Roman spots the flyer on his way to read palms in Jackson Square. Taped to the window of a coffee shop, Have You Seen Me?<\/em> above a photo of a dark-haired girl, maybe fifteen, sixteen. He can\u2019t tell, doesn\u2019t have time to stop because it\u2019s almost dark and he has to catch Anna before she leaves the square. She\u2019ll be packing up by now, all her palm readings and aura readings and scrying done for the day. He imagines her, bent over her table in profile, a dark toss of hair over her shoulder. Backlit in the setting sun, a sliver of pale cheek, a hint of upturned nose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He picks up his pace, hurries past the bookstores and boutiques and shuttered townhouses. A block down the street, there\u2019s the flyer again, this time in the window of a costume shop. The missing girl, solemn-eyed and silent among bright pink wigs and spangled feather boas. And when he rounds a corner, she\u2019s there again, right in his face, fluttering from a lamppost. So close that for a second she seems to hover off the page, seems to gaze right at him with eyes as dark as two tiny sinkholes, bottomless black. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A memory comes to him, a vague, shapeless thing, thin as a shadow. He can\u2019t catch hold of it, can\u2019t pin down where and when, but he could swear he\u2019s seen this girl, this very photo, before. Slowly, with the tips of his fingers, he peels the flyer from the post. He smooths her face with his palm and slips it into his bag. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He reaches Jackson Square just as the lingering summer light fades to a silvery glow. He\u2019s one of the night crowd, the bolder, more flamboyant fortune-tellers who hover over glowing candles and call to passers-by. But it\u2019s early for that yet, the day psychics still packing up their tables, and right away he finds Anna in her usual place beside the iron gate. He watches as she wraps her crystal ball in a white towel embroidered with faded pink roses and tucks it into her bag. Watches as she folds up her sign: Palm, Tarot, and Crystal by Anna <\/em>in light blue letters and, beneath, a drawing of a hand\u2014her hand; Roman sketched it himself\u2014palm out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He makes his way to her from across the square. Above, in dark silhouette, looms the St. Louis Cathedral, its jutting steeples like the towers of some ancient castle. A medieval backdrop to the street artists and vendors, the colorful umbrellas and fruit-laden carts, the fortune-tellers and musicians and painted performers. But the crowd is thinner at this hour, the gray period between night and day, that brief mingling of light and dark. His favorite time, dusk, when he knows he will see Anna, if only for a moment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lately, he\u2019s been coming up with things to catch her attention. Reasons to strike up conversation with the woman he used to share a bed with, the woman whose small, soft body he coiled himself around, whose hair he spread across his pillow so he could fall asleep to its soapy-incense scent. But that was before, and for two months now, he\u2019s been trying to get back there. Trying anything he can think of, and today, he wears a turban on his head, kitschy fortune-teller garb he hopes will get her talking. But he\u2019s got something else now too; he\u2019s got the missing girl\u2019s flyer, tucked in his bag. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s new,\u201d she says when he reaches her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis?\u201d He touches the turban. It\u2019s light purple, a color she once told him looks good against his olive skin. \u201cFound it in a junk shop on Decatur.\u201d He swivels his head side to side. \u201cShit,\u201d he says, \u201canything to get their attention, you know?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n She won\u2019t like that; she doesn\u2019t cater to the crowd. Time and again she\u2019s told him reading palms, telling futures, is serious business, and she refuses to deck herself out like a dime store fortune-teller from a carnival. But he\u2019s hoping she\u2019ll scold him, like she used to do. Hoping she still cares enough to disapprove. It\u2019s a tactic, a sales technique he learned from his mother. \u201cKeep them interested,\u201d she used to say, \u201ceven if you have to piss them off to do it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n But it doesn\u2019t work on Anna. She says nothing, only looks up at him for a moment, her greenish-brown eyes, the color of the bayou, slit against the setting sun. Then she busies herself over her table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow\u2019d you do today?\u201d Roman says because he has to say something, has to keep her here, if only for a moment longer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSame as usual,\u201d she says, without looking up. \u201cSix readings. Mostly Tarot and palm.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Roman unfolds his table, sets it up beside hers. They shared a table before\u2014she\u2019d carry it out here during the day, and he\u2019d bring it back home at night. Now he has his own, a small TV tray on folding legs. During readings, he covers it with a dark blue cloth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By the time he\u2019s got his candles lit, she has her table folded up and her bag slung over her arm. \u201cSee you, Roman,\u201d she says, and turns to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHey,\u201d Roman says. \u201cYou seen this?\u201d He pulls the flyer from his bag, waves it at her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now he\u2019s got her attention. She takes the flyer from him, turns to study it. He bends over her shoulder, breathing in the spicy, incense smell of her hair, and looks with her at the photo he could swear he\u2019s seen before: a candid shot of the girl sitting on a front stoop. Curly dark hair, brownish skin. Those black eyes. She\u2019s hunched over her knees, hands pressed to her heart, her bottom lip sucked in, as if she\u2019s chewing on it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Missing since June 4th, <\/em>the flyer reads beneath the photo. Age:<\/em> 16, Height: 5\u20194; Eyes: Dark Brown<\/em>; Hair: Dark Brown. Last seen on Magnolia Street<\/em>. And her name: Camilla Guidry. <\/em>He says it out loud, \u201cCamilla,\u201d testing the shape of it on his tongue, his lips. And it too seems familiar, a name he has said before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou ever seen her around here?\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t think so.\u201d Anna runs her finger over the photo, pauses on the girl\u2019s face as if waiting for something\u2014a glimpse into her past, or a flash of her future, a vision of some kind. She\u2019s clairvoyant, or claims to be. Claims she can actually see<\/em>. And whatever she sees now makes her face go slack. Her pert little mouth, cupid\u2019s bow lips he kissed so often, hangs open, her eyes gone glassy and gray. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat is it?\u201d he says. \u201cYou see something?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n She called him a fraud before she kicked him out, a scam artist. She saw him swindle an old lady out of a hundred bucks during a palm reading. He thought she\u2019d left the square already, but she\u2019d turned back, had forgotten her scarf\u2014a sheer little lacy thing he later told her she must have lost but keeps tucked away at the bottom of his bag. And she crept right up on him as he told that old lady he could see her dead child, hovering behind her. \u201cJamie?\u201d the woman said. \u201cWhat\u2019s he want? What\u2019s he saying?\u201d She was frantic, right up in his face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cVisions are a hundred dollars,\u201d he told her, hanging his head, as if ashamed. \u201cI wish I could tell you for less. But the spirit world drains me. A vision like this one\u2014\u201d He paused for a moment, glanced up at the woman, her filmy bright eyes narrowed at him. \u201cI\u2019ll be wiped out for the rest of the night.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n And Anna, who knows he\u2019s not a clairvoyant, knows he\u2019s never had visions, overheard the whole thing. She confronted him that night when he got home. He was no true psychic, she said, and it was crooks like him who gave the rest a bad name. And he didn\u2019t deny it; he\u2019s a salesman, not a psychic. But, honestly, he doesn\u2019t see much difference between the two. He can read people better than Anna, knows exactly what they want to hear. And that old woman wanted to hear about her son. Wanted to believe her son was still around, in some form or another. All Roman did was give her what she wanted\u2014what she paid <\/em>for. But Anna wouldn\u2019t see it that way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He leans closer\u2014just a little, just enough to graze the top of her head with his chin\u2014and she tenses, takes a step away. She turns, holds the flyer out to him. \u201cI don\u2019t see anything,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s all just dark.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Later, hours after midnight when the crowd in the Quarter has tapered off to the lone drunk or bleary-eyed tourist, the night psychics pack up their tables, as if in tacit agreement that their shifts have ended. Roman did well enough for the night, about fifteen readings, a couple hundred bucks including tips. He\u2019s better than Anna at making money, a talented salesman, trained almost from birth. His mother sold Mary Kay beauty products around their south Mississippi neighborhood when he was a child, and she would take Roman with her on house calls. He wasn\u2019t Roman back then, just Charlie, a small, dark-eyed boy who looked too much like the father he never knew. But he was \u201cgood for business,\u201d his mother told him, and he\u2019d peer up from behind his mother\u2019s legs at her customers, as if too shy to speak. Just as his mother taught him to do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCharlie!\u201d his mother would say, taking him by the hand. \u201cSay hello.\u201d Then, lowering her voice, \u201cHe\u2019s just a little clingy, you know, since his father left.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell, bless his heart,\u201d the women would say. Sometimes crouching before him, touching his hair. And he would gaze up at them, his eyes wide, his lower lip just barely poked out, the saddest child in the world. That\u2019s how he thought of it\u2014his saddest child in the world face, like the starving orphans in those commercials on TV. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s just me and him, right, Charlie?\u201d his mother would say. \u201cMe and him against the world.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n It didn\u2019t work all the time. But when it did, when the women invited them in, nine times out of ten his mother would sell something. A lipstick in a smooth pink tube, a little pink compact, a bottle of perfume. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He\u2019s as good at sales now as his mother ever was, and she was so good she won the pink Cadillac in 1989, a gaudy, Pepto-Bismol nightmare of a car that Roman, nine years old at the time, should have hated. But he didn\u2019t, despite the looks they got as they rolled down the street. Despite the jeers from his classmates because, unlike them, he\u2019d seen firsthand how hard his mother had worked for that reward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n She had to give the car back when the lease ran out two years later. She didn\u2019t have the money to buy it, despite how many creams and lipsticks she sold. And Roman, who\u2019d thought the car was already hers, couldn\u2019t understand. Where did all the money go? She tried to explain to him about working for a company\u2014commission, consulting, percentages\u2014but all he ever understood was what he saw: his mother, leading private sales parties or going door to door in her pastel pantsuit worn thin at the knees, the pink case tucked under her arm, her face all made up and her hair sprayed so stiff not even a ride in the Cadillac with the windows down would blow it out of place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He likes to think she\u2019d approve because, like her, he can figure out a customer in a matter of seconds.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n She was dead of ovarian cancer by the time he started fortune-telling, three years ago now. But he likes to think she\u2019d approve because, like her, he can figure out a customer in a matter of seconds. The tipsy college girls who want to be told they\u2019re special. The elderly tourists looking for financial advice. The middle-aged women desperate for some kind of meaning. He knows how to play them all, how to lead them on, upsell them. \u201cYour palm can only reveal so much,\u201d he will say, and then offer them face readings, aura readings, crystal ball readings\u2014all at a special, one-time discount. He can sell up to twenty voodoo dolls in one night, can get even the most determined skeptic to buy one of his gris-gris bags. On a good night, he makes enough to live on for a week, and if every night was like tonight, he could quit his service job, bartending at Da Bar, a dive joint a few blocks from his apartment. But not every night is good, and sometimes he goes home with just a couple of twenties stuffed in the pocket of his bag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By 4:00 AM he\u2019s back at the tiny, upstairs apartment he rents in the Irish Channel, sipping a beer and scrolling through the news on his laptop. He types her name into the search engine\u2014Camilla Guidry<\/em>\u2014and several results appear. More than he expected, in fact, because people go missing all the time in New Orleans. Most of them are never found. Rumor has it some of them end up in the river, their bodies making their slow, bloated way down to the Gulf. But Roman always imagines them swallowed up whole by the city itself, not a bone or shred of clothing or strand of hair left to prove they ever existed in the first place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He clicks on a video of the story posted by a local station. \u201cI\u2019ve served this city for twenty years,\u201d a man being interviewed says. \u201cAnd now I\u2019m asking for your help.\u201d He stands on the front porch of one of those shotgun camelbacks found all over the city, green filigreed brackets beneath the porch roof, scrolled lattice work, a limp Saints flag dangling from the awning. A middle-aged man, pale and worn, his eyes bloodshot, a little unfocused behind his glasses. And again, a feeling comes over Roman, a coolness, like a stream of air against the back of his neck. The strangeness of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu. Because he\u2019s seen this man, his pale face and nervous, twisting hands. He\u2019s seen this man hunched over his table in the square. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It comes to him then, all at once, in full-blown detail: the man\u2014Ed Guidry, Camilla\u2019s father, a caption at the bottom of the screen says\u2014sliding her photo across the table. He kept darting looks all over the square, as if afraid someone might recognize him. It was very late, Roman remembers, a slow night, and he\u2019d been about to pack up when the man came quick around a corner, his thin little arms crossed over his chest, almost running to Roman\u2019s table. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This was\u2014what?\u2014maybe a month ago? Before the girl disappeared. And whatever it was the man had asked him, Roman pretended to know the answer. He held that photo in his hand and made a show of it, closing his eyes, placing two fingers against his forehead as if deep in concentration. When he was finished, the man shoved a wad of twenties at him and slipped away, as quick as he came. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The reporter in the video pops back on screen and says Ed Guidry is a member of the city council. No wonder the case is getting so much attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Roman closes his laptop, carries his beer out to the balcony. He sits on the plastic lawn chair with his feet propped on the railing, lights a clove cigarette, and watches the lit-up barges glide down the river. Beyond the rows of warehouses, he can just make them out, long and flat, their lights shimmering against the dark water so there\u2019s two of them, like split-headed beasts from some forgotten fairy tale, the sea monsters of legends. A fog horn blows in the distance, somewhere far up the river, a long, low note, oddly mournful. I\u2019m here, <\/em>it seems to say, even though you can\u2019t see me.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Roman works the afternoon shift at Da Bar the next day, wiping down the damp wood counter, filling beer glasses. The place is dark, nearly windowless, and smells of sweat and mildew. Cracks run across the vinyl barstool cushions, foam exposed, and the wood floor buckles in several places. During the many lulls between pouring drinks, he flips through a paperback about Tarot readings, practices a few tricks with his deck. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the TVs\u2014tuned to the local news station\u2014plays a story about Camilla Guidry. They\u2019re airing the same clip he watched last night, but the girl\u2019s father sounds different, his voice weaker, muffled. Roman knows it\u2019s just the blown TV speakers, but the effect is unnerving. As he listens to the man\u2019s tinny, far-off voice, he can\u2019t help but picture him dimming out, his pale face fading feature by feature until he\u2019s no more than blurred edges. A hazy outline of a head, the curve of a shoulder. A slow dissolve into a silver-white sky the color of dusk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If only Roman hadn\u2019t recognized him. He sat up a long time last night, watching the dark shimmer of the river and playing it over in his mind\u2014how the man slid that photo across the table, blinked up at him with watery pink eyes. For a while, that\u2019s all he could remember. But finally, at some point near dawn, he recalled the man had said his daughter seemed \u201chollowed out.\u201d Like she wasn\u2019t really in there, he said. And then he\u2019d leaned across the table, lowered his voice. \u201cTruth is, I\u2019m getting a little scared of her. It\u2019s like she looks right through me to whatever\u2019s on the other side.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n He wanted to know what was wrong with her. \u201cI don\u2019t know what to do,\u201d he said. And Roman, plucking up the photo and closing his eyes, had told him some bullshit about planes of existence, energy, auras. That\u2019s all he can remember, that he\u2019d spouted some nonsense straight off the back of a book from an occult shop. And, for whatever reason, the man had bought it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A regular named Lyle sits at the bar, his head tipped back, watching the clip. \u201cOnly reason they care is cause of her daddy,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCome on, man,\u201d Eddie says from down the bar. He\u2019s another regular, an old black man who wears the same Saints jersey\u2014McAllister, number 26, the letters cracked and peeling\u2014every time he\u2019s here. \u201cLooks like he pretty tore up.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShit, Eddie,\u201d Lyle says. \u201cShe probably just run off.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat you mean? \u201cI mean,\u201d Lyle says, \u201cshe probably got bored and run off somewhere.\u201d His slicked-back hair, so black Roman suspects he dyes it, gleams even in the dull light of the bar, as if emitting its own light. \u201cGot sick of daddy\u2019s rules. Bet she\u2019s shacking up with some guy.\u201d He waves a hand at Roman. \u201cLet me get one more, Roman,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHey, Roman,\u201d Eddie says. \u201cWhat you think happened to that girl?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Roman dog-ears a page in his book to mark his place and reaches for Lyle\u2019s empty glass. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYeah,\u201d Lyle says. \u201cYou supposed to be psychic, right?\u201d He snorts a laugh through his nose, fingers a cigarette out of his shirt pocket. \u201cGuess you know all about it, huh?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Roman slides the full glass across the counter to him. \u201cThat\u2019s not how it works, Lyle,\u201d he says. \u201cI told you that before.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell,\u201d Lyle says, \u201cthat\u2019s mighty convenient, ain\u2019t it?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Roman clenches his jaw, fights the urge to snap at the man. Lyle\u2019s been giving him shit for the past three years, as long as Roman has worked here. He\u2019s used to a little scorn\u2014drunks teasing him in Jackson Square, muttering in put-on accents, \u201cGive me a quarter and I\u2019ll tell you your fortune\u201d\u2014and Lyle\u2019s jabs usually don\u2019t bother him much. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But the truth is he\u2019s felt more and more like a fraud since Anna left him. Like a snake oil salesmen, working one of those traveling medicine shows. A Peg Leg Sam, hawking fortunes like cure-all elixirs. He tells himself selling fortunes is no worse than all those beauty creams and fad diets and other shit people sell. Certainly no worse than the makeup his mother pushed on the neighborhood ladies. Because, really, it boils down to the same thing: a sense, however tenuous and unreal, that they\u2019re in control\u2014of their appearance, their future. Their existence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But the thing he can\u2019t shake now is that he\u2019s maybe\u2014just a little, the tiniest bit\u2014responsible for the girl\u2019s disappearance. He tells himself, as he told himself over and over last night, it\u2019s not his fault. The man should have taken his daughter to a psychiatrist, not a fortune-teller. All Roman did was what any salesman would do\u2014make the sale. But still, it bothers him. In the few hours he slept, he dreamed of her\u2014those too-dark eyes and her little pale face, right there. Hovering over his bed, so close he could reach out and run his fingers through her dark hair. But when he tried, she faded back into shadow, and he woke up like that, his hand suspended there. Grabbing at the dark. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHey,\u201d Lyle says. \u201cLet\u2019s ask the cards<\/em> where the girl is.\u201d He nods at the Tarot deck Roman left by the register. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The deck is brand new. Roman\u2019s specialty is palmistry, and he can pull off a pretty convincing aura or crystal read too. But he\u2019s never read Tarot cards, never taken the time to learn, never cared. Until now, because he plans to ask Anna to give him tips next time he sees her. He\u2019ll pull the deck out right in front of her, shuffle through it, maybe spill the cards all over the table for good measure. A bumbling fool, in need of assistance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t think so, Lyle,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat,\u201d Lyle says, \u201cyou want me to pay? I\u2019ll pay.\u201d He whips his wallet from his pocket and tosses it on the counter. \u201cWhat\u2019s the rate for card tricks? Ten bucks?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Roman gazes down at the wallet, black leather as dark and shiny as Lyle\u2019s hair. He doesn\u2019t know the cards well enough yet. He should say no, say he\u2019s not a performing monkey. But he can\u2019t turn down money. Force of habit, maybe, or instinct, a behavior learned so early its roots reach all the way down to the core of him, a place as black and bottomless as the girl\u2019s eyes. Whatever it is, it won\u2019t let him say no. \u201cIf they\u2019re willing to pay,\u201d his mother used to say, \u201cyou find <\/em>something to sell.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n ‘If they\u2019re willing to pay,’ his mother used to say, ‘you find <\/em>something to sell.’<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe rate?\u201d Roman says, glancing up at Lyle. \u201cFor a professional? Thirty bucks. But I can knock five off.\u201d He winks. \u201cSpecial one-time discount.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lyle cocks his head to one side, as if weighing the possibilities. Then waves a hand at Roman. \u201cGo on,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So Roman does. He splits the deck\u2014the cards stiff and slippery, too new\u2014and shuffles once, twice, taps the deck on the counter. He presses his palm over the deck, closes his eyes for a moment. It\u2019s just for show, but the girl\u2019s face comes to him anyway, those black eyes, the strained expression, like a clenched fist, a wire pulled taut, ready to snap. He deals a card from the stack and places it face down on the table. One-card spreads are best for yes or no questions, but he\u2019s not ready for anything more complicated just yet. A couple of men have drifted over from the video poker machines. They lean against the bar beside Lyle, watching. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCan I get another round?\u201d one of the men says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShut the fuck up,\u201d the other says. \u201cYou interrupting shit.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ll be right with you.\u201d Sweat pricks the back of Roman\u2019s neck, his scalp. He has never been nervous during readings, not even at the beginning, when he first started. It\u2019s all about confidence, he told Anna once. You look like you know what you\u2019re doing, and people buy it. \u201cBuy what?\u201d Anna asked. They sat side-by-side on the prim little couch in her living room, sandalwood candles burning on her mantle. \u201cWhatever you\u2019re selling,\u201d Roman said. She looked over at him, her eyes a swampy green in the low light. \u201cAnd what are you selling me?\u201d He can\u2019t remember now what he\u2019d answered. All he recalls is the baby soft skin at the nape of her neck, the overwhelming scent of sandalwood, soapy sweet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He could swear his hands tremble\u2014just barely, the faintest flutter\u2014as he flips the card over. He recognizes it, a man hanging by one ankle from a tree, both hands tied behind his back. \u201cThe hanged man,\u201d he says, pressing a fingertip against the man\u2019s smooth, unformed face. He looks more like he\u2019s levitating than hanging, his free leg bent behind the other in a half lotus position. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe hell does that mean?\u201d Lyle says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Roman stares down at the card, tries to remember what he read. Something about a crossroads and waiting, maybe, but the answer always depends on the question. He pauses, looks up at Lyle, at the men beside him, at Eddie down the bar. All of them gazing at him, waiting for some big reveal. As if the answer is really there, in a card from a deck he bought at Divinity, an occult shop in the Quarter run by a middle-aged woman with three yippy little dogs and a Cajun accent so thick he almost couldn\u2019t understand her. \u201cYou going read these for y\u2019all customers?\u201d she asked. \u201cThese cards,\u201d she hovered her hand over the deck, wiggled her fingers, bright nail polish flashing, \u201cthey not for games.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet, here he is, playing games with Lyle. Proving he knows what he\u2019s doing when he doesn\u2019t know a goddamn thing. But he has to say something, has to earn that thirty bucks, so he closes his eyes, tries to picture the hanged man\u2019s page in the book, the list of meanings. \u201cSuspension,\u201d he says, as soon as it pops in his head. \u201cThe hanged man is suspended between worlds.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat worlds?\u201d Eddie says. He\u2019s staring hard down at the card, his voice low, hushed. As if he\u2019s afraid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur world and the spirit world,\u201d Roman says, warming to it now, as he always does when his customers are like Eddie, hanging on his every word. \u201cLiving and dead.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo she\u2019s a zombie?\u201d Lyle tips his stool back and laughs, nudging one of the men with his elbow. \u201cWe got a zombie on the loose,\u201d he says. \u201cGet y\u2019all guns ready.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n But Roman barely hears him because suddenly his scalp tingles, a pricking along the nape of his neck to the crown of his head. Like static electricity, as if someone has rubbed a balloon over his hair. He plucks the card from the counter and holds it up to his eyes, as if the hanged man might hover right off the glossy surface. As if, for the first time, he might actually experience something<\/em>\u2014divination or premonition or clairvoyance or any of the phenomena he so often fakes. He squints at the card, then lets his eyes glaze over. Waits for a moment. But nothing happens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo if she ain\u2019t dead,\u201d Eddie says, \u201cwhat\u2019s she doing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWaiting,\u201d Roman says, because it\u2019s the only thing he can think of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWaiting for what?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n But Roman shakes his head. \u201cThat\u2019s all I got.\u201d For once, it\u2019s the truth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Later, he carries his laptop out to his balcony and reads about the hanged man on a few different sites. They all say the same thing\u2014the card represents suspension, waiting. The Hanged Man is a willing victim, <\/em>one site says, someone who has chosen the path of sacrifice to accomplish a higher goal. <\/em>He\u2019s scrolling down the page to read more when a sudden movement, the flicker of a shadow across a streetlamp, catches his eye. He sits up, gazes through the bars of the iron railing at the street below. It\u2019s dark, lit here and there by only a few weak streetlamps, all the front stoops and porches and gates blended together in one long spill of shadow. And then, as Roman watches, a shadow darker than the rest, blacker than the oily black of the river, darts across the brick front of a warehouse across the street. So fast, he might have imagined it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He closes his laptop, moves up close to the railing. Clutching it with both hands, he stares hard into the darkness, waiting for the shadow to reappear. And then, the streetlamp just beneath his balcony flickers\u2014once, twice\u2014and standing there, beneath its dull yellow light, is a slender, dark figure. Upturned face, small and round, pitted eyes, hands clenched together right over her heart. The girl, in the exact same posture as her photo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n His pulse beats hard in his ears, a hot, relentless pounding. \u201cHey,\u201d he says, and he can barely hear his own voice. \u201cHey!\u201d Louder now; down the street, a neighbor\u2019s dog barks. But still, the girl doesn\u2019t move, doesn\u2019t respond. Just clutches her hands together and gazes up at him, as flat and dimensionless as her photo. He closes his eyes, as he has seen Anna do, presses his fingers to his temples, and when he looks again, the girl is gone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was her,\u201d he tells Anna the next night. \u201cI know it was her.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Anna stares up at him\u2014one of her sad, silent stares, as if she\u2019s contemplating profound truths she\u2019d rather not know. \u201cOkay, Roman,\u201d she says. \u201cBut why<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d They stand together beside the iron gate in Jackson Square, Anna\u2019s folded-up table propped against the bars. All around them the night psychics set up shop, the sky turning purple with dusk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI mean,\u201d Anna says, drawing out the words, as if he\u2019s an idiot, \u201cwhy you? Why would she show herself to you<\/em>? What does she want?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t know. How the hell would I know?\u201d He has to make her understand, has to convince her. He hardly slept last night after the girl vanished. He tried, forced himself to go back inside, to stretch out on his couch. But he just lay there, staring up at the dark, trying to make sense of what he\u2019d seen. He decided it must have been a vision. But he\u2019d always imagined visions as hazy, shimmering, half-lit as dreams. Not like the girl, in so much detail, just standing down there under the streetlamp. Waiting, just like the card told him. Waiting for him to see her. \u201cI did see her,\u201d he says to Anna. \u201cI did.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThen you should tell the police.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe police?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA child goes missing, you see her, you tell the police, Roman.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut it wasn\u2019t her,\u201d he says. \u201cI mean, it wasn\u2019t the real her. It was a vision of her. I know the difference.\u201d He doesn\u2019t, though, and technically it could\u2019ve been the real Camilla he saw. He considered this possibility last night as he lay sleepless on his couch. Thought it over and dismissed it within a matter of moments because what were the chances the girl would end up right in front of his balcony? What were the chances that he\u2014of all the thousands of people in the city\u2014would be the one to spot her? <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEven so,\u201d Anna says. \u201cYou should tell them. Or at least call her father. The man\u2019s been on news every night asking for information.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n But Roman doesn\u2019t want to think about her father\u2014his bloodshot eyes and haggard face, the utter despair that wafted off him like a smell. No way in hell is he going to contact the man unless he knows for sure what he saw. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou ever tell the police about your<\/em> visions?\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n She throws her bag over her shoulder, stoops to grab her table, all her long, dark hair falling over her face. \u201cYes,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd don\u2019t expect them to pay you. That\u2019s not how it works.\u201d Then, tucking her table under her arm, she turns to go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHey,\u201d Roman says. \u201cWhat do you know about the hanged man?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n She stops, glances back at him. \u201cYou\u2019re doing Tarot now too?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMaybe.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTarot is ancient,\u201d she says. \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t be messing around with it, Roman.\u201d She shifts her bag from one shoulder to the other. He fights the urge to take it from her, to offer to help. She would just tell him no. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m not messing around,\u201d he says. \u201cI swear.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n She looks at him for a moment, then shakes her head. \u201cIf you\u2019re seeing the hanged man,\u201d she says, \u201cit\u2019s probably a sign you need to let go of something.\u201d And then she turns, rounds the corner of the gate, and is gone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When customers turn up that night, he has trouble focusing. One woman even asks him what\u2019s wrong. An older lady with a drawling Southern accent, face heavily made-up. \u201cYou okay, honey?\u201d she says, right in the middle of a palm reading, and he realizes he\u2019s been silent for several seconds, holding her palm limply in his hand, staring over her shoulder at every dark-haired girl who passes on the street. \u201cSorry,\u201d he says, \u201cI thought I saw something.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n But he just shrugs. If only he knew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He packs up early that night, even though it\u2019s a Saturday, and the square is crowded with potential customers. He stashes his table and his bag in his apartment, grabs a flashlight, and heads outside. He starts with the warehouse across the street, shining his light along the dirty bricks. He doesn\u2019t know what he\u2019s looking for, exactly\u2014evidence of some kind. A strand of curly black hair, a scrap of her clothing. A small footprint. Anything to prove she was or wasn\u2019t there. That she was the girl herself, in the flesh, or a vision of some kind, an actual clairvoyant experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He moves on, searches the narrow alleyway between two shotgun houses, sweeps his beam along the broken concrete and through the weeds. Tiny moths flutter up, like pixie dust glittering in the light. A rustle behind him makes him turn quick on his heels in time to spot a cat slink under the porch. He crouches, shines his light there, as if the girl might be flat on her belly in the hard-packed dirt, hiding with a pack of feral cats. Her eyes, caught in the beam, sucking up the light instead of reflecting it back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mosquitos whine in his ears, and he\u2019s sweating now, the back of his neck sticky. Something big and winged buzzes over his head, and he jerks up, brushes himself off. Still, he goes on. He walks another block or two down the street, searching the sidewalk, the alleyways, the empty front stoops. Near Da Bar, he stops, waves at a couple of men gathered out front. Eddie is among them, wearing his Saints jersey and smoking a cigar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHey, Roman,\u201d he calls to him. \u201cCome have a drink. What you doing with that flashlight?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n For a second, Roman considers telling him about his vision. Sipping a beer on Da Bar\u2019s stoop, describing to Eddie what he saw. Unlike Anna, Eddie would believe it. Eddie would buy every word that comes out of his mouth. He\u2019d pay too, if Roman asked\u2014for card tricks, a palm reading, maybe even a gris-gris bag or two, and his hand moves to his side, where his bag would be, already reaching for something to sell. He stops when he realizes there\u2019s nothing there, his hand grabbing at air. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And all at once, he\u2019s struck with a memory, so old it\u2019s curled up around the edges like a brittle photograph\u2014his mother, sitting with a friend on the plaid couch in their cramped living room. The friend, a woman who lived down the street, was upset about something\u2014crying, he remembers\u2014and his mother tried to soothe her in her low, gentle voice, the one she used on him when he was sick. Roman, who must have been around seven or eight at the time, sprawled on the floor at their feet, playing with one of his toys. His mother reached her hand down, right beside him, and fumbled around on the floor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat are you looking for?\u201d the friend said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n His mother\u2019s hand froze against the carpet. She peered down at Charlie for a second, then swept her hand over to him, rumpled his hair. \u201cCharlie dropped one of his toys,\u201d she said. But Charlie hadn\u2019t, and he knew right off that she\u2019d been reaching for the case of cosmetics she would set at her feet on house calls or during sales parties. He knew right off she was reaching for something to sell to the friend crying on her couch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Roman stares down at his empty hand, something skittering around in his gut, a feeling like\u2014what? Shame? And then he raises his arm and waves at Eddie and turns back down the street. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When he reaches his apartment, he stops beneath the streetlamp where the girl stood the night before. He tucks the flashlight under his arm and clutches his hands together over his heart, just as she did, and stares up at his empty balcony. He imagines himself there, a tensed figure, poised at the railing even long after she has vanished. Moonlight throwing him half in shadow, his face dark and featureless, a solid black silhouette. Suspended there, as still as a photo, a painting. Staring long and hard into the shadows, as if waiting for something, anything, to creep its way out from the dark. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “The Hanged Man” by Katherine Conner Roman spots the flyer on his way to read palms in Jackson Square. Taped to the window of a coffee shop, Have You Seen Me? above a photo of a dark-haired girl, maybe fifteen, sixteen. He can\u2019t tell, doesn\u2019t have time to stop because it\u2019s almost dark and he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1546,"featured_media":314049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5557,63],"tags":[5659,178,14,306,5577,94,5653,556],"class_list":["post-313990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lit-mags","category-recommended-reading","tag-city","tag-family","tag-money","tag-mystery","tag-recommended-reading","tag-relationships","tag-southern","tag-work"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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