Page 44 of The Wilderwomen

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“Well, it’s a long story, but our mom went missing five years ago. We’re trying to find her, but we’re kind of stuck. I thought maybe you would know where we should look next.” Estrella’s eyes darted from Finn to Luna, a peculiar expression on her face that Finn couldn’t read. Luna quickly turned away and began straightening a pile of magazines. Estrella shook her head and sighed. “I’m sorry, girls. I can only paint if a vision is delivered to me. I’m just a conduit.”

“So you saw nothing for us?”

“I did not.”

“Okay. Thanks anyway,” Finn said, deflated, and stood to leave.

Zadie had been watching Luna since they arrived. There was something about her that felt familiar, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

Until now. “It’syou.”

Luna snapped around to face her. “What?”

“You’re the psychic one.” Zadie surprised even herself with her certainty. For lack of a better term, it was as if they had some kind of psychic connection. She’d heard of twins reuniting after years apart being able to read each other’s thoughts. She didn’t know what Luna was thinking, but she was pretty sure they had more in common than met the eye.

“How would you know?” Luna bristled.

“Because…” Then reluctantly she mumbled, “I’m a psychic, too.”

The woman gaped back at her. “Youare?” She seemed just as stunned as Zadie to be meeting another one of her kind.

“Well, I used to be,” she said, walking it back. “I don’t use my ability anymore. At least, not on purpose.”

“Luna’s been wanting to stop for years.” Estrella was looking at her granddaughter. “But the palm readings and tarot are how we make a living. Believe it or not, there aren’t a lot of job opportunities out here in the desert,” she said dryly. “Luna tells me what she sees and I paint. I agreed to be the face of the operation so she could stay anonymous.”

“And I’d like to keep it that way,” Luna interjected, her eyes burrowing into Zadie’s.

Zadie returned the hard look. “Me too.” It was like looking into a mirror.Are all psychics this grouchy?she wondered.

Luna’s suspicion began to give way, the hard line of her mouth slackening. She turned to Finn. “I’m sorry. I tried to read your fortunes, but I couldn’t. Every time I tried to look into the future, I kept getting thrown into the past. It was like my wires were getting crossed with someone else’s memories.”

Finn sucked in a quick breath. “Whose memories?”

“It was a long time ago. I don’t remember her name. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t think she ever told me her name. It was like she’d forgotten it or something.”

“Did you guys paint a rock for her?”

“I think so.” Luna looked at her grandmother for confirmation. The old woman nodded.

“Can we see it?” Finn asked.

Luna led Finn and Zadie out of the trailer toward the Cairn. Estrella must have used glow-in-the-dark paint, because the colors that had already seemed brilliant in the sunlight had turned neon under the black lights. Rather than a pile of painted rocks, it looked like some kind of totem from an alien planet.

Luna knelt near the base of the Cairn. Her fingers lightly skimmed the rocks as though she were blessing them. “Here it is.”

Finn and Zadie bent down to see the rock she was pointing to. It wasn’t colorful like the others. In fact, the only color was the cornflower blue Estrella had used for the sky. Underneath was what appeared to be a gray, barren mountain range.

“It’s a mountain,” Finn said.

“No. Look closer.” Luna pointed to several curls of white paint above one of the peaks.

Clouds? No. Smoke.

Finn turned to her sister. “Mom was looking for a volcano.”

The Wilders rose with the blushing dawn. Finn wanted to hit the road early despite having barely slept the night before. When she had slept, she’d dreamt of magma leaping from the mouths of steaming calderas; viscous fire writhing and bubbling under its black crust. When she was jolted awake, it wasn’t from fear, it was from excitement. She’d always wanted to see a volcano, even if it was dormant; even if the only lava she saw had long since cooled and turned to rock.

The only problem was figuring outwhichvolcano was the right one. On the pamphlet display in the front office, she found aVolcanic Parks Map of North America. Alittle dot identified the location of each volcano: black for extinct, gray for dormant, orange for active, and red for supervolcanoes. Finn had learned about supervolcanoes in geology class. Three of the twenty known on Earth are located in the United States, and according to her teacher, Mr. Mayweather, any one of them would be powerful enough to possibly trigger another ice age. (Mr. Mayweather had a reputation for trying to terrify his students. His lecture on brain-eating amoebas was the reason Finn didn’t swim in lakes anymore.)


Tags: Ruth Emmie Lang Fantasy