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most powerful families in Charleston. That’s actually how she met my grandfather.”
    “She told his fortune?”
    Clementine grinned. “To her advantage, no doubt. Grandmother is no one’s fool.”
    “Does she still do readings?”
    “Occasionally, but never for money these days. She gave it up after she married my grandfather. The practice was deemed unsuitable, borderline satanic in his circle, though many of his friends were her clients. She insisted on keeping her shop, though. She always said it was a foolish woman who relied solely on the discretion and generosity of a man, even one as wealthy and as smitten as my grandfather. She was quite the progressive in her day.”
    “She sounds like a very interesting woman.”
    “She certainly is. Drop by the shop sometime and I’ll introduce you.” She offered me another scone even though I’d yet to finish the first. “Oh, please eat up,” she encouraged. “The leftovers will go straight to my hips.”
    I took another and I placed it on my plate.
    “Well, I’ve certainly been the chatterbox, haven’t I?” she said cheerfully. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me.” A pause. “You’re very easy to talk to.”
    “I am?” I would never have thought so. I’d spent too much of my life in my own company.
    “You have a kind face and a soothing manner.” She held out her hand. It was perfectly steady now. “May I?”
    I felt myself immediately withdraw. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m not much for fortunes. I’ve never wanted to see my future.”
    “Don’t worry. I know little beyond the basics. Both hands, please. The future is shown in the left, the past in the right.”
    I placed my hands palm up on the table. She scrutinized both without touching either. “What do you do for a living, Amelia?”
    “I’m a cemetery restorer.”
    She glanced up. “ Really. How interesting. What does that entail, exactly?” She bent back to my palms.
    “In a nutshell, I reclaim old graveyards that have been abandoned or fallen into a state of neglect.”
    “You mean like family burial sites?”
    “And old public cemeteries, as well. Graves are forgotten and rarely visited after a generation or two. Neglect takes a rapid toll. The ground sinks. Headstones crack. Whole cemeteries get swallowed up by forests… .” I trailed off. “Now I’m talking too much.”
    “Not at all. I love old graveyards. I’ve just never given much thought to the care of them. I imagine vandalism is a big problem.”
    “Vandalism, acid rain, moss and lichen. The problems vary. Every cemetery is unique. The time and attention required will vary from place to place, stone to stone. My motto is to do no harm.”
    “Like the Hippocratic oath,” she said. “I suppose that’s a good life’s motto for any of us.”
    “Yes, it is.”
    “When I was little, my grandmother and I spent many a Sunday afternoon exploring churchyards all over Charleston. The Unitarian was always my favorite. I loved all the wildflowers and the story about Annabel Lee. She was supposedly the inspiration for Poe’s poem, you know. I would beg my grandmother to tell her story every time we visited, even though I was terrified of running into her ghost. Luckily, I never did.” She gave a little shudder as she fixed her gaze on my palms. “Hmm…that’s interesting.”
    “Interesting good or interesting bad?” I asked with more than a shade of trepidation.
    “You have water hands,” she said. “I would have guessed earth.”
    “Because of my profession?”
    “Among other things.”
    I curled my fingers and withdrew my hands to my lap. She didn’t object.
    “You have some unusual lines,” she mused as she sipped her coffee. “But I don’t know enough to give you a proper interpretation. You should let my grandmother do a reading for you sometime. Or my sister. She’s very talented. Maybe the most gifted of us all.”
    “Thank you, but as I said, I’d rather not know what the future