The game starts, and it’s hilarious. Right from the beginning, it’s obvious most of us—myself included—have never played paintball before, but we’re all good sports and it makes for the most comical hour and a half of my life. Watching my friends trip on their floor-length satin dresses as they try to pull off sneak attacks, or seeing them dive behind a barricade, dress trains flowing in the air as they go down, is priceless. Amelia also hired a photographer to document the battle. We take silly shot after silly shot in our frilly dresses and plastic rifles.

When the game’s over—I’m not even sure who won or if I’m still “alive”—my friends lead me to the other side of the barn where I’m hit by a cloud of grill smoke. A table laid with pretty colored cocktails and a hamburger extravaganza awaits us. My mouth waters at the sight—after an hour of running this is like a dream come true. We sit at the table, all of us still wearing our bridesmaid dresses—some looking more worse for wear than others after the paint riddle—and sporting thirty-two-teeth smiles.

After stuffing my mouth with as many burgers as my body can handle—I know, bad for my bride-to-be diet—we stroll through the rest of the amusement park, playing different games and going on the various rides. It’s fun to see the disbelieving looks our colorful attire wins us. We’re shuffling around the various stands—I’m contemplating getting real cotton candy to match my dress—when Amelia stops in front of a blue and yellow pointy tent with a red silk door.

“You should get your fortune read,” Amelia suggests.

“Oh, no. It’s just a bunch of crap.”

“Crap or not, it’s fun. Come on, I’ll do it with you.”

We go inside, and it’s as if we’ve entered a different world. The noise from the circus outside is dimmed in here, and the atmosphere’s dark. The tent smells like cedar wood and jasmine, and the mixed scent seems inexplicably familiar. There are incense sticks burning in a corner. That must be it: I must have been in some other place with the same incenses at some point if my life, even if I can’t remember where. Gosh, the air’s suffocating.

“Welcome, dears,” an old crone greets us from the farthest corner. As I look at her and take in her black hair and yellow eyes, a powerful sense of déjà vu attacks me. “Oh, it’s you,” the crone says. “I’ve been waiting for you for a while now.”

“You have?”

“Oh, yes. I wondered how you’d turn up in this life.”

It’s probably all an act to set the divination atmosphere right, but she gives me goosebumps all the same.