She eyes me strangely. Her blue-gray hair fans around her face in a halo of frizz, and her olive skin is peppered with liver spots. She’s too thin, wiry with wrinkles sagging over her bones. She carries a motorcycle helmet in one hand. Her left arm is covered in a snake tattoo. Her right arm is inked with the sphinx. As I watch, they seem to move in and out of position, slithering over her like they’re trapped. I shake my head to make them stop.

Where have I seen those together before? My mind whirls and my palms sweat. I switch my tarot deck box from one hand to the other as I wipe my hands on my shorts. My deck. The World card.

She looks suspicious. “How old are you?”

“Why?”

“How do you know about Fortune’s Gate?”

Land on your feet, Cat. “My mom bought a deck of cards there.” I wave my tarot box between us to back up my story. “But it’s missing a card. I wanted to see if they had any more.”

She eyes my tarot box as if deciding something. “It’s around the corner,” she says after a moment. “Next to Little Will’s, the barbecue joint.”

I shake my head again. “No, we were just there.”

She looks me up and down with black marble eyes. “You must not have been looking hard enough.”

I open my mouth to defend myself, but she is already stalking away. The Devil’s words filter through my mind—Open your eyes—as I watch her climb onto a vintage orange-and-black motorcycle a few parking spaces over and rev the engine loudly. She speeds off before I can get a word out.

I turn to Daniel, my mouth still hanging open like a Venus flytrap.

“You heard her,” he says. “We must have missed it.” Then he rolls his eyes as if she’s just some bonkers motorcycle lady. But I can’t help feeling chided by her words. As if it is my fault somehow that Fortune’s Gate is not where it belongs.

We climb into his cousin’s car and head back the way we came. I am moping as I stare out the window when Little Will’s comes into view.

“Stop!” I shout, throwing a hand against the glass.

Daniel slams on the brakes in the middle of the road. Luckily, there is no one behind us. “Cat, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“It’s there! It’s there. Turn in!” I am tapping the glass feverishly, not quite believing my own eyes.

Daniel peers at me but obeys. He pulls into the lot and parks facing the street. I look over my shoulder and there, narrowly squished between the Shop Stop and Little Will’s Bar-B-Q, is the black-and-white-striped awning from the internet picture. I stare as if it might vanish at any moment.