Return Visit...

fiction

"Come on out. Your shadow tricks don't work on us."

The store remained quiet and empty.

"Theresa, Tessa, Madame T...come on now you're wasting our time."

The store was still as empty as when they walked in.

"Do we have to use your given name? Because we will."

"Fine." Theresa walked out of the shadows. "I'm here, but I'm up to date on everything. I have all of the proper signage up and everything."

"Now, now, Theresa, you know why we are here. There is no reason to play this game."

"But it wasn't my fault! I didn't do anything wrong! I didn't know!"

"That's a lot of excuses."

"Not excuses, reasons. How was I supposed to know? She came in with a friend to get spring break fortunes. Her friend even asked about her love life for goodness sake. There was nothing that would have warned me."

"We understand your frustration. But you know as well as we do if you had taken a moment to read her aura before touching her you would have known."

Theresa looked away from the inspectors toward the wall.

"Wait... did you read her aura and touch her anyway?"

"No! I definitely didn't do that!"

"Can you not... surely this can't be true... Theresa, can you read auras?"

"I mean, sort of?"

"Oh my goddess and all the muses. They gave you a license to practice in public and you can't read auras?"

"I can! I mean, I can enough to pass the licensing requirement, but I've never been good at it. It's just not where my gifts are."

"I don't care where you gifts are. Reading an aura is a safety precaution. You should have said something, whoever tested you should have known. You cannot skimp on the safety precautions or... well now you know why you can't skimp on that!"

"I already smudged the store and redid my threshold barriers."

"Yes, we could tell when we got here. But you still saw what you saw."

"But I didn't tell her anything! I sent her away. I didn't even take payment for the reading I did for her friend, and it was a solid reading!"

"So you did a reading that will come to pass, and you sent her away without charge. Don't you think that will intrigue her to come back to try again?"

"No! I mean... she did say she thought I was trying to trick her, but no, I sent her away! Come on, you can't shut me down. I have a great clientele here. I've worked for decades to build up my reputation. I'm good but not excellent. Just enough to get people to come back, not enough to arouse suspicions. I've done everything by the book!"

"Almost everything."

Theresa sighed. "Almost everything."

Olivia walked down Bourbon Street looking for the shop she and Emily had visited last year. She wasn't sure if Emily and Jacob getting engaged happened so quickly because the fortune teller had been right about Kyle and so marrying Jacob was obviously the second half of the prediction, or if the prediction had been completely accurate.

Either way, Emily did not marry Kyle, she started dating Jacob within a few weeks of their breakup and they were engaged sooner than anyone would have guessed. It had all happened. No matter how it happened, it happened.

So now Olivia was going to give in and find out how much it was going to cost her to get the super deluxe fortune that she had clearly been set up to want. Scam or not it was nagging at her. She wanted to know.

She looked at the storefront, she was pretty sure this is where the shop was but now it was a novelty t-shirt store.

"Umm, hi! Excuse me, but how long have you been here?"

"Oh, hi, you must be looking for Madame T, we get at least one or two people a day looking for her. She's gone. Just packed up and left one night, I was able to snag this space for a song. Which is why I have the best prices on shirts in the whole parish! Take a look around!"

"Thanks, but I really was hoping to find Madame T. Do you have any forwarding information?"

"I don't, sorry, the renting agent couldn't even find her to return her deposit. She's gone gone."

"Well that sucks."

"Right? I would love to meet her, people really loved what she did. I guess she was better than most of the con...I mean... readers around."

"Oh well, thanks anyway."

Olivia walked out of the shop and headed down the street. She guessed she'd just have to live with not knowing what Madama T was going to tell her.

The shirt seller watched her go then picked up her cell phone, "Yeah, hi, this is Lindsey, you asked me to call if I thought the girl you were looking for came in? Yeah, she fit the description and was for sure looking for Madame T. She took a left out of the store, heading down Bourbon Street right now. Okay, yeah, and the deposit will go in? Oh, it's already there? Wow. Thanks. You are..." The call disconnected.

Lindsey wasn't sure if telling them was the right thing, but they had paid half her rent for the year and the finders fee was going to pay for the other half. It was great deal.

For her.