Page 73 of Wayfarers

“Really? When Miss Tara warned us not to?”

“That is precisely why we’re doing it.”

Sylvie

Knox wiggling out of another confession.

But who am I to demand one? Someone

who wouldn’t mind a little company

in the jail cell of her heart. Which might look

something like the Roadside Psycho’s—

sorry, Psychic’s—setup, a white cinderblock box

that was probably a church in a past life. But

instead of corny pastor jokes (God answers

knee-mails!), the letterboard reads

YOUR FATE IS KNOWN TO ME,

which is made still creepier by the peeling F

in FATE. I think it’s messed up

how much more we believe things

when they’re written down, like the act

of squeegeeing those letters up on the sign

converted an idea from nonsense

to gospel. And still, Sylvie the hypocrite,

I’m doing it now—what if the psychic

can see the long clean line of it,

every mess-up feeding into the next?

What if Miss Tara was warning me

that this fortune teller actually knows

what she’s doing? What if she looks him

dead in the eyes and says: Knox, this girl loves you,

and she kills what she loves.

Sylvie

There’s no waiting room. It’s just one big space with a vaulted ceiling and gigantic windows, set up to make you feel small in the face of God. At the far end of the room there’s a table, and the requisite gauzy curtains, and some paintings I can’t really see. I think one is of a cat? A holy cat? Is this sacrilege of some kind? I’m not cold, but I catch myself rubbing my arms.