Page 74 of Wayfarers

Knox sees my discomfort. “Did you see the rack over there? With all the little hooks on it?”

“Oh wow. Is that—is that something they use in non-Catholic churches?”

“What do you think they use it for?”

“Do they, like . . . hang you up by your shirt collar, if you’re a sinner? And then they hit a button and it crests you up in front of the congregation where you—oh.”

“Just got it, huh,” he says.

“Yeah, so this place was definitely also a dry cleaner’s.”

“I was enjoying your fire and brimstone, though. That was pretty intense imagining.”

“I try.”

A door in the back opens. That’s probably the place where they kept the priest clothes, or the dry cleaning chemicals. A woman drifts out, her hair a riot of blond curls. She keeps her hands folded in the long sleeves of her dress, and when she gets close enough, I notice her dagger-blue eyes.

Huh.

“Copy, paste of Miss Tara,” I whisper to Knox, and walk to her with my hand outstretched. “Hi. I’m Sylvie. I’m guessing your rate is fifty dollars for both of us for a half hour?”

“That,” she says with dignity, “is highway robbery. I charge forty-five.” She doesn’t shake my hand.

“I’m Knox,” he says, with a head nod.

“I am Miss Mara.”

Knox makes a sound like he’s inhaled a wasp. I am trying so hard not to do anything weird with my face.

“May I ask how you came to my door?”

“Utter happenstance,” I tell her. “I’ve never seen or heard anything like you before.”

She gives me a look. Then produces a vape, takes a hit, and jerks her head. “Follow me,” she says.

Knox

Miss Mara stares down Sylvie through her huge purple-framed glasses, cards arrayed before her, curls of Dragon’s Blood incense smoke framing her face. “You must claim yourself. You fear aloneness.” She says it as though it pains her to be burdened with such insight; such ability to peer into someone’s soul.

Sylvie nods noncommittally and murmurs, “I mean, everyone kinda does.” She doesn’t sound convinced by herself.

And Miss Mara is not. “You especially. You cannot fear walking your own path. Even if you entered into this world having shared a womb with someone, you must have the courage to forge your own way. Even if it means buying them out of their partnership share for way more than they ever put into it in terms of sweat equity. We’re talking about twenty percent.” Her voice transforms from moony mystic to business mystic in the space of seconds.

“That is . . . very specific,” I say.

Miss Mara glares at me. “I speak as I am moved to speak.”

I raise my hands in surrender. “Sure, sure, go ahead. Sorry.”

She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. “A great celestial event is coming. An . . . eclipse. There is power in such conjunctions of heavenly bodies. You should find a way to witness it in its totality so that it may serve as a portal for the universe to reach out its hand of wisdom to you. A strange prophet may sweep into your life that night, a vanguard of the eclipse.”

“A strange prophet? Like, another psychic?” Sylvie asks, curious.

Miss Mara’s lips are thin. “I take issue with the word ‘strange.’”

“I’m just repeating what you said.”

“Yes, but there was judgment in your tone.”