Perceptions in Predictions

Twilight had just set upon the little sleepy town in Michigan when two giggling preteen girls were hand in hand, rushing with certain determination as they discussed their plan for a secret reading from a traveling psychic. Their voices intertwined with the summer evening sounds of crickets playing an orchestra of music for the lightning bugs to dance with, the corn fields growing high enough to hide their path from distant onlookers.

"How far out does she live?" Diane asked her best friend.

"Not far. Mary said her and Mark found it fast. Reckon we should too. It's not like a lot of people live here." Susan gestured at the lack of homes and abundance of crops around.

"No, but more people live here than they did when we were real little." Diane frowned, recalling life when fewer people had settled in the area to start running their own farms. Susan shoved into her shoulder.

"Get with it. It's 1954, everyone's havin' babies, and there's gonna be lots more people here in no time. No one wants the city life now. They want a family life, just like we do, out here in the peace and quiet."

Diane shook her head, her blonde locks brushing her face with each shake. "It won't stay peaceful or quiet here. And no one said I had to like it, either."

"Well, I do!" Susan sang at the top of her lungs as she spun in circles, her cotton dress catching the breezes made from her quickening speed and flowing majestically. Diane's dress was too stiff to flow, which made her furrow her brow at Susan. "C'mon, Diane, don't you ever smile?"

"When I have to. How much further do we gotta go?"

"Just right up here, over the hill!" Susan stopped spinning and put her hands out, trying to balance herself on the ground after throwing off her little equilibrium. "Whoa."

"Quit foolin' around, Sue, I really wanna get there and see if she's got a scar under her left eye."

"She's a psychic, Diane, why do you care about the scar?"

"'Cause I wanna know how she got it. Maybe she told a bad lie about a man's future and he cut her with a knife. Maybe she flipped a lid and killed someone." Diane's tone went dark as her eyes seemed to cloud over with her imagination running viciously wild.

"That's gross. I see the shack, look! There's the bundle of flowers that's pinned on the door, can ya see it?!" Susan jerked on Diane's arm roughly, causing Diane to return to a grimace and shake Susan off.

"I see it! Dang."

"Don't be such a wet rag, Dee."

"Don't call me Dee, Sue."

"Don't call me Sue, Dee."

The girls were approaching the door as they argued and jumped when a tall, elegant woman appeared with a neutral expression. She wore lilac colored robes, and indeed had a noticeable scar under her left eye. Her wrists were adorned with multiple gold bangles and her delicate hair was wrapped in a silk, lilac wrap of sorts. A large decorative flower broach pinned the head wrap together, with heavy purple gems representing the flowers and green gems for the leaves. Diane stared steadily at the scar while Susan smiled brightly.

"You are the friends of Mary and Mark." The woman spoke clearly, her confidence in her tone somewhat unnerving to Diane. She wasn't used to women with confidence, as her mother was properly submissive to her father, but this woman didn't seem timid at all.

Susan elbowed Diane lightly. "Told ya she's a psychic."

"Or maybe Mary blabbed about us comin' out here." Diane spoke out of the side of her mouth, as if the psychic woman wouldn't hear it that way.

"Are you Cleopatra?" Susan's fingers twisted nervously into the others.

"I am. Come, darlings, let us commune with the spirits." She waved a dramatic arm as she turned and re-entered the shack she was using for her readings.

Susan's blue eyes went wide as she gripped Diane's arm and whispered feverishly, "C'mon!"

They walked inside to see a single room with a table in the center, two chairs, three lit candles, and a stack of cards near the candles. The left corner held a small cot, with a piece of luggage sitting atop the uncomfortable place to rest. The cards looked old and worn, as if they'd been shuffled and flipped thousands of times. Diane narrowed her eyes at the luggage to see a photo sticking out, evidently a photo of Cleopatra herself.

She pointed at the photo and loudly asked the psychic woman, "Are you an actress or somethin'?" She looked far too polished for that picture to be candidly shot by a family member or a friend of hers.

"No, my dear, not anymore." She floated gracefully to the suitcase and slipped it further inside, then turned on her heel and gestured to the table. "One at a time, please."

Susan wasted no time and sat down in the chair while Diane gazed out of the single window at the woods behind the shack. She couldn't see anything and barely listened to Susan's harping questions to the psychic woman about her future and how many children she would have. The sound of Susan's reading became nothing more than white noise as Diane's imagination went back to her earlier ramblings, seeking out signs of potential issues in the growing darkness of the forest around them, wondering if she might spot a dead body or blood somewhere. Everything about Cleopatra was highly suspicious. Diane wondered if that was even her real name. It couldn't be...

"C'mon, Diane, come sit and get a reading!" Diane pulled herself out of her reverie about Cleopatra's prior career, wondering if this was just an act. If this lady could pretend to be someone else for a camera, she could make up anything she wanted. It would be too easy for her. Actors were rude. They lived city lives and talked to the biggest businessmen and bankers and powerful people who teach people how to lie. At least, that was how Diane thought it was.

"You're already done?"

"Uh, yeah, you okay? We been here for a while. C'mon, come sit." Susan hopped up and gestured to the chair she had just abandoned. Diane trudged over and reluctantly took a seat.

"You do not believe any of this is real." Cleopatra spoke confidently again, touching on Diane's nerves.

"Maybe I don't. Big deal."

"Hmm. You have brought payment with you, I assume."

Diane wanted to roll her eyes as she fished 25 cents from her sock, knowing good and well her Ma was going to give her the royal shaft when she realized she was missing money. She figured it was best not to make the psychic mad and deposited the coin into her open palm, reminding herself that this was supposed to be the "best psychic reading" she could ever find. But what did Mary know, anyway?

Cleopatra gestured to the cards. "I need you to place your hands on top of the cards, breathe in and out, and then cut the deck in half."

Diane did as requested and Cleopatra retrieved the deck, placing the lower half of the deck on top and laying out three cards. They each had crude artwork on them with names at the bottoms of the cards: The Hanged Man, The Lovers, and The Chariot. Cleopatra's hand hovered over the card with The Hanged Man printed on it, a man drawn to be hanging upside down by the ankle.

"You have been betrayed in the past. You have grown with a sense of defiance since you were very young. You have not had the easiest of lives. Your past card defines what brought you to your current situation, which is this card." Her hand hovered over The Lovers, where one woman and one man were intertwined passionately. "Your past betrayals and pains are leading you to be soothed by an older boy, who will make you feel whole again, and you will look to him for guidance. He will teach you many things, darling. Things will begin beautifully, but you will come to see things you are uncomfortable and unfamiliar with. You will learn much if you stay with him, yet I cannot say if these lessons shall be good or bad. Although I can say to you that even bad experiences teach us some good. Do not discount all of the negative as inherently so."

Diane blinked, unflinching. "I feel like that's some easy stuff. What's that card say?" She gestured to The Chariot card, which showed a bull pulling an old-fashioned chariot carrying a woman who didn't even have any reigns to control the thing.

Cleopatra hovered her hand over The Chariot and hummed, her eyes closed briefly before flying right back open. Diane thought for the quickest second that she noted fear in Cleopatra's beautiful brown eyes, but as fast as she could blink again, all emotion had vanished from the woman's expression.

"If you stay the path of learning, the good and the bad, you will experience the life that you and your friend have always talked about: having a family. This boy will give you your first child. A girl."

Diane smiled. "Now that's what I wanna hear! Is she pretty? Is she gonna be just like me?"

"She will be a champion of justice for the wrongs she will suffer." Cleopatra seemed to choose her words carefully at this point but Diane brushed off her uneasy feeling, finding herself enchanted by Cleopatra's prediction. "Her life will not be easy either, but her willpower will drive her forward. She will be strong, she will have the power of fire in her hands that bring her inner peace. She will be...much like you, Diane, but with more resolve."

"Bitchin'." Diane breathed out the word softly, thinking about the strength her child would someday have while the adrenaline of swearing against her parents' wishes raced through her defiant little heart. "Anything else?" Her brown eyes sparkled like freshly turned soil with morning dew sprinkled on it, and Cleopatra showed no reaction to her sudden change of demeanor.

"No, the spirits have ceased to commune. I will be leaving here tonight to spread my talents elsewhere. Run along, dolly, take your friend and go home before your mothers are upset." She commanded them firmly, yet kindly, leading Susan and Diane to lock eyes and nod in confirmation that they were satisfied with their special card readings.

The girls chattered as they slammed through the only door of the small building, not hearing Cleopatra whisper, "Spirits, help her," as she clutched at her lilac attire with fear returning to her beautiful, insightful eyes.

Diane warned Susan multiple times that her Papa was gonna have a fit when she walked in this late, knowing there was work to do early in the morning with the chickens and goats. Susan, however, couldn't stop talking about her reading.

"Cleopatra said I'm havin' two boys and three girls! I can't even think of any names. She said I'll have a girl first, and I'm thinking maybe Linda, Debbie, or Patty. What name do you like for a girl?" Susan asked Diane excitedly, breathless from the exhilaration of knowing the future.

"I was thinking Aileen."

"Oooh, that's pretty!" Susan exclaimed before continuing onto her future husband.

The girls approached the end of the driveway to Diane's house and bid each other farewell. Diane happily skipped up the driveway until she was running through the door to her home on the farm. Immediately, she heard her Ma scolding her.

"Diane Wuornos, where on Earth have you been all this time, and what happened to my savings jar?!"

Life might have been frustrating at that moment, but Diane knew it would all be getting better soon enough.