Angel Burn (Book 1 Of Angel Trilogy)

Chapter 3| Psychic Readings

Chapter 3| Psychic Readings

Lucy's POV

"HI—COME ON IN," I said to Lisanna.

It was Thursday afternoon after school, and she was standing on our front porch, looking around with wide eyes. My aunt Michelle, lives in an old Victorian house on the south side of Pawtucket, and she very, very kindly (as she keeps reminding us) allows Mom and me to live there with her—which is good, since Mom doesn't have a job and couldn't work, anyway. It's a great old house, or at least it used to be, once upon a time. Now it's sort of in need of a paint job. Not to mention all the little deer statues and windmills and tiny flying kites that Aunt Michelle has in the front yard.

Lisanna tore her gaze away from a gnome with a red hat. "It's very . . . colorful," she said weakly and smirking a bit.

I stood back to let her in. The inside of the house looks more normal, apart from the piles of clutter everywhere. Aunt Michelle is a hoarder. She saves whatever she comes into contact with but can never find anything because it's always buried under a foot of mess. So she ends up buying two or three or six of everything.

Lisanna came in hesitantly, clutching her purse. She looked perfect as usual, in a pair of black pants and a turquoise top. Her white silver hair was down, like always, making her blue eyes even larger. I glanced down at her shoes. Prada. Next to them, my purple Converse sneakers looked even more "colorful" than the front yard.

As I shut the door, I could hear the TV going in the living room, where Mom and her caregiver were. Aunt Michelle wasn't home from work yet.

"I usually give readings in the dining room," I said, starting down the hallway. "It's back here." Lisanna trailed after me, gazing silently at the dragon figurines and the bookcases stuffed full of Dragon slayer romances and floppy cat plush doll, and the dozens of dusty decorative plates on the wall. Aunt Michelle's a collector as well as a hoarder. She practically keeps the Franklin Mint in business single-handedly. Seeing it all through Lisanna's eyes, I suddenly realized that maybe the inside of the house wasn't that normal after all.

"Here," I said, motioning for her to go into the dining room. It had two sets of French doors that you could close off, separating it from the rest of the house. I shut them while Lisanna gingerly took a seat at the dining table, looking as if she expected the chair to collapse under her. I already regret inviting her here.

She cleared her throat, running her hands across the tablecloth. "So how does it work? Do you use tarot cards or something?"

"No. I just hold your hand." I sat down next to her and rubbed my palms over my jeans. I couldn't believe how nervous I was. It wasn't like I'd never done this before; I'd been giving readings since I was eleven. For the last year or so, I'd even been charging money for a lot of them, just to shut Aunt Michelle up about how draining it was on her finances to have to support three people all by herself. I guess I'm nervous because I have this one popular girl in my home, and if I do something wrong, she could easily tell the whole school rumors about me.

Lisanna took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. "OK, well—here," she said, and held out her hand. It was small and neat, with a tiny gold-and-pearl ring on one finger. Her boyfriend must have given her that.

I gazed down at her hand. Somehow I couldn't quite bring myself to touch it. God, what was wrong with me? I'd given readings for all sorts of people over the years, and I'd seen plenty of weird and disturbing and even frankly illegal things. Lisanna Strauss' secrets were hardly likely to rank up there with those. But even as I thought it, I knew that wasn't the reason for my hesitation. I was still having that strange . . . premonition, or intuition, or whatever you wanted to call it.