Indigo Read Free

“Everyone goes running at that card in the movies. But it doesn’t mean death all literal-like. It can mean change. Transition. Opportunity.”
    The next card was a chalice, a fancy golden cup covered in jewels. I looked at Mrs. Rawlings, her broad face turned down to the cards, her eyes studying. It was quiet for a moment, and I heard a fly buzzing in the kitchen, the hum of the dishwasher.
    Mrs. Rawlings looked up apologetically. She said, “Cups mean water.”
    “Water?” I said. I could stomach love and death. But love, death, and water? Was this my freaking résumé? I got up quickly from the stool and turned toward the door, watching the edges of my vision get all inky and swimmy. Sparks of liquid orange flickered at the dark edges of my sight. I reached a hand out, tried to find something on which tosteady myself. My hand itself felt far away, detached from the rest of me. I heard Mia-Joy as if from a distance: “Corrine, it’s good—”
    I passed out flat on the white-and-black tiled floor of the Crawdaddy Shack, the fly buzzing at my ear as I lost consciousness.
    I shoved the outdated tape into the ancient black cassette recorder. It was a crazy old machine, on its last legs and totally about to crap out on me. I had begged Mom to invest in some newer equipment. But she had insisted that she knew how to use this tape recorder, and if she was the one who had to use it, then she would choose to stick with it. I pushed the PLAY button, and Mr. Lazette’s voice picked up right where he had left off—the story of the Madame Bridgit ghost on the hotel terrace on Dauphine Street.
    I picked up my sketchpad, my favorite pencil, and my little pocketknife from Granddad. I sat cross-legged on my bed, scraping at my pencil, getting just the right point on it, listening to Mr. Lazette.
    “I was only a chile, ya see. I recall I seen it twice the summer of the fire on Basin Street. Didn’t know it was a ghost then. Saw her wandering on the roof of the Dauphine Hotel. Made me nervous to see—”
    Mom knocked on the frame of my open door, and I stopped the tape. “Come in.”
    “You sure you’re feeling okay, honey?” She carried in atray and set it on my overcrowded nightstand. I looked it over: a tuna fish sandwich, carrots, a glass of sweet tea.
    “I’m fine.”
    “Sarah said you let her do the cards.”
    I nodded.
    “Was it fun?” Mom’s smile stretched tight across her face, wary. My mom, my middle C, my four-four time. My anchor.
    “You’re worried. I’m fine.”
    “It’s just that when I hounded you to hang out more, to overstep your boundaries, I didn’t mean you had to delve into voodoo.” Mom said this last part with that jingle-bell laugh of hers, but I knew there was some worry there.
    “It was stupid,” I said. Now that I wasn’t sitting there with all eyes on me, those hokey cards staring up at me, I knew it was dumb. “I just got overwhelmed, I think.”
    Mom sat down carefully on the edge of the bed. Her legs did not touch mine, didn’t even graze my knee. I took a bite of the tuna fish sandwich, and we sat in silence.
    I ate a few more bites and took a couple sips of the iced tea. It was cold going down my throat.
    “I’m glad you’re feeling okay.” She looked like she wanted to do something—touch me, hug me, tuck my hair behind my ear. I wanted to let her, but I couldn’t. I didn’t dare touch her. I realized in that moment that I could feel something, a tiny something in my chest, churning, blossoming.
    I swallowed hard, inched myself farther away from mymother. I was too tired of asking how, why, what. The only thing I knew was that it was there. And I had to respect it.
    “He looks a lot like that,” Mom said, pointing to my sketch of Mr. Lazette. “Again.” She shook her head and gave me a smile. Her eyes, the same blue eyes as mine, looked amazed and entertained, but hidden underneath sat some fear.
    I felt it too. “His story is creepy. Good, though.”
    “I