Liars and Fools (13 page)

And somehow that made me feel worse instead of better.

We stopped to pick up Abby on the way. She flew out her front door, hair a tangle and shoes untied, half a peanut-buttered bagel in her hand.

“I overslept,” she said, scrambling into the back seat beside me. She tried unsuccessfully to do up her liars and fools seat belt with one hand; then she stuck the bagel in her mouth and held it between her teeth as she buckled herself in. “Okay! All set! Oh—I hope you don't mind me eating in the car.”

Kathy shook her head, but you could tell by the way her lips tightened that she actually did mind. I grinned at Abby, and some of the knots inside me eased a little. Everything seemed more hopeful when your best friend was sitting beside you.

Already the smell of peanut butter was overpowering the shampoo and leather scent of Kathy's spotless car.

The psychic fair was in a big hall that reminded me of our school auditorium. I felt oddly disappointed: it was all so ordinary-looking. Tables and curtained-off areas were laid out in rows, forming four wide aisles lined with booths and shops.

Kathy glanced at her watch. “The doors don't officially open for another twenty minutes, but I have to get set up. Go ahead and wander around. Caitlin can introduce you to people.”

We wandered down the first aisle, past tables spread with displays of books, jewelry, incense, crystals and a few things I didn't recognize. It was like a robin stevenson giant version of the Mystic Heart shop. Some people seemed to be selling stuff, but lots of the booths clearly featured psychics doing various kinds of readings. Brightly colored signs advertised their services:
Tarot cards! Palmistry! Numerology! Deep trance
channeling!
These psychics sure liked their exclamation points.

“Check this out,” Abby whispered, handing me a flyer. “Past-life readings.”

Large blocky letters tripped across pastel paper. “‘Past-life readings,'” I read aloud. “‘Only by understanding and healing our past-life experiences can we move freely forward into a joyful future.'”

Abby started to laugh, snorting slightly.

“‘Free emotional energy and resolve karmic debt,'” I continued. “‘Only by discovering our past selves can we truly, at a cellular level, liberate our innermost souls and embrace the present.'” I shook my head. “Whoa. This makes Kathy look halfway normal.”

Abruptly, Abby stopped laughing. She grabbed my arm. “Shhh, Fi!”

I'd forgotten that Caitlin was standing about two feet away. She was looking at Abby and me, and I couldn't read the expression on her face at all. “Sorry,” I told her quickly. Dad would kill me if Caitlin repeated what I'd said.

Caitlin dropped her eyes, adjusting her pink plastic belt and tucking the end into an embroidered belt loop. After a few uncomfortable seconds, she glanced up at me, her eyes a flicker of blue behind long pale lashes. “You don't believe in this stuff, do you? Mediums, psychics…any of this.”

I shook my head. “Nope. Not really.”

“Mom doesn't do past-life readings,” she said. “She says understanding our present lives is plenty hard enough.”

Abby stuck the past-lives flyer in her jeans pocket. “So what exactly does your mom do?” she asked innocently.

“She's a medium. She can connect with people who have gone beyond. And she's a clairvoyant too. She knows things about people. It's like…you know how we all have intuition about things?”

Abby nodded. “Sure.”

“Well, Mom's intuition is amazing. She picks up on how people are feeling, and she can tell all kinds of stuff about their lives.”

Abby looked thoughtful. “She'd probably make a good psychologist.”

I snorted. “Yeah. Right.”

Caitlin looked at me, her chin lifted and her eyes full of challenge. For some reason, I remembered her saying my dad was too old for her mom, and for a second I wondered what it was like for her having a mom like Kathy. Not to mention a dead father and sister who passed on messages for her.

“You should get a reading,” Caitlin said. “See for yourselves.”

“As if I'd waste my money.” I guessed that meant Kathy hadn't told Caitlin about our earlier meeting.

“Actually, it's not a bad idea.” Abby gave me a meaningful look. “In the interest of science, Fi. Research.”

Caitlin looked pleased. “You want me to introduce you to some people? Mom's friend Ruth reads auras. Or Deirdre. You could get her to do a reading for you. She's a clairvoyant like my mom.”

Abby shook her head decisively. “I want your mom to do it for me. You think she would? I brought money.”

“I'll go ask.” Caitlin rushed off, her cheeks as pink as her Hello Kitty T-shirt.

“Abby.” I scrunched my nose up like something smelled bad. “Are you serious?”

“Sure. We weren't on the alert before, but this time we'll be prepared. We have to watch for tricks. Scams. Like, this one psychic I read about had a bunch of people secretly working for her, like spies. So when a particular customer came up for a reading, this psychic might already know her name, liars and fools what kind of day she was having, even what she was hoping to find out.”

I looked around at the people milling around in the aisles and wondered which of them might be spies. Kathy's spies. “Kathy already knows a fair bit about you,” I pointed out. “She's got an advantage, doing a reading for someone she knows.”

“Someone she thinks she knows,” Abby said.

We headed in the direction of Kathy's booth. She and Caitlin were talking, so we stopped and browsed at a booth a short distance away. A black-velvet-covered table was laid out with a carefully arranged display of crystals and a few copies of a book entitled
Crystals: Power, Healing, Enlightenment.
I picked one up and turned it over to read the back. A large color photo was displayed prominently: a beaming, balding man with a large fleshy nose and protruding teeth.

“Guess crystals fix everything but overbites,” Abby whispered in my ear.

I snorted, looked up and saw that same beaming face gazing right at me, over Abby's shoulder.

“Hush,” I said quickly. “Don't look now, but it's his booth. The author.”

Abby almost spun to look, but managed to resist the urge. “Oops,” she said. “He didn't hear me?”

“Not a chance.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Kathy shaking her head. “I think she's going to refuse,” I whispered to Abby. “Maybe she knows you don't believe in it either.”

A large hand descended onto the table in front of me, and I looked up, startled. It was the balding bucktoothed man who wrote the crystals book, and he was smiling widely at us.

“Can I answer any questions for you?” he asked. “Or perhaps you'd like to look at my
DVD
s? All the information that's in the book, in an easy-to-understand two-hour presentation.”

I leaned to one side, trying to see past him to Kathy. He was blocking my view. “Just browsing,” I said.

Abby was trying to edge away, but Crystal Man had already spotted her.

“Now this crystal here, that you were looking at, is called citrine. Very good for acid indigestion, food disorders, allergies. Also it helps to cleanse the spleen, kidneys, liver, urinary system and intestines.”

Abby shook her head. “No, thanks. I'm fine, really.”

“Yeah, her internal organs are very clean already,” I added, grabbing her arm. “Come on, Abby, we should go.”

“You should look at this one here,” Crystal Man said enthusiastically. “Hold it, go on.” He thrust a purple stone into my hand.

I tried to hand it back. “Really, we have to go.”

“Amethyst,” he said, not taking it from me. “Very powerful stone, good balancing energy. Helps keep your blood sugar steady. Also very good for your eyes, preventing headaches.” He lowered his voice. “And it reduces irritability too.”

Abby stifled a giggle, and I glared at her. I didn't need any psychic powers to know what she was thinking. I grabbed her arm. “Excuse us,” I said. “We're here with Kathy.” I nodded toward her booth as I backed away. “Thanks for all the information.”

Giggling, Abby followed me toward Kathy's table. “Loopy!” she said. “Completely loopy.”

“No loopier than talking to dead people,” I reminded her.

Kathy and Caitlin had stopped talking and were sitting in wooden chairs behind the table. Kathy had hung a banner that read simply
Kathy Morrison: Medium
and Clairvoyant Empath
. No exclamation marks, no black velvet. She looked tired: gray circles under her eyes and deep lines around her mouth. The straggly locks of dark hair escaping from her ponytail didn't help.

She smiled when she saw us. “Caitlin says you want a reading.”

Abby nodded and pulled out her wallet. “I'd love one. I've never done this before.”

“In that case, I'd be honored. No charge.”

There was a sudden increase in the noise level, and I looked behind me. The doors had just opened, and people were starting to stream in.

“You want to go first and beat the lineups?” Kathy asked. “Or are you going to wander around some more and think it over?”

Abby grinned. “I'll go first,” she said. “I can hardly wait.”

sixteen

Abby sat down across the small table from Kathy. I watched, wondering if Kathy was going to chant or pull out a crystal ball or do anything weird and embarrassing. She didn't though—she just sat there quietly for a moment, like she'd done with me at the Mystic Heart. She watched Abby with that expression people get when they watch television: interested, but also sort of zoned out.

After a minute or two, she sighed. “Abby, would you mind if I held your hand? Sometimes physical contact helps me pick up more from a person.”

Abby stuck her hand out, and Kathy took it and held it lightly in her own. I was glad I hadn't volunteered. The thought of holding hands with Kathy made me queasy.

“Hmmm…You are an open-minded person,” Kathy said slowly. “Willing to try out new ideas, ready for new experiences.”

I tried not to snort. Duh. Obviously, since she was here getting a psychic reading. I wondered if it was meant as a dig at me for being closed-minded.

“You have a strong sense of who you are and what you want. You make your own decisions and are not easily influenced by others. You see the best in people…” Kathy cleared her throat. “You have high expectations and sometimes feel let down by the people you care about.”

Me? Was she talking about me and my lousy grades? I had to remind myself that it was all made up: vague general statements that could mean anything. Exactly like it said in the books we had read.

“I get a strong sense that you are very intuitive… very insightful.”

Ha. That was another classic technique that we'd read about: compliment the client. I tried to catch Abby's eye, but she was grinning at Kathy. “I want to be a psychologist,” she told her.

“Ah. Yes, you would do that well.” Kathy looked at Abby's hand for a long minute. “I also sense a deep spiritual side to you. A strong potential. I wonder. Do you have some psychic abilities yourself?”

Abby shook her head, wide-eyed. For some reason, I picked that moment to glance over at Caitlin. Her arms were folded across her chest, her mouth pulled tight in a scowl, and I remembered what Kathy had said the day we went shopping.
Caitlin is a bit sad
about not having my abilities
. No wonder Caitlin didn't like hearing her mom say that Abby—who didn't even believe this stuff—might have potential.

Kathy released Abby's hand. She closed her eyes and touched her fingertips to her temples. Her voice changed, becoming lower and almost sleepy. I wondered if she was going into a trance or something. “I'm getting a message from someone,” she said slowly. “Is there someone you know who has passed on?”

Abby shrugged. “My grandmother, I guess. And”— she looked over at me apologetically—“well, Fiona's mom.”

My heart started to beat fast. Ask her. Ask her if she can speak to my mom. Ask if my mom has a message for me.

Kathy's eyes were still closed, her face relaxed. “An older woman, small. Gray-haired.”

“Gran!” Abby sat straight up. “That's Gran.”

I stared at her, willing her to look my way, wanting to remind her that Kathy was a fake. It didn't take a psychic to guess that her grandmother might have had gray hair. But Abby's gaze was locked on Kathy's face.

“She isn't saying anything, but I sense a strong love for you, a concern.”

“We were really close,” Abby said. “She died two years ago.”

“She's present, but on a higher plane. She's thinking of you. She's saying something, but I can't quite hear her. Something about a beach? Does that make any sense?”

“We used to go to the beach together,” Abby said. “She collected stones. She had a stone tumbler and she made jewelry.”

“She loves you very much.”

“Yes. She did.”

“Oh, she still does.” Kathy opened her eyes. “That's all, I think. She wants you to know that she loves you.”

Abby didn't say anything. She was looking a bit stunned. “That was amazing. Gran…jeez.”

I wanted to shake her. Surely she didn't believe Kathy just because of a couple of lucky guesses? I couldn't stand it. I had to do something. “My turn,” I said.

Kathy and Abby both turned and looked at me.

“Seriously?” Abby asked.

My chest felt tight, but I moved closer. “Sure, why not?”

Abby stood and moved to one side. I took the seat and met Kathy's eyes. “So?”

Kathy hesitated. “I can try. But it doesn't always work if you aren't open to it.”

Cop-out.
“I'm open to it,” I said flatly. I didn't know if it was true or not. I didn't believe her. But I wanted to. More than anything, I wanted to.