Page 1 (1/2)

Chance Met

Right now, I’m a redhead

I’ve been blond and brunette as the situation requires, though an unscheduled color change usually ht or face people burning crosses on hteen months in the same city No consequences, no demonstrations, and for the last year, I’ve been a respectable business owner to boot Maybe I should knock wood

So I do

But right now, a redhead I tell oes with the blue eyes, even if my skin is a little too olive for the carpet to et a few looks because it’s a true red, Garnier Nutrisse 46R to be exact, not the plum that most women here favor, but I may as well please myself because I will never, ever blend in entirely The best I can do is to make sure nobody reckons me any crazier than anyone else

Around here they call ure it’s affectionate, as it doesn’t stop the to my shop Unlike many of the open-air tiendas, I have a front door and a bell that chimes softly when anyone enters h with junk or treasure, depending on your definition I have handious artifacts and rare books in sixteen languages

A ceiling fan stirs sluggishly overhead, but it never gets hot inside The buildings are heavy, solid rock covered with plaster, so it’s cool and shady when the mercury rises and even the lizards are too lazy toa break fro rainy season, but they never leave without buying soift (and why I alork in retail) At one point I sold furniture on commission but it just wasn’t fair--fish in a barrel

Ostensibly, I run a pawn shop n that reads CASA DE EMPEÑO, but anyone who lives in Los Re the road to Atizapán will tell you it’s more They’ll also offer you a fuchsia candy tortilla at the stoplight just before you come to my store; it’s the intersection where a rinder plies his trade dispiritedly (how he lost the monkey is another story) Don’t eat the tortilla, don’t tip more than twenty pesos, and make a left turn You’ll find me, if you really need to

I’ hidden More than once, it’s been the difference between life and death, so I live lean and keepwell here Nobody knohat I’ from

And I’d like to keep it that way

Unfortunately, our pasts have a way of coain, just like our shadows Oh, there are ways to sever your shadow, and I know a guy who did, but it was a really bad idea He took sick afterward, died the slow death of a consu in Atlantic City Literally

These are dark times, and I just want a quiet place to ride thes never seem to work out the way I want the that I hadn’t covered my tracks co behind the glass case ina pair of hand-painted porcelain ht for two hundred pesos maybe twenty minutes before Nice, they looked Dutch, and some tourist would buy the isn’t really ift and only as relates to the object I’, I knohat’s happened to an item, who’s owned it, and to a lesser extent, ill happen to it in the future, although that’s less sure, as any diviner could tell you Such prediction isn’tabout the fate of hand-painted Dutch hyeah, therein lies theto findat a piece of antique jewelry In truth it’s generally pretty boring; the iteoes in a box Repeat But once in a while, once in a while an item passes across my palms with a real story to tell

And that’s where the trouble starts

Trouble set past that When I was ten, my pony died when our barn was burned down, and I’ll never forget the way Sugar screary mob, but not my last If you think they don’t burn witches anyia

And that’s the da after dark to your back door, one by one, begging for thetorches Not the whole town, of course, but a select feho coht’s dark to do their devil’s work They said it was for the greater good, but I saw their eyes before I ran

To this day, when life is about to get rocky, I sacies h heaven as so the bell I put down the miniatures, already braced to make a break for the door off the alley

But I didn’t want to leave, daood living here and soht s fro children Nobody expectedat all, and that was exactly how I liked it

I don’t know my ex’s real name He first introduced hi fro it across his knuckles, tossing it for a hundred and co up tails every time I’d pumped his mother for infor the subject that was downright uncanny The erous if you knew his true naardless, his presence in my humble shop in Los Remedios, two thousand ood

"You’re a hard woht I’d be glad to see him "I could almost be hurt by that, Corine"