Dire Wants Read Free Page A

she could so that Kate wouldn’t be yelled at. Kate’s parents rarely allowed her to go in other family’s cars or attend any sleepovers or parties.
    Her parents bought the girls tickets for rides, then went to get some lunch, making them promise to check in with them in an hour.
    Giddy with freedom, the girls rode the scariest roller coaster and ate cotton candy and giggled like fools over silly things and serious things.
    Kate never wanted to go home.
    “This way. Come on—there’s no line,” Julia said as she pulled Kate toward the fortune teller’s tent on the edge of the grounds, away from the children’s rides, like they were trying to hide something.
    “Come; get your fortune read,” the woman selling tickets encouraged.
    Kate shook her head, looked over her shoulder, sure her mother would come lurching across the fairgrounds.
    “Come on, Kate—your mom’s having lunch all the way on the other side of the fairgrounds. She’ll never know,” Julia urged.
    Kate wanted to argue, because her mom always had the eyes-in-the-back-of-the-head thing going on.
    “We planned for this all summer,” Julia insisted. And while it was true, the last thing Kate wanted to do was go inside that tent now.
    Yes, she’d known there’d be a fortune teller there—she’d kept the newspaper clipping that boasted the details. Had wondered for months what her future might hold.
    Maybe she’ll tell you that soon the hitting will stop. Or that your dad will be home more often. Or that things will just get better.
    But Kate couldn’t bring herself to believe any of them, and to hear it shot down by the crystal ball would make it all worse.
    “I already paid!” Julia called triumphantly. “She’s waiting for you. She’s nice. She’ll read me next. I’ll keep a watch for your mom—now, go.”
    A small push and Kate stumbled into the small tent. The woman behind the table was bent over a layout of big tarot cards, a scarf tied around her head, silver looped earrings in her ear. But instead of looking ridiculous, she actually looked . . . pretty.
    Kate had seen tarot cards once in a store, but her mother had pushed her past them in a rush.
    “Work of the devil, Kate,” she’d said.
    Work of the devil.
    Kate nearly ran. But when the woman lifted her head and smiled, a brilliantly wide and beautiful smile that lit her eyes up from inside, Kate wondered how that could be true. God made beautiful things and this woman certainly was beautiful. Not like Kate, thirteen and still in that horrible, gangly phase, hormones running amuck, making her feel like she’d never ever be beautiful or normal.
    “Normal’s boring,” the woman told her.
    Kate froze.
    “I don’t read minds. It’s written all over your face. Come; sit down. Let me read your past.”
    Past? Fortune tellers were supposed to tell the future. Still, Kate went forward and sat tentatively on the white plastic chair, her feet solidly on the ground in case she had to run. She saw the woman look at the hand-shaped bruise on her arm and she pushed down the sleeve that had ridden up.
    When she looked up again, the woman’s eyes held a sympathy Kate had seen before. It made her nearly gag.
    “Tell me what you saw last night, Kate.”
    She wanted to lie, tell the woman nothing, but instead, the words tumbled from her mouth like a confession. “I think I saw a ghost. It was . . . ugly. Horrible. Green lips and mouth; red eyes; long, white hair . . . and it was sitting on my mother’s chest while she slept.”
    “What did you do?”
    “I told it to move, but it laughed.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. You’re supposed to tell me about my future. What do those cards say?”
    The fortune teller smiled, a little sadly. “It’s going to change from what’s laid out here in the tarot cards.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “I know. It’s too soon. According to this spread, you would’ve married a nice boy. Lived