The Hollow Ones(40)

Odessa felt a cool shiver run through her body, and hated herself for it. The last thing she wanted was to let this old swindler into her emotional state. “My father is deceased.”

Words from the old woman, translated: “He loved you.”

“Okay, this is…” Odessa didn’t say, Silly. “This is highly inappropriate. Offensive.”

“He left you a note,” the counter woman continued. “Addressed to you. A goodbye. But they destroyed it. They were afraid it would get them into trouble.”

Odessa reacted to the emotions welling up inside her with anger. Her father had died in prison. “How do you claim to know this?”

The old woman turned over another card. This one showed four knives.

“Enough,” said Odessa, bolting out of the chair. She felt sick, and she felt taken advantage of. She reached for her purse. “His turn,” she said, pointing at Blackwood. “My associate, Mr. Blackwood, would like a reading now.”

Blackwood looked at her, reading her distress. He had to know she was angry with him, but not why. Or perhaps he realized that he had, inadvertently, wounded her.

Blackwood slowly took her seat across from the old woman.

Odessa saw a strange look on the old woman’s face, regarding Blackwood. Another back-and-forth with the counter woman.

“She does not wish to perform another reading.”

Odessa’s good manners—instilled in her by her father, among others—disappeared in the face of this spiritual coercion. She put her money down on the table. “You will do for him the same as you did for me.”

She heard her voice shaking, but she didn’t care.

The counter woman said, “Mother is tired, she needs to rest.”

“Do it,” said Odessa.

The counter woman looked at the old woman, who looked across at Blackwood. Reluctantly, she shuffled the Tarot deck, more deliberately this time.

Blackwood sat preternaturally still, his hands in his lap. Odessa’s anger subsided just enough for her to become aware of an eerie energy in the room now, like an invisible dome over the table. For a moment, she regretted her action, fearing she had forced an encounter that should not have occurred.

The old woman looked at Blackwood with reluctant eyes, as though viewing him from deep within herself. The deck sat ready before her, but she was reluctant to turn over the top card. She shook her head, looking at the counter woman, refusing to go any further.

The counter woman looked concerned. “Mother?” she said, as though confused by the old woman’s reluctance.

After a painfully long and tense moment, Blackwood reached across the table and picked the first card off the top. Without looking at it himself, he showed it to her.

The old woman tried to speak. She opened her mouth but no words came out. She simply covered her eyes and turned away, weakened, slouching.

Blackwood stood from the table. “My apologies,” he said, though neither woman heard his words. The counter woman held her headdress with one hand, herself now spooked by the British gentleman’s presence. He nodded to them and left the room.

Odessa was still catching her breath. The old woman was sitting upright, looking around the room as though having woken from a deep sleep. Odessa felt responsible—reading Blackwood’s fortune was her smart idea—and was relieved to see her coming back around. Odessa wanted to get out of there, but before she did, she reached for the top card off the deck, needing to see what it showed.

It was the image of a Magi, holding a wand or perhaps a baton, his hat brim curved in the shape of the symbol for infinity.



Back near the burnt-out pay phone, Odessa grabbed Blackwood’s arm to stop him. Shocked at how thin he felt inside his suit sleeve, she pulled her hand back fast.

“What are you? Some kind of mesmerist?”

“All I did was turn over the card she herself dealt.”

“What was that card?” Odessa asked. “The Magi. What does that mean?”

“I believe the Magi symbolizes immanence.”

“Okay. I’m not going to pretend I know what immanence means.”

“It means the quality of being immanent, or inherent.”

“But what would it mean to her?”

“Hard to say.” Blackwood’s gaze was unflinching. “Some religious faiths and metaphysical theories hold that the spiritual world permeates the mundane. Whereas transcendence implies a divine presence existing on a plane outside and beyond the everyday world, immanence expresses a quality of the otherworldly extant in the world around us.”

Odessa said, “She saw that in you?”

“She saw that in a card, selected at random. ‘As above, so below.’”

Odessa was sick and tired of his haughty manner. “Playing these kinds of games with people is an ugly trait. It’s sadistic. That old lady was terrified of you for some reason.”

“I believe it was you who insisted I sit for her.”

“I didn’t want a psychic reading in the first place,” she told him. “And by the way—you don’t know me. I don’t know you. How dare you sit me down for something like that without consulting me first?”

“I didn’t think it would matter to an obvious skeptic.”

“It’s rude. And I’ll be damned if I know what it got us, except some old card reader having a dizzy spell. What does it matter? I asked you for help figuring out what happened to Walt Leppo and the two rampage shooters.”