“It’s best to have a question in mind. It gives the reading focus. If you can’t think of one, we could ask what you can expect for the next month or year.” I tried to smile, to put her at ease, but by now she looked like she was going to be sick.

“You’re just a kid,” she said. “You’re so young.” Her hand crept across the table, as though she was going to touch me, but then she got up so fast that the chair tipped over. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but this was a mistake.” She was almost out the door when she turned around, took a few steps toward the table, then pulled a ten-dollar bill from her purse and dropped it in front of me.

“But I didn’t even do the reading,” I said. “At least let me read your cards.”

“I took your time. I’m sorry. I just … I’m sorry, I really am.” She practically ran through the door and down the boardwalk, jostling a tourist holding a funnel cake, who turned to sneer at her back as she fled.

I felt guilty as I tucked the ten into my pocket, but I still took out my notebook, adjusted my savings: $210. Why had she run after all that? I was used to people being a little nervous around me, or embarrassed, like Julie Zale’s uncle had been. But I wasn’t used to people being scared. I cut the tarot deck, shuffled it three times, and pictured the woman again, the way her hand closed so tightly around that locket on her neck. It was the second time I had broken the rules—read cards for someone who hadn’t exactly asked. But this woman hadn’t come to me for no reason—she had found my card, she chose to come to the shop. And, she paid. Maybe the cards would tell me more about her, or at least I might learn what she sensed in the air, a fate she intuited but didn’t want to see. I decided that would be my question for the cards. What was she afraid to know?

I chose a three-card spread—our standard reading. The first card represents the past. I drew the Four of Wands. Usually that card meant lovely things: Celebration. A harmonious home life. Family. Peace.

The second card, the present. King of Cups, reversed. It meant a lack of clarity, a lack of judgment and reason. “I could have told you that,” I mumbled, and then felt unkind. The King of Cups usually was a sign that the emotions and the intellect were out of balance, that a person was swamped by their feelings, overwhelmed.