped Queenie’s hand like a lifeline and did a half jump in joy. “Yes, that’s him.”
“Well then, you needn’t worry,” Queenie said gently, happy she could hand out the good news. “Because he’s going to ask you to the prom.”
The young woman dropped her hand and squealed again, jumped up and down, and then dashed out of the tent. Queenie smiled and dropped the money into the jar beside her.
“Next,” she called out.
A man in a business suit walked in, carrying a briefcase.
She studied him and found nothing unnerving about him, but something was off. … He appeared to be calm, maybe too calm. He sat down in front of her and said in a quiet voice, “I’m about to lose everything. Is there anything I can do to help myself?”
Now that was interesting. Rarely did people come with a question of what they could do to turn something around.
He handed over his money and said, “I know this is all fake but you have a certain reputation. … I could really use some advice. A direction to look at? … Something? Preferably good news,” he said heavily. “I could really use a shot of good news right now.”
Interested in spite of herself, Queenie held out her hand and said, “Place your hand in mine.”
As soon as he did, tingles went up and down her back. Now she was very interested. Normally she was good at guessing the core character of a person. And nothing about him sent off her inner alarms. She waved her hand over the ball, as she tried to sort out the images coming through her. But all she could see were metal bars. And then she realized why he had lost his job. She glanced up at him and said, “Are you trying to find work?”
He shook his head sadly. “No. I thought everything was going great … but then …” His voice trailed away.
“But then?”
“Somebody blamed me for something.” Pain and discouragement were in his voice.
She studied the bars in the ball and realized they were a jail cell. He was in grave danger of going to jail for the rest of his life. She frowned and looked at him. “Do you know somebody named Mike? Mike Marrow or Munro?” She frowned, trying to get the name clearer in her head.
He leaned forward. “Mike Munro, yes, he’s my best friend.”
She looked at him sadly. “He’s not your best friend. He’s the one who framed you. He’s the one who’s guilty.”
The man stared at her in horror. He got to his feet and bolted from the tent.
She dropped his money into the jar. Next thing she knew, three little kids stood before her. They were laughing and giggling. One held up a five-dollar bill and placed it on the table. She could see the mom standing in the back. She smiled down at the kids and said, “What would you like to know?”
“What am I going to be when I grow up?”
She held her hand out to the first boy who wore a plaid shirt and cowboy boots.
He placed his hand in hers.
Instantly the answer flooded her mind. She chuckled. “You’ll be a fireman.”
He gasped and raced toward his mother. “Mommy, Mommy. She said I’m going to be a fireman.”
Queenie smiled at the kid’s excitement as a little girl stuck out her hand. “What about me?”
“You will work with animals, little one,” she said softly, after seeing images of this girl as an adult caring for dogs and cats. “I don’t know if it’ll be as a vet or something else. But your path lies with animals.”
The little girl dropped her hand, stepped away, and waited for the third child, a little boy, to step forward. He held out his hand and said, “What about me?”
But his voice was defiant, almost angry, as if he’d wanted to be the fireman, and he didn’t like that his friend had that role. As soon as his hand touched hers, a shock coursed through her system. And then a strange cone appeared over his head. She swallowed hard at that sign and said instead, “Wow, you’re really hard to read. I’m not sure I see anything.”
“You don’t have to. I’m going to be a policeman,” he yelled. “I’m going to hunt down robbers.”
He broke contact and raced away, past the adults at the entrance to the tent, and roared like a banshee.
She carefully eased her chair backward, and, using some of the antibacterial soap, washed the hand he’d held. It wouldn’t change the fact the little boy would die—and sometime in the next three days.
She shuddered, hating that part of her talent. The last thing she wanted to know was who would die prematurely. But unfortunately these forces showed her a cone over those who had less than three days to live.
So far the cone hadn’t been wrong. She’d seen enough of them to know. She sat back, sipping water from her bottle, trying to calm her nerves.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a spider walk across her table. She looked at it in fascination. The amusement park was definitely not the cleanest place, and certainly loads of food were here for rodents. But she hadn’t seen much in the way of spiders. She wasn’t afraid of them but neither did she like them. As far as she was concerned, if they left her alone, then she’d leave them alone.
This one didn’t get the message.
It walked across her table, heading for the fortune-telling ball. She watched, wondering at the odd light around the bug. She saw auras all the time. Rarely around animals though. But the spider definitely glowed. She smiled at the oddity. “Where are you from?”
Something inside told her to pick it up. But she hesitated. Just because she wasn’t killing the thing at first sight didn’t mean she wanted it crawling all over her. The spider went up on its back legs, reaching out one of its front legs to touch the glass ball. A mist swirled deep inside the ball.
And those eyes … How many eyes did spiders have?
The spider speared her with a look she found fascinating. She leaned forward, studying the bulbous critter carefully. Then, unable to help herself and yet cringing as she did so, she touched the spider. It scrabbled onto the back of her hand.
Instantly images assailed her.
Blood. A woman giving birth. A toddler—a boy. And a name flashing in neon inside her brain—a name she’d never forget. Reese.
Shuddering, she stared at the spider in horror. It stared at her. As if it knew her. As if it knew something about her.
She brushed it off her hand and onto the table and backed away, knocking her chair over in the process, staring at it in horror. “What do you know about Reese?”
Of course the spider didn’t answer. How could it? But it gazed at her with that same knowing look. She shuddered.
Just then a large man stepped through the tent opening, dragging in a young boy with him. The man took one look at her and laughed. “Well, look at this. The fortune teller is scared of spiders.”
He walked over, flicked the spider to the ground, and lifted his leg to step on it.
Before he could, she scooped it off to the side away from the man. “I’m not afraid of it,” she said quietly. “And I don’t kill anything unnecessarily.”
He snorted. “You’re a charlatan, just like all the rest of the idiots here.”
“No, I’m not,” she said warily. “What can I do for you?”
“Well, seeing as how I’m here, you might as well tell me the truth. I’m trying to acquire a piece of property. A pretty cabin on a lake. Will I get it or not?”
With a sneer he tossed a five-dollar bill on the table. Too many people were in her life with the same attitude. Most of the time she could ignore it. This man, however, … still it was her job.
She hated to reach out for his hand, but it was necessary, and his closed around hers, holding her tight. And once again images slammed into her. A mountain lake. A cabin with paths up and down to the lake.
And in the lake, a woman’s face floated just beneath the surface.
Queenie broke contact and sat back down again, holding her hand against her chest, her nerve endings fried, her body already shuddering. She didn’t know what the hell was happening. But something was wrong. She gazed at the man and said, “The property owner is dead.” Her gut clenched. She should keep her mouth shut. She didn’t need to start anything, …but she couldn’t stop her visions or stop speaking of them. … For some reason she saw a whole lot more than she’d like. Girding herself for his reaction, in a cold voice she added, “But then you already know that, … don’t you?”
He narrowed his gaze, a black thundercloud forming. “Bitch,” he roared, storming out of the tent and dragging the little boy with him.
Not that it mattered. His face was emblazoned in her mind for a long time to come.
But the face from the lake would be there a lot longer. That poor woman had been murdered. And even now floated undetected in the chilly water.
Queenie spun around, grabbing her Closed sign, and hung it on the curtain that separated her from the front of her tent, then yanked the curtain closed.
She couldn’t do any more of this tonight. She wasn’t sure what was wrong, but, for some reason, her abilities were heightened to a new level right now. And it scraped along her nerve endings to the point she couldn’t deal with anything. She returned to the table, dropped her headpiece there, and picked up her purse.
Instantly the spider raced up her arm and onto her shoulder. She shuddered and flicked it off. Only it returned to run up her pant leg instead. She danced around, trying to shake it off.
But it was too late.
She’d seen its visions.
Something it knew. Or rather someone it knew.
Then like a weird echo inside her brain, a tiny voice called out to her. “Mommy? Is that you? Where are you?”
But that couldn’t be. Her son had been dead for many years—hadn’t he?
Shaking at the unbelievable horror she didn’t—couldn’t—contemplate, but yet her heart and soul filled with hope, she pulled out her cell phone and the card she’d kept tucked in the back of the phone case for many years. Unable to trust herself to send a text, she dialed the number on the card.
“Hello.”
Her heart slammed into her chest. She hadn’t heard that voice in so very long. She’d loved it once, just as she’d loved the man. Then hated both as her life had been ripped to pieces, and he’d been unable to find her son—their son. Whether he knew it or not.
Finally she found her voice. “Kirk?”
A moment’s pause followed. Then he said with a heavy sigh, “Hi, Queenie.”
“I was just wondering, has there been any news?”
“No, nothing,” he said without hesitation. “I’m sorry.” As her silence lengthened, he asked sharply, “Why? Did something happen?”
She gave a strangled laugh and said, “Yes, but you won’t believe me if I try to explain.” And she hung up, sagging into the chair, tears burning the back of her eyes.