The Better to Bite (Howl #1)(25)

“Yes, child…” came Granny Helen’s smooth voice. “I’m right here.”

She stood in the middle of that beaded curtain. I lifted my chin. “I want to know what’s happening in this town.”

Granny Helen’s black eyes assessed me. “Tell me, lamb…”

And I stiffened because Rafe had called me the same thing.

“…do you dream since coming to Haven?”

Now Cassidy was as still and quiet as a statue.

“I dream about wolves,” I said. But, hey, big surprise. When you got attacked, it only made sense that the beast would follow a girl into her dreams.

But Granny Helen nodded. “Want to know your past or your future?” She slipped to the side and parted the beaded curtain for me.

Oh, crap. I looked at Cassidy. “Do it,” she mouthed.

Right. I’d come in for this, hadn’t I?

I headed for the curtain.

I don’t know what I expected to find in the back, but the comfy couch and brewing tea with its sweet scent just seemed wrong.

“Twenty dollars.” Granny Helen told me with a benign smile.

I frowned. “What? No free first time?”

“Nothing is free in Haven,” she said and her smile faded. “There’s always a price. Always.”

Now that sounded like a warning.

I pulled out a twenty, and it disappeared into her gnarled hand. Really, it disappeared. Nice sleight of hand trick. I could do that, too. Actually, I even had some pretty good pick-pocketing skills, only dad didn’t exactly let me practice those a lot.

“Sit.”

I sat on the nearest couch. Cassidy eased down beside me.

“Past or future?” Granny Helen asked again.

“Um, the past doesn’t really matter so much, does it?”

She stared back at me with unblinking eyes, and I cleared my throat. “We can’t change the past. I want to know what’s coming.”

“Ah…” Her breath sighed out. “You think you can change what’s headed your way? Divert the trouble like a train on a wrong track?”

“Maybe.” I swiped my tongue over my lips. “How’d you know I was going to be in that accident last night? Have you already seen my future?”

“No, child.” She pulled a chair close to me. A cherry table rested between us. “I just feel the darkness. You have to feel it, too. Closing in so tight, almost like it’s choking you.”

Okay. Someone might need to lay off that sweet-smelling tea. Only it didn’t smell quite so sweet anymore. “I don’t feel anything like that.”

She grabbed my hand. For a little old lady, she sure was strong. Very strong. She flipped my hand over and stared at my palm. I stared at it, too, but I didn’t see anything special. Just the lines that cut across my hand. My lifeline—yeah, I knew that one—actually ended in a big branch just below my thumb. The rest of the lines just looked kinda strange. If I crinkled my hand, they formed an M. Didn’t most people’s?

“Your past is very interesting,” she said, glancing up at me. “Perhaps you’ll let me tell you about it one day.”

“Yeah, when I get another twenty.” Someone was gonna have to start a part-time job soon. “Um, can we get to my future?”

She let my hand go. Then she bent near the table and pulled out a stack of old, thick cards.

“Doing a special reading for you…” She shuffled the cards in her hands, and I couldn’t look away from that shuffle. Those weren’t like any playing cards I’d seen before. “Cut it.”

I cut.

“Again.”

I did.

“Again.”

With a raised brow, I made the final cut.

Her fingers closed over the deck. “Pull three cards.”

I pulled them. Didn’t look at them. What, was she going to say…your magic card is the eight of spades. The eight!

She put the deck down and slowly turned over the cards.

Crap. No eight of spades there.

The Devil. The Moon. Death.

The Devil card showed a weird half-man, half-wolf. A man and a woman—with horns and fiery tails—stood beside him. Oh, jeez. My luck sucked. “Tell me that’s not my future.”

Her fingers smoothed over the card. “Violence is coming your way.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve already had enough of that, thank you very much.”

“The Devil card doesn’t have to be evil,” Cassidy murmured. I fired her a fast glance. “It looks evil to me.”

“That’s because you trust your eyes too much.” I looked back and found Granny Helen’s gaze on me. “Your eyes will fool you.” Still looking at me, her hand moved to hover over The Moon card. “You have hidden enemies. Danger and darkness that will spring at you when you’re weak.”

More darkness talk. I’d hoped to hear some good news.

But the last card on the table was Death. No good news there. “I think I can figure out what that one means on my own.”

She pushed the three cards into a pile. “Death doesn’t mean you die.”

Um, yeah, it did. “Then what does it mean?”

A twist of her lips that wasn’t a smile. “The end. Finally, the end can come.”