“Who? That guy?” I ask, feigning bewilderment as I turn to look at the bar. It doesn’t help that Rogan is watching us like a cat watches birds that are playing on the other side of the window it’s perched in. “He’s just my stalker, you don’t have to worry about him,” I explain dismissively. “And he’s not why I’m here,” I add.
The man studies me for a moment, and I take in the dark circles under his eyes, the limp plaid shirt that’s hanging from him like he’s lost a bit of weight recently. His golden brown hair is dull, and he keeps spinning the mug in his hands like if he stops the world just might crumble all around him.
I find myself unknowingly reaching out to him with my magic. He’s definitely a Lesser, and his bones don’t reveal to me any kind of illness or cause of the deterioration I sense, but there’s a deep-rooted exhaustion there that makes me want to sing him a lullaby and stand guard over him while he sleeps for a month.
“Then why are you here…”
“Lennox, my name is Lennox, but you can call me Leni,” I supply, and he nods once. “I’m here to help you,” I tell him simply, and a flash of shock moves through his features before moroseness regains its hold on him, and his face sags with gloom.
“And how do you think you can help me?” he presses, the skepticism bleeding out of his words.
“I’m not sure yet, I just met you…”
“Paul,” he provides, and I offer him a kind smile in exchange for his name.
Paul leans back against the cracked pleather of the booth seat, and I can feel that he’s sizing me up, trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing here and what he wants to do about it. “Why would you want to help me?” he questions, and there’s such raw vulnerability in the question that it makes my heart ache for him. I don’t know who he is or what he needs from me, but I can feel that he thinks he’s unworthy, I can feel in that moment how painfully broken he thinks he is. It breaks my heart.
“This will probably sound weird, but I felt pulled here. I felt with everything in me that you needed something or maybe someone, and I just couldn’t walk away from that feeling. So here I am, a complete stranger, sitting in your booth, here to help you with whatever is going on.”
Emotion wells up in Paul’s eyes, but he doesn’t let it escape. I watch quietly as he wrestles with what he’s feeling, and I wonder what has this man feeling so shattered. He looks maybe a handful of years older than me, and although I don’t get the impression that life has been easy, I don’t sense that it’s been overly hard either.
“My Phoebe was like that,” he tells me, his voice cracking on the name. “I’ve never seen a kinder, more compassionate person in all my life, and there are some good people in these parts. She would bend over backward for anyone. It used to drive me nuts, but now…”
It hits me then why Paul is feeling so crushed. He’s lost someone.
“But now...you miss it,” I provide, filling in the blanks from where he trailed off. He nods solemnly, staring at the mug he keeps twisting in his hands as though it’s a lifeline.
“Came home once, and our couch was missing. I thought maybe we’d been robbed, but Phoebe informed me that an elderly woman moved in down the way and she didn’t have a lick of furniture. So what did she do? She gave her some of ours. Then she went around to our neighbors to see what they could part with.
“I’d just gotten home from a ten-hour day. I was ready to shower, put my feet up, and eat some dinner, but just as quick as I walked in, she told me that we needed to trek across town to pick up a mattress for Ms. Briscoe,” he tells me with a hollow chuckle and a shake of his head. “I was so mad at her, but she wouldn’t hear it. Someone was in need, and that just never happened on Phoebe’s watch.”
“She sounds like the best of souls,” I offer.
“She was,” he agrees, and the battle with his emotions starts anew.
I give him time to grieve, silently lending my support in whatever way I can. I don’t say anything, not wanting to minimize his suffering with useless phrases like I’m sorry or It’ll be okay. I know how I felt when my dad died, and there wasn’t a single thing that anyone could do or say that made it hurt any less.
A flash of me sitting in a bathtub, staring dead-eyed at the wall, pops up in my head. Working with Rogan to undo the jinx on Tad unloosened the memory, and now it wants attention that I don’t have the time for. I push the image and thoughts of my father away and focus on the man hurting in front of me as he tries to compose himself.
The velvet pouch of bones warms at my side, and I reach down and untie them from my belt loop. “Paul, can I do a reading for you?” I ask soothingly, tamping down on the nerves that surface as I pull the bag of bones into my lap.
“Like you want to read me a scripture?” he asks, confused and a little testily, and I quickly shake my head.
“No, um...so…it’s more...” I stammer, uncertain how he might take what I’m going to say.
A lot of people think things like this are bad. They get it in their head that it’s voodoo or the work of the devil. Grammy Ruby had way too many stories of people flinging their vitriol at her and what she did. Unfortunately, there’s just no telling where Paul will fall in the spectrum of fine with it or offended. I know if I offer help and he refuses it, my job here is done, but I’m surprised to feel just how vehemently I’m hoping he’ll accept it.
“It may seem a little odd or even unconventional, but I’d like to read my bones for you,” I tell him straight up. I’ve spent a long time resenting magic, of keeping as far away from this world as I could. But it’s time I stop avoiding it or thinking of it as a bad thing myself. It’s time to own it. Good or bad, I’m a Bone Witch.
I place the purple velvet pouch on the table, and Paul stares at it for a moment before his eyes fill with mistrust. My heart drops a little.
“There’s no charge. I don’t want anything from you,” I hurry to explain. “I know this may seem even stranger than a stranger sitting down across from you, but what do you have to lose? I can see that you’re hurting, what if in some small way this can help?” I ask him, gesturing to the waiting bones on the table, my eyes pleading with him to trust me.
His pain-filled blue gaze moves from the purple bag up to me, and after a moment of scrutiny, he sighs and gives me a shrug. “Fine, do whatever.”
Elation slams through me, helping to drown out my worry. I have no idea what this reading will tell him, but I know he needs it. I loosen the strings, opening the pouch. “I’ll need three things from you, Paul, things that mean something to you. I’ll give them back just as soon as I’m done, but it helps me interpret what the bones need you to know.”
He hesitates for a moment, his eyes wandering around the room like he’s wondering who’s watching or what they might think of this whole exchange. I almost think he’s about to change his mind and tell me to get lost, but just as I’m about to try and plead my case again, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a worn-looking penny. Then he pulls a chain from around his neck until a dainty set of rings appears. Carefully he unclasps the chain and pulls the soldered set of rings from it.