Cursed by Lizzy Ford Read Free Book Online

sat to the side, their feel much darker to the point of being disturbing. The distance between the four and two was one of the subtle signs the spirits gave her. These two cards were away from the happy ones. They just didn’t fit the story the others were trying to tell her.
    She chewed her lip.
    “You look like you’re my age,” her client said. The girl had given her name as Tara, and she was well-dressed and gorgeous.
    I wish you’d go back to texting, Adrienne responded silently.
    The client was ignoring her request for silence yet again. She needed to concentrate, but understood repeat customers were always needed in a small shop like this, which meant she had to make small talk.
    “I’m seventeen,” Adrienne said.
    “Me, too!” Tara smiled. “Do you start school tomorrow?”
    “Yeah.” Adrienne clenched her hands under the table, nervous about the new school. She glanced around her room, wishing she’d thought to bring in her small altar to Papa Legba or something to hang on the wall.
    “What do they say?” Tara prodded, her excited gaze on the cards.
    Adrienne picked up one – Death – and Tara gasped.
    “Omigod! What does it mean?”
    “Transition. Death is the ultimate transition to a new state,” Adrienne said, gazing at it. “It means major change is coming.” She looked over the rest of the cards. She set the card down and tapped the one next to it. “Did you bring someone with you today?”
    Tara nodded.
    “This card ain’t yours,” Adrienne said. She placed the Death card aside. “This one ain’t neither.” She moved the Devil card over. “Sometimes, someone else’s energy sticks to you when you come in.”
    “So you can read my brother’s cards, too?” Tara asked.
    “Not fully.” Adrienne couldn’t take her eyes off the cards for a moment. They felt … wrong. Not bad, more like the spirits thought she needed to see them. On instinct, she drew another and set it beside the first two.
    “He’ll totally kill me for this, but what do his say?”
    “This is him,” Adrienne held up the Devil.
    Tara giggled.
    “It don’t mean he’s bad.” Adrienne rolled her eyes. “It means he feels trapped by something. This one means it comes from his past.” She held up the new card, Six of Cups, then the Death card. “And this means he is about to face change. Something really, really important is gonna to happen to him.”
    “Wow,” Tara breathed. “He’s so smart and athletic. I bet he gets a scholarship or something!”
    Not sure the cards are giving good news . Adrienne kept the observation to herself. The energy lingering around Tara wasn’t enough to provide her a full picture, but she suspected the cards were a warning of some kind.
    She shook her head. “Okay. Onto yours.” She drew two more to replace the Devil and Death.
    “Where in the South are you from?” Tara asked, showing no sign she was about to let Adrienne have the quiet she preferred.
    “Atlanta,” Adrienne replied. “Just moved here to live with my daddy.”
    “Cool.”
    Before Tara could interrupt her again, Adrienne rushed on. “Your cards are real good. You have a lot of positive opportunities in your near future, to include making a difference in someone’s life.”
    “Hmm. Boyfriend?” Tara asked hopefully.
    Adrienne hesitated. “Not near term, no. These are more focused on your family and school. This will be a very good year for you.”
    “I guess that’s good.”
    Tara was beautiful and wearing gorgeous clothes that fit too well to come from consignment stores where Adrienne shopped. She didn’t seem like someone who had trouble with boys, unlike Adrienne, who had the issue of a family curse that was hanging over her. It made for awkward introductions with boys back in Atlanta, and she guessed that the guys in New Orleans would be even less willing to date her. People in Georgia just thought she was strange while the people here knew too much about voodoo for her to hope that they