Ages ago, perhaps even eons ago, a bewitching young woman lived on the corner of Alisdar Street and Thiesen Drive.

          The woman was known for her beauty: she had thick ebony hair that tumbled down her shoulders in glossy waves, spellbinding eyes as blue as cornflowers, and a way of moving that captivated all who gazed upon her. Indeed, the whole effect of her grace and outer appearance was enchanting; when asked about Miss Ramla, all the townspeople would say without any hesitation that her beauty was beyond comparison.

          Miss Ramla found a husband with much ease, and with very little dowry, as her beauty was deemed to be worthier than any dowry she could offer. And as far as anyone could see, Lady Ramla and her husband were the happiest, loveliest pairing in town.

          Soon, however, Lady Ramla’s husband died. It was a quick and painless death, a bullet to the head in an accident at a weaponry exhibition. And so the poor and beautiful Widow Ramla was left without a companion.

          However, Widow Ramla quickly obtained another husband after the death of her previous one. The townspeople were not surprised in the slightest; with beauty like hers, it would simply be a shame if Lady Ramla did not marry again, for her beauty and youth mustn't be wasted on widowhood! And so, Lady Ramla married once more, and as far as anyone could see, Lady Ramla and her husband were the happiest, loveliest pairing in town.
          However, before long, Lady Ramla’s second husband died as well. It was a quick and painless death, a car crash that killed her husband instantly. And so the poor and beautiful Widow Ramla was left without a companion.

          However, yet again, Lady Ramla obtained another husband. And once again, the townspeople were not surprised in the slightest. And as far as anyone could see, Lady Ramla and her husband were the happiest, loveliest pairing in town.

          Then, Lady Ramla’s third husband perished, and the townspeople finally began to talk. Some quietly discussed her misfortunes with a tone of slight fear. These anxious talks brewed while Lady Ramla remarried over and over, and her various husbands quickly died over and over. After her sixth husband was crushed under factory equipment, the town had come to a solid consensus that Lady Ramla was, quite possibly, cursed.

          Curiously, Lady Ramla was not fazed by her misfortune. She continued to marry and mourn, marry and mourn, without dwelling on her adversities. Even more curiously perhaps, was Lady Ramla’s unchanging appearance. Although a decade and a half had passed since her first marriage, not a line marred her face. Lady Ramla was still as eerily pristine as she was when she had been a young and innocent wife who had only just married.

          On the dawn after the death of her tenth husband, Lady Ramla took a few silent steps out of her front door. Dressed in all black, with a veil of fragile lace covering her flawless porcelain face, she carefully slid an intricate key into the door of her home and locked it shut. Then, she handed her small suitcase to the driver of a coach that was already waiting for her, and climbed in. The whips slashed. As midnight black horses sped forward, Lady Ramla’s cornflower eyes stared forlornly towards her little home.

          She did not come back for a very long time.

          Strangely, Lady Ramla’s house on the corner of Alisdar Street and Thiesson Drive appeared well-kept long after her enigmatic departure, although no one had even dared to walk close to it in many years. Struggling to find a reason for Lady Ramla’s prolonged absence, the townspeople invented a variety of possibilities: perhaps she desired to live in a larger town; perhaps she wanted to find an eleventh husband elsewhere; perhaps she had another estate in a different area; perhaps she had finally realized that her curse had been frightening her neighbors for years.

          None of the possibilities were true.

          Lady Ramla never returned.

~*~

          You are walking towards the corner of Alisdar Street and Thiessen Avenue when you suddenly feel an irresistible urge to enter the fortune teller’s home.

          The fortune teller resides in a small Victorian home shrouded in layers of silky scarves that sway in the subtle breezes of late morning. Sparkling talismans hang in carefully selected spots like tiny stars. The house underneath all the ornamentation is quite clean and looks as if it had been built only yesterday, despite its antiquated style. On the front porch hangs a sign:

Divination:
Palmistry, Taromancy, Oneiromancy, Tasseomancy, and More
Method Determines Pricing

          Perhaps it is the fortune teller’s isolation that sparks your sudden curiosity. Not a single soul has ever laid eyes upon her. Even her closest neighbors have never managed to spot her departing her home or returning, and not one neighbor is able to recall exactly when she moved into the quaint little home. It is as if she has inhabited her tiny corner since the beginning of time.

          Presumably, the fortune teller is a woman. Neighbors are aware of this piece of information  because the fortune teller occasionally allows wet garments to be hung on a line of ribbon in an area of her yard just visible to any passersby. Although the fortune teller herself is never seen tying up the ribbon, the garments drooping from it are decidedly feminine.

           Besides her gender, nothing else is known about the fortune teller. And even the neighborhood agreement regarding her gender is questionable. The whole situation seems quite peculiar to you.

          Yes, that must be why. You convince yourself that this is so, although you know that you have never before felt this urge to solve the mystery that is the fortune teller, and it almost seems as if something from the interior of the her home is pulling you towards it.

          You approach the tiny Victorian gate slowly, and surprisingly, it does not creak when you push it open. You slowly turn in a circle, taking in your surroundings. Although you are, frankly, a bit frightened at what you might find in it, you must admit to yourself that the fortune teller’s home is quite beautiful.

           You turn, and find yourself facing a sylphlike figure on the front porch.

          You suddenly begin to hear a furious beat within your chest. Your lungs halt to a stop. There had not been a figure at the front porch when you first came in, you are certain of that. But how did the figure appear so silently?

          The figure turns, and one look at the beautiful face of a youthful woman seems to set your fears at ease.

          "Hello," the woman says with a melodious voice. "Did you need something?"

          You stare at her flawless porcelain face, and it seems as if everything is immediately right in the world. Her visage is one that holds safety and security, and even holds a hint of maternal love. A look into her alluring cornflower eyes, and the universe seems perfectly aligned.

          "...Yes. A fortune, please," you say, after you realize that she had asked you a question.

          "Alright. Well, I certainly don't get many customers from within the neighborhood. But I suppose everyone gets a bit curious. Please, come in!" She glides through the front door, and you follow behind at her heels, afraid to lose your way in this unfamiliar place.

          As she guides you to a small darkened room in the back, you scan your eyes over the the furnishings of the fortune teller's home. They don't appear to hide anything sinister. The only thing about the decor that is even remotely odd is it's apparent age. Everything is coated in dainty prints and trimmed with lace. It seems that not only the home's exterior is Victorian.

          You follow the fortune teller into a space lighted sparingly with small white candles. The miniscule flames of fragrant fire dot a room of cerulean and indigo dyes, quite similar to the scarves that adorn the exterior of the home. At the center of the room is a three legged table and two metallic stools.

          You sit at one stool and the fortune teller perches gracefully on the other, facing you with her beauty.

          "So, what method will it be? Taromancy? Palmistry? Tasseomancy? Oneiromancy? Or perhaps something else?" the fortune teller asks.

          "I'm sorry, what?" You are rather confused by her words.

          The fortune teller smiles, a sweet, but slightly condescending curve of a lip, as an expert might smile at a naive pupil.

          "Tarot cards? Palm reading? Tea leaves? Dream reading?"

          "Oh!" you exclaim. "Palm reading, please," you decide.

          “That will be a charge of ten,” the fortune teller says, as she reaches for your hand.

          Her grip is soft, yet firm and knowing, as a mother's or an older sister's grasp might be. She traces the lines of your palm and furrows the elegant curves of her brow as she examines them.

          While she reads your palm, you notice that the sleeve of her crepe blouse has risen just slightly, exposing a crease on her palm that extends beyond the crook of her wrist and into her clothing. As the fortune teller dips her head to observe your hand more closely, you see that what seems like the same crease emerges from the crepe trim of her collar and ends halfway up her slim neck. From what little you know of palmistry, you are aware that the extended crease is called a life line, and represents the length of a person’s life.

          You decide that the crease is a trick of the light. It must be.

          The fortune teller raises her head, and begins to make a great many observations about your personality. She ticks off your faults and strengths with twinkling eyes and hardly more than a pause; she has clear confidence in her findings.

          Her confidence is not unreasonable. Not one of her observations is false.

          After she has finished assessing your personality, her crimson lips curve once more, smiling at the shocked expression that you know must be upon your face.

          “Do not doubt my skill. I assure you, I am quite learned in these matters,” she asserts. She tips her chin a bit higher, rustling her dark and glossy waves, and looks right into you, sucking away your suspicions of her ability.

          “You will be very well educated. By what means, I’m not quite certain, but it will be soon, very soon. You will find success not long after achieving this education. Unfortunately, perhaps, you will find love late, much later than many of your peers will. When you do find love, however, you will love deeply, and with passion.”

          The fortune teller pauses for a moment.

          “Is that all?” you ask.

          “There is more. But it is not pleasing.” The fortune teller’s expression takes a sudden turn, and she seems tense, almost guarded. You feel your hands begin to perspire at her ominous tone of voice.

          “Your life will not be short.” One slender finger points at the end of a prominent crease on your palm. “Your life line is quite long. However, you will suffer for many long years before your death.” The slender finger gestures to the countless extra creases that marr the bottom half of your life line.

          “I will suffer? Is that all you are able tell me?” Like most, suffering, in your opinion, is not exactly favorable, and you would certainly like to know more about this “suffering”.

          “I’m sincerely sorry, but I am not sure just how you will suffer. Perhaps a disease might visit you? It is difficult to tell.” The fortune teller smiles apologetically, and although you are quite irritated by her vague description of your future, your mind betrays you and forgives her sweet, slightly remorseful expression.

          Your mind trails off in a trillion different routes, attempting to picture the infinite ways you could “suffer”, as the fortune teller puts it. Disease is quite likely. Cancer, perhaps?

          “There is a way for me to remove it.” The fortune teller’s mellifluous voice interrupts your trails of thought. A way to remove it? A way to remove suffering?

          “How? How exactly would you do that?” you ask, incredulously.

          “Never mind how,” the fortune teller states, dismissing your curiosity with a wave of her pale hand. “What’s more important is whether you’re willing to let me do such a task.”

          “Willing? Of course I’d be willing! Why would anyone be unwilling?” Your eyebrows push together as you look up at the fortune teller, perplexed. For a millionth of a second, her expression seems to darken: her lips pull themselves together a little tighter; her eyelids come a little closer together; her piercing eyes seem to slice a little further into you. Then, the expression disappears, replaced with a contented smile, and you convince yourself that the darkened expression never appeared at all.

          “Good. Now, would you please go into my front yard and water the tree closest to the porch?”

          “What?” Now you are truly puzzled.

          “It is an essential part of the process. There is already a pail of water outside. Pick it up, and pour the water onto the tree, understand?” She speaks to you patiently, but patronizingly, as an adult might speak to a confused toddler.

          “I… alright,” you say, slowly, understanding, yet not understanding all at once. Your feet make their way out of her home and onto the porch. Your hands locate the pail and reach for it. When your fingers make contact with it, however, your realize that it is freezing cold.

          It is not yet noon, but the sun is already shining its wrath upon the world. The pail is metal; it should be burning hot, but it feels as if it had just been dragged out of the depths of the Arctic Ocean. It is bitterly cold, perplexingly cold.

          The cold numbs your fingers enough that you do not realize you have cut yourself on a sharp edge of the pail. A small droplet of scarlet falls from your finger into the pail. The water hisses slightly around it.

          Your fingers lift the pail and pour its contents onto the gnarly roots of an ancient willow tree on the side of the porch. Setting down the pail, lost in your confusion, you walk back into the home, without realizing that the tree behind you is giving off a faint glow, and the pail has refilled itself.

          When you are finally face to face with the fortune teller once more, she tells you with a slight smile that she has successfully removed your suffering. Although you are still extremely confused, something in her tone of voice tells you to believe her, so you do.

          You pull out a wallet and hand her the amount she charged you earlier.

          “Thank you,” you say to her. She nods once, her cornflower blue eyes completely unreadable. She then proceeds to begin tidying up her little room.

          Before leaving, you look back once at the fortune teller’s profile and suddenly spy an odd change. Along her slender neck, the crease that you had spied earlier appears to have lengthened. It now almost touches the gentle curve of her jaw.

          You convince yourself that it is still the same length. It must be. It is simply the poor lighting of the room, nothing more.

          As you walk across the porch and back into the grassy yard, you do not realize that the crease on your own palm has receded to half its previous size. You will never realize this, the fortune teller has made certain of that.

          Also unbeknownst to you, a rift has occurred in the passage of time. A transfer of sorts has been made.

          As you duck under a row of dyed scarves that sway in the late morning breeze, you notice that you feel surprisingly lightweight, as if years of toil and burden and disease that you have never felt before have been lifted from your shoulders. It is oddly chilling. And as you walk away from this street corner that you will never return to again, you wonder if the fortune teller can peer into her own future and alter it, the way she has supposedly altered your own.

          Fifty years from now, when you are but a rotting corpse seeping into the earth, the fortune teller will remain on this street, lurking behind swaying silken scarves and her own insurmountable fear of Death. And each day, in her corner of seclusion and enigma, she lives out the years she has stolen from you, and waits for another passerby to water her tree.