“This is not the first time you have become the focus of a great darkness. You are not an attractor of darkness, however.” She puzzled over the cards here. “You are more of a…a conduit. A go-between.” The counter woman was having some difficulty translating the term. “An agent.”

Again she glanced at Blackwood, hearing an echo of his earlier words. She wondered what was going on here.

The counter woman translated: “You are the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter.”

“I’m a…what?” Odessa did the math quickly. “I’m one of six. I have five siblings.” Odessa wanted to say more, but thought that maybe this woman’s game was to trick her into divulging personal information. She clammed up.

“You are the seventh,” said the old woman.

“Okay,” said Odessa, annoyed. “Anything else?” She wanted to be done with this.

The old woman laid another card down, this time faceup. “You have a slight backup in your intestines.”

Odessa could have done without hearing that. “That’s great, that’s quite enough. Thank you.”

Odessa started to stand, but the old woman spoke sharply to the counter woman, the two of them having a conversation.

The counter woman said, “She asks if you want to know about your father.”

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.”