Chapter One of a story I’m working on. It’s sort of a collaboration with my best friend in the world. It’s a dark story about, well, people with extraordinary abilities.
"That'll be $18.83."
Jacob frowned.
This fucking guy.
Something about the cashier's blank expression and monotone voice irritated him. Maybe it was irrational, but Jacob couldn't shake the feeling that he was being judged. He was already a big guy and standing in a McDonald's, about to demolish two Bacon McDoubles, a large fry, a ten-piece McNugget, and a large Root Beer.
He fished his debit card from his wallet and slid it into the terminal. The cashier continued staring at him.
Take a picture, motherfucker, Jacob thought. Look somewhere else. Jesus Christ.
When the payment went through, he tucked his card away and moved toward the wall beside the counter, leaning against it while he waited for his order.
The cashier immediately turned to the next hungry customer with sudden animation. Jacob's fists tightened at his sides. The cashier was suddenly all smiles as he was entering in the next order, his customer service mask snapping neatly into place.
Fuck you, then, bitch.
Minutes later, he was halfway through his second bacon McDouble when the sound of nails on a chalkboard cut through the restaurant in the form of high-pitched giggles and clumsy footsteps. Kyle Peters and his usual pack of cronies spilled inside. Jacob wasn't sure what they found so funny, but knowing them, it was probably something really stupid.
Jacob and Kyle had been friends once, back in school, when their bodies were the opposite of what they were now. When life had seemed simpler. But, like everything else in life, that had changed.
Jacob watched them silently from his table, simultaneously hoping they wouldn't notice him and hoping they would. He wasn't exactly looking for a fight, but there was a pressure building, a frustration that had been simmering for weeks, if not months. The idea of venting by caving in the face of an asshole who irritated him every time he stepped into view held a certain appeal.
He did take a small amount of satisfaction in noticing that the cashier was giving Kyle and his friends the exact same dead-eyed enthusiasm he'd received. He didn't have long to dwell on it. One of the idiots with Kyle had spotted him and announced, far too loudly, "Hey guys, there's Mitchell!"
Jacob groaned.
Kyle turned around slowly. The smile spreading across his face looked hungry, but Jacob doubted it had anything to do with the food they were about to order.
"Hey, sir!"
"It's fine, I know what he wants. I'll have—"
Kyle drifted over to Jacob's table and leaned forward, planting both sets of knuckles on the surface beside the tray.
"Hi, Kyle," Jacob said flatly.
Kyle sneered. "Hey, cuntwaffle."
"Clever. You come up with that all by yourself?"
Kyle laughed, reached across, and stole a fry from Jacob's pouch. "Hey, so listen," he said around the mouthful. "You hear from Annie lately?"
Jacob let out a quiet chuckle.
Annie Hall was their ex-girlfriend.
He ate a few of his own fries, then shrugged. "Yep. I fucked her this morning before she left for work."
Kyle slammed a fist on the table, the smile vanishing from his face. "You're a fucking liar."
Jacob shrugged again. "You don't have to believe me. Ask her yourself. Or—" His eyes flicked pointedly to his crotch, and he smirked. "You're more than welcome to smell my dick. You can probably still smell her if you get close enough."
Kyle stared, and Jacob could practically feel the anger radiating off him.
"Hey, Kyle!" one of his friends called from the counter.
Kyle ignored him.
"Are you paying?"
Kyle ignored him.
"Kyle!"
Kyle ignored him.
"Do you have a fucking problem?" Kyle growled at Jacob.
Jacob checked his watch with theatrical care, pretending to study the screen, then looked up and flashed a wide, cheerful smile. "I've got time for one."
"Kyle! Come on, man! What the fuck?"
Kyle finally turned toward his friends, no longer able to pretend that they weren't trying to get his attention.
"One of you pay for it!"
As he turned back to Jacob, a few of them muttered something under their breath that Jacob thought sounded a lot like 'asshole'.
"You better be bullshitting!" Kyle said, raising his voice. "Stay the fuck away from her!"
Jacob scoffed, shaking his head. He polished off the rest of his fries and gave Kyle a flat, challenging stare. "Aww, why?" Jacob asked in a mocking baby voice. "Is woo stiww in wuv wiv her?"
"You know I am, motherfucker," Kyle shot back, trying and failing to sound intimidating.
"Then why did you ask me if I'd heard from her?" Jacob shot back, his voice returning to its normal pitch, edged with frustration. "Shouldn't you know where she is if you looove her so much?"
Kyle's jaw tightened. "She blocked me again."
"Surprise, surprise." Jacob rolled his eyes. He picked up the remaining half of his Bacon McDouble and took another bite, chewing leisurely as he waited for Kyle to muster a response. When none came, Jacob finished the burger, wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin, and leaned back.
"Just face it, dude," he said. "Annie doesn't want you. You're toxic. Why do you think she comes to me every time you guys break up?"
"You guys just fuck," Kyle said, looking genuinely pained now, probably because the image of Annie and Jacob together in that sort of embrace had no doubt planted itself firmly in the forefront of his mind. "What she and I have—"
"Had," Jacob corrected.
"What she and I have," Kyle repeated, ignoring the interruption, "is a real connection." He shook his head. "But fuck it. Whatever."
Kyle's gaze flicked toward his friends, who were standing off to the side of the register, waiting for the food they'd ordered. He straightened, pushing himself back from the table, his hands sliding off the edge, and slouched away to join them without another word.
Jacob smirked as he watched him go, quietly satisfied with both his words and his own audacity. He never would have spoken to anyone like that as a teenager. He was a well known pussy back then.
But now?
Jacob shrugged, his eyes gaze drifted toward the untouched box of McNuggets. What did he have to lose, really? His permanent record was already fucked at this point. What did he care if he got slapped with a disturbing the peace charge now for fighting Kyle Peters in the middle of a McDonald's?
He took a long pull from his straw, staring straight ahead through the wide windows not covered with promotional posters on the other side. The sky outside had darkened considerably. The clouds had grown heavy and bruised.
Jacob checked his watch again, for real this time.
4:33 PM.
He frowned. If it was going to rain, he should probably head home. He popped the last two McNuggets into his mouth, gathered his trash onto the tray, and carried it over to the disposal station. He didn't bother looking back at Kyle and the others as the familiar jingle of the restaurant door sounded behind him as it swung shut.
Jacob stepped out into the darkening afternoon and squinted up at the clouds. It looked like it might do more than rain. His eyes drifted toward his moped, tucked between a mud-caked red pickup truck and a swamp-green minivan. It wasn't a car, but it got him from Point A to Point B, and that was enough.
It could always be worse.
He thought back to his teenage years, tearing across town on bicycles with his friends, back when Kyle Peters had still been one of them.
Jacob pushed the memory aside and crossed the parking lot. Jacob swung a leg over the seat of the moped and straddled the machine. His thumb moved over the remote-start button on the key fob hanging from his keys, and the engine rattled to life. After making sure his AirPods were secure in his ears and Spotify queued with the tracks he wanted, he backed out of the space and pulled into the street.
The rain hadn't begun, but as Jacob navigated the familiar backstreets leading home, the unmistakable scent of approaching rain drifted through the air and reached his nostrils. He loved thunderstorms, so long as he was watching them from the safety of home and not caught out in one during the time he was out working.
He pushed the moped as fast as its small engine would allow, but it being under 50-cc meant traffic frequently piled up behind him before reluctantly moving around, their drivers no doubt irritated by his pace. Still, whenever rain started falling, or the roads were heavily slick from a recent storm or rainfall, he slowed down considerably. Maybe it wasn't necessary, but every time he sat atop his moped, the fear of crashing and suffering injuries would find its way to the forefront of his mind.
Jacob worked as a DoorDash driver, which was more of a chore than a job when your delivery vehicle was a scooter. Still, it kept food in his stomach and contributed, however modestly, to the rent. His father never complained much about covering most of the expenses, not as long as Jacob remembered to occasionally drop off a few cheese and jalapeño kolaches and an apple fritter every now and then.
Both came from Shipley Do-Nuts, his dad's favorite place in town for a quick bite to eat. In fact, he had even owned and managed a small Shipley's somewhere in Texas when he'd been younger, before marriage and fatherhood, and before settling down in Hoagie.
Jacob knew almost nothing about his mother; who she was, where she was from, or where she was now. When he was younger, he'd think about her constantly. He'd imagine what she looked like, and if she ever thought about him or regretted leaving. These days, he rarely spared her a thought. He didn't have the time nor the energy to care about someone who had abandoned him at such an infantile age, not when he had so many other things crowding his mind.
As Jacob eased out of an alley onto a broad cobbled road, a grim scene unfolded ahead.
A building up ahead was on fire, flames pouring from shattered windows, licking hungrily at the ever darkening sky.
Tony's Pizza Supreme.
He immediately eased off the throttle.
Two fire trucks sat parked at awkward angles, one halfway up onto the curb as though its driver had abandoned any concern for proper parking etiquette the moment they'd arrived. At least three firefighters that Jacob could see were battling the blaze, each of their gloved hands locked around thick attack hoses, shooting intense streams of water at the flames, but the fire was fighting back fiercely.
It looked exhausting, Jacob thought.
The smoke rolling overhead had turned into dense charcoal plumes, swelling higher by the second as the fire continued to spread, rapidly and out of control.
Even from where he sat astride the moped, Jacob could feel the heat radiating across the street. His music faded into irrelevance, but he couldn't hear himself think.
The noise was overwhelming.
Firefighters were shouting instructions to one another over the chaos in an effort to coordinate, and bystanders began to crowd the sidewalks, screaming, speculating, and talking over each other while raising their phones high enough to capture every possible angle for TikTok or other various social medias.
Nobody seemed capable of simply existing anymore.
Everyone wanted views, or clout, even with tragedies like this unfolding in front of them.
The scene before him was deafening. The crackling roar of the flames swallowed all sound whole, and somewhere inside, Jacob heard what sounded like glass explode, along with wood being splintered and destroyed.
And sitting there astride his moped, staring at the inferno consuming Tony's Pizza Supreme, Jacob couldn't help but think that this was what an active war zone probably sounded like.
He was mesmerized. The flames danced in the reflection of his eyes, beautiful in their raw, destructive grace.
At the same time, though, he was devastated.
He loved Tony's Pizza Supreme. Some of his favorite memories lived inside those walls. Countless ridiculous conversations with friends had unfolded in the booths and around the tables, and several of his birthdays had been celebrated there, his father going out of his way to make sure everything was perfect, even during years when money had been tight.
Now those same walls were collapsing into themselves.
Jacob found himself caught between two opposing emotions. His expression flickered between a horrified grimace and the ghost of a smile as the fire climbed higher. He wasn't happy about the destruction unfolding before him, yet he also couldn't deny the strange allure of the rising flames and twisting plumes of smoke.
He shouldn't be here, he realized suddenly, snapping back to the scene around him. Civilians were shouting over one another while recording videos on their phones, while firefighters were still barking orders as they fought desperately to contain the blaze.
They could blame me for this.
His stomach tightened. The thought was absurd. He knew he was innocent, at least this time, and it could be hours before the cause could be determined. Still, he thought to himself. Why make it easy for a suspect to be found?
The sudden blast of a horn behind him shattered his thoughts.
Jacob glanced over his shoulder.
Behind him, the driver of one of those hideous, angular Cybertrucks had rolled down his window and thrust an arm outside. His hand was turned upward in the universal gesture of What the fuck are you doing?
Jacob squinted at him in disbelief.
Could the man not see the burning building and the chaos surrounding it?
There wasn't a single car approaching from the opposite direction. Nothing prevented him from simply driving around and continuing on with his day.
Jacob gestured exactly that, flattening his hand and motioning toward the open lane ahead.
Go around.
Another honk answered him.
Then a third, louder and more impatient than the last.
Jacob cursed loudly.
"Fine!" he snapped. Growling under his breath, he twisted the throttle and pulled forward before taking the right turn, leaving the chaos of Tony's Pizza Supreme behind him.
The Cybertruck disappeared in the opposite direction.
Jacob shook his head in frustration and in his mirrors, the flames and smoke dwindled until they were nothing more than a distant, angry glow.
He arrived home several minutes later, parking in front of his unit in the lot of Granger Hill Apartments.
He killed the engine, and only then did he realize how hard he was breathing. His pulse still hammered from what he'd witnessed. Stepping off his moped, he hurried toward the building, nearly stumbling over the threshold of his door as he let himself inside.
"Dad!" he called as the door swung shut behind him. "You'll never guess what happened!"
Darkness answered him, which Jacob thought was odd.
Not a single light was on, and as he moved deeper into the apartment, he realized that included his father's bedroom as well.
He checked his watch and frowned. It was barely past five. No way the old man was already asleep.
He eased open his father's bedroom door.
Apparently, he was.
Patrick Mitchell lay fully clothed on top of the sheets and a blanket, an open can of Kingston beer still loosely gripped in one hand, dangling off the edge of the bed.
Jacob let out a quiet laugh. Of course. "Guess I'll tell you later."
He crossed the room, crouched beside the bed, and carefully, he eased the unfinished beer from his father's fingers. He tossed the can into a small trash bin tucked just inside the closet and slid the door shut again quietly.
A faint mumble stopped him as he turned to leave.
"Huh?" Jacob whispered, stepping closer.
His father remained motionless, his eyes still closed. He hadn't reacted at all when Jacob had taken the beer from him.
Jacob shrugged and headed back toward the doorway.
Then he heard it again.
Turning slowly, he watched as his father's lips quivered once before settling back into stillness. Jacob hesitated, then he crossed the room once more and crouched beside the bed.
"Dad?"
He didn't really want to wake him. If his father had spent the day drinking, he needed to rest now. Besides, Jacob wasn't sure news about one of the town's only three pizza places being reduced to ash and rubble was something that needed to be dumped onto someone the second they opened their eyes.
He could wait until his father was awake and sober and able to process information.
"Your... mother..." His father's voice emerged in a hoarse, wheezing whisper, like someone attempting to speak through the haze of an active coughing fit.
Jacob froze.
The last time his father had mentioned her, Jacob had been days away from starting seventh grade. The conversation had been brief; his father had simply said that he wished Jacob's mother could have been there to watch him grow up, that she would have been proud of the young man he was becoming, and that he himself couldn't have been more proud.
Maybe Jacob had imagined it. Maybe his father hadn't actually said anything.
"Jacob... your mother... she..."
Welp. There went that theory.
Jacob remained crouched, waiting, but nothing more came. His father had slipped back into heavy sleep, the alcohol in his system no doubt pulling him under.
They never talked about Jacob's mother. Not really, anyway. He had no idea what feelings stirred in his father whenever her memory surfaced, but whatever they were, they ran deep. Today? It looked a lot like depression.
Jacob released a slow breath and stood again, patting his father's arm with careful affection.
"Get some rest," he whispered.
Then he slipped quietly from the bedroom, pulling the door shut behind him as softly as he could, leaving Patrick Mitchell alone with whatever ghosts that had followed him into his sleep.
Jacob then slouched into a camping chair facing the entertainment system in the main room, and tried to find something to watch, something to take his mind off things. After twenty minutes of aimlessly scanning various movies and series on at least three different streaming services, he sighed and dropped the remote onto the plastic table in front of him, sending it clattering and nearly skidding off the edge.
At that moment, his phone, which was lying facedown on that table next to where the TV remote was just dropped, began to vibrate violently.
Good timing, Jacob thought.
He flipped his phone over in his hand and Annie's face looked back at him. A small smile tugged at his lips as he answered, tapping the speaker icon and dropping the phone back down onto the table, more gently than he had the remote.
"Hey."
"Jaaaaaake!" she sang.
"Yeah, hi. What's up?"
"Whatchu doinnnnn?" she asked, her voice bright and playful.
Jacob shrugged, forgetting for a moment that she couldn't see him. "I dunno, chilling I guess. I'm just sitting. Dad's asleep, so."
There were other voices in the background, laughter and bits and pieces of overlapping conversations. Jacob wasn't entirely sure Annie had even heard his response.
"Hey!" she suddenly exclaimed. "Wanna meet me at the fair tonight?"
Jacob's eyes widened.
The 4-H fair! He had forgotten all about it.
He gasped and shot upright from the chair, snatching his phone from the table.
"Yes!" Jacob said excitedly. "Thank you for reminding me! I would've completely forgotten if you hadn't called!"
Annie giggled. "Okayyy! Just meet me at one of the benches around seven."
"Yeah, alright. That sounds cool." As the call seemed ready to end, Jacob remembered the fire. "Hey, wait, Annie!"
"Yeah?"
"Did you hear about Tony's Pizza Sup—"
A burst of girlish laughter erupted on the other end of the line. Annie joined in immediately, commenting excitedly about something that had apparently happened nearby.
Jacob waited, then, "Did you hear—"
Again, her attention drifted elsewhere. Something else was said and more laughter followed. Jacob closed his eyes and took a breath.
"Annie, did you hear about—"
"Hey, Jake?" she interrupted. "Whatever it is, tell me when you get here, okay? I love you! I can't wait to see you! Ahhh!"
The line disconnected and Jacob stared at the screen, annoyance settling over him.
It was hard to keep Annie focused on a conversation, especially over the phone. Her attention was always scattered in a hundred directions at once. It was like trying to hold and keep water in your hands.
Whatever, he thought. It'll make a good story when we meet up.
Jacob liked Annie. No. He loved her. At least, he believed he did. Their situation was complicated. Annie never seemed capable of committing to a monogamous relationship for very long. She usually drifted from one boyfriend to another, and yet, whenever she found herself single again, she'd more or less always ended up back in Jacob's bed.
He hadn't been lying to Kyle earlier; he and Annie really had hooked up that morning. They were friends with benefits, after all. They'd tried dating. Several times, actually, since meeting during the summer before Jacob's sophomore year of high school. None of those relationships had lasted.
In the end, they both agreed this arrangement worked better. Friends who occasionally fucked.
Still... Jacob glanced down at the dark screen of his phone. He sometimes wished they could try again. They both had genuine feelings for each other, but too many failed attempts had pretty much robbed any chance of that happening again.
He tapped the screen again. There were still a couple of hours, give or take, before he had to leave for the fair.
The problem was, he was bored. He found it difficult to focus on much of anything these days. His gaze drifted toward his Xbox Series X sitting beneath the television, a thin layer of dust coating its surface. He couldn't remember the last time he'd spent more than an hour playing a video game.
He wasn't convinced it was his ADHD, but instead the ongoing stress and mental strain that came free when being promoted to adulthood.
Jacob dropped back into the camping chair and absentmindedly brushed his fingers against a bulge in his left jean pocket. After a minute of this, he reached inside and pulled out a small green flip-top lighter. A cool intricately designed dragon was engraved on both sides, metallic flames bursting upward from its jaws as its own serpentine body twisted upward through a metallic gulf of flame.
He bought it at a gas station almost a decade ago, when he was twenty-two. He didn't smoke, never had. He just liked the lighter. He thought it was badass. Of course, it did nothing to exactly refute his reputation as a pyromaniac.
He spent the next several minutes tracing his finger on the dragon's shape with his thumb, flicking the lid open and closed in a rhythmic trance.
Open.
Click.
Closed.
Open.
Click.
Closed.
Jacob's mind drifted elsewhere, as it often did, and time passed without him noticing. When he finally snapped out of it and realized he was just sitting there wasting it, he frowned.
Fuck it. Why wait?
He stood from the chair and made sure he had everything he needed. He checked that he had the keys to his moped and his phone, and patted his back pocket to confirm the presence of his wallet, then he headed for the front door. He stepped out of the apartment and locked the door securely behind him.
Hoagie's fairgrounds were alive with activity.
As Jacob sped past the Oak Trailer Park just behind the grounds, the festivities came into view. Rows upon rows of vehicles occupied the grassy fields and gravel pathways leading toward the white-fenced perimeter surrounding the attractions and buildings participating in the annual 4-H fair. The fairgrounds didn't technically have a parking lot. People simply parked wherever there was space.
Jacob maneuvered carefully between the uneven rows of vehicles, which proved more difficult than it should have been. Cars, trucks, and SUVs jutted out at awkward angles as though their owners had abandoned all common sense the moment they spotted an open patch of grass.
Eventually, he gave up trying to squeeze through the maze. He spotted a large tree overlooking a good portion of the makeshift parking area and pulled alongside it.
He dropped the kickstand, retrieved the thick, rubber-coated chain from his trunk, and wrapped it around the sturdy base of the tree before threading it through the spokes of his front tire and securing the lock.
After brushing himself off, he made his way through the sea of parked vehicles and headed toward the gap in the fencing everyone used as an unofficial entrance to the fairgrounds.
He'd heard the distant voices as he approached from the street, but as he was now getting closer and actually becoming part of the crowds, it became clear to him just how many people turned out.
Parents and children wandered in every direction, some clutching balloons or oversized stuffed animals won at the game booths; others balancing paper trays piled high with funnel cakes buried beneath mountains of powdered sugar or carrying souvenir cups of lemonade with bright yellow plastic lemons perched atop green straws.
Jacob had never cared much for lemonade. Root beer was his drink of choice, and getting one was suddenly at the top of his list.
He checked his phone and opened the DoorDash app to confirm his balance: ninety-six dollars, which, as he gazed around at everyone and everything, he figured that was more than enough for a good time at the carnival.
He cut through the throng and slipped inside one of the large red barn-like buildings near the center of the fairgrounds. Inside, long rows of benches stretched across the building. Compact cubicle-like booths lined the walls, each filled with various knickknacks for sale, informational pamphlets advertising homes for rent, or employment opportunities offering wages that nobody could realistically survive on.
Jacob ignored all of it.
Tucked in a far corner stood a familiar square red booth with a friendly older woman behind the counter. Lined neatly across the countertop sat over a dozen brown soda-lime bottles filled with freshly made sarsaparilla.
He paid the two dollars and carried the bottle over to a wooden barrel positioned next to the booth. Embedded in the center was a mounted bottle opener worn smooth from years of use. He hooked the cap beneath it and pulled. Pop. The metal cap clattered into the barrel below. Jacob nodded his thanks to the woman before stepping back outside.
He checked his watch. A little under an hour and a half until he was supposed to meet Annie.
The fair pulsed around him: carnival barkers were calling out from game stands to passing crowds and encouraging them to test their luck. Lights blinked and flashed from the various rides scattered throughout the grounds, and nearby the Gravitron spun wildly, clusters of kids and teenagers standing a few feet away, debating their next destination.
Jacob couldn't help thinking how bizarre it all felt. Just a few miles away, Tony's Pizza Supreme was burning to the ground. It seemed surreal that something like that could unfold at the same time as something as bright and whimsical as the 4-H fair.
Jacob pushed that out of his mind and put the sarsaparilla to his lips and took a long drink as he wandered through the fairgrounds. Goddamn, it tasted fantastic. He hadn't realized how thirsty he was until that moment.
Jacob lowered the bottle and glanced up at the sky. He frowned. The clouds were still thick and dark and looked as if it might produce rainfall, perhaps a thunderstorm, but it hadn't started. But surely it should have.
He shrugged. Oh well. He wasn't complaining. If a storm rolled in, most of the rides would probably shut down, and he'd rather not miss out on the fun because of bad weather.
First things first. A ticket booth stood several yards away isolated from everything else in its own little patch of field. There was a small line and Jacob took his place behind the third of the three people in front of him. As he shuffled forward in line, he noticed the booth's decorations. Crude illustrations of Mexican men and women smiled down from painted panels. They wore oversized sombreros and held maracas in each hand.
Yikes. A little racist, don't you think?
When it was almost his turn, he was close enough to read the pricing sheet posted above the glass window.
An all-day wristband cost forty dollars, which was a lot cheaper than the individual tickets which were ten bucks each.
"Jesus," he muttered, shaking his head. Fuck it, I might as well get the band. Inflation can suck my dick.
After a woman ahead of him moved away from the window, Jacob stepped up with his card ready and his left wrist extended. The attendant fastened the day's bright wristband around it. It was a cheerful periwinkle.
A minute later, he was back in the midst of the fray, sour that he was now 40 dollars poorer. Whatever.
Jacob drifted toward the Gravitron, stopping near a cluster of younger kids who were enthusiastically gossiping about something involving pizza. Probably Tony's, but he didn't linger to eavesdrop. Something farther ahead had caught his eye.
Directly ahead sat a purple tent, nestled between two square carnival booths hosting nearly identical magnetic fishing games. The prizes differed between them, but otherwise they looked exactly the same.
As Jacob moved closer, he frowned. The placement of it felt strange, out of place. Spindly red glitter lettering across the top read:
MADAM PIUS
The name had been dramatically underlined. Beneath it, in smaller lettering and in the same spindly red glittery writing:
SEER EXTRAORDINAIRE
Jacob glanced at the booths on either side. At one of them, a teenage attendant sat slouched on the wooden platform, mindlessly scrolling through his phone. At the other, an older woman was unhooking an enormous Bluey plush from the display ceiling while a little girl bounced excitedly beside what Jacob could only assume were either siblings or friends.
Nobody seemed to notice the tent.
Nobody looked at it.
There wasn't any acknowledgement that it existed at all.
Jacob stepped closer. At first glance, the place appeared shut down for the evening, yet taped near the glittering red lettering was a plastic black & white sign that cheerfully declared:
WE'RE OPEN!
He hesitated. Should he go in? Would he be interrupting someone else's reading if Madam Pius was indeed busy with someone else? He scratched the top of his head and stared at the tent, trying to decide.
Then, as if reading his thoughts, a muffled voice drifted from inside the tent in a lilting, sing-song tone. "Come in if you're coming in."
Jacob froze. He had never put much stock in the supernatural, let alone cheesy dollar store attractions like fortune tellers. All of it had always struck him as being designed to separate gullible people from their money.
He wasn't sure why he was even standing there. He had just dropped forty bucks on an unlimited ride wristband. He should've been on the Gravitron, or the Sizzler, or maybe the Fireball. Well, not the Fireball. He glanced down at himself. The safety bar would likely refuse to latch past his stomach.
The voice came again, still muffled but insistent, and in that same sing-song tone. "Well? Are you just going to stand there?"
How did they know he was still outside? He hadn't said a single word. Not one. He stared harder at the closed flap, puzzled. He stared at the tent a moment longer, then grabbed the bottom of the flap and lifted it aside. Then, ducking beneath it, Jacob stepped inside the tent and allowed the fabric to fall shut behind him.
