The Price

At 1:37 pm the doorbell rang. She was late, which was already enough to rile me up after she was so adamant about getting the appointment right away. She had sounded young over the phone and her desperation had been palpable, making my own heart race in panic as she spoke so I agreed to see her. Something told me I shouldn't, but I told that part of me to shut the hell up and let me make some money.

Now here she was on my doorstep, all of nineteen years old and dressed from head to toe in designer labels like she had some kind of advertising deal. Her whole appearance screamed “I'm part of the scene” a little too hard, like she wasn't too far removed from growing up poor and now that she had her first real job she was out to buy all of the things she had wanted but couldn't have growing up. I looked more closely, and started to see the little details to confirm it: her Coach bag was a knock off, her shoes were from at least two years ago, slightly scuffed and ragged on the heels, and her clothes were most likely lucky thrift store finds judging from the way the seams showed signs of wear. Girl was smart, at least.

“You must be Toni,” I said, stepping aside and welcoming her into the foyer. “I'm Asha.”

And I see dead people, I thought and then laughed mentally because I only wished I could. Would be a whole hell of a lot easier, clients using me like a payphone to the other side to talk to their loved ones. Those sessions you could just phone in: They're at peace, they love you and want you to be happy. Now pay the bill and get out. No, mediumship wasn't my gift at all. I'm a clairvoyant and my clients ask me to find things. And the girl who stood in front of me? She didn't want to find something. Oh, no. Finding something would have been simple. I could tell from the way she wouldn't meet my eyes that she wanted to find someone, and that that someone probably didn't want to be found.

“Thank you for seeing me,” she said meekly, wringing anxiously at the strap of her purse. “I wasn't sure who else to call, and it's important.”

How about the police? I thought, but I didn't say anything. She had nice manners at least, which was more than I could say for some of my clients over the years. So I just nodded and closed the door behind her, getting a good nose full of the powerful drugstore perfume she wore. Lord, had she bathed in it? Because it was potent!

“It sure sounded like it over the phone,” I said. “Why don't we go sit down in the parlor and we can talk about how this works.” She nodded and we walked together, her heels clicking on the hardwood floor, into the sunny little sitting room that I had converted into my work space.

The room had high ceilings, like the rest of the old historic house I called home. It was what attracted me to it in the first place: the high ceilings and the tall windows made the rooms feel more open, brighter. The walls in this room were a neutral white with a warm hint of beige, and lace sheers fluttered gently in the breeze from the three open windows. An ivy plant hung in the central window, one of the many plants in the room, and the heavy chocolate velvet drapes were pulled back fully to let in the light. There was a garden fountain sitting on the floor in one corner to create some white noise, but apart from that the room didn't hold much. Just an old round table and two chairs. And my crystal ball.

Toni sat down and tucked her purse under her chair, but she wasn't still. She shifted her weight almost constantly, unconsciously, and she craned her head to look around the room. She frowned a little, like she was disappointed with what she was seeing.

“I know it doesn't look like much,” I said as I sat down across from her. “I could decorate with crystals, hang some mandala tapestries or put up some tribal masks, but I don't go in for the woo. People who use the woo are trying to sell you something, and it's not the service you go there for.”

“I didn't mean-” she started to apologize, and I raised a hand.

“You didn't offend. I just know what the room looks like, and I know I would walk in here and think the same thing. What I do is pretty simple, Toni. I find things. Lost jewelry, important paper work, missing pets or people, I look for them and most of the time I find them. I charge on a scale, depending on the difficulty of what you ask me to find. Missing objects are easy because they stay where they are, most of the time, and they don't try to stay hidden. Living things are harder because they can work against you.

“Once we settle on what I can do for you today, and we agree on a price, I'll close the curtains and darken the room to help me focus. I'll then use this crystal ball to scry and see what I can find. You have your answers right away, and what you do with the information I give is entirely up to you. Once the session is over, my involvement is too. Sound good?”

“Yes, Ma'm,” she all but whispered.

“Alright, then. What can I do for you today, Miss Toni?”

“I need you to find my... My sister.” She still wouldn't meet my eyes. She was doing a damn fine job of trying to bore a hole through my table with her gaze, but I could see the tears start rolling down her face.

Mmmhmm, I thought. Sister my ass. What I had here was probably a girl who wasn't ready to come out yet and wanted me to find her girlfriend who wasn't returning her calls any more and she couldn't take the hint. De-fucking-lightful.

“What's her name?” I asked.

“Shawna,” she said. “Please, I know something's wrong. I haven't seen her or talked to her in a week, and that's not like her. We talk every day! Sometimes over the phone, texts, or we meet up somewhere after I finish work and go grab coffee. But it suddenly stopped. We had a fight the last time we got together, no worse than any other we've ever had, but it's like she just disappeared. No texts, no calls, and she hasn't been home. No one seems to know where she is, and I'm scared something happened to her. That she needs help.”

“People are hard, Toni. They have free will, move around a lot, and sometimes they don't want to be found. I'll try to find her, but are you ready to hear what I have to tell you?”

She nodded. “Please, I have to know. I need to know she's alright, even if she's that angry with me. We had a rough time at home, so we ran away a couple of years ago. It's just been us since then, looking out for one another. It's not like her to do this.”

“Alright,” I sighed. Lord, but I wished she wasn't so desperate. “That'll be $200, and I'll need something of hers, something she would have touched or worn regularly.”

Toni brightened for the first time since I opened the door and reached into her purse. “I knew you would, the internet said that having something personal would help make the reading more accurate, so I brought this,” she said, setting a hairbrush down on the table.

I was impressed. The girl had done some homework before she called me, and she was right. Having something that belonged to the person I was trying to find did help. Most people brought jewellery, rings or watches, sometimes a necklace. Something worn close to the skin, and worn often. I had once been presented with a blanket that my query used to use. And these things helped to focus on, helped to direct my search because there was something tangible to focus on. I don't like to call it energy, because that just sounds like a truckload of New Age nonsense, but it was close. A person leaves something of themselves on their possessions, an insubstantial impression that my senses could hone in on to find them. The ideal focus was to have a part of the person. Hair, toenails, a baby tooth, something that had been a part of them. Like calls to like, as they say, and having a part of the person makes them damn easy to find.

The brush in front of me was full of hair.

I stood and walked to the windows, pulling the heavy drapes closed and plunging the room into a cool dimness. It was early in the day, so I hadn't bothered to turn on the electric lights and there was now just enough light that I would be able to see the crystal. I breathed deeply as I did this, quieting my mind and focusing on my senses. The drapes between my fingers were soft, and I rubbed the fibers of the last drape for a moment to feel the way it pulled at the ridges of my finger tips. I listened to the trickling of the fountain as I walked back to the table and took my seat. I plucked a couple of hairs from the brush, smiled slightly when I felt the root on at least one of them, and I wrapped them around the index finger of my left hand. I then opened a drawer in the table, pulled out a black cloth, and laid that over my hand before placing the crystal ball upon it and slipping my right hand beneath it. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and I opened them.

Then I opened them again.

The orb in my hands was only four inches across, but it slowly filled my field of vision. It shone silvery in the dim light, and the black cloth helped to prevent reflections. I stared down at it, unblinking, as it began to darken and shapes like clouds or the fluttering of dark wings seemed to drift across it. It was like holding the moon in my hands, and as I watched the entire crystal darkened until only the edges shone. The darkness contracted, it receded until it sat in the middle of the ball like a pupil and I cursed inwardly as the eye stared back at me.

It was Wednesday. I had a God damned Wednesday client, and I was drawing power from the gallows rider who would need to be paid. I did not need this, but it was too late. The connection was made, and the girl sitting across from me was wound tight as a spring waiting on me. I had to push through.

The darkness expanded again, it was all I could see. The room disappeared, and I soon heard a faint buzzing. It grew louder and more aggressive as my vision returned and, Lord Jesus, I wish that it hadn't.

The girl was in a field, that much I knew. And the sun beat down mercilessly on her grey, blood splattered skin. She was naked, her arms and legs all akimbo in the tall grass and her torso was torn wide open. It felt indecent, more so than the nudity, to peer into her depths like that and see the shattered bones of her ribcage, the dark bloated entrails, and the way it all seethed with flies and maggots. She had been there for days, but nothing seemed to have touched her which I thought was strange. And I may not have done well in biology, but I also felt like there should be a few more organs present.

She seemed so small, so vulnerable, laying there like that. And one look at that face, those clouded and unseeing eyes and that rictus grin, there was no mistaking the relation between the two girls. They could have been twins, they looked so much a like. Shadows fell across her face, and a raven landed beside her. I watched as it cocked its head this way and then that in that jerky way that birds have, considering her, before it drove its sharp beak into her left eye. Once. Twice. Three times before it managed to pull the eye loose. It ruffled its feathers before it flew away.

That one-eyed bastard. At least he was paid.

I had just enough time for a quick impression of the field itself, of the industrial sounds off in the distance, before the dead girl vanished and the room returned to me in a sudden rush. I gave a start, and the crystal ball fell out of my slack hands, rolling off the table and onto the thick carpet on the floor.

“Well?” Toni asked desperately. “Did you find her?”

My name is Asha Davies, and I'm a clairvoyant. My clients ask me to find things, and I usually do.

But sometimes I lie.

“Sorry, honey, but no,” I said, trying to swallow the bile rising up in my throat. “I couldn't find her.”

Toni began to sob, and I reached across the table to lightly rub her clasped hands. “I didn't find her today,” I repeated, “but I have a feeling you're going to get news about her real soon. Go home, file a police report if you haven't already because they have eyes all over the city. I know it's hard, but right now you've just got to be patient while things work themselves out.”

I was feeding her some Grade A bullshit that I didn't even believe, but God love her because she did. She tried to smile up at me through her tears as she nodded.

“Thank you. For trying, I mean.” She reached for her purse but I shook my head.

“No, there's no charge. I couldn't find her for you,” I said. I couldn't take her money, not knowing what I did and after I lied to her.

I walked her out to the door, waved at her as she started down the stairs and watched her walk down the walkway. Once she was out of sight, and only then, did I let the tears flow. I closed the door, and some kind of animal noise escaped my throat that was pure pain and fear and grief. My hand shook as I pulled the phone from my pocket, the watercolour barn owl on my lock screen staring up at me with big piercing eyes. Eyes that seemed to stare into the abyss - eyes like mine. I unlocked the phone, pulled up a name in my address book, and hit dial.

It rang twice.

“Vale,” he said, his deep voice rich and soothing. Someone had to help this girl, and he was her best chance.

“Deacon, you better get your ass over here. I don't know what the hell I just saw, but that client needs you more than she needs me.”

God, I wish I saw dead people. At least then their people already knew they were dead.