Only a Breath Apart

by Katie McGarry

  “I figured that would be the easiest way to answer any questions. Plus I like kissing you.”

  She draws back and that shy lift of her lips makes me want to kiss her again. Scarlett eases to the swing and fidgets with the rusting metal chain. “I like kissing you, too.”

  “I can live with that.” I wink at her and wonder if her parents would notice if I kept her here. “You’re daring, Tink, but sneaking out during the day? That’s hard-core.”

  “Dad took Mom and Isabelle into Lexington to go shopping.”

  Interesting. Her parents don’t leave her alone much. “And you rebelled?”

  “No, Dad said he’s going to give me space. It’s his attempt to show me he’s changed.”

  “Space?”

  “Space.” She worries her lower lip. “He also apologized for forcing my date with Stewart. Do you think people can change?”

  She’s asking if her dad can change, and I’m not the right person to ask, but there’s a growling inside me. A warning that I’ve heard these words before and the fallout caused a scar on my back and blood in my nightmares.

  It’s the middle of the day, blue sky, sun shining, but a darkness creeps into my peripheral vision. The ghosts who haunt me, they whisper in my ear and threaten my sanity. People can’t change. No one can change. But I see the hope in her eyes, and I don’t want to be the one to snuff it out. “I don’t know.”

  Scarlett’s lips flatten, and she looks to the ground. I don’t want the demons of her dad to haunt her. Not now and not with me. “What do you want to do with your few hours of freedom? We can head inside if you’d like.”

  Scarlett glances at my trailer, and I have to hide my smile at how her face turns crimson. Don’t have to be Glory to know she’s contemplating me and her alone in a bed.

  “Or we can head to Glory’s,” I suggest. “She wants you to practice palm reading on me.”

  “You’re going to let me practice on you?”

  Because that’s how much I like her. “Yeah.”

  She laughs and the sound soothes my battered soul. “Then let’s go.”

  SCARLETT

  Jesse and I had to wait twenty minutes outside of Glory’s while she finished a reading. We climbed trees and raced each other to the top. I laughed until it hurt to smile, and Jesse reached out to touch me when he felt like I was going too fast or too high. A gentle caress along my calf, my ankle, and each and every touch sent licks of fire along my veins.

  There’s a push and a pull within me. A need to let him touch me, to let him caress and kiss. Then there’s a part that’s terrified if I let him, I’ll literally explode from excitement.

  Sitting on a thick branch, I lean against the trunk of the tree and listen as Jesse talks about his frustration that another family farm in the county has been sold to a corporate farm. He sits beside me, his hand on my knee, and I wonder if he can feel how my heart beats erratically under his touch.

  “People don’t understand why it’s a problem. By cutting out the family farm, you’re cutting out competition. If there’s no competition then the big companies can drive up food prices. When corporate farms take over an area then you’ll see a lot of local economies collapse. It’s like a food chain. You take one part of the chain out, and the rest can collapse.”

  Jesse is very passionate as he talks, and I can hear the ache in his voice.

  “Is that who Marshall wants to sell the land to?” I ask. “A corporate farm?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve had at least two guys knocking on my trailer door representing the companies telling me that when I want to sell, they’ll buy. It’s not right, Tink. Not right at all.”

  “Then you gain ownership of this land, and you farm it.”

  Jesse picks a leaf and shreds it into small pieces. “I want to, but it’s going to be tough to compete against the big companies. They have the resources to purchase the heavy equipment, and I don’t.”

  “There must be some way for you to do this,” I say.

  “I need to figure it out fast. May is going to be here before we know it.”

  “Have you contacted the county extension office? I overheard Dad say once that they work with the University of Kentucky agriculture department on things concerning local farms. Maybe they know someone who can give you some advice.”

  A car engine starts and that’s our cue. Jesse and I slip to the ground and head over to the cottage.

  “You were flying today, Tink,” Jesse says as we climb the steps of Glory’s house. His green eyes flare with the recklessness that belongs only to him.

  “Isn’t that what Tink is supposed to do?” I ask. “Fly?”

  “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

  It feels wonderful. “I thought Peter Pan was supposed to dare her to keep going.” I playfully poke his arm. “You’re going soft. We could have gone higher in the last tree.”

  Jesse’s response is a wink as he opens the door and waves for me to head in. Even though I work for Glory, it’s weird to enter without knocking. Jesse lops in behind me and passes me for the kitchen. I follow and discover Glory at the table in a ray of sunlight. She’s looking out the window, and I’d willingly give an arm to experience the peace she currently wears.

  “Hello.” Glory turns away from the light. “Would you like some tea?”

  We both decline. I’ll admit I’m tired of tea, yet Glory makes some anyway, explaining that she’s giving me lavender tea because lavender resonates with the third eye, the center of my clairvoyance.

  Glory turns to the stove, and I glance over at Jesse, who is leaning against the wall. He’s all relaxed and so sexy it hurts. I mouth, Help me. He merely offers me a crooked grin along with a half shrug.

  She pours a cup for herself, a cup for me, and Jesse declines with a flat, “No.” Obviously, no third-eye cleansing for him today. Just me, Glory and the room full of angels I, in theory, can’t see, but, once again in theory, will be able to “sense” soon.

  We finish our tea, and Glory announces that I’ll be reading Jesse’s palm at her table in the living room. “Jesse is a tough read, and we need as many things as possible that will eat negative energy since he’ll be uncooperative, even for you.”

  As we leave the sunshine of the kitchen, everything seems darker in the living room, even with the lit candles, shimmering crystals and glowing salt rocks that Glory says she purchased to help with Jesse’s negative extended presence in her home since I’ve been working for her.

  He snorts, and I have to try hard to not smile.

  “Sit in my chair,” Glory says to me. I do and have an internal image of being a five-year-old sitting in the teacher’s seat. It’s not that the chair is too tall or too big, as much as this is a position of authority, and I feel as powerful as an ant looking down the mean end of a shoe.

  “Sit, Jesse,” Glory says in reprimand and with a glare. He sits and waggles his eyebrows at me. Not an ounce of him takes this seriously, and that makes me intimidated.

  “Why are you having me do this?” I ask.

  Standing beside me, Glory grins. “Because I’m paying you.”

  Good point. I have a nice stash of cash in a shoebox under my bed, thanks to this job. If she wants to pay me to learn reading palms, I’ll take the job.

  “You have the gift to sense the spiritual realms,” Glory says. “I’ve seen it in your aura since you were a child, but negativity in your life has blocked your chakras. You’ve wound yourself tight, protecting yourself like the layers of an onion. What I’m doing is slowly peeling each thin layer away so you can connect again with your true self.”

  “Glory gave me a twenty-dollar cash card for my last birthday,” Jesse says. “My gift is better than yours.”

  Ignoring him, Glory says, “Give her both of your hands, but she needs to start with your dominant hand. Palm up.”

  Jesse frowns, but he does what she’s demanded.

  Glory takes a seat next to me. “There is an art to reading a palm. You need
knowledge, but if you’re going to make money at it—”

  “You mean be a con,” Jesse interrupts.

  “Be a businesswoman,” Glory corrects. “There is an artistry, a performance aspect. You must lean on your knowledge of palm reading and your link to the spiritual world while making sure that your client understands what is happening in your head. Palm reading takes great concentration, but the longer you’re silent and searching for the truth, the more impatient people become and believe they aren’t getting what they paid for. We will take things slow, but I will need you to try to communicate with Jesse as you connect with the spiritual realm. Now take his hand.”

  I have officially left the freeway of sane and taken an off-ramp to weird. Yet I take Jesse’s hand in mine and try to ignore the way my heart beats faster when he brushes his fingers seductively along my own.

  “First, you meditate,” Glory says in a soft voice. “The more you do this, the faster you’ll be able to establish your link with the spiritual realm. Don’t worry about fast now. Close your eyes, and focus on your breaths in and your breaths out. Become aware of your skin, how it stretches around your bones, how it fits, and then I want you to move inward. Become aware of your muscles relaxing, warming, like stepping into a hot bath.…”

  I breathe in, I breathe out and my entire body grows heavy, like in a sleep state. My frame gives a slight tremble, like a radio frequency of a buzz, one I’ve never noticed before, and with another breath in, I realize it’s my soul, the center of my being.

  “Now let go.” Glory’s voice is airy, as if she’s speaking more in my mind than in my ear. I do what she asks and breathe out, letting go of my body, and I become so light that I float.

  “Without opening your eyes, feel Jesse’s hand, and without breaking your link, your concentration, tell me what you discover.”

  It’s weird to move my fingers after being so still.

  “You have to talk, Ms. Copeland. You need to focus and speak at the same time.”

  “His hand is warm,” I say. “Firm, like a rock.”

  “What does that mean?” Glory asks.

  “He has energy and strength. Endurance.”

  “What else does it mean?”

  My eyes snap open and Jesse’s watching me with curious green eyes. I swallow because I don’t want to say what it also means.

  Glory rubs her hands together for longer than seems necessary and then places one on the skin of my arm. Her touch strangely burns and sends a jolt through me. The connection to the floating sensation I had started to lose returns.

  “I also picked Jesse for you to read because he’s not easily offended, are you, Jesse?”

  “I’d have to believe for it to offend me. Give me your worst, Tink. I can take it.”

  “Good, now tell me what else having a hard hand means,” Glory says.

  I find courage and push forward. “It means he doesn’t adapt to new situations easily, and he’s not a fan of new ideas.”

  “Are you saying I’m stubborn?”

  I can’t stop the smile that spreads across my face, and I have to inhale to stay centered. “But his skin is soft.” It’s not that there aren’t calluses on his hand from hard work or that he isn’t strong, but the texture of his skin has a smooth quality.

  “Which means?” Glory pushes.

  “That he’s sympathetic.”

  “So what does that mean for his character strengths and weaknesses?”

  “Soft skin brings out the best.”

  “Tell me what his dominant mounts are,” Glory says.

  There are seven mounts on the hand, the mounts being the rising and falling of the flesh on the palm. The mounts that are raised higher than others are considered strong. I brush my fingers along the mounts of his hands, paying more attention to his right hand than his left, as Jesse favors his right hand. “Mars. Jesse is a warrior.”

  “That sounds promising,” Jesse says.

  I like good news, and I relax. “Because of the fine skin, it means you’re brave, honest, direct, resilient, loyal and—” My cheeks burn red.

  “It also means you’re sexual,” Glory adds, and I want to crawl under the table. “Ms. Copeland obviously read that part of you loud and clear.”

  Though his face is somber, I can tell he’s laughing at me and I playfully kick his shin.

  “Now take a look at the lines of both his hands.”

  I take my time studying Jesse’s left hand. I then study his right. The chair beneath me jerks.

  “Whatever it is, say it aloud,” Glory says.

  I don’t know how. “What if you see something you think will upset them?”

  “Then you find a way to focus on the positive until you discover a way to nicely tell them the negative. Depending upon the situation, you have to decide if you’re going to keep information to yourself. That’s when I really need my angels to guide me. Not everyone is ready to hear the truth that’s in front of them. But you don’t need to worry about that right now, because as I told you, Jesse can handle whatever it is you have to say.”

  “It’s okay,” Jesse says, but his hands become tense in mine. “It doesn’t bother me that you know that I have detention next week.”

  That oddly captures my attention. “Why do you have detention?”

  “Because Leo and I were making noises in Calculus.”

  “Noises?” And in Calculus, of all places. With a teacher who has two hearing aids and hates anyone under the age of twenty-one.

  “I made a weird sound by mistake, and Leo wanted to see if we could replicate it.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  Glory squeezes my arm. “Don’t ask him why, reconnect with the universe and have the angels tell you the answer.”

  Doing what I’m told, I close my eyes and think of Jesse in the back of class with Leo by his side. I think of Jesse making some sort of noise. I see them both laughing and my lips twitch with their joy—joy in amusing themselves in a boring class. Their joy of sharing a tight friendship. The joy of something so simple making them laugh, and then other emotions appear in my mind. Emotions so strong that they almost create visual pictures of sadness and loneliness.

  I open my eyes. “You continued to make noises because you think Leo is sad.”

  A shadow crosses over Jesse’s face, and I have to strengthen my grip when he moves.

  “Now tell him what you saw that upset you,” Glory says.

  I don’t want to, but regardless, I take the plunge. “Your left hand, your weaker hand, is supposed to be who you were born to be. The life you were meant to live. And your right hand, your dominate hand, is what you’ve actually done with your life, the events that have shaped you and where you are heading because of your choices.”

  Jesse pulls back, and I have to hold on to him again. He wants this to end, I want this to end, yet I’m drawn to continue. I’m curious and consumed with seeing the things in front of me I have never noticed before. As if for the first time in my life, I’ve been introduced to the color red.

  But, to be honest, I don’t fully understand what I’m looking at. I don’t quite understand how to decipher the lines. I do notice the difference in the palms, though, a huge difference. “This says who you are now is completely different from who you were born to be.”

  I glance to his right hand and fear drowns out the pulse that was in my ears. Jesse has islands on his right palm. Several islands at the start of the lines. More islands than I do. His lines—there are too many and they are so deep and too well defined and—

  Glory reaches over, curls Jesse’s fingers into a ball and pushes him away from me. “That’s enough for today. We’ll learn more about lines with somebody else.”

  But this has nothing to do with lines. This has to do with the shadow of fear in Jesse’s eyes. “What happened to you?”

  Jesse places his hands to where I can no longer see them. “Your showmanship is spot-on. If you decide to forgo college, you’d make a great con.”

/>   “I don’t want to be a con,” I say.

  “Then you’ll be great at whatever you decide to do.” Jesse stands and goes for the boxes of necklaces and bags of tea Glory wants me to price before her next street fair. He lifts two as if they weigh nothing. “I’m going to take these out. Take your time wrapping up with Glory.”

  Jesse heads out and the screen door slams shut behind him. I watch through the window as he places the boxes in the truck then leans his back against the tailgate. His shoulders slump as if he’s carrying a heavy unseen load.

  I fall back into the chair. “What just happened?”

  One by one, Glory blows out the burning candles. “You allowed yourself to be in tune with your psychic abilities. I told you that you were gifted.”

  None of that I believe. Yes, the reading was bizarre, but what I meant was … “Why is Jesse afraid? It’s Jesse. He fears nothing.”

  Glory slips into the seat Jesse abandoned. “He fears the curse.”

  She says it so bluntly that I’m unnerved. “Jesse doesn’t believe in the Lachlin curse.”

  “What is a curse?”

  “A mark placed on you that something bad will happen.”

  “Mediate on that. In the meantime, keep reading, and I’ll teach you more about the lines the next time you come by. You should be very proud of yourself today. I know I am.”

  I slowly comb my fingers through my hair and knot them in the ends. The compliment causes a sense of pride, but it also confuses me. “Can you expand upon what to do when you see something bad in someone’s palm?”

  Glory is pensive, quiet for so long that I wonder if she heard my question. “Do you know what a self-fulfilling prophecy is?”

  “When someone tells you something is going to happen in your future, you believe it and it happens because you make choices in that direction.”

  She leans forward. “Give me your palms.”

  I do, and she holds them in both of her hands, stroking her thumbs over the lines. “As you know, the weaker hand shows what God intended us to become. The right hand shows what has happened and where we are going based on our current choices. Did you know the lines on your palm change?”