Psychic City by Page Turner

Author:Page Turner
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-1-947296-07-7
Publisher: Braided Studios
Published: 2020-08-11T00:06:50+00:00

Once Viv was facing squarely away from her, basically turning the camera for State’s evidence to the wall, Gretchen opened up considerably.

“As you know, this is a legal operation,” Gretchen said. “As legal as any of them are anyway.”

“Oh?” Penny said.

“Look, you didn’t hear it from me, but there’s not a single Fortune-Telling House in Skinner – or the Psychic State, even – that doesn’t have a handful of tueys kicking around in it.”

Karen flinched reflexively at “tuey.”

“I’m sorry,” Gretchen said, noting Karen’s flinch. “Intuitive. It’s a bad habit, I admit. Sometimes it feels like the rules are changing every day. What you can say, what you can’t.”

“It’s fine,” Penny said. It mostly was, and beyond that, she wanted it to be fine, which was just as important.

“Heather was an intuitive,” Gretchen said. “The real deal. A precog. As her boss I wasn’t exactly supposed to know, but…”

“You did,” Penny said.

Gretchen nodded. “We were close. And it was obvious.”

“Obvious?” Karen said. “How so?”

“Heather wasn’t good at throwing the predictions. She had a hard time screwing up her readings. And at baseline, she was pretty damn accurate for a precog. She’d focused a lot on mitigating her personal bias, mindfulness work apparently. Meditation,” Gretchen explained. “To be fair, we do a lot of that in the Warrens of Persephone. We like to take care of the people who work for us. More than a lot of places do. Sure, we’re technically an employer. Registered properly with the State by the way.”

“Not going to check, don’t care, wrong department,” Viv called back over her shoulder through a mouthful of chewed up pear.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Gretchen said, not quite sure what Viv was saying.

You’re not my mother, Viv thought, rolling her eyes, but no one could see it.

“In a way, we’re also home for the women who work here. Some of them are really girls, you see. Don’t have anywhere else to go. We try to look after their welfare. Physical, emotional, spiritual. We provide classes. Guidance,” Gretchen said.

“Are you a cult?” Karen asked.

“Karen!” Penny said, shocked.

“No, I don’t mean that as an insult. My dad runs a cult. I don’t judge,” Karen said.

“Your father runs a cult?” Gretchen asked, clearly amused.

“The Grounded Temple,” Karen said.

“Ohhhh,” Gretchen said. “Your father’s Augustus Cross?”

Karen nodded. “Yup. Unfortunately.”

Gretchen laughed. “They’d hate to hear you call it a cult, you know.”

“That’s how cults are. They don’t like for people to think of them as cults. One person’s cult is another’s religion and vice versa. It’s all a matter of perception. Me, I cut to the chase and call them all cults,” Karen replied.

“I suppose that’s efficient… if insulting. There are an awful lot of religious people out there. More if you count the spiritual ones, the ones who believe in something or a lot of somethings but would blanch if you called them ‘religious.’” Gretchen said.

“Sure,” Karen said. “But being popular doesn’t make something right.”

“You know,” Gretchen said. “I get it. It’s tough to believe in the supernatural.

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