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“That is if you are open.” I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to avoid her piercing gaze. It was as if she could see right through me.
    There was a gypsy quality to her. Silver rings donned on her fingers and dangling charms at her wrists. “I am always open to those who search for answers.” Her voice was rich like satin, lyrically even. She had a trance-like quality to her tone that made your ears perk up and listen.
    Under her watchful eye s, I felt squeamish, like she could peal back the layers of my secrets and see my darkest fears. “Ah, good, I guess,” I mumbled. My magical tattoo tingled, and I knew looking at this woman that it meant something. She wasn’t a witch, but something else… Where was Gavin when I needed him? My glaze slid to Sophie, who met my worried expression with a weak smile.
    I was going to kill her later.
    With a wave of her delicate hand, the woman gestured for us to sit at the round table. I scanned the room trying to figure out where she had come from. I was the last to sit down.
    “My name is Janessa. Who would like to go first?” A soft, gentle smile lay on her crimson lips and she looked right at me as if she expected me to raise my hand. Hardly .
    Tori’s hand shot up. “Me.”
    Janessa paused a moment, before she pulled her gaze from mine to Tori. “What is your choice, lovely Tori? Palm, fortune, or the cards?”
    Tori gasped , shocked at Janessa’s calling her by name. It actually took all of us by surprise. “Fortune,” Tori answered, just a little less enthusiastic.
    While Janessa rambled on about Tori’s future, I fumbled with the crystals at my neck, and Janessa once again captured me with her yellow eyes. She stared at the necklace around my neck, the moonstone and amethyst. I still wore the stones I had bought from the Halloween shop. Every day. Religiously.
    She must have finished with Tori’s fortune, because she held the deck of tarot cards in her hands, shuffling them. “Let me read your cards,” she said. And before I could decline, she was flipping over a card from the tarot deck onto the table. “Hmm.” The card was that of a magician in red robes. “The magician.” Her heavily black-lined eyes narrowed. “You will become a conduit for great power. The forces of creation and destruction have always been at your hand.”
    I swallowed hard.
    She turned over another and ran her fingers over the weathered card of what looked like a princess in a teal and gold gown. The condition of the cards made it obvious that she had done this frequently. “The high priestess. She acts as a guide to those of us willing to venture deep within ourselves, to discover the true hidden powers inside.”
    I shifted restlessly in my chair. Swell.
    I wanted to tell her to stop, but at the same time , I was intrigued, pulled by the lure of her voice and my expectancy of the next card.
    The subsequent card to land on the table elicited a unanimous gasp from all of us: the devil. She glanced up. “You are holding yourself back, restricting your abilities. The chains that bind the devil are loose enough that you can break free of this hold, but only if and when you believe in yourself.” The last card was a soft yellow-white globe. “The moon’s appearance means that not all is as it seems. That vigilance and perception will be necessary to show the hidden before it is too late.”
    The hidden?
    What was that supposed to mean?
    Why did everything involving magic and the supernatural have to be so damn mysterious? It was so blasted hair -pulling.
    As I was biting my lip, h er hand shot across the table, landing on top of mine. The grasp she had was so tight I was unable to pull away. And then if that hadn’t hit high enough on the freaky scale, her eyes rolled back in her head, like glowing balls of white.
    For crying out loud. Now what?
    I stiffened.
    “There is only one thing that can save your soul from the darkness. Moondust. Seek the dust of the moon when you need