The confusion in Bethany’s room had caused Cally to delay her dinner even longer, and now she was ravenous. She decided to drive into town for her evening meal, instead of walking, and she decided to just take her computer with her rather than going back to lock it up in the Rose Room. Maybe she could stop on the way back and use the Wi-Fi at the coffee shop.

As she and the boxes rattling in the back seat passed out through the pineapple-crowned gateposts, Cally spotted Errin and her blonde friend from the coffee shop; they were just about to walk around the corner from Main Street onto Gardens Road. Errin waved when she saw Cally, and Cally paused, winding down her window to wave back.

“We’re on our way to Blackthorn,” said Errin. “Zenbe is playing in a band there. Want to come with us?”

“Um. No thank you. That’s a long way. Are you sure you want to walk that far?” She stopped just short of offering them a lift, remembering with a stomach-flip the last time she’d had Errin in the car with her.

Errin’s friend let out a giggle and Errin grinned. “It’s not that long a walk for us,” she said. “You sure you don’t want to come along? They have a great burger place!”

Cally had no doubt the walk to Blackthorn, for Errin, would be quite different from what she might experience herself, but she did not want to think about the great burger place. “Maybe another time,” she said. The two girls giggled to one another and waved as Cally drove away.

She did not so much as glance at the news store when she passed it, but when she reached the intersection with Railroad Street, she stopped in the middle of Main Street with her turn signal blinking. Gazing down Railroad street at the sidewalk in front of the pizza shop, where Ben had found her that evening, she couldn’t bring herself to turn. What if she ran into him again? After the things she had overheard him and Bree discussing the night before, she wouldn’t know what to say or how to act. After all, she thought, setting her jaw, he’d promised Bree he wouldn’t ever speak to her again. She wouldn’t want to get him into trouble, would she?

Switching off her turn signal, she stepped on the gas and drove on to the west end of town and into the darkening tunnel of trees. Maybe she would try the Seven Forks diner, out near the interstate, instead. Maybe she would get lost again, and this time Errin would not appear and set her back on the right path. Maybe she would just go straight back out onto the highway and keep on driving until her bank account was empty and her credit card maxed out. After all, most of her worldly belongings were still in the car with her. Well, all except her CDs and most of her clothes. And some people she had come to care about...

She slowed down to cross the little bridge over the creek (Harmony Creek, Ben had told her it was called) and saw the lights of the diner and the gas station beyond the trees. The Seven Forks was well lit from within and looked like a welcoming beacon. Beyond it, through a line of pine trees, she could see the headlights of trucks wending their lonely way along I-85.

Cally parked next to the only other car in the parking lot, tucked her computer case under the passenger seat, and went inside. The interior was furnished with typical diner booths upholstered in red vinyl, and a coffee bar with red-seated chrome stools. The walls were painted in murals depicting oak trees and streams, giving the whole place the impression of a seating area made of magical red mushrooms in the middle of a forest. “Just sit down anywhere!” a woman’s voice called from the kitchen beyond the bar.

Cally chose a booth and perused the menu, carefully avoiding looking at the description of the only burger the place offered. She didn’t have long to wait. A short, plump older woman appeared beside her with a notepad. “What can I get for you, dear?”

“The Caesar salad looks good,” Cally said, closing the menu and handing it to the woman.

“Is everything okay?” the woman asked her, holding the menu in her arms.

“Aren’t you supposed to ask me that when my mouth is full of food?” Cally smirked at her own weak attempt at humor.

“It’s just that you seem sad.” Cally had no reply to this, and the woman apologized. “I’m sorry. I forgot you don’t know me yet. I didn’t mean to be so familiar.”

“It’s alright,” Cally said. “You’re just perceptive. I do feel out of sorts tonight, I guess.”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

The woman almost seemed as if she were about to sit down in the booth with her, but Cally was feeling too pensive for company. “I just want to eat a salad,” she said, perhaps a little too bluntly.

The woman did not seem offended. She patted Cally’s shoulder as she walked back to the kitchen shouting, “Caesar, Rave!”

She returned in moments with a glass of water and a straw. “Would you like a reading?” she asked as she set them down.

“What? No. Thank you.” Cally shook her head in puzzlement. That was an odd question to ask a restaurant customer. But then, this whole town was strange, after all. She looked through the window to the street light that stood at the edge of the parking lot. “But maybe you could tell me: If I just drive east on that road there, will I be able to get back to downtown Woodley?” She gave the woman a pointed look.

This earned her a warm smile. “I really do think you ought to let Raven give you a reading,” she said, turning to where another older woman, unusually tall with lush, silver hair hanging down to her hips, was carrying a platter toward them.

“I met a girl named Raven,” Cally recalled, “who wanted to give me a reading. Just a few days ago.” It seemed now like it had been years ago.

“Well, Ravens do tend to bring things to people,” the tall woman said, setting the platter of salad in front of Cally. Standing next to her, the other woman looked even shorter and rounder.

The way the two stood there with hands clasped before them, looking at Cally with such sincere concern in their eyes, started to make her feel a little bad for being so short with them. “Maybe I should have listened to the first Raven,” she admitted. “Okay, can you give me this reading while I eat?”

Both women broke into delighted grins, and the tall one pulled a bundle wrapped in yellow silk from her apron. Sitting down across from Cally, she unwrapped a deck of cards, but it didn’t look like any Tarot deck Cally had ever seen. The cards were perfectly square, for one thing.

“I’ve learned a lot since I first started doing this,” Raven said. “I’ve become really good at it.” She began to turn over cards and arrange them on the table, using so many she had to work around Cally’s plate. The images on the cards were also not what Cally had expected to see. Instead of cups and kings, they depicted things like trees, streams, roads, bridges and even a lake Cally could swear looked just like the pond behind Vale House. “This is for you,” Raven said, once she had got the cards arranged. She scrutinized them and began turning some of them sideways, and rearranging others so the images on the cards joined up to form a convoluted path. “It’s kind of like how a GPS works. You know what I mean?”

Cally had no idea what she meant. She tried to eat without getting salad dressing on the cards. The salad was good and, despite how hungry she had been when she’d arrived, there was a lot more of it than she thought she would be able to finish.

“Well, there you go,” Raven said at last. “You will never have trouble finding Woodley again.” She nodded with satisfaction, and the other woman applauded softly.

“That’s it?” Cally had always thought “a reading” involved much more than that.

“That’s the main thing you wanted, wasn’t it?”

Cally wasn’t sure she actually wanted it at all. She could think, though, of a lot of things she did want, and many other questions she would have liked to have answered, or at least guessed at, by someone who claimed to be able to read things in cards. Most of them were not things she was willing to discuss with these overly-familiar strangers, though. “There is one other thing,” she said at length. “Can you see, there, if Bethany is going to be okay?” She also wanted to know what had happened to Bethany in the first place, and who seemed to be continuing to try to hurt her, but if this woman could really answer the first question, maybe that answer would lead to others.

Raven leaned over the cards and cast her gaze along the paths and bridges and streams in them. “All I can really see here is that there’s a friend you need to make amends with.”

“Which friend would that be?” Cally was pretty sure she knew exactly which friend this referred to, but she wasn’t completely certain making up with Emerald was even an option anymore.

The shorter woman cleared her throat and shoved her way in to sit down on the seat beside Cally. “She’s really on your side, Cally,” she said, patting one of the cards next to the plate.

“How do you know my name?” Cally asked. Of course, everyone in this town knew who she was, but most people tended to refer to her by the name on the cover of her book.

Raven laughed. “Oh, Willow knows a lot of things!”

“Willow?” An odd name for such a short woman, but the oddest thing was that it seemed strongly familiar somehow. A sense of déjà vu began to make Cally feel a little dizzy.

Willow stood and picked up the plate, which Cally had managed to empty in spite of herself. “I’ll get your check,” she said.

Raven was also standing and collecting her cards. “Everything always works out in the end,” she assured Cally, “despite all our best efforts to make them do so.”

Cally had no trouble finding her way back into Woodley. The main street was deep in dusk, and the only other car on the street was parked in front of the coffee shop. The lights were still on inside the news store, and Cally thought she saw someone leaving it, but looked away quickly and pulled over to park next to the Bean Garden instead.