Page 25 of The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth

Chapter Twenty-One

When Mariah left Henry and Veronica at the grocery store, she smirked a little that both of them thought she was afraid to go in.

Which was ridiculous. She had been in grocery stores a million times before the one time that it went bad, and had no feelings of worry or panic going into one.

Not that she actually had gone inside one since the thing, but she didn’t worry about it.

Inside, it was similarly unadorned. No beaded curtain, no paisley scarves draped over the sofas. Just a big orange cat on a glass case that held earrings. Bookshelves lined one wall, and there was a scent of strawberries in the air.

“Hello, there,” she said to the cat, reaching out to touch his big head. He butted against her palm and leaned in to get an ear scratch. His fur was thick and soft. “You’re a good kitty.”

She’d always wanted a cat, but her mother said—rightly—that it would be unfair to an animal to leave it all the time. “Maybe I need a kitty in my life.”

“Two are better,” a woman said, coming out of the back, which seemed to lead to an apartment. At the end of the hallway, Mariah glimpsed a kitchen with a red table. The woman was short and round, wearing a very ordinary matched set, top and pants. Her hair was wild white corkscrews.

“Where’s the other one?”

The woman pointed to a high shelf, where a black cat perched, the end of his tail swaying back and forth. He watched them with big yellow eyes. “Jasper. And this is Marcus.”

“Pretty.” Now that she was here, her heart felt squashed and terrified.

“Come in for a reading, have you?”

Mariah shrugged. “Maybe?”

“You have or you haven’t,” she said practically. “I can’t promise to give you cheery predictions, but most people get some answers.”

“Okay. Yeah. Yes.”

The woman gestured, and Mariah followed her to the kitchen. It smelled of coffee and fresh baking, a reassuring scent. In the middle of the room was a gleamingly restored chrome-and-Formica red table with matching vinyl chairs. “This is spectacular,” Mariah remarked, hand flat on the surface.

“Oy, I love the era. All them clean lines. I did it m’self.”

“Impressive.”

The woman sat down with a huff, no cards or paper or anything. “I’m Hortense,” she said. “What’s your name, sweet?”

“Mariah.”

“I don’t usually like to answer specific questions,” she said, “but if you want something in particular, hold it in your mind, and let’s see what comes up.”

“Okay.” Mariah tried to think of what she wanted to ask, but all that showed up was a great big question mark, almost comically pointed.

Hortense took Mariah’s hands. The woman’s hands were cool and soft. Mariah had the fleeting thought that she liked Tyler’s method better, just opening up to the spirit side and getting on with it. Not this touchy—

The woman’s hands were getting hot. Mariah looked at them to see if they were on fire, but it was just her fingers, her palms, looking 100 percent ordinary.

“Close your eyes, Mariah,” she said. “Focus on your reason for being here.”

Mariah did as she was told, feeling unexpectedly emotional.

Her reason for being here was the great question, wasn’t it?

Why was she here still if she’d lost the one thing she’d been doing her whole life?

Her mother had been a great believer in purpose, in karma and dharma and all those ideas Rachel had picked up in India.

In truth, Mariah wasn’t sure which was which, dharma as purpose? Karma as ... punishment?

“I’m getting a lot of turmoil,” Hortense said. “Chaos and noise, people ... Wait.” She paused. “So quiet. It’s unnaturally quiet.” She made a pained noise. “Fear,” she said breathlessly. “So much fear. So much loss—

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” she cried, pulling her hands away, curling them up into fists as if to close the channel. “I can’t,” she said.

“You can’t read for me?” Mariah echoed. “I need help!”

Hortense straightened, one palm on her diaphragm.

She shook her head. “There’re too many voices, and many of them are at a moment of great confusion and pain.

” She winced and touched her temple. “Your question isn’t clear enough, so they’re all clamoring.

” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, you have to go. ”

“This was stupid,” she said, standing abruptly. It was hard to storm anywhere with a cane and a limp, but she did her best.

“Wait,” Hortense said. “A woman with dark hair says the bookstore will give you some help.”

A woman with dark hair. Gooseflesh raised the hairs on her arms. “The bookstore?” Mariah frowned.

“That’s all I have.”

Mariah nodded. “All right.” She dug in her pocket for some pound notes.

“No,” Hortense said. She took Mariah’s hand. “I feel your pain, love, but you’ve got some work to do to shed the past.”

Mariah blew air between her lips. “Yeah, I didn’t need a psychic to tell me that.”

Tangled and overheated from the thwarted encounter, she tried not to cry as she called up the map on her phone. It was stupid to believe in all this crap, anyway, so why did she keep trying to get answers this way?

She tumbled right back to the dark place she’d been after the encounter at the café, and no matter how she slapped them away, tears kept sloshing from her eyes, annoying and embarrassing.

Get your shit together, she told herself sternly. She could just imagine the hoots and hilarity she’d get from the old boarding crowd if they knew she’d done that. Find your grit.

Shaking herself physically, she coughed and focused on the address where Henry and Veronica waited at a café.

It had an old-world vibe, with Middle Eastern music on the speakers and tables crowded together in the room.

It looked like it had been here forever, in the menus and the decor.

A host showed them to a four-top by the window and brought them a carafe of water.

It wasn’t quite Indian and not quite Persian, but a mix of both. Mariah realized she was starving, and ordered hummus and olives for the table before the host left. “How was the grocery store?” she asked.

“Loved it,” Veronica said. “What did you get up to?”

She shrugged. “Just browsing.”

Henry said, “We found the address and it turned out to be an abandoned bookstore.”

The bookstore is the key. “What?” A shiver ran up the back of her neck. “What bookstore?”

“We don’t really know. Someone named Ms. Irani ran it and went back to India, so it closed.”

“That name sounds familiar.”

“It does not match the woman at the café,” Veronica said, “but when we get back to the hotel, I can run it through some Google searches and see if we get hits to anything else.” She’d been flicking through emails on her phone and scowled. Her cheeks went bright red.

“Everything okay?”

Veronica closed the app and stuck the phone in her back pocket. “Fine.”