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WHAT SHE VALUES LEAST

The shades have been drawn over the windows. Reflected light from the sole candle quivers on the ceiling, as if a trembling spirit hovers above ten-year-old Vida and the robed mystic.

With legs as massive as bedposts and a slab top, the kitchen table has most recently been painted pea-soup green, but a Joseph’s coat of colors is revealed through the many nicks and scratches, testifying to previous incarnations.

Vance Burkhardt rents the run-down house fully furnished. Though many of his tenants are on the dole or engaged in enterprises condemned by the law, as well as being users of addictive substances that don’t come cheap, they never steal the furniture because it has little value and is too heavy to be moved easily. Mr. Burkhardt says he chose each item at various country auctions based on just three requirements: that it be ugly, be badly scarred or poorly repaired, and be too heavy to inspire his indolent tenants to steal it.

Vida assumes that the house is often dirty and smelly, but the current tenant, the nameless woman, appears to have scrubbed into every corner. Nothing is tacky to the touch, and the air is sweet.

With her hood draped behind her and raven-black hair framing her ageless face, the woman opens the opaque plastic bag that Vida gave her. The paperback book slides out onto the table.

“A book is what you value least?” the seer asks.

“Not all books. I love books. But not that one.”

“What is wrong with this one?”

“It’s full of meanness and anger, and it wants me to believe things that aren’t true.”

“You always recognize truths for what they are and lies for what they’re not?”

“Who doesn’t?” Vida asks.

“Legions,” says the seer.

“Well, but will you take this as payment?”

“I always accept whatever currency seekers bring to me. By their payment I know them entirely. Once I know them, I can tell them what they have come to hear, although they might be surprised to hear it. In this case, however, in order to know you, to fully know you, I must read the book to consider your assessment of the author’s intent.”

Disappointed, Vida says, “How long will that take—a week, two weeks?”

“I’m not a slow reader, dear. Return at nine tomorrow morning. Now, as a reward for your patience, I will tell you something you don’t know.”

Vida sits up straighter in her chair. “Something to come?”

“No. Something of the past that prevented something that might have come to pass. You know that the man who shot your father five years ago was hit by your father’s return fire. Both died. No one told you that the man your father shot did bad things to little girls. They felt you were too young to understand. What your father didn’t know—couldn’t know—is that if the man he killed had lived, one of the girls that monster would have later assaulted was you. Your father died not only for all the children who would have been victims—he died as well for you, whom he loved with all his heart.”

Shaking with emotion, with sorrow and fear and wonder, and with confusion, Vida pushes her chair back from the table and gets to her feet. “How? How can you know?”

“Past, present, and future are one. To know what’s coming is to know what has been. It’s important that you know what your father’s sacrifice prevented, as you will see on your next visit.”

Vida turns from the table and finds herself on the far side of the county road, on the dirt lane leading home.