Moon Over Manifest

Maybe she’d moved it. As I tiptoed up the rotting stairs, they creaked and groaned, cussing me for stepping on their aching backs. In the dusty window a faded sign read INSIGHTS FROM THE BEYOND—MISS SADIE REDIZON, MEDIUM. There was no compass to be found outside and the house looked deserted. The screen door had a yellowed index card stuck in the wire mesh that said, ENTER. I reached into my pocket, felt my two dimes, and tried to decide which one would give me the best answer. I chose one and flipped it. Heads, I’d go home. Tails, I’d go in. Tails. That dime was a dud. I switched to the other one. Tails again. Darn it all.

The air in Miss Sadie’s parlor was hot and thick. I thought sitting on one of those red velvety couches chock-full of fringy pillows was probably akin to suffocating. Still, I had to find my compass. I took a deep breath and ventured around the room.

Suddenly, the double doors of the parlor whooshed open. A large fleshy woman stood before me in full regalia. Her eyes were all made up, earrings and bracelets jangling. The sign in the window said Miss Sadie was a medium. From the look of her, I’d say that was a bit wishful. The heavy red dress she wore brushed across the floor, tossing up dust as she hobbled to an ornate chair behind a round table. She seemed to have a bad leg and took some time squeezing herself between the arms of the chair.

Thinking she hadn’t seen me, I turned to make a clean getaway.

“Sit down,” she said, her voice thick and savory, like goulash. She put her hands flat on the table. “Let us see if today the spirits are willing to speak.” Suddenly, it became clear. A diviner. A Medium. This woman was a fortune-teller and a spirit conjurer. If you believed in that sort of thing.

I stood near the front door. “I’m not here for—”

“Silence!” She held out a hand, motioning me to the chair across from her. I sat.

She slid a cigar box across the table. I almost told her, “No thank you,” but then I saw a little slot cut into the lid. Now, I didn’t usually have two coins to rub together, and when I did, I was real slow to part with them. But if this was the only way to get my compass back, I guessed I’d have to go along with it. I dropped in a dime. Miss Sadie peered inside the box and slid it back to me.

She tapped her fingers on the table. “Today is hot. The spirits are reluctant.”

I wondered if her divining abilities allowed her to see the other coin in my pocket. I might be wanton enough to risk eternal damnation on Miss Sadie’s spiritualism, but I’d be hung if I’d waste another dime.

“You can tell the spirits it ain’t getting any cooler.” I pushed that cigar box back.

She heaved a sigh so heavy it might’ve been mistaken for a dying breath. “Very well. What is it you want? Your fortune? Your future?”

I squirmed, not knowing what to say. She peered at me hard and asked again. “What do you seek?”

Maybe it was the way she studied me so hard that made me feel like she could see right through me to the brocade wallpaper behind me. I didn’t know what made me say what I said next, and I wasn’t quite sure what I meant by it. It just came out.

“I’m looking for my daddy.”

Her eyebrows went up. “I see. Now we get somewhere. Do you have a bauble?”

“Bauble?”

“A totem. Trinket. Something your father may have touched?” She puckered her lips, and her already wrinkled face drew into more wrinkles.

She probably knew darn good and well I was missing Gideon’s compass. And I wasn’t parting with any more money. Besides, she was just an old woman full of beans anyway, so I decided to call her bluff. I pulled out the letter from Ned to Jinx that was folded in my back pocket. If Miss Sadie came up with some cock-and-bull story about my daddy from something that wasn’t his, I’d know she was as phony as a two-headed nickel. I slid the paper over to her.

Miss Sadie opened it, smoothing the yellowed paper beneath her fleshy palms. As she looked at the words, her hands began to tremble. She held them to her face, and her breath came out in short, shuddering gasps. For a minute, I couldn’t decide if she was crying or dying, but then figured this must be part of her divining preparations.

Finally, she lifted her head and touched the letter again, gently stroking the page with her palm, as if she was trying to draw the words into herself. “The letter,” she said, without looking at me. “It mentions certain mementos. You have these?” There was something deep and old in her voice. It sounded like need.

I remembered that the letter mentioned the silver dollar, fishing lure, and skeleton key. “I found them in a Lucky Bill cigar box under a loose floorboard,” I answered a little too quickly, and it made me sound guilty. “There was other stuff, too,” I continued, overexplaining. “An old cork and a tiny wooden baby doll, no bigger than a thimble and all painted up in bright colors.” I wished I could shut myself up.