As he approached the tiny shop in Horsetail Yard, Simon noted down some details. Cobbled lane, wisteria covered front, red door with paint peeling in the sun, crystals sending out blinding flashes from lace curtained, square, lead paned windows. He hadn’t expected to get the juicy jobs as junior journalist on MiniMail but so far every article he’d been asked to write was like chewing sawdust – Man Catches Record Chubb. Everybody knew it was the same bloody Chubb year after year. Fair Day – Foul Weather… But this week’s job – you had to hand it to this editor, there were palms out there that would make better reading than this column. But Simon had to make the best of it. He was here to interview Gypsy Rosalee.

He didn’t care whether the rosy lee in question was tea or tarot, it was all a load of rubbish and he wasn’t going to write positively about nonsense. He’d say something along the lines of, ‘it’s much easier to hoodwink people who are under the influence of atmosphere’. This place reeked atmosphere. He could already smell the essential oils before he got to the door – another way of enticing the gullible to believe whatever they were told.

The bell dinged as he entered. A voice called from the back, ‘I’ll be there in just a minute. Take a seat.’

He did. She’d be using her wart cream and donning her turban and bangles no doubt. ‘It’s Simon Simian from MiniMail,’ he called back. ‘Take your time. I’m not a client,’ and by heaven he had no intention of becoming one.

Rosalee came round the back of his chair and sat across the table from him. She was dressed in jeans and a T shirt whose shape accentuated her breasts and whose colour matched her blue eyes. Her hair was honey gold and her voice was slightly out of breath and hoarse.

‘So, you want to interview me for the paper,’ she said. ‘What I do is – I read palms. You have nice hands.’ She reached out and took his hand and drew her slender fingers from wrist to finger tip. He noticed she wasn’t wearing a ring. All at once his future seemed clear. Simon’s heart line was interfering with his headline.

About the Author

Oonah V Joslin

Oonah won a Micro Horror Trophy in 2007, was most read author in January’s Every Day Fiction, a judge in The Shine Journal Poetry Contest and three times included in Bewildering Stories’ Quarterly Reviews. You can find links to more of her work at www.oonahs.blogspot.com and www.writewords.org.uk/oonah/