The Reluctant Psychic

"You do realise that this is all bogus, don't you? She's a charlatan, preying on your unresolved grief, purloining silver from your purse and placing cotton wool words around your heart, telling you what she thinks you want to hear. You're all fools! If I were you, I wouldn't spend a minute longer here. Go and live, for Heaven's sake!"

Normally, Sara would come out of her trance dramatically, with rolling eyes and a sharp intake of breath. Not today. She opened her eyes. She was done with the psychic business. Her bag was packed. She was tired of being the crutch of support for distressed people. They needed to find their hope somewhere else.

Her hope was that the uncertainty of this performance would create a whiff of suspicion and would ease her conscience a little. Like owning up without owning up.

Distraught and horrified, her punters stared. Faces aghast.

Except for one.

"Oh my God!" the stranger cried, merrily, which surprised Sara enormously. "Uncle Pete! That was just so much like him! I can't believe it! Even down to his voice! That's just the sort of thing he would do! Come through a medium and try and discredit them! What a laugh! You've made my day!"

The customer came over to Sara, grabbed her face with both hands and gave her a kiss, commonly known as a "smacker" and proceeded to get out his wallet to hand Sara 20 pounds!

It was her turn to look aghast.

"I'm going to tell everyone about you!" her benefactor said, still chuckling and muttering, "Bloody Pete! Silly old bugger!" as he left the room.

Bugger indeed.

What to do?

She looked at the pile of notes and the extra coins coming her way from the others who were side-eyeing her now with a combination of awe and wariness, the chatter of what they'd seen starting to rise out of them now the shock was receding.

That was a lot of money...

She sighed.

If this was what the public wanted, then who was she to deprive them? Sara would have to resign herself to being 1890s' London's most famous psychic.

Uncle Pete was right. They were fools.

***

366 words

I have no idea what influenced this story. The tarot from The Story Collector review maybe? Who know? Anyway, it was going to be a drabble but I got involved more and more while I was writing it and so, I went with it.

Thanks for stopping by! If you do read it please leave a comment as I love to interact with my readers.

258/366