Teenagers, Dextra Kincaid sighed. Was I ever so young? She gazed into the sphere sitting on the table in front of her with an air of thoughtfulness. No one ever felt they'd had their money's worth unless she gave them a proper show.
“You want to know if you'll ever win the attention of a boy you're in love with,” she told the teenaged girl sitting across the table from her.
The girl started, and her heavily made-up eyes widened. “That's exactly it! How did you know?”
Well, honey, you're about sixteen, and you certainly don't go to that much effort to be in style just to go to the library or work on lab projects. “It's my job to know, dear,” Dextra said smoothly. “It's the strongest wish of your heart at present, and that creates very strong vibrations for the sensitive to pick up. He's a little older than you, I think...”
The teenager nodded speechlessly.
“Handsome, popular...”
“That's him!” The teenager almost squirmed entirely off her hard chair in the booth. “Does he like me?”
Can he tell you apart from your friends, more like? Well, let's see...
“Let me see your palm.”
The teenager offered a trembling green-nailed hand. Dextra shifted forward and took it so she could study the lines.
Oh dear. They always get so upset when I give them bad news. She's going to end up a mother in a year if he notices her, and he'll refuse to believe it's his child... That'll ruin her life. What else can I find for her that would be better? Aha, what've we here?
“Your love-line is doubled and knotted,” she said, indicating the proper line. “There are complications in this affair.”
“Complications?”
Dextra nodded solemnly. “The one you love loves someone else.”
“Oh no!” Tears gathered.
“Don't despair, dear, you'll find a love who will adore you and treasure you.”
“I will? But you just said he loves someone else!”
“Someone different. Listen, now, here's what you need to do in order to find him. He has joined a hobby group, a club, something of the sort, here in the city. On Tuesday, and it must be Tuesday, start looking into what's available. When you find one that looks right, join it.”
“Just because it looks right? You can't tell me which one?”
“You'll know him because he has interests similar to yours. Something that you find interesting, he will, as well. Join, and do it wholeheartedly to show that your interest is genuine. Be patient, and when you've proven yourself, he'll turn up.”
“How long?” the teenager wailed.
Dextra released her hand. This had gone on just about long enough. She’d planned to leave the store at five, since she had a private appointment; she wouldn't have seen this one right now at all had the girl not begged so much she'd been disturbing the peace of Dextra's store. Cordell was supposed to be there at five-thirty, although knowing Cordell, he might well be waiting for her already. “Before school's out,” she said absently. “You'll have a lovely summer with him.”
“I will? For real?”
“Absolutely. Remember, look into it on,” What day did I say? “Tuesday, join as soon as possible after you find the right one, and devote yourself to it.”
The teenager nodded, tears forgotten in the distraction. “Is he cute?”
“Yes. And he'll think you're the centre of the universe.” Gods know why. Although, if she can stay out of trouble long enough to gain some maturity, there's some potential there.
It took some further reassurances to get the girl out of the booth. Dextra waited a moment, then brushed past the heavy curtain, out into the main part of the store. Shelves for figurines and ornaments, glass cabinets for jewellery made of silver and semi-precious gems, a couple of shelves for a few books on gems and symbolism and the like, brightly-coloured sarongs on long wooden bars in neatly-organized display, surrounded her. Her own store, where she could ensure that everything was in its proper place. She paused to move a bronze figure of Shiva back beside the other Indian deities. It did not belong between Bast and Isis!
“I'm leaving, Nicole. Is there anything else you need before closing?”
Nicole shook her head, never pausing in counting the cash in the till. “I'm fine. Have a good night.”
“You too.”
It didn't surprise her overly much to find Cordell Batista's sleek red sports-car parked in front of the store, under a streetlight. Cordell himself was leaning against the hood, every inch business-casual perfection, from his perfectly-styled dark hair to the shoes that probably cost as much as Dextra's store made in a week.
“Feeding the romantic dreams of more teenagers?”
Dextra shrugged. “It's a little extra cash. Their problems never feel trivial to them, they deserve answers as much as anyone. Come on upstairs.” She circled the building to the side, unlocked a sturdy wooden door, and started up the stairs to her apartment. Cordell followed; she heard him close the door and throw the bolt home, unsurprisingly—he wouldn't want anyone else dropping in to interrupt.
The apartment wasn't huge, but it was of an adequate size, everything arranged to make the best use of the space. She paused to shed the jewellery she wore as part of the whole performance and tug the bright fringed scarf loose from her long honey-brown hair, and deposited it all on the coffee table. The long full skirt and unbleached blouse she didn't mind, but the rest felt excessive.
“Well?” she prompted Cordell. “Business or personal question, this time?”
“Everything's business, one way or another. Someone else in the Fellowship approached me yesterday about making an investment in a business venture. It’s not too far away but it’s out of town and I’m not familiar with the area. It seems generally sound, but you know I always get your advice before I commit to anything.” He gave her a charming smile that she knew made many women's hormones turn their brains to mush, but she'd grown up with Cordell, and knew him much too well to be taken in.
“We'll need the workroom, then.” She didn't bother asking to be paid up front—Cordell both found her skills useful to him, and respected the fact that they could be used against him. A healthy relationship, all in all. He paid her quite a lot, in fact, for her silence, and so she wouldn't give others advice on any venture with which he was involved, and to bring him any interesting tidbits she came across.
She'd converted the second bedroom into a workroom. Shelves lined the walls, and on them, neatly arranged, were all the tools she used to keep track of everything significant that happened in this part of the world. Precisely centred in the small space was a square table of old, solid oak. She gestured to Cordell, and he sat on the stool near the door, familiar with this routine.
Business venture, yes or no... that was straightforward enough. She opened a flat wooden box, broken into velvet-lined compartments of various sizes. She passed over pendulums of silver and crystal, pewter and jade, copper and agate, in favour of a gold one.
“Did you bring the proposal?”
Cordell drew a handful of papers, folded into thirds, from the inner pocket of his jacket and handed them to her. She unfolded them, and used a quartet of smooth, symmetrical river stones to hold them flat. Then she dangled the pendulum over the proposal.
“Was this proposal made with honest intentions?”
The pendulum, which should have swung neatly north-south for an affirmative and east-west for a negative, instead went into a jerky circular swing.
Dextra frowned. “That's odd. Will the business succeed?”
The circle faltered briefly, then resumed.
“Interference?” she mused. “Maybe you aren't supposed to ask too many questions.”
“You're the best,” Cordell said. “Surely you can find out.”
“I intend to. This is not the way things are supposed to work.” She returned the gold pendulum to its box, cleared the papers from the table, and handed them to Cordell. “I'll need them back in a few minutes.” From the half-dozen rolled laminated maps on one shelf, Dextra chose one, and spread it on the table, pinning it with more rocks. Cordell leaned forward to look, intrigued despite himself. Dextra paid no attention. It was only an ordinary survey map of southern Ontario and a short distance to either side into Quebec and Manitoba plus a little of New York. None of her tools had any intrinsic power; it was all in her use of them.
She picked up a fist-sized opaque ceramic jar, unscrewed the lid, and paused to concentrate for a moment. Then she held the jar high over the map and inverted it.
Finely-powdered quartz dust glittered and sparkled as it fell, swirling and dancing though the air was still.
It settled in a galaxy-spiral around a city of moderate size, a couple of hours' drive away, approximately southwards.
She fetched the pendulum made of quartz, and suspended it over the galaxy. “Was this deliberate interference?”
The quartz pendulum replied decisively in the negative.
“Is the interference an accidental side-effect of something happening there?”
Yes.
“Is the something happening random?”
No.
“Is it something being done deliberately by a witch?”
Yes.
“A Fellowship witch?”
No.
“That's where the Terevan boy is,” Cordell said lazily. “And, incidentally, the city this particular business venture is in.”
“Bloody strong for a boy, if he can throw that kind of interference even locally.” She frowned at the table. “About, oh, six months ago or so, he pissed Garrett off by breaking a binding he’d put an immense amount of time and effort into. I started keeping an eye out but he hasn’t done anything else that’s brought him to my attention since. I was hoping that it was a one-time fluke and he’d settle into the usual independent obscurity.”
“Nadine has been considering approaching him. I know there are several others who are trying to gather information about him, but as far as I know, results have been negligible and superficial. He’s a Terevan. I think it’s unlikely that anyone is going to be able to persuade him to be sensible.”
Dextra watched the little drift of quartz on the map. It was still moving, slowly, spreading itself outwards and thinning as it went. “It looks like it was a single splash, at least. I can work around that.” She gathered up the map, poured the quartz dust back into its jar, and put everything away. It wouldn't be so very hard to block out the interference, now that she had some idea what it was.
It took more time and more effort than she'd initially expected, but she gave Cordell his answer: the business would thrive in the short-term, but fail after barely two years. She even found out a few details for him as to why—a dissatisfied and influential customer, a policy or two that were self-defeating. With that knowledge, Cordell should have little trouble manipulating probabilities to fall his way, if he chose to involve himself at all.
“That's what I needed,” Cordell said in satisfaction. “Can I buy you a cappuccino downtown?”
“Another time. I want to see what else I can track down about this Terevan kid and what he's doing.”
“Hm. If you find anything interesting, would you let me know?”
“Let me decide what's worth sharing once I actually have the information.”
Having seen Cordell out, she returned to her workroom. She pressed her hands together, as if in prayer, and moved them slowly apart.
In the space between, a tapestry of countless colours unrolled. She knew it had no objective existence, that it was simply a convenient way for her subconscious to show her all the patterns and correlations, but it was a useful technique. She focused her attention on the young Terevan and identified his thread, glowing with rich browns and golds and rust-reds and oak green. At the moment, it ran along the edge of the pattern, intertwined most prominently with one that was unexpectedly midnight and sun-yellow and blood-red despite lacking the luminosity of a witch thread. Other threads veered close to it or touched it, and several non-witch threads looped around it repeatedly, along with a trio of witch-bright ones that dipped in and out, probably his family. Not a part of the pattern, but not running counter to it, at least. That was a good sign. Youthful high spirits and experimentation could be forgiven and overlooked, as long as they didn't become too extreme or last too long.
She brought her hands together again, made the web disappear, and settled herself to learning what she could about Christian Terevan.
Teenagers, Dextra Kincaid sighed. Was I ever so young? She gazed into the sphere sitting on the table in front of her with an air of thoughtfulness. No one ever felt they'd had their money's worth unless she gave them a proper show.
“You want to know if you'll ever win the attention of a boy you're in love with,” she told the teenaged girl sitting across the table from her.
The girl started, and her heavily made-up eyes widened. “That's exactly it! How did you know?”
Well, honey, you're about sixteen, and you certainly don't go to that much effort to be in style just to go to the library or work on lab projects. “It's my job to know, dear,” Dextra said smoothly. “It's the strongest wish of your heart at present, and that creates very strong vibrations for the sensitive to pick up. He's a little older than you, I think...”
The teenager nodded speechlessly.
“Handsome, popular...”
“That's him!” The teenager almost squirmed entirely off her hard chair in the booth. “Does he like me?”
Can he tell you apart from your friends, more like? Well, let's see...
“Let me see your palm.”
The teenager offered a trembling green-nailed hand. Dextra shifted forward and took it so she could study the lines.
Oh dear. They always get so upset when I give them bad news. She's going to end up a mother in a year if he notices her, and he'll refuse to believe it's his child... That'll ruin her life. What else can I find for her that would be better? Aha, what've we here?
“Your love-line is doubled and knotted,” she said, indicating the proper line. “There are complications in this affair.”
“Complications?”
Dextra nodded solemnly. “The one you love loves someone else.”
“Oh no!” Tears gathered.
“Don't despair, dear, you'll find a love who will adore you and treasure you.”
“I will? But you just said he loves someone else!”
“Someone different. Listen, now, here's what you need to do in order to find him. He has joined a hobby group, a club, something of the sort, here in the city. On Tuesday, and it must be Tuesday, start looking into what's available. When you find one that looks right, join it.”
“Just because it looks right? You can't tell me which one?”
“You'll know him because he has interests similar to yours. Something that you find interesting, he will, as well. Join, and do it wholeheartedly to show that your interest is genuine. Be patient, and when you've proven yourself, he'll turn up.”
“How long?” the teenager wailed.
Dextra released her hand. This had gone on just about long enough. She’d planned to leave the store at five, since she had a private appointment; she wouldn't have seen this one right now at all had the girl not begged so much she'd been disturbing the peace of Dextra's store. Cordell was supposed to be there at five-thirty, although knowing Cordell, he might well be waiting for her already. “Before school's out,” she said absently. “You'll have a lovely summer with him.”
“I will? For real?”
“Absolutely. Remember, look into it on,” What day did I say? “Tuesday, join as soon as possible after you find the right one, and devote yourself to it.”
The teenager nodded, tears forgotten in the distraction. “Is he cute?”
“Yes. And he'll think you're the centre of the universe.” Gods know why. Although, if she can stay out of trouble long enough to gain some maturity, there's some potential there.
It took some further reassurances to get the girl out of the booth. Dextra waited a moment, then brushed past the heavy curtain, out into the main part of the store. Shelves for figurines and ornaments, glass cabinets for jewellery made of silver and semi-precious gems, a couple of shelves for a few books on gems and symbolism and the like, brightly-coloured sarongs on long wooden bars in neatly-organized display, surrounded her. Her own store, where she could ensure that everything was in its proper place. She paused to move a bronze figure of Shiva back beside the other Indian deities. It did not belong between Bast and Isis!
“I'm leaving, Nicole. Is there anything else you need before closing?”
Nicole shook her head, never pausing in counting the cash in the till. “I'm fine. Have a good night.”
“You too.”
It didn't surprise her overly much to find Cordell Batista's sleek red sports-car parked in front of the store, under a streetlight. Cordell himself was leaning against the hood, every inch business-casual perfection, from his perfectly-styled dark hair to the shoes that probably cost as much as Dextra's store made in a week.
“Feeding the romantic dreams of more teenagers?”
Dextra shrugged. “It's a little extra cash. Their problems never feel trivial to them, they deserve answers as much as anyone. Come on upstairs.” She circled the building to the side, unlocked a sturdy wooden door, and started up the stairs to her apartment. Cordell followed; she heard him close the door and throw the bolt home, unsurprisingly—he wouldn't want anyone else dropping in to interrupt.
The apartment wasn't huge, but it was of an adequate size, everything arranged to make the best use of the space. She paused to shed the jewellery she wore as part of the whole performance and tug the bright fringed scarf loose from her long honey-brown hair, and deposited it all on the coffee table. The long full skirt and unbleached blouse she didn't mind, but the rest felt excessive.
“Well?” she prompted Cordell. “Business or personal question, this time?”
“Everything's business, one way or another. Someone else in the Fellowship approached me yesterday about making an investment in a business venture. It’s not too far away but it’s out of town and I’m not familiar with the area. It seems generally sound, but you know I always get your advice before I commit to anything.” He gave her a charming smile that she knew made many women's hormones turn their brains to mush, but she'd grown up with Cordell, and knew him much too well to be taken in.
“We'll need the workroom, then.” She didn't bother asking to be paid up front—Cordell both found her skills useful to him, and respected the fact that they could be used against him. A healthy relationship, all in all. He paid her quite a lot, in fact, for her silence, and so she wouldn't give others advice on any venture with which he was involved, and to bring him any interesting tidbits she came across.
She'd converted the second bedroom into a workroom. Shelves lined the walls, and on them, neatly arranged, were all the tools she used to keep track of everything significant that happened in this part of the world. Precisely centred in the small space was a square table of old, solid oak. She gestured to Cordell, and he sat on the stool near the door, familiar with this routine.
Business venture, yes or no... that was straightforward enough. She opened a flat wooden box, broken into velvet-lined compartments of various sizes. She passed over pendulums of silver and crystal, pewter and jade, copper and agate, in favour of a gold one.
“Did you bring the proposal?”
Cordell drew a handful of papers, folded into thirds, from the inner pocket of his jacket and handed them to her. She unfolded them, and used a quartet of smooth, symmetrical river stones to hold them flat. Then she dangled the pendulum over the proposal.
“Was this proposal made with honest intentions?”
The pendulum, which should have swung neatly north-south for an affirmative and east-west for a negative, instead went into a jerky circular swing.
Dextra frowned. “That's odd. Will the business succeed?”
The circle faltered briefly, then resumed.
“Interference?” she mused. “Maybe you aren't supposed to ask too many questions.”
“You're the best,” Cordell said. “Surely you can find out.”
“I intend to. This is not the way things are supposed to work.” She returned the gold pendulum to its box, cleared the papers from the table, and handed them to Cordell. “I'll need them back in a few minutes.” From the half-dozen rolled laminated maps on one shelf, Dextra chose one, and spread it on the table, pinning it with more rocks. Cordell leaned forward to look, intrigued despite himself. Dextra paid no attention. It was only an ordinary survey map of southern Ontario and a short distance to either side into Quebec and Manitoba plus a little of New York. None of her tools had any intrinsic power; it was all in her use of them.
She picked up a fist-sized opaque ceramic jar, unscrewed the lid, and paused to concentrate for a moment. Then she held the jar high over the map and inverted it.
Finely-powdered quartz dust glittered and sparkled as it fell, swirling and dancing though the air was still.
It settled in a galaxy-spiral around a city of moderate size, a couple of hours' drive away, approximately southwards.
She fetched the pendulum made of quartz, and suspended it over the galaxy. “Was this deliberate interference?”
The quartz pendulum replied decisively in the negative.
“Is the interference an accidental side-effect of something happening there?”
Yes.
“Is the something happening random?”
No.
“Is it something being done deliberately by a witch?”
Yes.
“A Fellowship witch?”
No.
“That's where the Terevan boy is,” Cordell said lazily. “And, incidentally, the city this particular business venture is in.”
“Bloody strong for a boy, if he can throw that kind of interference even locally.” She frowned at the table. “About, oh, six months ago or so, he pissed Garrett off by breaking a binding he’d put an immense amount of time and effort into. I started keeping an eye out but he hasn’t done anything else that’s brought him to my attention since. I was hoping that it was a one-time fluke and he’d settle into the usual independent obscurity.”
“Nadine has been considering approaching him. I know there are several others who are trying to gather information about him, but as far as I know, results have been negligible and superficial. He’s a Terevan. I think it’s unlikely that anyone is going to be able to persuade him to be sensible.”
Dextra watched the little drift of quartz on the map. It was still moving, slowly, spreading itself outwards and thinning as it went. “It looks like it was a single splash, at least. I can work around that.” She gathered up the map, poured the quartz dust back into its jar, and put everything away. It wouldn't be so very hard to block out the interference, now that she had some idea what it was.
It took more time and more effort than she'd initially expected, but she gave Cordell his answer: the business would thrive in the short-term, but fail after barely two years. She even found out a few details for him as to why—a dissatisfied and influential customer, a policy or two that were self-defeating. With that knowledge, Cordell should have little trouble manipulating probabilities to fall his way, if he chose to involve himself at all.
“That's what I needed,” Cordell said in satisfaction. “Can I buy you a cappuccino downtown?”
“Another time. I want to see what else I can track down about this Terevan kid and what he's doing.”
“Hm. If you find anything interesting, would you let me know?”
“Let me decide what's worth sharing once I actually have the information.”
Having seen Cordell out, she returned to her workroom. She pressed her hands together, as if in prayer, and moved them slowly apart.
In the space between, a tapestry of countless colours unrolled. She knew it had no objective existence, that it was simply a convenient way for her subconscious to show her all the patterns and correlations, but it was a useful technique. She focused her attention on the young Terevan and identified his thread, glowing with rich browns and golds and rust-reds and oak green. At the moment, it ran along the edge of the pattern, intertwined most prominently with one that was unexpectedly midnight and sun-yellow and blood-red despite lacking the luminosity of a witch thread. Other threads veered close to it or touched it, and several non-witch threads looped around it repeatedly, along with a trio of witch-bright ones that dipped in and out, probably his family. Not a part of the pattern, but not running counter to it, at least. That was a good sign. Youthful high spirits and experimentation could be forgiven and overlooked, as long as they didn't become too extreme or last too long.
She brought her hands together again, made the web disappear, and settled herself to learning what she could about Christian Terevan.
