Chapter 2: The Weight of Old Tricks

My name is Caleb Moore, a house reader and fortune-teller with no formal training or spiritual lineage.

You won’t see me advertising on social media or running a psychic hotline. I get by the old-fashioned way—helping folks sort out their worries, sniffing out the weirdness in their homes, and laying cards for those desperate enough to believe in luck. My health’s never been great—lungs like wet paper, joints that ache when the weather turns—so even if I wanted to, there’s no way I’d keep up with the nine-to-five grind.

My blind mentor passed away ten years ago. Before he left, he gave me his battered card table and a small wooden box. With no parents or siblings, these became my only possessions.

Sometimes, late at night, I’ll run my hands over that old table, remembering the way my mentor’s laughter used to fill the room, echoing off the cracked plaster walls of his basement apartment. There’s a kind of comfort in objects that outlive the people who loved you—proof that someone once cared enough to teach you their tricks.

This line of work is far less glamorous than people imagine. Those who end up in this trade are often born with some physical or spiritual challenge, or they carry a burden of fate—our paths are set early. You can scrape by, but never get rich. It’s a tough life. Just like my mentor: even after death, he couldn’t have a proper headstone or a real grave—he was simply wrapped in a sheet and buried in the ground.

Folks like us fade away quietly. His resting place was an unmarked patch under a weeping willow in the city cemetery, where the only visitors are wind and sparrows. No funeral, no eulogy—just me, his only student, clutching that wooden box and hoping I’d find my own path.

He didn’t even get a coffin.

Sometimes, I think about that—about how the world moves on, and only a handful of people will ever know you were here. In America, where everyone’s supposed to chase dreams and build fortunes, there’s a whole class of us who slip between the cracks, unseen but still trying to do some good.

We exist in this world, and the only thing we can do is try to rack up good deeds—hoping for a better shot in the next life, maybe a better family, maybe a break.

That’s the dream, anyway: pay it forward, even if the only person watching is yourself in the mirror. Maybe next time, I’ll be the one with a white picket fence and a dog that actually belongs to me.