What Kind of Mother E-Book

Clay McLeod Chapman

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 369

Beschreibung

A palm reader is swept into a bizarre missing-child case in this modern Southern Gothic horror with a twist you won't see coming, from the "21st century's Richard Matheson" (Richard Chizmar, Chasing the Boogeyman.) Perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher and Paul Tremblay. After striking out on her own as a teen mother, Madi Price is forced to return to her hometown of Brandywine, Virginia, with her seventeen-year-old daughter. With nothing to her name, she scrapes together a living as a palm reader at the local farmer's market. It's at the market that she reconnects with her high school boyfriend Henry McCabe, now a reclusive local fisherman whose infant son, Skyler, went missing five years ago. Everyone in town is sure Skyler is dead, but when Madi reads Henry's palm, she's haunted by strange and disturbing visions that suggest otherwise. As she follows the thread of these visions, Madi discovers a terrifying monster waiting at the centre of the labyrinth—and it's coming for everyone she holds dear.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

PART ONE

MISSING PERSON

PART TWO

THE STORY OF SKYLER

PART THREE

FAMILY MATTERS

PART FOUR

BIRTHDAY BOY

PART FIVE

GROWING PAINS

EPILOGUE

CRAB TRAP

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

READING GROUP GUIDE

WHAT KIND OF MOTHER SOUNDTRACK

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“Bristling with uneasy energy, What Kind of Mother seizes you by the throat and never lets go. An ink-black story about grief, courage, and what we’ll do for those we love.”—Catriona Ward, author of The Last House on Needless Street and Sundial

“There’s a moment in What Kind of Mother when a character worries that he’s telling the story all wrong. The opposite is true of Clay McLeod Chapman. His lyrical prose shimmers, moving us seamlessly from one wounded soul to another. A good old-fashioned salty summer scare about the beautiful, terrifying power of belief.”—Caroline Kepnes, New York Times bestselling author of the You series

“What Kind of Mother mixes Southern Gothic, a missing child story, and body horror into an entertaining brew sure to inform your nightmares.”—Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts

“A tremendous, heartbreaking work of dark fiction, where the horror seeps in quietly until you’re left drowning. You won’t forget about this tale anytime soon. A masterpiece.”—Ronald Malfi, bestselling author of Come with Me

“I’m not sure how Clay McLeod Chapman manages to be both tremendously tender and brilliantly hideous in What Kind of Mother, but he does—in this strange, poetic, and gut-wrenching portrait of parenthood.”—Erika T. Wurth, author of White Horse

“Another stunner . . . one of horror’s modern masters. Beautifully written, deftly plotted, and completely engrossing, What Kind of Mother will get under your skin and take your breath away and break your heart and chill you to the bone. A profound exploration of parental love and loss, of regret and sacrifice.”—Rachel Harrison, bestselling author of Cackle and Such Sharp Teeth

“What Kind of Mother is a deeply unsettling, oddly sweet book about what love can become.”—Sarah Gailey, bestselling author of Just Like Home

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What Kind of Mother

Print edition ISBN: 9781803368269

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803368276

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: January 2024

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Clay McLeod Chapman 2023. All rights reserved. First published by Quirk Books, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Clay McLeod Chapman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

for Cormac

the world is your oyster,let me pry open its jaws

How much I’ll strive to please her,She every hour shall see,For, should she go away, or die,What would become of me!

—“MY KIND MOTHER,” 1849

ABANDONED BOAT IN CHESAPEAKECONNECTED TO UNSOLVEDMISSING-PERSON CASE

BRANDYWINE, VA.—The Virginia Coast Guard is searching throughout the Chesapeake Bay for a local fisherman after his boat was discovered abandoned on the southern shore of Gwynn’s Island.

Henry McCabe, 35, is the owner of the 1974 Chesapeake deadrise. The boat was discovered run aground by a passerby, who noted signs of recent occupancy, including food and children’s clothes. Attempts to locate McCabe have been unsuccessful.

Spokesperson Sally Campbell said, “No distress calls were made to our current knowledge, and no hazardous weather was present. So far there are no signs of foul play.”

The discovery of the abandoned boat deepens the mystery around McCabe, who was a person of interest in the disappearance of his 8-month-old son, Skyler, in 2018. No charges are being filed at this time.

Matthews County Fire, Poquoson Fire, and the Virginia Resources Commission are aiding in the search.

PART ONE

MISSING PERSON

ONE

Give me your hand.

Such a simple invitation. I’ve asked it many times of many people over the last year. Folks tend to forget how intimate the act is, how vulnerable you become when you surrender your palm to another. Especially to someone like me. The tender flesh of your wrist, the meat of your palm, the peninsulas of your fingers. Their secrets hidden from you but exposed to me.

I’ll guide you there, but first you need to . . .

Give me your hand.

TWO

The Brandywine Farmers Market has been around since I was a little girl leapfrogging over the headstones in the cemetery behind Shiloh Baptist while my mother bought her greens. Even longer than that. Every Saturday at nine on the nose, the church’s parking lot is overtaken by elderly entrepreneurs ready to hock their homemade wares.

Each parking space hosts its own stall. Farmers pull in well before the sun even thinks about rising, just so they can snag those hallowed spots up front where the foot traffic flows freely. Truck beds become rusted cornucopias of fresh tomatoes, sweet potatoes, ears of corn sheathed in leathery green husks, cucumbers covered in a fine dust of dirt, broccoli, zucchini, pumpkins, strawberries, and baskets of blueberries. Some even offer jars of pickled okra and peach preserves.

The local fishermen bring their bounty from Chesapeake Bay: blue-shells, oysters, herring, shrimp, mussels, clams, glass-eyed shad—all packed on beds of ice that slowly melt into a briny broth as the hours slip by and the humidity thickens.

Hand-painted signs line the highway for a mile out on either side of the peninsula, luring in passersby with promises of local produce and seafood. People who call Brandywine home still live off the land and water.

I live off your hands. The lines in your skin. The folds in your flesh. A palm reading sets you back twenty bucks. There’s tarot, too. I provide a full- or half-deck reading. Aura cleansings.

This is as close to a career as I’ve got. Long as I can recall, there’s always been a palm reader at the farmers market. Used to be my gram. She’d pull out the same tattered tarot deck and let you cut it anyway you liked. I’m not entirely sure why she even did it—wasn’t like she was actuallypsychic—other than it got her out of the house on the weekends. I think she simply got a kick out of spinning yarns for a couple quarters, getting the kids all giddy over their destiny—You’lllive a long, happy life, hon . . . You’ll meet the fella of your dreams, darling . . . I spot good tidings heading your way,sugar . . .

It was simple to pick up where she left off after she passed. Runs in our family, I’ll tell any customer curious about my bona fides. I slip on the same boho tie-back dress with batwing sleeves, armoring myself with enough bracelets that my wrists jangle, ting-ting. My work attire, compliments of our local Goodwill. Got to dress the part. I rarely wear makeup nowadays, but when I can afford it, I’ll give myself a little smoky eye shadow, just to complete the effect. I’m hoping to grow my hair out, but for now it’s trimmed in a bleached crop cut, short on the sides and longer up top, just to give my high cheekbones a fighting chance of catching somebody’s eye.

By the time I roll into church, most slots are already full, so I situate my card table at the far end of the lot with the farmers market mafia.

“Morning, Millie. Morning, May. Charlene . . .”

Rain or shine, the biddies of Brandywine come out to sell their jams and freshly baked pies. These three hold court in their lawn chairs, watching over everyone with hawk eyes.

“Was wondering when you’d show.” Charlene always sits sweating away in her bowed lawn chair before her stall, selling jams and jarred okra. She cools herself off with her paper fan like some Madame Butterfly in a floral print muumuu hooked up to an oxygen tank on wheels. My ride, she calls it, dragging it along with her wherever she goes. The rubber tubes branch out from her nostrils, leaving her looking like she’s sprouted a pair of catfish whiskers.

“What did I miss?” I ask as I lay a silk scarf across my table, along with a handwritten sign in flowery font: PALM AND TAROT READINGS.

“We were about to give away your spot.”

“Don’t you worry over li’l ol’ me . . .”

“Worried, nothing. You owe me for two weeks now.” Charlene serves as the farmers market treasurer, collecting everybody’s deposit for the church. “You can’t be running a tab.”

“Mind spotting me? Just until the end of the day?” I’m not breaking the bank reading folks’ fortunes on a Saturday morning. There certainly isn’t a divination 401(k), but it takes the edge off rent. If any of these fine people wish to look further into their future, get themselves the Madi Price Special, well, I always tell them right where they can find me: Swing on by the old Henley Road Motel, just off Highway 301. I’m in room five. Just look for the neonsign . . .

“I ain’t running a charity,” Charlene says.

“Just let me read a few hands first . . .”

“If I let everybody lapse on what they owe, where would we be?”

“I’ll pay what I owe, I promise. Hand to God.”

“She ain’t going nowhere,” Mama May mutters. Ever since her stroke, she’s been partially paralyzed, only talking out of half of her mouth, slurring her words. “Let her pay later.”

Charlene adjusts herself in her lawn chair, grumbling to herself. “End of today. In full.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Charlene. Thank you.”

“Hot one for you today,” Auntie Millie says with a sigh. “My face is melting.” She’s not lying. Millie’s mascara clots her eyelashes in charcoal clumps. It looks like she’s wearing a pair of melting wax lips, all thanks to that thick shade of crimson she’s run over her mouth.

“Weatherman says it’s only gonna get hotter,” May says. “Well on into the triple digits.”

“Don’t you start in with that global warming nonsense.”

“Ain’t nobody asking for your opinion, Charlene . . .”

“Then stop listening!” Charlene rests her hand on top of the tank, palming the nozzle as if it were a cane, with a freshly lit Pall Mall nestled between her knuckles. “What’d you predict, Ms. Price? The End Times on their way?”

“Already here, Charlene,” I say.

Charlene waves her paper fan at me—ohhushnow—before moving onto more pressing matters. “Did you hear Loraine Hapkins left her husband?”

Most vegetables are gone by noon, but folks tend to stick around and socialize. Not to mention gossip. Brandywine is small enough that everybody’s business belongs to everyone else. If there’s anything worth knowing, these three will be chattering on about it.

“I thought they were working things out,” I say. Loraine hasn’t come to see me for a consultation in over a month. Probably high time I pay a visit, see if I can be of any assistance.

“Tell that to Noah Stetler,” Mama May mumbles under her breath.

“What’re we talking about?” Auntie Millie asks, leaning in with her good ear.

“Lor-aine.” Charlene splits the name in half like a wafer.

“Oh, yes,” Millie nods. “Loraine’s been sneaking off whenever Jesse’s outta town.”

“Hush your mouth, both of you . . .”

“Everybody knows it’s true.”

“No thanks to you!” Charlene holds out her sweaty hand to me, palm up, between puffs off her Pall Mall. “I’m long overdue . . .”

“You want a reading? Really?” You’d be surprised how my personal enterprise doesn’t sit so well with the Sunday service set, always judgy about my witchy ways. But when push comes to shove, these ladies are just as eager for a peek into their future as everybody else.

“You gonna turn me down?” Charlene asks.

“Take ten dollars off my tab.”

“Five.”

“Deal. Let’s see what we got here . . .” I pore over her palm like a miner sifting for mineral deposits.

“Spot some lottery numbers in there and I’ll give you half.”

“If I see any winning numbers, you better believe I’m keeping them to myself!” I hear the rasp in her chest, water flooding a phlegmy engine. “How’s your health been lately?”

“Why’re you asking?”

I run my fingertip along the shallow crease within the left hemisphere of Charlene’s palm, as if I’m heading upstream. “Maybe you should schedule yourself an appointment.”

“Why? What do you see?”

“I’m no doctor.” I try distancing myself from a diagnosis. “Can’t x-ray you with my mind, hon, but when I see a line dry up like this, that tends to suggest something needs checking out.”

Charlene stews for a spell. “I reckon I’m overdue.”

“Good. Let’s keep you nice and healthy. Who else am I gonna buy my okra from?”

“Lord, you haven’t bought okra from me in ages.” Charlene coughs, then asks, “How’s Kendra?”

Hearing her name hits me right in the chest. I’m sure Charlene notices. “Doing just fine.”

“She still living with Donny?” Of course she knows. Everyone in town knows Kendra is living with her father after spending nearly all sixteen years of her life with me. That’s the whole reason why we moved back to Brandywine. Back to the town where my parents disowned me and my baby daddy made it clear he wanted nothing to do with me.

Charlene’s simply testing me, I can tell, digging around for a juicy morsel. Most days I can deflect, but for some reason this morning, it takes all my strength to maintain my smile. I’m not about to give Charlene the satisfaction of knowing she struck a nerve.

“Don’t change the subject on me,” I manage. “Promise you’ll schedule that checkup?”

“Lord above, as I live and breathe.” Charlene’s eyes widen. Something’s caught her attention just over my shoulder. “Look who the cat just dragged in . . .”

“Whose cat?” Auntie Millie leans forward in her lawn chair, straining to pull herself up.

“Over there.”

“I don’t see—”

“Over there, you blind ol’ bat. Is that the McCabe boy?”

“Who?”

“Henry.”

I turn to look. Most guys I grew up with lost their hair and gained beer guts, raising a litter of kids in the nearby trailer park. Henry’s still got a lion’s mane of sandy blond hair.

Lucky him.

He’s grown himself a beard, which doesn’t look all that bad, to be honest. He’s wearing a fleece jacket over a flannel shirt. The stained jeans are a dead giveaway he’s living off the river. The Chesapeake raises its fair share of fishermen. He works with his hands, from what I can see.

But it’s his eyes that stop me. There’s a weight to them.

When’s the last time I laid eyes on Henry? Bound to be decades by now. Well before Kendra.

Would he even remember me?

“That poor man,” May slurs, shaking her head.

“Poor, poor man,” Millie echoes.

“What’s he doing here?” Charlene rumbles, offended she wasn’t consulted first.

“I hear he’s living on his boat,” Millie whispers. “After he lost his house, he had no—”

“We’ll have none of that talk now.” Charlene shuts her down. “You leave Henry alone.”

“Just saying what’s on everybody’s mind . . .”

I can’t help but ask. “What’s on everybody’s mind?”

“Where have you been, child?”

“Not here.”

“Their son went missing five years ago,” Millie whispers. “Eight months old, vanished, just like that.”

Did I know Henry had a son? “You mean kidnapped?”

“That’s one version goin’ ’round.” These ladies couldn’t mind their own business if they were paid. “His wife had herself an absolutely awful case of baby blues. Nobody saw her for months and—” Millie leans in closer to me and whispers, “She hung herself. In their house.”

“Oh God,” I say. “That’s awful . . .”

“Heartbreaking is what it is,” May says.

“Absolutely heartbreaking,” Millie echoes, trying to hide a smile, practically pleased with herself for steering the conversation away from Charlene.

“Do they think she had something to do with . . .” I can’t finish the thought.

“Depends who you’re asking,” Millie suggests.

“Ain’t nobody asking you, Millie,” Charlene says.

“You know just as well as I do—”

“He’s one of ours,” Charlene chastises them, having heard enough. “Is that how you treat one of our own? A man’s got a right to move on. Lord knows he’s been through enough.”

“Only saying what’s been said a dozen times before.”

“You wanna cast the first stone?”

Millie sinks into her chair, pouting. “That man’s story never made a lick of sense to me.”

Charlene straightens her back to let her lungs flex in her chest, easing her wheezing for a spell. “Henry,” she belts out across the parking lot. “Get your behind over here, young man!”

Henry does as he’s told, making his way over.

Millie pulls out her compact, panicking as he approaches. “How’s my face? How is it?”

“Just fine,” Mama May says, lying her ass off.

Henry’s eyes find me first and won’t let go. He smells like a bouquet of Old Bay seasoning and steamed crabs. “Morning.”

“Lord, Henry, look how you’ve grown,” Charlene starts. “You’re a weed on two feet!”

“Not so young anymore, am I?”

“Hush now.” Charlene is all charm. “You’ll always be that little boy sitting in the back pew to me. Still got those cheeks I’d pinch every Sunday, even if you’re trying to hide them . . .”

“Still got ’em.” He smiles, then nods to the other ladies. “Morning, Millie. May.”

“Helllooooo,” they both coo back.

“You remember Madeleine?”

“I do,” he says, nodding at me. “Thought you hightailed it out of here?”

“I did,” I say. “For a while. Family brought me home.” There’s some truth sprinkled in there, somewhere. Nothing would get me kicked out of my own house quicker than a positive Clearblue Easy when I was still under my parents’ roof, so the second I saw that plus sign materialize, I knew my fate was sealed. Sure enough, my ass was out the door as soon as my father found out there was a bun in the oven. All seventeen years of myself. That’s not how I raised my girl. Mom put up a fight, for a while, but she’d never get Dad to change his Methodist mind.

Nobody wanted Kendra. Not my parents, not my so-called boyfriend.

Just me.

The Nova was in my name, so me and my little lima bean hit the road. We’ll make our own future, I told my tummy, rubbing my stomach like it was a crystal ball and Kendra was a prophecy floating through an amniotic haze. We made a clean break from Brandywine.

For a while, at least.

Henry McCabe. Just look at him. It’s like the last sixteen years simply wash away with the tide, swept out to sea, dragging the past back with the undertow. I’m suddenly sent back in time, slipping into high school all over again, thinking about those three months our junior year.

Threemonths . . . Doesn’t seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but back then, lord, it felt like a lifetime. Henry is, heaven help me for saying this, the boy that got away.

The what-ifs start stockpiling in my mind: What if we’d lasted just one more month together? What if I’d stuck with him instead of drifting off with Donny?

Where would I be now?

Who would I be?

“Wasn’t there something between you two back in school?” Charlene prods, even though she damn well knows the answer already. “There was, wasn’t there? Now I remember!”

“You selling any beeswax, Charlene?” I ask.

“Always,” she says with just a hint of pride.

“Then why don’t you mind it?”

That gets a chuckle out of Henry. “It’s good to see you.”

“You, too,” I say. “Didn’t recognize you with the beard. You can finally grow one.”

“My finest hirsute accomplishment, don’t you think?” Henry always tried to hide behind his shoulder-length hair, looking like a pockmarked Eddie Vedder. He’d strum his guitar during lunch, laying low in the school’s parking lot where nobody else was listening. But I certainly was.

I’d always sneak out to get stoned in my Nova. Henry set my soundtrack. His voice drifted through the lot, flitting along the parked cars. I went on a mission to find the source of that voice. Sounded so mesmerizing. Lured me in like the tide.

I finally caught him sitting between cars, strumming to himself. What song is that?

Henry froze. A long-haired doe.

Sorry. I backed away.

I wrote it. His voice was so small.

For who? He didn’t have an answer for that, so I said, Whoever it’s for, she’s a luckygal . . .

Henry always found himself in the crosshairs of the good ol’ boys at school. Anyone who didn’t pick up a football with one hand and a can of Coors in the other was bound to be a target. Donny definitely gave him shit. But Henry always seemed destined for better things beyond Brandywine. I believed he could’ve been somebody. A rock star. He could’ve taken me with him.

“You’re looking just like I remembered,” he says, pulling me out of the past. “Haven’t changed a bit.”

“I got a daughter who’d say otherwise.” My fingers find their way to my ear, combing my close-cropped hair back, a reflex from when I wore it longer.

“Kendra, right?”

He remembered. “One and only.”

Henry McCabe, I swear . . . What would life have been like if I’d stuck with him instead of Donny Goddamn Watkins? You wouldn’t have Kendra, for one thing, I say to myself, shooting down this fleeting fantasy before it actually has a chance to take off in my mind.

“You staying out of trouble, Henry?” Charlene asks. “Haven’t seen you at services.”

“You caught me.”

“Never too late to come back . . . Are they still doing that support group on Tuesdays?”

That support group.

“Not enough people signed up,” he says without pause. “Closest meeting for families is at Trinity Baptist, but that’s a bit far. I’ll go every now and then when I feel like I really need it.”

“Glad to hear it. What’re you doing for work these days?”

“Leave the poor man alone, Charlene,” May mumbles out the side of her mouth.

“I don’t mind,” Henry says. “Little bit of everything, I reckon? Landscaping in the summer, whenever I can find the work. Crab most mornings, but there’s not much running.”

“Good pickings?”

“Pretty slim, but I’m getting by. Used to sell directly to Haddocks, but they shut down.”

“Way of the world,” Charlene says. “What’re you selling? Those blue-shells I see?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Any soft-shells?”

“No peelers today, sorry. Maybe in a month. It’s been slow this season.”

“How much you sellin’ them for?” It strikes me that Charlene hasn’t harped on Henry for his five-dollar deposit like she did with me, but I figure it’s better to let her flirt.

“Twenty a dozen,” he says.

“That all?” Charlene lets out an exasperated shout. “Lord, you’re simply giving them away! I’ll take a dozen off your hands. Been ages since I steamed myself up some blue-shells.”

“Very kind of you, ma’am.”

“Ma’am, nothing. Call me Charlene, you hear?” Her breath catches and, for a moment, I worry one of her air tubes got a kink in it. The oxygen’s not reaching her lungs anymore.

“Madi.” Her expression ignites as she turns toward me. I know where this is all heading before she even breathes a word of it. “Why don’t you give Henry here one of your readings?”

“I don’t think I should . . .”

“Nonsense. If there ever was anyone in need of a forecast for some good weather, it’s this young man right here.” She lifts her hand and motions to Henry, almost like she’s guiding his truck to back into a tight parking spot. “Henry, did you know Madi here is touched?”

“Is she now?” He nods at me, playfully impressed. “I never knew.”

Jesus, this is embarrassing. I feel myself blush, all the blood running right to my cheeks. “Gotta put food on the table somehow.”

“Go on, Madi,” Charlene insists. “See what you can see.”

Henry steps back, holding his hands out in a surrendering gesture. This is all a little too rich for his blood. “That’s a mighty kind offer, but . . . I’m fine today, thanks.”

“I won’t hear it.” Charlene takes another puff from her Pall Mall, straining to inhale, the smoke spiriting out from her mouth. “First round’s on me.”

“I’ve got my own money,” he says, a bit defensively.

“Keep your money. I’m paying.”

This is only getting more awkward. The two of us are acting like a pair of eighth-graders being forced to dance with each other at the spring formal. “You sure about this?” I ask.

“Doesn’t sound like we have much of a choice, do we?”

“Let’s get a little privacy.” I lead him away from the ladies. I don’t want them eavesdropping. Nothing but a bunch of beaming queens giggling on their foldout thrones.

“We don’t really have to do this,” I whisper as we head to his truck. Lord knows how long he’s been driving it. From the rust chewing through its chassis, he should put his Toyota out of its misery before it keels over. There are about five laundry baskets nestled together in the rear truck bed, each one filled to the hilt with blue-shells, nothing but a knot of claws.

“I can make something up.” I’m still focused on the crabs. “Get Charlene off our backs.”

“And miss my chance at peeking into my future?”

“Careful now,” I say. “You’re giving off one hell of an aura . . .”

“Am I now? You can see all that?”

“Oh yeah, coming from a mile away. A whole lotta dark hues radiating off of you.”

He glances over his left shoulder, then his right, checking his personal space for any cumulus clouds gathering around him. “Usually takes longer before the ladies spot my aura.”

“I highly doubt that.”

Flirting feels so familiar with him, it’s easy to slip right back into the habit of it.

The tangle of blue-shells shift in their baskets, stirring themselves. Something’s agitated them. The wet clicking from their jaws picks up, a froth of air bubbles spuming out from their mandibles.

One crab tries to make a run for it, crawling across the others until it’s situated on top. It halts along the basket’s handle, inches away from me. It raises its claws over its head.

I can’t help but think it’s beseeching the heavens.

Henry clasps the crab with his bare hand, unafraid of getting pinched. He tosses it back in the basket. “So how come you don’t go by Madame Madi or something like that?”

“Would you trust me if I did, darlin’?” I let my accent linger a little longer. The twang tends to sell the prediction just a bit more. “I’m not gonna glimpse into a crystal ball to sell you on some ham- fisted future. If that’s what you’re after, try a psychic hotline. They’re cheaper.”

“You turn away most of your clientele, or just me?”

“Just you.”

“Business sure must be booming.”

I laugh. “Does it look like I’m hurting?”

“Yeah,” he says with the slightest laugh. Or is it a sigh? “I see you’re hurting.”

“That makes two of us.”

Henry goes silent. I can’t read him. He’s all walled up except around his eyes. There’s something buried there, just below the surface.

I glance through the window of his truck. The inside is filled with paperwork. No—not paperwork. Flyers. Piles of photocopies occupy the passenger seat, spilling into the footwell.

I lean in and spy a child’s blackened eyes peering up from the stack.

The photo of a boy stares back.

It’s him.

I hold out my own to Henry, palm up, ready to receive his. “Give me your hand.”

Henry suddenly hesitates. His hands are still stuffed in his jacket. “I doubt you’d be able to make much sense of my hands . . . Too many fishhooks.”

Why’s he stalling on me all of a sudden?

“Either we’re doing this or not. You gotta give me your hand so I can do my job.”

Does he really want to see? Is he afraid?

“Come on.” I give him one last nudge. “What’ve you got to lose?”

Everything. His eyes pinch and I know I’ve crossed a line.

“I’m sorry,” I backpedal. “I didn’t mean to . . .”

“It’s all right.” Henry hesitates before pulling out his hand. I forgot that he’s left-handed. The only southpaw I’ve ever met other than Kendra. He twists his wrist to expose his palm. The sleeve on his jacket pulls back, exposing thin rivulets winding up along his forearm. Scars. I can’t see how far they reach, but I can tell these creeks run deep.

“You ready?” I ask, suddenly hesitant myself. What am I so worried about?

“As I’ll ever be.”

Deep breath. “Let’s see what we can—”

I take his hand and there’s a sudden rush of water all around me, everything going wet in seconds, a flood rising up from his hand into mine like the high tide and I swear I see a—

duckblind

—I let Henry go and stumble back a step. I hear myself gasp, taking in the air so fast, it’s as if I’ve just burst out from below a body of water.

From the river.

The image persists even after our hands separate. It still feels like I’m in the water. Where did this river come from? It’s fading now, I’m losing the image, but there, right there, just up ahead, I swear I can still glimpse a man-made structure rising up from the water’s surface.

A duck blind. Nothing but a freestanding shack on four utility posts, dead center of the river. Do they even make those things anymore? I can’t remember the last time I saw one.

Then it’s gone. The river recedes all around us, even if I can still feel it.

“What was that?” I hear myself ask, picking up the startled tremor in my own voice.

I’m dripping wet. At first, I think I’m drenched from having fallen into the water—but no. It’s simply sweat. The humidity’s clinging to my skin, a wet presence, nearly alive. Organic.

I see Henry’s sweating, too. Beads of perspiration pebble his temples. “You okay?” he asks as his hand retreats into his pocket, a fiddler crab slipping inside its sandy hovel.

“Yeah, I . . .” I try to gather myself. A dizzy spell has me now in its grip. I can’t focus on what’s in front of me, my mind still stuck between two places. What just happened to me?

I’m thinking heatstroke. I’m thinking I didn’t eat anything this morning. I’m thinking seeing Henry after all these years has thrown me off balance. He stares back at me, an anxious expression working its way across his face. “Did you see something?” he asks. “Did you see . . .”

He’s about to say his name. It’s right there at the tip of his tongue.

“Nothing,” I lie. “I didn’t see a thing.”

THREE

I see him. Just like that.

Skyler

I’m in sore need of replenishing my Yellow Tail. There’s an A&P in the strip mall two stoplights down from the motel, so on my way back home—home, Christ, since when did I start calling that motelhome—I pull in for a quick pit stop. Seeing Henry—seeing that, I don’t know what else to call it, that vision—has thrown me off balance. The rest of the day was an absolute bust, slogging through palm readings in a sweltering belch of humidity. All those sweaty hands reaching out for me, slipping across my skin. Will I find love? Will I find happiness? Gimme gimme gimme.

I need something to take the edge off. Wash that—

duck blind

—right out of my mind. I’ve made enough to make rent and still have a little cash left over. Luxuries always come last, after utilities and food. I should put the money away, save it, but after the jolt I just went through with Henry—whatwas that, where inthe hell did it comefrom—I feel like I deserve a little something from the local A&P’s wide selection of vintage vino.

I’m still trembling. Even hours later, I can feel the quiver in my wrist. It’s in my bones.

What the hell happened? What was that?

Just as the sliding doors part and I step inside the A&P, I hesitate for a second.

Someone’s eyes are on me.

I feel them.

Where?

From the corner of my own eyes, I notice someone staring.

A boy.

When I turn, I find Skyler hidden among the flyers for babysitting gigs and guitar lessons. The photo’s blown up from its original size, and the image has lost most of its clarity.

Skyler’s eyes disintegrate into pixels. He’s swaddled in a blanket, covered in hand-stitched animals—a duck, crab, and fish—embroidered along its hem.

Just above his fontanelle, it says: HAVE YOU SEEN ME?

The boy’s simply been biding his time before I spot him. A game of hide-and-seek. How many times have I passed his flyer and never noticed? How long has he been waiting for me?

Watching me?

I feel the compulsion to take him home. Before I second-guess myself, I slowly peel the flyer from the window and fold it in half, making sure not to crease his cheeks.

Now I see you,Skyler . . .

Now I see.

FOUR

“Give me your hand.” I make an empty nest of my fingers, cupping my hands together, ready to receive hers. The young woman sitting across the table from me—Lizzie, I believe she said—offers up her palm. She’s eager for me to dive into her skin, but we’re not quite there yet. You can’t rush these readings. I need to warm up to her. Take her all in. I’m still a bit hungover, opting for the magnum last night instead of the standard bottle. “Ball your fingers into a fist.”

“Like . . . this?”

Lizzie’s sitting across from me, elbow on the table, palm facing the heavens, her hand and all of its intricate mysteries open to us both, revealing every last facet of her life.

But those cuticles. They’re all gnawed.

Let’s start there.

“Think of your hand as an egg,” I say, “full of life. It’s growing, becoming something. Soon it’s gonna hatch . . . and when it does, we’ll see just what kind of future we’re dealing with.”

I hold her fist for a moment, not saying a word, wrapping my hands around hers and making an enclosure. I gently squeeze, smiling as I do. The parlor settles into its stillness. All that’s left to hear is the steady thrum of traffic on 301 purring right outside the window.

“Ready to take a peek?”

She nods, breath held in her lungs. Eyes so wide.

“Let’s see what we can see, darling.” I crack that egg open. Let her fingers pour into my palms. Now this nest is full of writhing life. Pink skin. A freshly hatched bird.

“My,” I marvel, “what a beautiful future you have for yourself . . .”

“You can really see it?”

I see a woman in her early twenties. She’s wearing far too much jewelry. Gold hoops. Gold necklace. Frosted lipstick. Bronze eye shadow. Plucked eyebrows. She’s got a metallic complexion, glossy forehead all buffed and polished. She wants to be a sports car, but I can just barely make out the pretty young thing buried beneath the makeup. I’ll try to bring that girl back to the surface, if I can. “There’s so much to see,” I say. “Take a look here . . .”

Lizzie leans in and pores over her own palm, straining to gain some deeper insight from her skin. She’s not from around here—but then again, no one really is. Not anymore.

She’s never known true heartbreak. I’m sure she’s been hurt before, but she hasn’t come to me to quell some ache lodged in her chest. Her eyes are too wide for that kind of pain.

She’s an impulse shopper. A walk-in. She spotted the neon palm floating in the window as she was driving by and before she could second-guess herself, she pulled her car off 301. That’s how I get most of my customers. A neon palm hangs in my window like a beacon, pink and purple bands of fluorescence luring drivers in like the bioluminescent esca on an anglerfish. If traffic is thick enough, the cars all slow down. Folks spot the neon sign, that electrified hand floating by the side of the road, and in that moment, there’s a blip in their chest, that urge to pull over. To take a chance on their future.

That’s how I catch them. “I’m sensing some anxiety. It’s weighing you down, hon.”

“How can you tell?”

“The lines never lie.” It’s not in her palm. It’s all right there, on her face. In those milk-saucer eyes that only grow wider the deeper I glance into her hands. I’m clocking all her tells—the myriad of gestures and involuntary microexpressions, the emotions that readily reveal themselves on her face. All the stories she tells about herself without even realizing it.

“See this here?” I trace my index finger across the narrow trench of flesh that branches off from the rest of her palm. It bifurcates a perfectly sturdy love line. “See how it’s frayed? Something in your life is causing you unrest. We need to focus on that now. Heal it.”

Lizzie’s eyes glide side to side. I can tell she’s sifting through her own personal history, trying to draw a mental connection. “My mom’s been telling me I need to break up with my boyfriend. She hates him. They don’t get along at all. Could that be it? Is that what you see?”

“This boyfriend. He’s new, isn’t he?”

“. . . Sorta?”

Sorta means not sorta at all. But there’s a raw nerve here, I can tell. I just have to find my way to the source of this sore subject, see if I can’t extract it, like a rotten tooth.

“You and your mother are close, aren’t you?” I ask. “You still living at home?”

“Yeah . . .”

“I sense a strain between you two . . .” I close my eyes, as if I’m picking up some bad atmospheric pressure heading our way. Palm readers are like weathermen. We forecast futures. Some predictions may turn out true. Most don’t. And if we’re wrong? Folks forget. The world moves on to tomorrow’s forecast. “This rift’s been here for a while, hasn’t it?”

Lizzie pulls back on her arm ever so slightly. I can tell she wants her hand back, the two of us playing a game of subconscious tug-of-war. The sleeve of my blouse pulls back, exposing the deep-set tattoo along my wrist—a sun, moon, and star—now nothing but blue lines fading around my forearm. The lines were brighter when Kendra was a girl. She always used to trace her pinkie along the constellation across my skin.

I want a moon, too,Mama . . .

Hold your horses, I’d answer. You’re a little too young for a tattoo,hon . . .

The star is barely there now, the ink losing its clarity. The sun looks as if it’s sinking into my skin. My flesh is now the river and its hazy reflection ripples across the surface of my wrist.

“Did the strain start there?” I ask Lizzie, taking a guess. “With this boyfriend?”

“Yeah.” She wipes the corner of her eye with the back of her free hand. Here it is, here wego . . . “Jamie—myboyfriend—he borrowed some money from her and . . .”

I definitely don’t like the sound of that. “Borrowed?”

Lizzie answers a little too quickly for my taste. “He says he’s gonna pay it back . . .”

“Let’s focus on your family,” I say. “Focus all your thoughts on your mama. Give her your energy. We wanna heal that bond between you two, you hear? That’s what’s most important.”

Lizzie gives me the slightest nod. She wants this. Needs this.

“I’m gonna give you some crystals that’ll help cleanse you of this guilt you’re carrying.”

“Crystals . . . ?” Lizzie suddenly senses the upsell. I have to put her pocketbook at ease.

“Amethyst works best,” I suggest. “It absorbs any negativity you need to release. Now I’m gonna give you your own stone, free of charge, but you better promise me you’ll come back in a month so we can see how things have worked out . . . All you need to do is keep the crystal on you. In your pocket or in your purse. Just have it nearby, so you can connect to its energy.”

“Is . . . Is that really gonna help?”

Lizzie needs to release her doubt. She needs to believe she’s expelling her insecurities from her body. If a couple crystals can give her a shot of confidence, so be it. Besides, I need more repeat customers if I’m going to get through this rough patch.

“I can already see your aura shifting in its pigments,” I say. “You came in here looking like a bruised violet . . . but now I see bands of blue and pink. Healthy colors. Vibrant colors.”

“Really?” Her voice pinches.

Looking at Lizzie, I can’t help but think of myself when I was her age. “Promise me one thing, hon? Boyfriends like Jamie . . . ? They’re nothing but ticks. They dig their head in and take whatever they want. Once they’re all fattened up, they pull out and cling to the next woman.”

And leave you with Lyme disease.

“You deserve better than that, you hear? You are better than that. Say it.”

“I’m better,” she mumbles.

“Louder now.”

“I’m better.”

“One more time.”

“I’m better!”

I’m giving her peace of mind for twenty bucks. Lizzie will walk out of here, head held high, ready to waltz into her brand-new future a bit more buoyant than when she entered.

Redneck therapy, that’s all. People around these parts are more likely to go see a psychic than sit across from a psychiatrist. We don’t talk about our problems. We hold them tight, until they weigh us down. We’d rather drown in our insecurities than share them.

What I offer is the same as lying on the couch, only a hell of a lot cheaper. The personal matters we discuss in my parlor stay in my parlor. Your secret’s safe with me. Client-clairvoyant confidentiality. As long as I keep my predictions within the parameters of what’s possible, steering clear of any concrete details, everybody gets what they need and nobody gets hurt.

There are worse ways to make a living, don’t you think? Lord knows I’ve slogged through my fair share of shitty positions wherever I ended up: Waitressing at the 3rd Street Diner, stuffing my ass into a tight skirt just for tips. A receptionist at a salon, inhaling nail polish until I felt like I’d faint. Dead-end jobs. No-future jobs. Look at me now. Moving onup . . . Right.

“What’s wrong?” Lizzie asks, snapping me back to the parlor. For a second, I think she’s asking about me—mylife—but she leans in, concerned I’ve spotted a blemish in her destiny.

I’m too distracted. I should call it quits. It’s Sunday. Girls Night. I’m going to meet up with Kendra and we’re gonna have ourselves a tear. I haven’t seen her since last weekend—and I’m dying to see my girl.

“Don’t you worry. You’re gonna live yourself a long, happy life.” I offer Lizzie a smile. You’ll meet the man of your dreams . . . You’ll come into successsoon . . . Empty prophecies, but we’ve all given them. I’ll be a lucky palm reader if those words never leave my mouth again.

“That’ll be twenty dollars, darling . . .”