The Aftermath of an ***

Dear Kirby, I scrawled across a piece of parchment. I haven't heard from you in a while. I know our last encounter was...not the most civil, but you're still my good friend. I felt like saying more, but at the same time, there wasn't anything more to be said, so I closed it off with a hope to hear from you soon.

I folded the note and placed it in my raven's beak. It was the fourth bird I'd sent out with a letter to Kirby. Hopefully this bird would return unlike the others.

I sighed, stood up, and walked over to my tiny makeshift stove where I brewed my own tea. In the stone pot I boiled bits of maple leaves, lavender, milk weed, and honey dew.

I had a small business, if that's what you'd call it. I sat in my tiny house all day and offered passersby their future. It was a curse I was born with, inherited from my mother. I didn't see it as a gift at all. No one should know what their future is ahead of time. Life just...didn't work like that. If everyone knew what their future was before it happened, they'd sit around doing nothing but waiting for the future to just come to them.

There once was a young man who came to my door, asking to see his future. He wanted to know if he'd find love. When I fell into his soul and read his future, I had no choice but to tell him he would not find love, but instead die a loveless life.

The man, outraged, called me a hag and stomped out of my small shack. Without really wanting to, I kept tabs on him. My customers don't know this, but when I give them their future, they have to give something in return. In my crystal orb swims a piece of each contender's soul. I keep track of them, and watch them go upon their life.

The man I had served was so set on proving me wrong and showing me that he could indeed find love, that as soon as he left he went mate-searching.

He had found a mate all right. She didn't love him though. After a couple months he realized this, that she was only marrying for the money, and slipped a poison in her morning tea. He took a bullet to his head, ending his life without having found any true love.

They never listened. None of them did.

Amethyst, Amethyst... I twitched and shook my head at the voices. Amethyst, where are you? Over here...

"Stop it," I growled through my teeth. I gripped the side of the table.

Amie! Play with me! ...Where did you go? Why'd you leave us, Amie...?

"I didn't, I didn't," I repeated, closing my eyes.

One, two, three, knock on the wall. Children laughed in my mind. Amethyst, come here. I told you not to do that. ...One, two, three, knock on the wall.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" I cried and threw the China in my hands at the wall.

Suddenly there was a rapid pounding on my door.

"Customer serving hours are four to eleven," I called, my voice quavering slightly. "Come back later."

Still, the knocker did not stop. In frustration I walked to the door. "I told you—" My words stuck in my throat as I looked at the dark figure.

"Perhaps you would make an exception just this once?"