C A R E E R: Celebrity Psychic
N E I G H B O R H O O D: Venice Beach
S U G G E S T E D F C’ S: Mimi Elashiry
A E S T H E T I C ☆ Crystal balls, flower crowns, dried lavender, citrus tea, tarot cards and lace, graveyards at noon, the caw of a raven’s crow, soft lines and symmetry ☆
P L A Y E D B Y: Asbury (they/them) | 23 | EST
The Sabrys were the perfect nuclear family living in perfect little suburbia. Consisting of their three children, a housewife mother, and a businessman father, it was copied and pasted from a 1950’s magazine. Right in the middle of the family was Valentina. With an older brother that was a star athlete and a younger sister that was popular and loved, Valentina was the definition of middle child syndrome. She would never be the baby and she lived in her older brother’s shadow. The only thing she had going for her was her “party trick”. She could read the tea leaves of anyone who asked, determine what future path someone should take with tarot cards. She had always been good at reading people, to the point where she knew all of the best gossip before word even got out in school. Growing up, she embraced it. Her Ouija board was a common fixture in her room and an amethyst crystal wrapped in wire hung from her neck. She claimed it opened her Third Eye and stimulated her crown chakra. Really, it was more for aesthetic appeal, but no one needed to know that.
However, she wasn’t so great at anything else. Graduating high school was rough enough, and that was literal. She almost didn’t make it given her failing grades in English, science, and math. Her father made damn sure to tell her just how low she had dropped, just how far into her brother’s shadow she was. She was convinced that she would never see the light again because of it. Her parents were disappointed, her siblings were smug and Valentina was depressed. Good at nothing. She heard it all from the time she was thirteen, apparently old enough to know just how worthless she was. Not like her amazing older brother or her beloved younger sister. She was just Valentina. The poor student, the one who would work in a diner the rest of her life, or be stuck in a dead end retail job. She was nothing special. And goddess, she longed to be special.
Valentina strove to earn her parents’ approval. She started making money by reading tarot cards for people around town, setting up meetings in the local library and reading palms in the parking lot of superstores. She even worked at some chain restaurant, attempting to prove that she could at least do something right. She would do anything to stand out from her siblings that she tried to be normal. She packed up the tarot deck, put away the Ouija board. She even stopped wearing flower crowns when she wasn’t out selling her whole gimmick. Her mother said that reading tea leaves and tarot wouldn’t ever get her anywhere. As far as her mother was concerned, it was just a little game she used to play to pass the time between waitressing and getting picked up from her shifts. More often than not, they had been late to pick her up. She tried so damn hard and got nowhere. She was told, “Try a little harder, Valentina,” or, “You’ll never be as good as your brother.” It was never ending and there was nothing she could do to change that.
The great thing about community college was that they would accept anyone. Even someone with a 1.8 GPA and no recommendations from her teachers or extracurriculars. She stuck it out there for three weeks, struggling to keep up in class before she said, “enough.” One day, she left, kissing her mom on the cheek and even grabbing her books for good measure but she had no intention of going to class. She made enough money to get some clunker of a car, older than she was and with enough miles to make anyone nervous, but it was hers. It made it to Los Angeles with no issues, as she prayed to the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone to get her there safely. Of course, the car didn’t last once she made it past city limits, but after sleeping in it for weeks, she was okay with that. Good riddance.
She was homeless for the first few months, living in and out of homeless shelters and reading palms on the street for money. She was a no one, people didn’t look her way when they passed her on the streets. She was a runaway, had left home without a word to anyone. Valentina Sabry disappeared without a trace. Honestly, she doubted if anyone even noticed or cared back home. Her parents were probably happy to be rid of the black sheep finally. She had always been the weird one, the odd one out, with a crystal ball sitting on her dresser back home they way she would cleanse her room with sage to ward off negative spirits. Not anymore.
Of course, everything she did was one hundred percent bullshit. She was amazing at solving puzzles and reading people and that was all being “psychic” was. She believed in what she said though, the goddess she prayed to, and the spirits that may be, but she didn’t believe she could speak with any of them. No one had to know that, though. People started asking her name and going out of the way to visit her. Valentina was dead, and rightfully so, she was a loser. Pathetic. Nobody. From the ashes of the bridges she burned, Fern Lovelace rose like a phoenix.
Psychic. Magic. T r a g i c.
It was no easy feat managing to claw her way into the inner circle with something she used to do for fun. Now it was her career, her clients visited her shop the second their life spun out of their control, came crawling to her when they needed their palm read or for the spirits that be to tell them their future. All of her clients live in the public eye but she gets to know them in private, weaving tales that draw them in like flies into a spider’s web. Fern knows all their little secrets, whether they confess them to her or not. Body language told her more than anyone realized and learned all she needed to from it. It also doesn’t hurt that she read up on new clients before they appeared at her door.
Fern views her clients as a puzzle to be solved, their histories creating the outline that she uses to decipher their futures. They are the people who put her in the spotlight, thanks to her little party trick, and are the reason she has the money to live as comfortably as she does. They hang on her every word and she enjoyed every minute of it. Tugging at the threads of their lives that could unravel them or revealing one little detail that could reinvigorate them made her feel powerful. She makes every person who walks through her door feel secure in their choices and like they have control over their future, simply by giving them a vague detail they can take however they want.
Anyone who doesn’t know better calls it magic. The ones that do know better call it bullshit. She’s just a girl making a living using body language and reading between the lines, but everyone seems to fall under her spell when she speaks. She occasionally looks back at the person she used to be back in suburbia, but she doesn’t exist anymore. And for every bit of information she has on her clients and for every word she whispers about their futures, her past is shrouded in mystery. As far as anyone was concerned, Fern Lovelace had been around for all 22 years of her existence. But for Fern herself, she knew from experience that there was only so far away someone could run to get away from their history. And she knew that sooner or later, her past was going to catch up with her.
She was just hoping for the latter.
Fern Lovelace is a cold-hearted human. All she had ever wanted growing up was to be special and now, she finally had it. She had everything she could want, with clients that pay by the hour and ten card tarot spread that she interpreted as she went, the money alone would have been enough for her to shop to her heart’s content. But money couldn’t buy happiness and that was especially true for Fern. Growing up as the middle child, she had always wanted attention, so she took to getting it in odd ways. It started with getting in trouble at school and landing in detention after detention. Once she picked up a deck of tarot cards from a hippie store in the mall, she knew she found what would make her special.
And she milked it for all she was worth. Eventually, it paid off, buying her a one way ticket to Los Angeles where she ended up being a psychic to the very celebrities she had once admired. She loved it. Once they had it in their heads that she held all of the answers they were looking for, she became a common fixture in their lives. Manipulated the hell out of them to get there, though. Give them too much and they were overwhelmed with information, potentially losing their cool now that they knew what the future held. Give them too little and they started to doubt that she could even contact the other side. It was a risky game, but since she was the only one aware that they were playing, she always won.
Which was just how she liked it. Now, don’t get her wrong, she feels badly for her clients when she sees too many negative cards in a reading or a bad omen in their tea leaves, but she doesn’t help them too much. Just enough that they have a new, positive take on an otherwise bleak future, but not so positive that it prevents them from strolling through her door again the following week. Outside of her shop, she could care less if their lives were built to the heavens or razed to the grounds. Inside, she was all smiles, softly spoken words, and reassurances that everything would be okay.
One of her biggest tricks was convincing the public, and herself, that she doesn’t have any bad karma headed her way. She was incredibly smart, more than most would ever give her credit for, especially after seeing an old report card. Smart enough to make people believe that she was innocent in everything, that she was actually in contact with the other side and that she could get in contact with your dead relatives. It was all very calculated, every move she made and every word she said. If she didn’t get it just right, her whole facade could come tumbling down. Karma almost certainly would have something to say about that.
Valentina Sabry would have never been able to accomplish this but Fern Lovelace did and that alone should make her happy. She had finally gotten the attention she craved all throughout her childhood. It was almost the perfect scam. Her million dollar trick had gotten her into the minds and hearts of Hollywood’s elite, she had what felt like fifteen minutes of never ending fame, and clients that practically worshiped the ground she walked on.
But she wasn’t happy. If she were brave enough to do her own reading, she would probably come to the conclusion that it was because of loose threads she hadn’t tied up, ghosts from her past that continued to haunt her. That deep down, she did feel bad for the people she manipulated just to get her way.
It was almost the perfect scam.
LUCA HASEOTES (best friend)
ASHER HEATHCOAT (friend/client)
