“No,” Rosa said. “I told you, it’s yours now. You’re the next in line.”
“So you keep saying. What if I don’t want to?”
Rosa cackled, her dark eyes snapping with amusement. “You can’t fool me, girl. You’ve felt the call. Even if you did need a good push now and then.”
“It was you.” Georgie felt a strange mixture of relief and annoyance. “I wasn’t imagining it, when I was doing the reading for Jenny. And—” she stopped, eyeing the old woman. She had been going to say “—and you were there when I was reading for Scott,” but that was more…private.
Rosa didn’t do private. “And your Leo, too, yes.”
“I can’t do readings with you looking over my shoulder like that.”
“Once you open up to it fully, I won’t have to.”
Which probably meant that, for a while, she could expect to have Rosa butting in whenever a reading didn’t go the way it was supposed to. It would be like having an irascible genie living with you. Except she couldn’t stash Rosa in a lamp and seal her in with a cork.
“I just want to enjoy life on the road and boost sales in the vintage van division,” she said. “You heard me out there. I’m not a real gypsy fortune-teller, like you.”
The look Rosa gave her was half exasperated and half superior. “Look into the crystal ball. See what it tells you.”
For a moment Georgie contemplated refusal, but the crystal ball in her hands hummed again and it seemed to be beyond her power to resist. Slowly, she unwrapped it and laid the black velvet cloth on the bed.
The mist inside the crystal swirled and leapt.
Georgie felt herself grow warm, and some part of her went to meet the knowledge that lay within that mist.
She had to go to California.
Her forehead creased, and she fought it.
NO. She had been planning to head south, not west.
Los Angeles. There was something waiting for her in L.A.
Inside her something shifted, and, coming from somewhere else, Georgie felt a wave of grief, and the need. She closed her eyes and slumped.
Dammit.
“You see?” said Rosa. This time her voice was quiet, almost hypnotic. “You feel the call. You must go; there is no choice.” Her gnarled old hand reached out and touched Georgie. Strangely, her touch was reassuring. “Stop fighting it, girl.”
“Is this what it was like for you? Did you have to just—just travel around, letting the crystal ball decide where to go?”
Rosa laughed, her harsh cackle back again. “Good heavens no. Sometimes it called me. The rest of the time, I went where I fancied - or where the family wanted to go. Life isn’t all about duty, girl.”
When Georgie looked up, she was startled to see her great-grandmother wink.
“Your Leo is out there, too. Hadn’t you better go find him?”
Dammit.
Interfering great-grandmas…
“Well, girl. Are you good to go?”
Georgie gave up. “Yes, Rosa. I’m good to go.”
Note from the Author
Dear Reader,
About eighteen months before I started writing about Georgie, two things happened that eventually came together and resulted in this book…and the rest of the Gypsy Caravan Cozy Mystery Series.
The first thing: I was traveling with my husband in our own RV (which is actually a modern caravan, or trailer) and we stopped at an RV park in a small country town. It happened to be the day after a festival, and one of the first things we saw was a fantastic old gypsy caravan. I discovered later that it was called a Bowtop van, and it had been rescued from obscurity and pressed into service by a gypsy fortune-teller. She took it to various markets and towns, and set up a tent nearby to tell fortunes; she used the van for sleeping.
I took photos, thought how great it was, and moved on to explore the rest of the country.
Fast forward a year or so, and we were in an entirely different part of the country—and this time, we found ourselves in an RV park surrounded by gorgeous vintage vans. I was completely won over. I took photo after photo, and chatted to lively women dressed in retro fashions and cats-eye sunglasses, visited rockabilly events, and enjoyed afternoon tea eaten from delicate plates with floral retro patterns. I realized that this was a whole lifestyle for some people: vintage vans, vintage cars, and vintage clothes.
A few months after that, I decided I’d write a mystery series—a cozy mystery series, that would actually be more cozy puzzles, because I didn’t really want to have a corpse in each story. Hmm, I thought, who could the sleuth be? Where could I have these stories take place?
In a variety of locations, I thought. Someone could be traveling around, as I like to do, and find a mystery—or puzzle—in each place. That’s when everything suddenly came together. Travel, vintage and retro vans, and a gypsy fortune-teller who finds herself solving mysteries!
So here you are, at the end of the first book in the series. If you’ve enjoyed it, I’d really appreciate it if you would give a few minutes of your time and leave an honest review on the book page.
* * *
** Don’t forget…I have a FREE book for you! **
Read more about Great Grandma Rosa…
Whether she wanted to believe it or not, from birth Georgie was destined to follow in Great-Grandma Rosa’s footsteps—as well as inherit her crystal ball! Here’s your chance to find out more about the crabby old lady that Georgie sees as a kind of taciturn genie. Visit my website below and get your complimentary copy of Rosa’s story in “Fortune’s Wheel”! (And there will be more bonus books to follow!)
Copyright notice
Good to Go
Copyright 2015 Marg McAlister
GeorgieBGoode.com
Book Design by Annie Moril
Illawarra ePublishing electronic publication
EBooks are not transferable. All Rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Good to Go: Book 1 Georgie B. Goode Gypsy Caravan Cozy Mystery Page 8
