The Deadly Fortune-Telling

Despite his serene words, I started getting gravitated towards it out of sheer inquisitiveness. The stall guy's smile dissipated instantaneously as he watched me walk away from the stall, and in the direction of the tent. I reached the entrance and felt warm air blowing from inside the place.

The dark entrance intimidated me slightly, however, I still plucked up the courage to enter it purely to satisfy my insatiable curiosity. I walked through the darkness, with no idea in the world what I would discover at the end. A distinctly strong, but arousing essence of lavender diffused through the warm air, teasing my sense of smell. Abruptly, a massive glow of light punctured through the blackness, and a large clearing came into view, causing my pupils to contract.

The gigantic clearing appeared like a grand hall; two hideously turquoise twin L-shaped sofa sets were arranged to face each other on both sides, a monstrous and obscenely ornate chandelier was hanging from the center of the tent, whose light pierced my eyeballs mercilessly. Exactly underneath the irritating chandelier, stood a round table, on which lay a magnificently glowing crystal ball.

"Greetings, Ellie, my child," called a figure, dressed in turquoise robes, with a purple turban wrapped on her head. The lady was sitting on a chair with her arms placed on the table and fingers crossed, clearly casting a mystically preternatural aura around the place. She was a middle-aged woman barely in her fifties, with few strands of grey hair protruding from the black, and sparsely unnoticeable wrinkles appearing on her white bony cheeks. She wore very thin makeup with a dark purple lipstick on her thin but firm lips. Her intimidatingly booming voice gave me goose pimples as I walked towards her in slow motion. "Please take a seat," she requested, which rather sounded like a command and I sat on the chair opposing her.

"Who…who are you…and how… how do you know my name?" I quivered, shivering with a reasonable amount of fear.

"I'm Madam Maxima, a soothsayer, and the one who will provide you with all the answers that you so miserably desire to seek," she said, opening her eyes, which were an awful shade of amber, and gave me a smoothly understanding smile which collapsed my fear.

"Are you a fortune-teller?" I murmured, half-expecting she didn't hear it, but she did.

"Girl, you may swear on my face, but never, ever, address me with that word," she boomed, looking highly affronted, and reinstating the dread on my face. "I'm not from those species of deceitful and swindling humans who rob people," she paused, glaring at me with a speck of annoyance in her mystical eyes.

"So tell me, dear, do you wish to see what lies in your fortune?" She asked, with a smooth return to her original tone.

"I…do", came out of my mouth unconsciously, unable to move my eyes away from the lady, even for a fraction of a second.

"But before that," she gestured, stretching her hand forward and keeping her palm wide open.

"How much, Madam Maxima?"

"However much you can afford to pay my dear child," she claimed, and I moved towards her slowly, removed the twenty-pound note that dad had kept in my purse, and placed it in her warm palm, then gently walked back and seated myself.

Madam Maxima muttered a 'thank you and placed the note in her robes. Detaching her eyes from my face for the very first time and threw a look at the mysterious crystal ball placed on the table. She placed her palms across the sides of the ball and began circling them slowly around it.

"Oh my crystal, by the mighty power of the divine will, show me what lies ahead in the destiny of this young girl, Ellie Parkinson,"

The instant my surname was called out, the crystal ball began glowing profusely, and to my uttermost bewilderment which nearly popped my eyes out, the ball rose a few inches up in mid-air, and started pacing across the table towards me. It stood an inch away from my face, as I ogled it with a mixture of unfathomable shock and trepidation. The next second, jolts of electric waves erupted out of the crystal and struck my forehead, I was paralyzed with fear, totally expecting to receive an electric shock or something, however, a soothingly ticklish sensation spread over me, enveloping me tenderly diminishing every feeling in my body, causing it to become light like a feather and my eyes closed automatically, as though hypnotized.

A thin ray of smoke appeared in my mind, showing me flashes of important events in my delightful future chronologically: me wearing a red gown and hat, and walking across the school stage to receive my diploma and memento on graduation day.

The smoke reshaped and formed the image of a grown-up me dressed in a bridal gown, and being escorted by dad across an unrecognizable church full of guests, towards a handsomely charming and tall man watching me beside a priest, on my wedding day. The colorless cloud of smoke molded again, and this time, the image that it portrayed, took my heart away, an adorably precocious toddler smiling widely with a tooth in its little mouth, as I held it high in my hands.

All of a sudden, the baby vanished, the soft music played in my mind diminished, and a thunderous jolt of lightning struck my brain, sending shock waves all over my neurons. The colorless cloud of smoke turned intense grey, and a black hooded figure emerged out of it, removed its hood to show those pointed teeth and ghostly pupil-less bloodshot eyes which haunted me time and again.

A bony skeleton-like hand protruded from the sleeves of its charcoal black cloak and was about to reach out for me, when the hand vanished along with that demon and the grey cloud of smoke, as though sucked away by a vacuum cleaner. My eyelids flipped open immediately, and my brain shook horribly with an unbearably intense pain similar to the one experienced during a prolonged migraine.

My vision was blurred, and the surroundings emerged spinning around me quickly. I was on the verge of passing out, when a tenderly warm palm was placed on my forehead, it was Madam Maxima's, who made gentle and slow motions across it, causing the vicious pain to terminate within seconds. My vision became crystal clear and I looked at her anxiously, noticing a deep look of concern on her face, as she stood inches away from me…..