Work Text:
Madame Calderu's Psychic Readings
The cards told me all about you, honey.
E-Mail: [email protected]
That's what the advert on CraigsList had said when you'd stumbled across it a few weeks ago. You'd almost expected to walk into a literal knife or a sex dungeon when you'd driven here for the first time, a print-out of the ad on your passenger seat and your windshield splattered with rain—the herald of the tempest chasing you. You couldn't turn back.
The place was just a few miles out of town, on the side of a quiet road. Madame Calderu herself had been the most notable oddity of the visit; sat still at the round table in the back, eyes closed, humming faintly as the chimes above the door announced your arrival. She didn't open them until you'd stood right before her. As soon as she did—a bat of long lashes, an arrow through your chest—you'd known you'd be coming back for more. And more. And more…
Week after week, you were on her doorstep, money at hand and need in your purse. Week after week, the tight line of her mouth lifted and curved further when she "sensed your presence approaching", as she put it.
"Ah, there she is!" Madame Calderu greeted you, floating over to breathe a kiss to each of your cheeks and brush your upper arms a few times as if she were about to pull you into a tight hug. Her perfume wafted around you, cedarwood, wild berries, and gave you a natural high. To be near her. To be near a living, breathing thing. "I've been expecting you."
"You always do," you quipped, a mild smile on your lips as you followed her into the wild, overgrown heart of the shop. Warm candles, dozens and dozens of them, dream catchers, totem and charms; like a magpie-nest, full of precious, shiny treasure—and you, coming to rest under her wing.
She'd prepared everything: crystal ball, the tarot deck shuffled, two cups of nettle tea with thin steam tendrils rising and curling above it. Even pulled out the chair for you before taking seat opposite and brushing a white-streaked corkscrew curl out of her face.
"So? What shall we start with?" Before you could respond, swallowing hot tea, she decided for you. "No, no, wait. I need to lay your cards."
The truth was, you didn't believe in tarot or fortune telling, but Madame Calderu didn't know that. You came for the palm reading, for your hands resting gently in hers for ten minutes of heaven. Her services came as a bundle so you had to sit through it all each time before you could have your prize, but you'd grown fond of how graceful she moved, the timbre defining her voice, and her determined passion for the cards. It didn't matter what she did, as long as she spoke to you.
"Set your intention, you know how this works, baby."
"Yeah, not my first rodeo."
Closing your eyes, you focused on the first thing that came to your mind: Madame Calderu, the only remedy to all that was missing that you'd been able to find. Her golden touch, her smile, and how the colour drained from your life as soon as you left her whimsical sphere. You shuffled the stack of cards she handed to you; she took it back, hovered her fingers over it in circular motions, and drew.
"The Celtic cross, if you remember. Your past, present and future, here." Reading glasses low on her nose, she pointed at different parts of the shape in which she'd laid the cards out. "Your conscious and subconscious here. Got it?"
"I suppose."
Madame Calderu's smile felt an awful lot like an eye roll.
"What I see here is betrayal in your past, a hermit in your present. You secluded yourself, for protection, thought it would save you. Hands… are on your mind," she hesitated, tapping her sharp-nailed index finger on the card, her eyebrows pinched together, "touch. But that's only the surface. No. You want something else."
She withdrew her hand, examining the spread as a whole as if to extract its meaning. Her precision had startled you, but you were too much of an atheist in every possible sense to admit that to yourself or her.
"There's something keeping you from receiving what is destined for you."
"Which is?" you heard yourself asking. A first.
Even Madame Calderu was so surprised that she opened her eyes, removed her glasses, and returned from wherever she went when she searched for hidden messages. She studied you, pursed her lips, deepening the surrounding wrinkles, and tilted her head.
"Lack of faith."
"Makes sense," you said, deflating at the obvious yet disappointing answer. "Do the cards elaborate, by any chance?"
"It doesn't work like that, hon." She chuckled and gathered the cards into a stack, placing them aside. "You're gonna have to do the elaborating for yourself."
Her cockiness didn't even bother you anymore, knowing that your favourite part was to come, the reason you spent all your money on this kooky old lady every single week. Though she wasn't a shrink, she was the one keeping you sane. Too eager, you shoved your hands across the table.
"Ah yes, the palm reading." She picked up your hands one by one and weighed them in hers, enveloped them, stroked them with goosebump-inducing care. "Let's see."
You buzzed with anticipation, could barely sit still. Her hands were so warm, except for the heavy rings decorating each finger, soft to the touch, purple-painted nails.
"That's some cold hands," she noted, rubbing them. "Gotta get them warm first, hm?"
Before you could say anything, she squeezed them, held them oh-so-tighly tears sprung to your eyes.
Madame Calderu clicked her tongue. "Oh, sweetie. It's alright. Just… feel my energy streaming into you. Receive."
You nodded, swallowing back the surge of emotion. She didn't say anything more for a while, just warmed you, held you, let you breathe. Her eyes were magic, calm; slow blinks and a faint smile.
"Good girl," she said, casual and patient.
You shivered; warmth blossomed in your chest, spreading through your whole body, even all the way into your fingertips, turning them from cold white to rosy-red.
"There we go." She loosened her grip, you sighed inaudibly at the loss, and put the glasses, attached to beaded chains around her neck, back on her nose to inspect the lines crossing your palms. "Oh, look!" She rubbed her thumb into a particular spot on a crease. "Your life is about to change, and so soon!"
Madame Calderu peered over the rim of her glasses, asking if you knew what it was about. You shook your head, shrugged, swallowed at the intensity of her gaze. She moved on to the next line, adjusting your fingers as she needed, like a gentle massage.
"Sensitive, passionate, starving…" she murmured, as if noting the information to herself instead of telling you, the querent. Her head tilted, nose lifted, thumbs pressed into the mount at the base of your left thumb. It felt sore and knotted, but she lingered there. "Does this hurt?"
"A little?"
"Mh," she hummed, closing her eyes. The feeling deepened, your heart fluttered, and then her breath caught.
"What is it?" you asked, worried about the sudden shift in her.
She shook herself, letting off the pressure point, and gave you a nervous smile. "Nothing, nothing. Lots of blocked energy there, I…" she trailed off.
"Something bad?"
"Surprising, that's all."
Madame Calderu continued but your thoughts had long developed a mind of their own; you stopped paying attention to what she was telling you about your spiritual path and concerned yourself more with the question of what had given her pause. Did she have psychic abilities after all? Had seen or felt something she shouldn't have? Had your subconscious embarrassed you and given away the true reason for your loyalty as her customer?
"Hey!" She snapped her fingers in front of your eyes, leaned back in her chair, and crossed her arms. "You're not even listening."
Your hands felt raw and wounded without her smooth skin soothing against them, your chest cracked open by not more than the sparkle of anger in her deer-brown eyes.
"Sorry," you said, tugging your sleeves all the way down over your knuckles.
"Sorry," Madame Calderu repeated, scoffing the word. "This is your money going to waste, you know?"
"It's not—I mean, it is my money but—"
She quirked an eyebrow, jaw set.
"Well—"
"Divine Mother, spit it out!"
"I don't come here for the readings," you said, the words spilling from you in an anxious ramble, the tears from earlier right back on your waterline and a lump in your throat.
Madame Calderu blinked, speechless, and dropped her arms. "Sweetheart, whatever are you coming here for then?"
The term of endearment calmed you, reassurance that her anger had given way to curiosity, though no less tense and awkward.
"I…" You couldn't bring yourself to say it; rubbed your hands over your jeans. "God's sake..."
"You know what, I'll just make us another cup of tea and you get your shit together," she more or less spat, tossing her glasses on the table and picking up the empty cups. You hadn't heard her use that kind of language up until now. She muttered something indistinguishable as she went through the beaded curtains into the back of the shop.
You assumed she lived there, heard her pottering about and filling the kettle. There'd never been anyone around, no grand children or partner or even friends. You'd only ever been here during business hours, so it might just be that you'd never met them but something told you she was alone. A hermit, like you. Maybe she'd understand.
"So? You done having a stroke?" she said, returning with two steaming cups.
Swallowing, you replied. "Yeah, sorry."
"Enough of that." She sat down, picked up the silver spoon, and stirred her tea. "Just tell me, I don't bite."
Hiding the tremor in your hands, you put them around the cup, staring down into the swirl as you gathered the courage. "You see, um. I live alone."
You looked up, she nodded.
"I don't—see a lot of people. Haven't in… along time. It was—It was nice to just sit with someone again and—"
"And?"
"Hold their hands."
Her features softened at that; she exhaled like a weight had come off her shoulders, tapped the spoon against the rim of the cup, clink clink, and set it down. All calmly, all slowly. "You're telling me you've been coming here every week, paying me half your rent's worth, listening to me yap for an hour… because you're lonely?"
You shrugged helplessly. "Yeah…"
"Aren't you dear." She laughed, took a sip, put it back on the saucer. "I understand now."
"Understand what?"
"Everything." She fiddled with her ring, the big one with the stone. When you'd asked about it she'd told you her Maestra had given it to her, some sort of mentor, said she charged it under the full moon. "I've seen your past, your present andyour future, honey. There's little I don't know about you, but somehow… I missed this."
You smirked without knowing why, just that somehow you felt lighter now that it was out. "Well, you're not a mind reader, are you?"
"No, I'm not," she answered seriously when you'd been joking. "My gift is limited to time—its flow, key moments, shifts…"
"Sounds lonely to me too," you said.
"You're not wrong, sweetie." Madame Calderu eyed you, turning her ring another time. Then she slid her hands across the table again, palms up, offering them to you. "And maybe that is the point."
You placed your hands in hers, slowly entwined your fingers, and squeezed. It were her eyes that glistened now, just a sheen reflecting the candle light. It felt different, more honest, like an exchange, a steady flow that circulated between the two of you.
"I think it is?" you agreed, soaking up her company with every sense you possessed.
"But, baby," her eyebrows knitted together; thumbs drawing crescents over your knuckles, "you don't ever have to pay for this. I'll hold your hands any time you want to. For free."
"I'd like that," you said, bashful, and remained like this a little while longer until you'd both finished your tea, a few more lingering glances had passed, a bit more softness had blunted the edges. You'd reached further in the process, holding on to each other's wrists by now with the other's pulse beating gently under your fingertips.
As you let go of each other—reluctantly—Madame Calderu slipped her Maestra's ring off her finger and pushed it onto yours. "For protection. And to guide you back to me."
"Are you sure?"
"Don't question me," Madame Calderu said with a quiet authority, a brow raised, and gave your hand a last pat before removing herself. "I'm as close to being all-knowing as a mortal can get."
You turned your hand a bit, admiring the golden ring and how it caught the light. It was time to go home, you knew that, but it was warm here. Your empty apartment didn't seem inviting to you now, but you'd have to brave it; work was waiting for you in the morning.
"I… I think I'll have to go now…" you announced, sheepishly looking up from your hand to meet Madame Calderu's eyes. "I'm sorry."
She lifted her hand to your cheek, caressed it with a relaxed smile. "That's alright, baby. You go home now… and come right back when you've got time for a kooky old lady, that good?" Leaning in, she took your face between both her hands now and kissed your forehead.
"Okay," you said, and, at the risk of overstepping, asked, "Tomorrow?"
Madame Calderu wiggled her fingers as you were on your way out, blinking kindly. "Sure thing."