“Often.”
“That should be good enough.” He carefully maneuvered the screen over the satin sash, lowered it, and flipped it over. The three seashells now rested on the material. I reached for one and he stopped my hand. “Not yet.”
He replaced the screen in the box, closed it, and set it back on the floor. I studied the three shells. One was a white and pink spiral. One looked like a standard clam shell, though it had a shiny opalescent coating with green and purple and silver. The last one was a large periwinkle. “Okay, what’s the deal here?”
“I soak them in seawater to cleanse them after a reading. So they don’t have other people’s energy and shit all over them. They should be clear for you. I’m gonna ask you to pick them up, one at a time. Hold each shell in your hand, run your fingers over it a little, then put it back down on the material.”
“And that does what? Transfers my secrets to the shells?”
“Look,” he raised his hands. “I don’t know why the shells work. Maybe because they were once part of a lifeform, but all I can tell you is they fucking work.”
“And you figured this out how?”
“There.” He pointed at me. “Now that’s a useful question. When I was a little kid, my mother…my real mother, took me to the ocean for a weekend away. My birthday was coming up, and you remember when you’re little that’s all you’d think about? For weeks before?”
“Sure.”
“So it was a couple weeks before my birthday. We went walking on the beach at low tide one night and I was looking under rocks for crabs, and she was collecting shells. She says ‘Hey, here’s a pretty one’ and handed me a shell. I took it from her, and suddenly I knew I wasn’t getting what I wanted for my birthday. I was pissed.”
“What did you want?”
“A dirt-bike. One of those small ones, a mini-bike. I’d been going on about it forever and my parents never outright said no, so I was sure I’d be getting it. But as soon as I held that shell my mom handed me, I just knew suddenly it wasn’t happening. I looked up at her and said, “You got me a fucking skateboard?”
I laughed. “Did you actually swear?”
“Yeah, I did.” He chuckled. “My dad had a colorful vocabulary and I’d picked up on it. So my mom loses her shit, starts screaming at me, accuses me of going in her bedroom closet. That’s where she was hiding my skateboard. But I never went in there, I just knew.”
“Wow. Weird.”
He nodded, tucking his hair behind his ear. “She wouldn’t believe me, and I got grounded. But it was the start of me figuring out that sometimes I just knew things. As an adult I started using shells as a conduit, and found they work better than anything else. Actually…” He glanced up at me, his lips tightening.
“What?”
“Forget it.”
“Orion, what were you gonna say?”
He shrugged. “Just that, um, Claudette, my foster mother, helped me realize I needed a conduit for this. That’s why I do readings regularly. It’s not just for the money. If I don’t keep it focused and give it a regular channel, I start to pick up impression from people randomly, when I don’t want to. It gets overwhelming and makes me act kind of mean.”
I smirked. “You’re telling me this is nice you? Damn.”
“Shut up. I am nice. I sensed you don’t like me talking about Claudette so I tried to skip that part, didn’t I?”
“I don’t think you’d need psychic powers to deduct I don’t like hearing about the woman my father banged.”
He rolled his eyes. “Anyway, that’s why I use seashells.”
“All right. Got it.”
“Now go ahead. One at a time. Do all three, then we’ll start.”
I did what Orion asked, picking up each seashell, rubbing it a little, and setting it back down. Once I’d done all three, Orion rose up on his knees, rubbing his hands together. “Okay.” He closed the first one in his palm. Breathing deeply, his brows pinched and he shook his head. “Crap.”
“What?” Despite my skepticism, nerves tickled my stomach. “You see something bad?”
“Nah, just disappointed.” He held the shell for a moment longer, then set it down. “Just picked up on some mundane shit. You been thinking about your kids a lot.”
“Oh, shocking, I’m impressed.”
“I told you I already know a lot about you so this might not give me much. Anyway, from that shell I got your emotions. You’re sad and anxious over your relationship with your kids. You feel…” He glanced up at me. “Feel like no one needs you anymore. Like you’re losing everyone.”
My shoulders stiffened. “Moving on.”
“Right, right.” He waved his hands around. He picked up the next shell, and did the same thing, resting it in one palm, cupping his other hand over it. This time he closed his eyes, breathing deeply.
I waited, watching the firelight flicker across his face. I noted the length of his black lashes, the perfect curve of his slightly shadowed jawline, his straight, sculpted nose, nostrils flaring as he breathed. His lashes fluttered as his eyes opened, and he stared at me, orange flames reflecting in his brown irises.
“Well?”
“Let’s skip this one.” He put it down.
“Hang on. Why skip it?”
“Why do you care? You don’t believe in this anyway.”
“So you got nothing from that one.”
“I did, I just…didn’t like it.”
I laughed, but it was a nervous sound. “Now you have to tell me.”
His jaw tightened and he twirled a silky brown curl around his finger.
“Quit twirling your hair, just tell me.”
“Are you scared you’re sick?”
Prickles of ice traveled up my arms. “Is that what you saw? That I’m sick?”
“No.” He shook his head quickly. “I saw that you think you’re sick. Or that you’re worried you might get sick. Something…” His eyes squeezed shut. He picked that same shell up again and rubbed his thumb over it. “It’s like you think there’s something out of your control. At night. When you dream maybe…” His eyes opened. “Nightmares or sleepwalking?”
My mouth gaped open, and Orion perked up. “Does that make sense?”
I thought of my sleepwalking fears, my phone showing up in weird places. My dread that I might be showing signs of Alzheimer’s like my grandmother.
“Kurt, you’re killing me here. Yes or no?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said you’d be honest. If it was nothing, you’d just say no.”
“Okay, fine. I’ve been wondering if I sleepwalk. Things I put one place end up somewhere else the next morning. And my nanna used to sleepwalk when she was sick, so yeah. I’ve been worrying.”
Orion beamed. “Yes! That’s a hit.” He laughed and pointed at me. “That’s a fucking hit!”
“That’s a coincidence.”
“Yeah, okay, whatever. Wait…” His grin slid away. “You’re not sick, are you?”