Chapter 3: Natalie’s Secret

That day, a woman came to my card table.

She wasn’t the sort who usually stops for a reading. She moved like she was born to turn heads—tall, with fox-sharp eyes that flicked around the block, a long, elegant neck, and a way of carrying herself that made even the corner boys hush up for a minute. Couldn’t have been more than thirty, but she had the confidence of someone who’d seen plenty.

Most of my customers are old-timers: men in work boots, grandmas with shopping carts, sometimes a tired mom looking for a scrap of hope. These days, young people walk right past me, earbuds in, eyes glued to their phones. In a world full of apps and algorithms, fortune-tellers are just a curiosity—if not outright scammers in their eyes.

So when a woman like her sits down at your table, you notice.

"Sir, I’d like my fortune told."

She lowered herself into the rickety folding chair I keep for customers, her voice as light as lace, but with a tremor that made me think she was playing at confidence. Something in the way she said "Sir" made the hairs on my arms stand up.

"Sir."

That word landed strange. Nobody’s ever called me that. Not my neighbors, not the kids on the block. Not even my own mother, before she left. I won’t lie: being called ‘Sir’ gave me a little thrill.

I nodded, pretending it was business as usual, and asked her to pull off her mask and sweep back her bangs so I could get a better sense of her face.

Her forehead and the area above her eyes were shrouded in a dark, shadowy aura. Her eye sockets were sunken, cheeks hollow, spirit listless, and the dark circles under her eyes were as heavy as a raccoon’s. I wasn’t sure if it was from staying up late, but at her age, she already had lines at the corners of her eyes—and not the kind you get from laughter.

Up close, I could feel a chill off her skin, like she’d been walking outside all night. Her fingers trembled just a little as she pushed her hair back, and the lines at the corners of her eyes looked more like cracks in old paint than the kind of wrinkles laughter leaves.

And those lines were wild and messy.

In face reading, those lines at the corners of her eyes weren’t from laughter—they were the kind you get from holding back tears too long. Some folks call it heartbreak written on your face.

Sometimes, those lines mean love’s done more damage than any accident ever could.

Some folks walk through life like they’re marked—like the universe has decided to stack the deck against them, no matter how hard they try to play it straight.