The corners of Odessa’s mouth fell at the mention of her father. That her mother still revered him was a source of fascination for Odessa…and also a source of pity.

“Mom, you were the youngest of seven, right?”

“Well, yes, of course.” She rattled off her six siblings’ names in birth order. “What makes you ask that?”

“No reason, but—”

“I always wanted seven of my own,” her mother interjected. “I suppose because that’s what I grew up with. And I was the baby, like you, so I wanted to emulate that. Funny now.”

“You had six children, Mom. That’s pretty good.”

“I know. Six is enough,” her mother said and then chuckled.

Odessa felt a pang of relief, marking the old soothsayer wrong on that one.

“Although there was a…a stillbirth,” said her mother.

Odessa shook her head, wet hair swinging over her ears. “A…what?”

“She was…it was my very first pregnancy. Ended in a neonatal death.”

“But…wait, was it…was she…born alive or dead?”

A pause on her mother’s end. “She died in my arms, Odessa. She didn’t live but an hour.”

Odessa had her free hand against the wall, leaning against it, dizzy. Stunned. “So then I am actually…the seventh daughter…of a seventh daughter?”

“Well—I guess, technically speaking. But why do you say it like that?”

“Why haven’t we talked about this before?” asked Odessa. How could I not know this?

“Because it isn’t very pleasant for me to speak about, Odessa,” said her mother, an uncharacteristic curt note in her voice.

“I’m sorry.” Odessa realized she was dredging up painful memories without thinking about her mother’s side of this. The seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. What the hell did this mean?

“Mom, I never…I can’t know what it was like to go through that. I didn’t really know. Sorry.”

She found herself with a newfound appreciation for her mother’s strength. It almost forgave—and went a long way toward explaining—the decades of weakness that followed.

“Odessa,” said her mother, “where are these questions coming from?”

An old soothsayer. “Nowhere, Mom. Just…soul searching.”

“Odessa…are you thinking about starting a family?”

“What? God, no…”

“Are you pregnant?”

Jesus. “No, Mom. Nope. None of the above.”

“You know your sister is expecting her third…”

Odessa lived through another two minutes of denials and trying to get off the phone, until finally the line was dead and she was staring at her screen display, deep in thought.

She replayed the Tarot reading. All the things that woman said. Still, Odessa found ways to knock down some of her statements, her predictions. She was still fighting the reading, denying it.

The counter woman wearing the headdress, translating:

She asks if you want to know about your father.

And then the old woman’s eyes rolling back when confronted by Hugo Blackwood, almost fainting.