“You’ll pass?” Rini says.
“Can we do it tomorrow?” I ask.
“No, we’re skipping it. I don’t need someone to tell me how compatible I am with my wife. We’ve been together for a decade,” Adam says.
“Same here,” Farah says. “Joe and I will probably opt out as well.”
“Oh, well then. That leaves individual readings for Margot and Aimee,” Rini says.
“Right now isn’t a good time,” Margot snaps. “Can I do mine after dinner?”
“I’d be happy to go now,” I offer.
“All right,” Rini says. “I’ll see the rest of you for dinner at seven p.m.”
I follow Rini into her study, but as she disappears into the room ahead of me, I recall the feeling I had as she slid off the edge of the cliff this morning.
“I’m a thrill seeker too, but what you pulled earlier? That was insane,” I say.
Rini tilts her head at me. “What do you mean?”
“Falling from the cliff like that. We all thought you were dead.”
“I am sorry the exercise frightened you. It’s meant to jolt you into action. That’s masculine energy.”
I take the seat across from Rini at her desk, the same chair I sat in with Farah yesterday. “I wasn’t looking for an apology. And that woo-woo stuff sounds good, but what’s really going on here?”
The foul mood I saw in Adam and Margot seems to have seeped its way into me. I don’t know if it’s this house or Rini that sets it off. Which reminds me of another question that’s been hanging over my head. “Do I know you?”
“No, we’ve never met.”
That feels like an answer that’s not really an answer.
“Are you hiding something from us? You are. I can feel it.”
Rini looks unnerved by my rapid-fire accusations. She wanted masculine energy, but even I’m surprised. My normal impulsiveness has taken a dark turn. She glances over her shoulder at the bookcase behind her. My gaze lands on a trio of books that appear out of place among the leather-bound rows. My grandmother had shelves like that, but the third one was a dummy where she hid jewelry and the occasional box of Mallomars. Alone in this big house, entertaining all sorts of strangers, Rini might have protection in there, like pepper spray, or something stronger.
“This sounds like classic projection,” Rini says. “Are you hiding something?”
I read her reaction wrong. She’s not defensive—she’s attacking me. “Me hiding something from you?”
“From me, from everyone, from yourself?”
Rini’s right. I sigh. She’s not an evil mastermind, she’s got a reputation to uphold. Her astrology brand is expected to be a little witchy. “I’ve been feeling off since we left the city. I can’t shake some things I’d rather not remember.”
“Ah, well, that sounds like the emotions conjured up by the Mercury Retrograde we’re experiencing.”
“Isn’t that an excuse people use when their Insta live feeds glitch?”
“I’m talking about the impulse to go within, to revisit the past. Most people ignore that to plow ahead, but you seem tuned in.”
I shake my head, resisting the urge to overshare. That type of influencer annoys me. Why put that kind of bad energy out onto the internet? Even though this is a private reading, and some people would see it as the perfect opportunity to unload their darkest secrets and their innermost desires, I believe that as soon as you speak the words, they are released into the world. They are out there for someone else to intercept, to hear, to know, even if you don’t tell them directly. And yet, I don’t want to sleep on this opportunity to get clarity.
“It’s not a good feeling. It feels like I could lose everything, or that maybe I already have and I don’t know it yet.”
“Every loss makes space to gain something new, different, or better. The scales always balance,” Rini says.
She begins to describe my Libra Moon and the scales of justice, but I can’t absorb a word she’s saying.
Abruptly, I stand from the green leather chair and collapse onto the couch against the wall. The champagne and goat cheese sour in my stomach, and I feel like I might get sick. I throw my arm over my face and stare into the darkness of the crook of my elbow, knowing I’m going to lose control of this impulse.
“Ten years ago there was a girl I wanted gone, and I haven’t seen or heard from her since,” I confess.
To prove my earlier point, as soon as the words are out of my mouth, something is unleashed. A heaviness in my chest. A weight that makes it hard to breathe. What have I done?
I had stopped thinking about her for a long time. Adam and I forgave each other and moved on completely. She never entered my mind. She was a mere blip in our story. But when my third daughter was born, I found myself replaying those days in the moments before I fell asleep from exhaustion. She took on a lead role in my recast memories. So I started looking for her. I wanted to forget her, not stalk her. To update my visions in hopes the old ones would be replaced if I had a picture of her now. But I found nothing. Nothing on Google. Nothing on social media. Maybe she’d blocked me, but it felt like something worse.
“Did you—?” Rini stutters.
“No, no! I barely laid a hand on her. But it’s possible I willed something bad into happening.”
“Do you really believe that?”
I shrug. I don’t know what to believe anymore. But I suspect I’m stronger than I give myself credit for sometimes.
I feel a whoosh of air as Rini takes the seat next to the couch. Then she takes me by the shoulders, her thumbs pressing into the soft parts of my neck. This is more intense than the baby crying in the shower. I can feel this. The room closes in around me.
I open my eyes and sit up, ready to defend myself. Rini is next to me in her chair, one leg crossed over the other. The haunting strikes again.
