The Dreadful Future of Blossom Culp (18 page)

“Where?” said Maisie. The coins on her forehead jangled. Letty edged nearer.

“Oh, yeah, romance with a capital
R
is heading your way. It will sweep you off your feet. Better yet, it will last. I see four children in here, maybe six.”

Maisie was staring holes into her own hand. “Six!” she breathed. Letty was peering baldly over Maisie’s big bejeweled shoulder now.

“Who is my great love to be, Blossom?” She was quivering like jelly.

She had me there. I couldn’t imagine. I thought of giving her Champ Ferguson or even Bub Timmons. But then I thought:
Oh, well, shoot, why get her hopes up?

“My vision grows dim,” I moaned, letting my eyes roll halfway back into my head. “Your palm is an open book to me, but the print is fine and growing faint.” I let my head loll, but by now Maisie had a grip on my hand and was hanging on for dear life.

“Your great love is a mystery man who will reveal his identity to you and you alone. All I can make out is that he’s a tall, thin fellow who—ah—likes big women.”

“That’s me,” Maisie whispered, wringing my hand.

It was not my best work, but it did a job on Maisie. I blinked and sat up straight. “What did I say? Where am I? What time is it?”

Maisie slumped in a daze before me, staring off into space.

Letty fished up another nickel and slapped it on
the table. “Me next,” she said, elbowing Maisie out of the customer’s chair. I fanned the deck on the table.

“Take a card, Letty. Any card.”

While she was making her selection, I thought of what I knew of Letty’s fate. Recalling the future, I saw Letty’s granddaughter-to-be. I looked ahead seventy Halloweens and saw Heather, the spitting image of Letty. I saw Heather running her own little gang of girls at Bluffleigh Heights Magnet Middle School.

I foresaw Letty herself living to a ripe old age down in . . . Sun City, Arizona. Probably in the lap of luxury if I know Letty. I needed no crystal ball or deck of cards or palm for her.

But still, I pondered.

She turned up the four of diamonds, which is not an interesting card in itself.

“Hmmmmm, that’s real interesting, that is.”

“Quit stalling,” Letty snapped, fiddling with her mantilla.

“Draw another card,” I said, playing for time.

She twitched over the ace of spades.

“Whoops!” I jerked back and slapped my forehead. Letty flinched, too, and Maisie, looming over us, let out a little yelp.

“Can’t be,” I gasped. “Draw one more time. You owe it to yourself.”

Her hand quivered as she turned up another ace
of spades. No wonder this is Mama’s favorite deck.

Letty grabbed her throat, and Maisie grabbed her chins. I let my eyes roll all the way back. But I came to myself at once. Under all her white powder Letty’s face had gone whiter. I swept up the three cards, reshuffled the deck, and slipped it into one of my pockets.

Fishing up a nickel, I flipped it on the table. “This here reading is at an end,” I explained. “You can have your nickel back, Letty.”

She took back her nickel quick enough. But her little black rosebud mouth trembled. “You better tell me, Blossom,” she said in a tiny, tragic voice. “I better know what those cards are saying.”

“Yes, she better know,” said Maisie.

“Nobody thanks the bearer of bad news,” I remarked. “Besides, I could be wrong. Possibly.”

“Oh, I doubt it,” Maisie blurted. “You were right on the button with me.”

“Give me a hint anyhow,” Letty said, twitching.

“I can’t take the responsibility,” I said. “I’ll just have a squint at the crystal ball to double-check.”

“Do that,” Maisie urged.

I made a couple passes over the crystal ball. The flame from the candle reflected on the smooth glass. Back went my eyeballs till I was showing all white and seeing nothing.

“I see a peaceful scene and hear harps,” I moaned mournfully.

“Oh, heaven help us,” Maisie murmured. Letty was speechless.

“I see a group gathered around an open grave. Oh, how they’re weeping and carrying on! But the floral tributes are lovely.”

Maisie whimpered, but Letty wasn’t breathing.

“Too soon, too soon,” I lamented. “It’s the grave of a young girl cut off in her prime or possibly sooner. A young
unmarried
girl, prominent in this community.

“My vision grows dim,” I continued. “I can read this ball like a book; but it’s clouding over, and we’re spared from knowing the name of this deceased young . . . spinster.”

My chin fell on my chest, but I jerked upright at once. “What did I say? Where am I? What time is it?”

But Letty was already at the door, and Maisie was struggling to keep her on her feet.
“She’s a liar,”
Letty shrieked, throwing her arms around and grabbing air.
“It’s a well-known fact. Ask anybody.”

“Well, all I know is,” Maisie said, “she was right on the button with me.”

Cleopatra and Theda Bara went off down the stairs scared silly, which is about as good an advertisement for my business as I could get.

Before that Halloween night was over, I had customers waiting in line. I was passing out fortunes left and right and getting real good. I nearly worked the spots off Mama’s cards, and my pockets bulged with nickels.

You can’t go far wrong by giving the public what it wants and throwing in the occasional thrill.

I
T WAS NEAR THE WITCHING HOUR
of midnight before an important customer entered the Gypsy’s tent and fell under my power.

Various teachers had dropped in through the evening to support our fund raiser and to keep an eye on us. Even Miss Blankenship had turned out. It was reported that she approved of the sign from
Hamlet
over our front door. But she hadn’t come up to have her fortune told. Anybody as near retirement as Miss Blankenship isn’t looking to the future.

But lo and behold, Mr. Lacy, the history teacher, as the official chaperon for this Haunted House, called on me. Clinging to his arm was none other than Miss Fuller of Girls’ Gym.

“Better yet,” I muttered, seemingly to myself, when I caught sight of her.

Miss Fuller was dolled up in a medley of flowing scarves. Her hair was swept up artistically above a colorful bandeau. Though her eyes are ever sad, they were bright tonight. She was riveted to Mr. Lacy’s side.

He was in one of his natty outfits with matching haberdashery. “Well, Blossom,” he boomed in his teacherish voice, “they tell me you have turned out to be the star attraction!”

He hovered there in the door with Miss Fuller hanging on him like a drowning woman.

“I hope you are a better student of the future than you are in my history class. Ha-ha.”

“Oh, Ambrose,” Miss Fuller simpered, “you are such a card.”

I scooted my crystal ball into place.

“Good evening, folks,” I said. “Step right in. Who’s first?”

“Oh, ha-ha,” booms Mr. Lacy. “I don’t think Miss Fuller and I are in the market for any fortunes this evening. We have just stopped by to wish you well.”

“Many thanks,” I said, arranging my shawl, “but this is a place of business, and there are others waiting.”

“Oh, Ambrose,” says Miss Fuller, bending his sleeve, “go on and have a reading. These children need encouragement.”

“Anything you say,” he replied, giving her the old eye. Then he marched over to me, smirking.

“Take a chair,” I told him. “You’ll need it.”

Smirking still, Mr. Lacy laid out his large white hand on the table. “I hear you are first-rate with palms,” he boomed encouragingly.

“I’ll just take a peek into the crystal ball if it’s all
the same to you,” I said. The candle was burning low now, and I’d counted on that.

Miss Fuller crept up behind where Mr. Lacy sat. Now she was looking fondly down at him. I rolled my eyeballs abruptly back, and both my customers started.

A breeze seemed to stir the sheets of the tent that enclosed us. The wavering candle threw long shadows. “Oh, my,” Miss Fuller murmured.

I made a couple passes over the crystal ball, seeming to read it with the whites of my eyes.

“I don’t think that can be good for her vision,” Miss Fuller said.

“Hush, honey,” Mr. Lacy replied.

I made a couple more passes over the crystal ball. “That’s real interesting,” I remarked, “but strange.” My hands cupped my face, and I swayed from side to side.

“I wish she’d quit doing that with her eyes,” Miss Fuller whispered.

My knee knocked the underside of the table, and the crystal ball jiggled, taking on a little life of its own.

Then I rolled my eyes back to a seeing position. A worried look crossed my face. “What we have here is an unusual situation,” I explained to Mr. Lacy. “You don’t seem to have any future at all to speak of.”

“Oh, ha-ha,” he boomed uncertainly. He began to rise. He wouldn’t have minded leaving right then.

“Never mind, Blossom,” Miss Fuller said kindly. “As I’ve often said in the locker room, you can’t win them all.”

“But poor student of history that I am,” I continued, “I believe I’ll try to delve around in your past, Mr. Lacy.”

“Oh, a little personal history?” He smirked again, broader than before.

“You got it,” I said. “After all, what is history but mankind’s record where we look for guidance? We search the past for wisdom because the future is the Great Unknown!”

“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” Mr. Lacy said. The last of the candlelight gleamed in his yellow wavy hair.

“Here it comes,” I said, peering deep into the blank ball. “Here comes Wisdom sharp and clear. Lay it on me!”

Fresh breezes seemed to whip the sheets around us. The screams of sophomores going through the deadman’s dungeon far below our feet echoed upward.

“I see a small town, somewhat backward,” I moaned distantly, “on the banks of the Mississippi River. I see steamboats drawn up to the wharf, taking on cotton and grain.”

“How interesting,” Miss Fuller remarked. Mr. Lacy said nothing.

“From the general condition of the place,” I moaned on, “I’d put us back about 1905, or 1906 at the latest.”

Mr. Lacy stirred.

“I see a festive occasion and half the town turned out for the event.” My nose was practically flat against the ball by now. “A wedding!” I exclaimed. “They’re throwing rice at a happy couple.”

“How sweet,” Miss Fuller said.

“The bride is not much to look at,” I observed, “but the groom is one good-looking dude.”

Mr. Lacy’s white hand stole up to smooth his yellow hair.

I fell back in the chair. “My vision grows dim, dim,” I nearly sobbed. “Dark clouds obscure this joyous scene.

“But hark!” Back my nose went to the ball. I was reading it like a book, and you could have heard a pin drop. “The groom is a husband now, and a bad one. I see the bride, now a wife, weeping in despair. She has been deceived and knows it!”

“For shame,” Miss Fuller said.

“This poor deceived wife is tearing her hair and . . . rocking a cradle!”

“A
cradle
?” Miss Fuller plucked nervously at her drapings.

As if by chance, the fringe on my shawl swept over the candle, snuffing it out. We were in darkness now, within the swaying sheets.

“I can almost hear this abandoned wife and mother’s voice,” I said in rather a loud tone.

Silence fell.

I spoke again, louder.
“I say I can almost hear this abandoned wife and mother’s voice.”

In a far corner of the darkened room something moved behind the sheets. It was only a shadow at first. Then there was the tiniest pinpoint of light, floating like a firefly.

“Owwww”
came the weirdest voice you ever heard. Miss Fuller had Mr. Lacy in a hammerlock. Nobody breathed.

“Owwww, Ambrose! Ambrose!”
The sheets stirred, and the pinpoint of lamplight grew to a glow.
“Wherefore art thou, Ambrose?”

A lamp was held up by a bony hand. Its pale light filtering through the sheet fell on the frozen faces of Miss Fuller and Mr. Lacy. They stared in horror, and I had the willies myself.

There was only the hint of a wan and mournful face behind the sheet, for all the world like an abandoned wife and mother.

“Owwww, Ambrose,”
the thing said,
“it’s me, yore lovin’ wife. Why have you run off and left me, Ambrose? Don’t you know me, sweetheart? It’s me . . . Blanche!”

Mr. Lacy started from his chair. “Son of a—”

“Who?” Miss Fuller asked. “Who’s Blanche?”

The thing went right on talking.
“And here beside me, Ambrose, is yore lovin’ little child.”

There was a short struggle behind the sheet. Another ghostly form, much smaller, was dragged up to our attention.
“Here is yore little boy. Wave to Papa . . . Leonard.”

Mr. Lacy crashed back in his chair.

“Leonard?” Miss Fuller asked. “Who’s Leonard?”

A bony hand reached up to turn the lamp down. It gleamed like a firefly floating and went out. The pair of ghostly figures, the big one and the little one, faded.

Then things went haywire.

We remained in dark silence for an instant. Then Mr. Lacy lunged my way. He fumbled for the crystal ball and grabbed it. Then he hauled off and heaved it toward the sheet. It exploded against the far wall with a deafening sound. Miss Fuller commenced screaming and wouldn’t stop.