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The air clouds with burning sage, making my eyes itch worse than all my mosquito bites put together. Sage, purple tablecloth, and Mama’s words—those are the things I’ll remember, even if time has a way of putting holes in the rest.
My future doesn’t look like much sitting on a card table. After all, it’s just a piece of paper. But this paper means something.
Actually, I think this paper means…everything.
“What do you see, Mena?” Mama asks, eyes sparkling in the candlelight.
“Um…” The tip of my tongue always pokes out when I’m thinking hard. I taste leftovers of a grape juice mustache. Dragging the back of my hand across my mouth, I stare at the paper with its funny scatter of shapes. I’ve seen Mama’s books and drawings, but never an actual reading. It’s more exciting than when I won the jar of gumballs for reciting the alphabet backwards. “A chart! Like the ones you read for people.”
She nods; her earrings tinkle. “Not just any chart. This is your astrological chart, Wilamena. Your birth chart.”
“And it shows where all the planets were in the constellations the very minute I was born,” I announce proudly.
Mama holds her finger to her lips giving me a look of warning.
“Okay,” I whisper back. I’m being too loud. The tiny, forgotten room on the third floor with its stacks of sealed boxes and dusty sheets is made for keeping secrets. I am not. But I will try.
“Your sun is in Aquarius.” She taps the outer circle over a pair of zigzaggy lines. “Meaning you are a truth-teller and seeker of life knowledge. Truly, a free spirit.” Her gaze falls to my glittery, swinging feet. “But we don’t need the stars to divine that, do we?”
I’m wearing my silver sandals and ballet tutu. It has glitter too, which is how I knew they matched so well. I grin and shake my head. “What else does it tell you?”
“You’ll make friends easily,” she continues. “It’s your affectionate and charming nature that endears you to others. Although,” her forehead crinkles, “your tireless need for independence may also cause you to push them away.”
My eyes widen. “Oh, no, I won’t push. Gram says that’s for people whose fists are bigger than their brains.”
Mama tries to smile, but the corners of her mouth are too heavy. The sad face isn’t new. Sometimes when it got real bad she’d stay in her bedroom. It didn’t matter that I banged on the door till my knuckles turned red. Gram always told me to leave her be, but how in the name of Orion’s Belt was she gonna eat if she didn’t come out? So…I pushed crackers under the door. Then we had the ant problem. Next time I’d use Fruit Roll Ups.
The wind gusts through the round window beside us, blowing up the curtain like a great green balloon. Mama closes her eyes, turning her face to meet it. The breeze lifts her hair, long and dark and soft as the silky edge of my favorite blanket. “Hear that? That’s the voice of the north wind.”
I close my eyes and listen, but I don’t hear the voices she does.
I’m not sure I ever will.
Mama is gypsy and princess rolled into one. Her dresses are full of color, not seeming the least bit sorry for standing out. And her eyes know things. Secret kinds of things. I wish on every dropping star to be as beautiful and magical.
She takes a breath. I scoot closer in case magic or beauty can be caught like cooties.
“Mena, do you remember when we went on that faraway adventure? And how we had to go because the stars lined up in a very, very special way?”
Mostly, I just remember Gram was madder than a shaken-up nest of hornets when we came home. But I don’t dare say that. Instead, I nod.
“Well, sometimes we must follow our own path. Even if it takes us to far away places. Even if,” her eyes water, “even if others don’t understand why.”
“I like going places.”
“You will.” She clears her throat and points to a symbol that’s a two and a four sorta squished together. “See this? Jupiter is in Sagittarius. Your thirst for understanding the world will take you many places.”
“What’s the squiggles over here?”
Angling the paper she replies, “Yes, the Fifth House. The center for love and relationships.” Her squint is followed by a frown.
“Love?” I hiss. “Ick! Why would anyone want to know about love? I’d rather kiss a pig than a boy.”
She rolls the chunk of amethyst on her necklace between her fingers. “You won’t always feel that way.”
“Hmph.” I scowl and cross my arms.
Mama’s eyes soften as she returns to deciphering the forks with crosses and swirly lines and dots. “They’ll pursue you anyway. It’s the magnetism you possess—this distant glamour that attracts them.” As she speaks, her voice turns funny. Maybe Mama’s about to have one of those “spells” Gram talks about when she thinks I’m not listening.
Her breath comes out in a quiet whoosh that calls the goosebumps to my skin. “One by one…they will lose you. In their need to hold you tighter and tighter,” her fingers curl into a fist, “you will be forced to cut yourself free. Wilamena!” Mama suddenly grabs my wrist, causing me to flinch. My panic grows. I twist in her grip. Her eyes are seeing things I can’t, and her ears are hearing sounds I don’t. “Wilamena, you are air. He is water. Beware of Pisces.”
“I w-will.” I yank my hand away, rubbing my wrist.
“Because he will pull you to the ocean floor so slowly, you won’t realize until…there is no air left inside you.”
Thunder rumbles. My heart is pounding and my stomach feels sick, carnival ride sick. “Mama?” Her blue eyes have an empty stare like my Amelia doll. “M-mama?” I say louder with a shake of her arm. It flops on the table.
I swallow. It’s hard to breathe, like something squeezes me from the inside. This is not my mama. This is not my mama.
The angry thunder rattles the pictures braced against the wall. Candles flicker. Shadows crowd the room, crawling up to the ceiling.
I dart around the table, tugging harder at her arm. “Please,” I beg, “I-I don’t like this. Come back, Mama! MAMAAA—”
Thunder crashes and the sky explodes with lightning.
I scream.
“Mena?” Her eyes flutter before they find me. “I’m here.” She pulls me to her chest. Her breath is bumpy on its way in and out. The amethyst digs into my shoulder as she holds me. I squeeze harder anyway. “I’m right here, sweetheart.” She kisses the top of my head and rocks me. “Don’t be scared. Shh.”
Her sunny yellow dress is balled in my fists; my heart thumps three beats to her one. She runs her hand through my hair. My heart finally begins to slow, until we are almost matched—beat for beat.
Almost…
Then she pulls away.
The door bursts open, flooding the room with light. Gram’s face wads up in fear. The fear is replaced by something with harder edges. “What have you done? You promised you wouldn’t!” The anger from the thunder now shakes in Gram’s voice.
Mama stands, smoothing her dress, hand clutching mine. “Nothing. The storm startled her. Right, Mena?”
I pull in my lower lip and nod at the floor. But Gram reads fibs the way Mama reads stars.
“Dammit, Grace.” Gram never cusses. Something’s very wrong.
“I’m taking her to bed now. Let me at least tuck her in.” She gives my arm a soft tug. We shuffle past Gram, who’s barely able to hold the storm inside her.
Mama doesn’t make a peep while I get ready for bed. I wonder if Gram has scared the words right out of her. So, I’m careful to brush my teeth extra clean, and my hair extra smooth. She’s always said I have pretty hair—hair as black as the gaps between the stars.
It isn’t until my man in the moon nightlight is on and I’m snuggled deep under the covers, that Mama finally speaks. “I love you, Mena.” She cups my face. “Don’t…” Her throat sounds sticky, gummed up with peanut butter. “Don’t ever forget that.” She presses her lips to my forehead.
“Mmm, love you, too,” I mumble. My eyelids are so heavy. I work to pry them back open.
She’s moved from my bed to stand at the window, staring out at whatever pictures the night is showing her. She hugs herself, head hanging forward. “I’m sorry, I can’t. Please,” she chokes, “forgive me.” The north wind blows in smells of wet grass and echoes of soft words. “I’m so sorry…”
I’m too tired to ask why. My eyelids have drifted lower and lower, until the sliver of her is gone altogether. Just as I almost reach my dreaming place, I hear the door click shut.
I never see Mama again.
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