Chapter Two

      Charlotte Simms removed a hand from her pocket to pull her deep crimson shawl tighter around her. Plucking a loose string from the edge of the raggedy fabric, she took a look at her hand. Being out for so long in the biting December air had turned the skin pale white with a bluish twinge. But she knew she couldn’t go home just yet. Despite her best efforts—a sign reading Half Off Palm Readings crudely drawn in bubble letters that she’d affixed to the side of her card table with a shiny piece of duct tape—she hadn’t had a single customer that day. And she had tried all her usual hot spots—right outside of Port Authority, a bench on the southern border of Central Park where all the horse-drawn carriages strolled by, even the bustling streets of Times Square. And now she was here—her last stop of the day—in Tompkins Square Park. She’d sit it out for one hour before allowing herself to cross the street and finally go home.

      She usually shuffled her tarot cards while she waited for patrons, but it was too cold for that today. She rubbed her hands together furiously before cupping them, drawing them in front of her face and trying to use her breath to warm them up. The effects were fleeting, her hands immediately returning to their frigid state the moment she stopped breathing into them. She sighed.

      While she prided herself on being chipper and free-spirited, it was days like today—the freezing cold coupled by a customer-less day—that she felt the sting of the traumatic events that had brought her to telling fortunes on the street. She’d been a promising psychology student at a local CUNY college, about to start her last semester of school when one night two men clad in black ski masks robbed her entire life savings—all her money for tuition—when she was simply trying to take out twenty bucks from an ATM. Being out of school was especially hard for her since she’d started to really blossom in college. She’d had a group of friends and even a few boyfriends. But none of them knew her current circumstances. She’d disengaged, too embarrassed and traumatized to tell anyone what had happened.

      Under normal circumstances, she would’ve been able to bounce back and return to school, but then in the economy her parents lost their jobs. And when they fell behind on the rent for their little walkup one-bedroom apartment the three of them squeezed into, her parents went to search for new jobs out West. Not wanting to be a burden to them—another mouth to feed, another person to clothe—Charlotte stayed behind. If it weren’t for those criminals, she’d be able to take care of her parents and earn the diploma she was so eager to feel in the palm of her hand. If it weren’t for those criminals, she wouldn’t have to endure the same nightmare—a replay of that traumatizing night—every single night since then.

      But in the meantime, she’d do this. With rent and food to cover, raising enough money for that last semester would take many months, even years. Her first summer working on the curb had been a profitable one, but as the temperatures dropped, so did her income. Although it didn’t come with much prestige, she really did enjoy her new business endeavor. She liked meeting people from all walks of life. She had always been interested in the supernatural and was talented at reading people’s fortunes. Even if she did feel something negative in someone’s future, she tried her best to put a positive spin on it.

      It felt good to practice a talent she had been ridiculed for in her youth. The other kids in her classes made fun of her mercilessly. And when a rumor spread that she could see spirits? Forget it. She became even more of a social outcast than she had been before. At the end of her junior year, she’d packed up her crystals and oils—and anything she used to toil around with—and put them away. Luckily, the teasing stopped, though she continued to see things, feel things others didn’t. She went from being tortured every day to being completely ignored. And the crushing loneliness of the latter somehow felt much worse. So when she dug out all of her materials and dusted them off this year, it almost felt like a relief. She’d forgotten how much she loved the craft.

      While her new life wasn’t very glamorous, she reminded herself that there were people in much worse situations. She had an apartment—albeit a shabby one—but a roof over her head nonetheless, (barely) enough food to eat, and her health. That last part possibly being temporary if she stayed out in this cold any longer.

      Charlotte breathed out a heavy sigh and felt her lips burn. They were beginning to get dry and chapped from the cold. She bent down to reach her fringed purse tucked neatly under her small metal stool and retrieved a pot of lip balm. Unscrewing the top, she swirled the pad of her pointer finger around a few times before applying it to her lips. They felt instantly soothed, as she faintly tasted the pineapple flavor. She brought the pot to her nose and inhaled deeply, the scent giving her the feeling of summer for just a few precious moments. But when she opened her eyes again, the dusting of snow that’d been falling earlier had turned into a heavier accumulation, the flakes now sticking to the benches and trees of the park around her.

      She glanced across the street and saw two small children trying to scrape enough of the slushy white snow into their hands to make a respectable snowball. She smirked, thinking back to how snowball fights had been considered actual warfare in her old neighborhood when she was a kid. She drew her thumb up to her mouth and lightly bit her fingernail. Though it was a nearly a week after Christmas, the realization finally hit her. For the first holiday season ever, she was utterly alone. A small tear began to gather in the corner of her eye, but she looked down at the ground and blinked a few times, not allowing it to fall. When she glanced up, she noticed that she was being watched.

      At first she thought the man was simply standing near the curb, waiting. Waiting to meet someone, on the lookout to hail a cab—she didn’t know. But after a while, he continued standing there, facing her, without moving a muscle. He had his arms folded in front of him, a pair of black fingerless gloves decorating his hands. He just stood there, his eyes never leaving her, his brow in a deep furrow as if he were trying to solve a complicated problem in his mind.

      There was no look of menace etched onto his face. And though he was still across the street, she could detect something like pain in his eyes. Looking more closely, she realized there was something oddly familiar about him. She scanned him up and down, studying his features. Yes, he definitely looked familiar. Charlotte bit her lip, her eyes glancing slightly upwards as she concentrated, trying to place his face. She was struck with the distinct feeling that he was someone from her teenage years. And then, as if a curtain had been lifted, a name filled her head: Jackson Holloway. It was a face she hadn’t seen in a long time.

      A flash of images played in her mind like a film reel. Doodling Mrs. Charlotte Holloway in curly script all over every one of her color-coded notebooks. Purposefully dropping more pens than she could count in hopes of feeling the brush of his hand, her heart aching each time his eyes refused to meet hers. Eating her lunch alone underneath the bleachers, fantasizing what it would be like for him to have his arm draped protectively over her shoulders as they walked through the hallways, steal a kiss on the stairwell of her apartment building, relish in the feeling of one of his hands slipping under her wool school uniform skirt, the soft pads of his fingers caressing her knee. Though he never acknowledged her existence, these were the thoughts, the fantasies that comforted her as she remained friendless, her social status plummeting in the exact opposite direction as her grades.

      She was sixteen when she first laid eyes on him, Jack having transferred with his trusty pal Calvin by his side after being kicked out of the last school they were in. While he was hard and tough around the neighborhood—always getting into trouble—she had an inclination that behind closed doors, it was all an act. Whenever he did something terrible, there was a devious glint in Cal’s eyes that just didn’t exist in Jack’s. In her own little world, Jack would be tender towards her, gentle with her, as if she were a porcelain doll.

      What a dreamer she’d been in high school. Her heart gave a twinge of discomfort when she recognized him. She squinted. She was sure it was Jackson Holloway. The same