Hear Your Fortunes Change

Marcy Blaire sat on her porch waiting for the mail carrier. It was the third day in a row she sat in anticipation of the big delivery. It wasn’t as if she had better things to do. She was out of a job because she couldn’t keep her mouth shut and told one of the team leads to jump off a bridge. She didn’t think it was that serious, but HR told her it was a pattern of rude remarks and they terminated her employment. She couldn’t deny that she had a short fuse and vocalized it too often at work. She had always avoided curse words, but on more than one occasion she suggested inappropriate actions to those she felt were shit at their job. HR said she also scared some of her coworkers. So, it was a short goodbye. Now she sat waiting because she believed the strange woman at the end of a nameless road.

#

Marcy had never been fired before and took it as a sign that she needed change careers. When she wasn’t trying to find a job, she wrote poetry. She thought it was shit, but it was calming. If she could improve her writing maybe should could be a professional poet, but she had no idea how a poet might pay their bills. Making things worse, the country had experienced one of the worst recessions because of yet another housing bubble. No government bailouts meant no one was hiring. The last thing she thought she would turn to was any sort of new age, supernatural bullshit. Then she saw that sign.

The Georgia Department of Labor had an office on Beaver Ruin Rd. It was a short drive from Marcy’s home in Duluth. She had been on her way back home from a pointless trip to enroll in job training programs when she noticed a florescent sign at the corner of a side road and Satellite Blvd. “Change Your Fortune” it said with an arrow pointing down the road. She made the turn before she knew she was doing it. She felt as if she were no longer in control of her car. She turned the wheel slightly left then right. The car followed. She was in control. She stopped to get her bearings. She checked the rearview and saw cars whizzing back and forth on Satellite. She looked around and noticed there were no houses or commercial buildings on either side of her. There were only tall pines. Change my fortune, she thought. Focused to the road in front of her, she decided to see where it led.

Marcy drove for what she guessed was about 10 minutes and stopped again. She still hadn’t seen any structures or driveways or even a cross street. It was just endless pines reaching higher than should could guess. There had been one sharp curve to the right, not far from where she stopped the first time. She thought that meant she was driving south, but couldn’t be sure. She was bad at knowing which was south or north or east or west. The sky was overcast and the trees didn’t cast any shadows. There wasn’t any sun to help her determine which way she was actually driving. She felt uneasy and turned on the radio, hoping music might calm her. The speakers answered with only static. It was odd, but she didn’t think much of it as she hit the seek button to find a station. She looked in the rearview and saw nothing but road and trees. Turning around felt like the best option so she faced front and grabbed the wheel to turn it hard to the left. Then the radio picked up a station and she heard “There's something good waitin' down this road / I'm pickin' up whatever's mine / I'm runnin' down a dream / That never would come to me”, from Tom Petty’s Running Down a Dream. It was louder than she was expecting and she jumped. She stared at the radio a moment. It was coincidence it happened to pick up at that point of the song. She pushed seek again and started to make her turn when the radio stopped on another station and it played Running Down a Dream again, “There’s something good waitin’ down this road”. She turned the radio off and stared ahead. Is that a sign? She wondered. She decided to press on and see what was waiting down the road. She straightened her wheels and pushed down on the accelerator, pushing the trip counter reset as she did. She wanted to get a sense of how many miles she was driving from that point.

The road made another sharp turn, this time to the left, and once Marcy got around the bend, she saw the end of the road. There it narrowed to a drive way that led to a small brick home off the road a short distance but far enough to have four parking spots along the front. She noticed the sign in the window as the car reached the drive, “Hear Your Fortunes Change”. She didn’t know if it the sign had a misspelling or if it was meant to be a pun. It didn’t matter, she supposed. This was all nonsense. She still didn’t know what possessed her to drive down a road with no street sign to provide a name she could search on Google Maps. She pulled into the first spot by the sidewalk that led around to a short set of steps to the porch on the house. Another sign was visible in the window. This one appeared to be hand drawn in calligraphy… “Madam Lilith’s” it said. Below the words was a portrait of what Marcy considered to be a cliché image of a soothsayer. The picture bothered her as it made her think of a caricature of a Gypsy woman. She pulled out her Samsung and typed the name “Madam Lilith’s” in the Google Map search bar. The result was an error advising Google could not pinpoint her GPS location. That was far from comforting. Still, she could handle herself. Cannibalistic families down deserted roads were only in the movies after all, right?

“You coming in?” a voice from the doorway said.

Marcy lowered her head to get a better view of the front door. It was definitely Madam Lilith in the flesh and Marcy wasn’t sure how she felt now seeing that the image on her sign wasn’t a caricature at all. It was a spot on portrait. “Um.. yeah,” Marcy said.

“Well, come on, I’ll put on some tea,” Madam Lilith said.

Marcy got out of her Honda and closed the door. She left her purse in the floor of the passenger seat, but had her card wallet in her front jeans pocket. As she climbed the four steps to the porch, she looked for a sign to indicate if Madam Lilith accepted credit cards and frowned when she couldn’t find one. She had no cash on her. It was 2021, though, so the fortunate teller had to accept cards. She took care as she approached the open door and peeked inside. She was surprised at how welcoming and homey the interior appeared. It reminded her of her grandmother’s home in Indiana. Quaint was the word that came to mind. She stepped inside just as Madam Lilith entered the room from behind a curtain covered doorway. Before the curtain fell back into place, Marcy could see there was a hall that led to a kitchen. It was a normal home.

“Close the door, would you, sweetie?” Madam Lilith said. “The tea will be done shortly.”

“Thank you, Madam Lilith,” Marcy said, “but I’m OK. I can pass on the tea.”

“Oh, just call me Lilith, dear,” Lilith said. “Don’t you worry none about the tea, either, it’s just ordinary tea.”

“What else would it be?” Marcy asked.

“Well, people usually think I’m a witch and gonna give ‘em a potion or somethin’,” Lilith said.

“Got ya,” Marcy said. “Um, I don’t know why I drove back here and I only have credit cards. I don’t even know what you charge to tell a fortune.”

“Don’t you worry about that,” Lilith said as she motioned toward a comfy, yet old, looking chair. “I know you’re having a tough time.”

“You do?” Marcy said.

“Of course,” Lilith said. “This is what I do. All I ask is that you return the favor when you’re able.”

Marcy sat down and first placed her hands in her lap, then on the arms of the chair, then back in her lap.

“Don’t be nervous…” Lilith started. She leaned a bit forward with an inquisitive expression.

“Oh, um I’m Marcy,” Marcy said. “What do you mean… a favor?”

“Please to meet you, Marcy,” Lilith said. “Just as it sounds, dear. I may need a favor. Nothing illegal of course, but maybe help around here.”

“Oh,” Marcy said. “Sorry. I don’t believe in fortune telling.”

“You don’t need to dear,” Lilith said. “I’m not here to tell you anything, you’re here to hear it. Tell you what, I know what you need. You lost your job. You’re running low on money. Don’t worry, you’ll be getting a new job soon enough, but I’ll work something up that will keep you until that job comes.” With that said, Lilith went back behind the curtain and shuffled down the hall before the curtain again fell in place blocking Marcy’s view.

When Lilith returned, Marcy stood up. She was feeling a panic attack coming. She liked the old woman and didn’t want to freak her out. Lilith held out a steaming cup of tea. “Drink this,” Lilith said. “It will help with that attack you got comin’.”

Marcy was shocked, but drank as she was told. Lilith handed her small black book with a lock on it. “What is this?” Marcy said.

“This is the answer to your problems,” Lilith said. “Put this book under your pillow, but do not open it. By the end of the week you will receive a package that will help you with your money troubles.” She handed Marcy the key to the lock. “Once you have opened the package, you can open the book and read the first page. The spell will be completed.”

Marcy had been so focused on Lilith’s words, she hardly noticed her nerves had calmed. She thanked Lilith for the tea, walked back to her car, and followed the road back to Satellite Blvd. She couldn’t recall the rest of the drive home, but when she woke up the next morning, little black book under her pillow and key in the night stand, she felt better than she had in weeks.

#

Now, for three days she waited. She felt her self start to nod off when a Fed Ex truck pulled into her drive. The driver jumped out handed her an envelope and gave her a nod. “Thanks,” Marcy said.

“You’re welcome”, the driver said.

Marcy didn’t bother watching the truck pull out. She ran into the house, went into her bedroom and sat on the bed. She tore open the envelope and held it open end down to spill its contents. What appeared to be a check swayed in the air a moment and landed on her grandmother’s quilt. Marcy picked it up and turned it over. It was a check for $20,000.00. The name on the check was Lilith Farnsworth. The address was Noplace Road, Atlanta, GA. No house numbers. Stunned she almost forgot about the little black book. She fetched it from under the pillow and reached into her nightstand for the key. She unlocked it and on the front page was written “Maybe this is magic, or maybe I’m an eccentric rich widow who likes to help people. You decide. Best of luck, dear. You’ll be fine.”