Page 43 of Nothing Less than Magic
“Come in,” she says, and ushers me across the threshold into the front room, which is surprisingly charming.
“I couldn’t find your number on Google, but a friend knew where you live.”
“Have a seat. Would you like something to drink? Tea, juice, coffee?”
“I’m fine, but thank you.” I try to decide between a wing chair upholstered in tapestry covered in cat hair or the . . . I guess you would call it a divan. It’s bright turquoise velvet, and I kind of love it, though it has seen better days. It’s more shabby than chic.
I settle on the divan, taking time to look around. The inside of the house is in much better shape than the outside. The floors are oak, and the ceiling is the same turquoise as the divan with a big fan. In the corner is an upright piano, the top of it covered in a Victorian fringed scarf and a Tiffany lamp. There are a series of framed photographs above the mantlepiece of the fireplace, which appears to still have its original Batchelder tile surround.
Next to the living room is a small dining room with a round oak table and four mismatched chairs. It’s worn but cozy.
“What brings you by?” Misty takes the rocker across from me.
For the life of me, I don’t have a good answer. But from the minute I woke up this morning, I knew I had to see her again. Perhaps it was the dream. All I know is that for some unfathomable reason, I’m drawn to this woman.
I decide to be honest. “I don’t know.”
“You must know something, or else you wouldn’t be here.”
I nod. “Can I be perfectly candid with you?”
“I wouldn’t expect you to be anything less.”
“I don’t believe you can see into my future or my past. I don’t believe any of this.” I lift my arms in the air.
“Okay. The question still stands: What are you doing here, then?”
“I think I want to believe, so you can give me resolution. Absolve me of my guilt, like you did yesterday when you said my mother wasn’t angry. It would be so easy if I could just believe.”
“Then believe.”
“But I can’t. I’m a trained psychologist. We rely on data. Research. There’s nothing metaphysical about it. It’s sound science.”
“Then use that science to absolve yourself.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand more than you think,” she says, and gets to her feet. “I’m going to pour myself a glass of wine. Would you like one?”
There’s the drive down the mountain. The drive up nearly killed me, but it’s only one glass, and it might even steady my nerves. “Just a splash.”
She heads to the dining room and disappears in what I presume is the kitchen. I get up to check out the pictures over the fireplace. A graduation photo of what I assume is Misty’s nursing class. Various antique portraits of people, perhaps ancestors or pictures she found in a secondhand store. But the centerpiece is a smiling Misty with a group of women gathered in a circle in the middle of a golden field. All that’s missing is a bubbling cauldron. Okay, that’s uncalled for, but it’s clear to me that these are her soothsayer friends or whatever you want to call them.
Misty returns with two glasses of wine and puts them down on the coffee table, a creation made of gnarled burlwood that is at odds with the antique pieces scattered throughout the room. I plop back down in the divan and take a generous sip. I’m not a day drinker, but between my strange dreams and the drive, the wine is good for taking the edge off.
“Why did you leave nursing?” I ask, because it seems like a good icebreaker.
“I was tired.”
I peg her to be in her sixties, and nursing is indeed strenuous work.
“Tell me about the dreams,” she says.
I strain to remember whether I mentioned my dreams when I came in, concluding that I must have. “I saw my deceased parents, and when I tried to follow them, I couldn’t. It was as if I was weighted down with rocks.”
“Why did you want to follow them?”
“I don’t know. It was a nonsensical dream. Aren’t you supposed to tell me why?”
