The Amethyst

Linda came from a long line of Psychics who ran a business of telling the fortunes of others. 

At a time when Europe was struggling between the powers of democracy and fascism, her great grandfather and grandmother moved from a little town just south of war-torn Poland, and to the Americas. They took with them their act of becoming Psychics through reading cards and forming a business by getting paid to tell anyone's fortune. Their Psychic acts were popular at a time where people sought out a good fortune in a world full of bloodshed and injustice. 

But after the end of the war, the business continued to progress, and its responsibility was bestowed onto the next child.

In an age where technology dominated the world and the unexplainable could be explained… Linda thought of this Psychic act as complete bogus.

Bogus or not… she had become the latest to take charge of Psychic Tellers, their business.

One day, Linda repositioned herself on the massive armchair she was sitting at. Every time she walked into the Psychic Tellers small building, she cringed at the sight of this massive chair; its hand-carved designs in the maple wood, deep purple cushions filled with feathers older than her grandparents, and small, rusted jewels just above the headrest. Supposedly, this chair was just as old as her family’s business… but if someone told her the chair was purchased at a flea market… she would believe it. 

Just as she was reading an article about how a scientist was in the midst of proving that Adam and Eve descended from Early Man, a soft bell rang and a pack of teenagers entered.

Linda stashed her phone into her pocket. She then experienced a moment of embarrassment when the teenagers looked at her ridiculous outfit. Linda was wearing a vanilla-white robe and a black, leather jacket. She looked like someone who decided to dress like a pirate at a Halloween party they had not known they were invited to until the day of. To complete her appearance, she wore a glossy, purple bandana with small stars on her head. She was not sure why her grandparents, the previous owners of Psychic Tellers, insisted she wears this specific attire every day… but she did not complain.

Unless it was to her husband. Her frustration towards the business, and to her life decisions, were vented daily to that kind and patient man… And Linda began to notice that it was causing their marriage to crumble.

“Are you a real fortune-teller?” one of the girls in the group asked, more as if she were mocking Linda than genuinely asking.

Linda formed her lips into a forced smile and slowly nodded her head.

“So if I wanted to, could you tell me if I’m going with Kathy Jones to Prom?” another kid asked, his face more pimples than face.

Linda was not sure how to reply. She felt her cheeks grow red with the humiliation at her work. She was a fraud and she knew it… so why did she bother running this business if the “fortunes” she told people were not even real?

“Can I get my fortune read?” another boy asked, looking at her with his unusually watery.

Linda nodded, told them the price they would have to pay, and sat the boy in a wooden chair across from her. She did her usual routine: dramatically closing her eyes, making her audience believe she was conjuring up spirits, picking a random card from a deck she kept beside her and reading the boy's fortune. It was all bogus… the cards were given to her by her grandparents. She would randomly choose one and whichever she chose, that would be the customer's fortune. They believed it… whether that was because of the aroma in the shop, whatever the card read—or their naivety. It made her money. It was her life. But it was all bogus.

“I see that in the near future you will become rich and successful…” Linda read in a monotone as she tried to keep herself from rolling her eyes.

“I’ve always wanted to become a movie director!” the boy announced with bright eyes. “I guess I really will be one… and I’ll be rich!”

Linda tossed the card on the table and found it difficult to refrain from telling the boy this was all a lie…

But she did not. The boy stood, they paid her, then they all left… leaving Linda with an immense amount of guilt for having lied to the boy. And getting paid for it… 

After several hours passed and many more naive customers later, Linda closed her shop and continued with her dull, daily routine. As she walked the few blocks down to her house, she thought of her life decisions. Throughout school, she never had direction. She always followed a person: her friends… her family… but never did she make her own decisions. As a child, it was easy to not worry about your future… but closing up to thirty years of age, she thought differently. She wished she had pursued her passion to become a lawyer, she wished she could find the courage to fix the relationship with her husband, she wished she moved away from the town she grew up in and to the beach. She lived her life with regrets, and she was reminded of it every day when she stepped into Psychic Tellers.

As Linda was nearing her apartment building, she noticed a plump lady wearing an unusually large amount of necklaces around her neck. She stood behind a white table, where several other pieces of jewelry were displayed. It was unusual for a vendor to be out like this, both because this town hardly had vendors on the streets, and because it was almost nine at night and there was nobody in sight.

Linda felt an unexpected desire to approach this woman. She did.

“What do you have here?” Linda asked, curiously eyeing the jewelry.

The woman merely smiled. She then looked deep into Linda’s eyes with her unusually large, brown eyes… Linda felt discomfort at being stared at like this… but did nothing to avoid the gaze.

“You’re sad,” the woman observed. “You live your life in regret… the glimmer in your eye is dimming, miss,” the woman spoke with a rasp, either from a past of daily cigarette smoking, or constant shouting. “Yet I see much love in your heart… Your husband… you love him but you're drifting apart. Your parents, you care for them, yet you grow easily frustrated with them.”

Linda watched the elderly woman in shock. Everything she said was right, yet Linda never expected a summary of her life to be so clear and so accurate. But how could the woman tell this just by looking into her eyes?” 

If anyone should be a fortune teller, it would be this lady. Linda thought.

Linda was going to continue her walk towards her apartment and forget her encounter with this woman when she gently grabbed Linda by the wrist. Her chubby hands were soft, yet the grip was powerful.

“Take this,” the woman took a small necklace off herself and handed it to Linda. 

It felt cool and light on her hand. Linda turned it over to see that the chain held a small amethyst. She did not know much about geology, but she knew the amethyst was not meant to glimmer in the dark the way this one did.

“The owner of this necklace holds the true abilities of a Psychic,” the woman explained. “You live your life regretting your decisions and avoiding your career… but if you experienced what it means to tell the fortunes of others, you would become more sympathetic and that may pave the path to correcting your own life. This jewel will give you that power.”

Linda put it on and just as the amethyst dangled in front of her chest, she felt a small shiver crawl up her spine. It was warm… yet cool… It was not cold outside, so the cause of the shiver was unexplainable.

Perhaps I’ve been talking to this woman for too long. Linda thought.

Just as she was about to thank her for the necklace and go on her way, the woman said, all the while looking straight into her eyes, “It isn’t the readings of our fortunes that we seek, but the accomplishments of our biggest goals. A person would rather fulfill his dreams than know his destiny.”

With that, Linda took off, all the while wondering about her exchange with this woman… and why the amethyst felt strangely warm as it touched her chest.

Linda unlocked the door to her apartment and stepped inside. She was immediately welcomed by the smell of warm soup and her smiling husband.

“Hey honey, how was work?” he asked.

Linda could not help but smile. Every day he asked her this question… Yet she knew that he had a clear picture of how her day went. They all ended the same.

“It was good, honey,” she replied, not making an effort to sound as cheerful as him. “I’ll change while you serve dinner.”

Her husband acknowledged in a disappointed “okay.” She knew he was expecting her to help serve the dinner he worked hard on, but she was tired from today's events.

As they ate dinner in silence, the creeping guilt Linda felt for not mending her relationship with her husband increased. She loved him… and his kind smile. She loved his wavy black hair and big personality that seemed to light up the room. They had met just when they were seventeen, in high school, and they both quickly fell in love. “Soulmates,” their families would say to them. They believed they were perfect for each other… but both he and Linda knew life would have its ways of challenging their relationship.

And this was one of them. She was too sad with her life to try and fix the one good thing in it. And if he was gone… permanently… she did not know what she had left.

“I’m going to go to bed,” Linda announced after finishing her soup. The sweet taste helped to lighten her mood, but still, she was exhausted from reading cards and lighting candles. 

“Okay, mi Hermosa, Buenas Noches,” he said to her and put his hand on hers. 

In a flash, Linda saw the image of a gun… then heard a pop… and to her shock, she saw her husband drop dead on the floor as a pool of blood surrounded him. Linda dropped her empty bowl with a loud crash, causing it to break on the floor. The amethyst around her neck let out a soft glow.

“Hon, are you okay?” Her husband was about to put his arms around her when she quickly moved away from him.

“Don’t touch me!” she shouted.

Her husband lowered his eyes, like a puppy that was told not to play around anymore.

“Sorry, hon… I don’t know what happened.”

That did nothing to satisfy her husband’s concern for her.

Linda went to bed later that night with the image of her dead husband… and her hand on the unusually warm amethyst.

The next day, Linda tested a working theory she had. Perhaps the newly acquired jewel gave her the power to really tell someone's fortune. If so, her husband's fortune was to die… 

As she went to work, she continued with her life as a Psychic, but instead of reading useless cards, she told them whatever she saw… and with every hand, she touched was an image that was sent to her mind. Some were happy, others sad… but she told them all… and people paid her. Somehow, that day was busier than others.

At the end of her day at work, she did not feel as regretful as she did the night before. She had not lied to anyone… despite what their fortune was. She felt as if she really was a Psychic… and it felt good.

As she walked home, she did not see the woman who had given her the necklace. She felt disappointed at the absence of that woman… Linda was hoping to ask her a question or two about the power of this amethyst.

Not only that, but when she arrived home she saw a text from her husband telling her that he had gone to the gas station to buy himself a lottery ticket. 

I’m sure he’d want to know his fortune when it came to that lottery ticket. Linda thought, smiling.

At that moment, something within Linda sparked and she decided to give him a surprise visit at the gas station. It was only a block away from where she was currently at.

When she walked inside, the typical gloom of the gas station was forgotten upon seeing her husband's smiling face. When they were in high school, they would always say that the sight of each other gave them butterflies. By his facial expression, he really was surprised to see Linda here.

“Hey honey, I’ll just pay for this and go,” he said, squeezing her hand.

Before he could walk to the register, Linda grabbed his wrist and began to speak. She felt her breathing quicken and her heart pounding like a drum in her ears. It felt like such a terrible time to say all that she needed to say, but Linda was worried that this spark of courage would not come back for her. She needed to use it.

“Hon, I wanna talk to you about a few things—”

Before she could finish, a man wearing a baseball cap and a dark pair of sunglasses walked into the store. In his hand was a gun. He charged straight for the register and trained the gun at the skinny teenage employee behind it. 

“Give me everything you got!” the man shouted, then held open an empty sack for the boy to fill. “Hurry up!”

Immediately, the bag was being filled with everything in the register. Linda and her husband watched in horror as this criminal action was happening before them.

“We need to do something,” Linda’s husband whispered.

Before Linda could say anything against it, her husband left her side and approached the man. Linda quickly dialed 911.

Linda watched as her husband tackled the criminal from behind, then shoved him away from the register. The gun went flying out of his hand and landed with a dull thud beside Linda’s foot. She stared in horror at the gun, then at the two men throwing punches at each other. She looked at the boy for help but he was just as shocked as her.

Just then, Linda remembered her husband's fortune… the rush of memories flooded into her head.

She was about to grab the gun when the criminal reached for it and trained it on her husband. That same spark of courage Linda experienced ignited into a massive fire that pushed her to do something utterly brave—or stupid.

Linda stood between her husband and the criminal just as a loud pop, that seemed to rumble the earth, rang.

Before she could see the bullet that was headed her way, Linda was knocked to the ground and the wind was knocked out of her. 

The criminal took the bag of cash and fled the scene, just as police sirens were blaring in the distance. Her husband laid beside Linda, his hand underneath her head.

“We need an ambulence!” her husband shouted to the police officers. “Now!”

Linda let out a small smile. She knew she was going to die… she may not have seen blood, but she did not feel alive and well. 

“I love you, hon,” Linda said in a low whisper. “I’m so sorry for causing my misery to hurt our marriage, I want nothing in this world but you.”

Her husband let the tears roll down his eyes as he gave her a gentle kiss of forgiveness. The image of his face quickly vanished as she slipped into unconsciousness… 

Linda woke to the sounds of beeping machines and flowers in a vase just beside her bed. Her husband was beside her, a bright smile on his face. She had survived… 

“How?” she asked her husband.

He held up the remains of the amethyst worn around her neck. “It must have stopped the bullet from penetrating your chest,” he remarked.

Linda realized that it would have been impossible for such a jewel to stop a speeding bullet, but she did not care. She was alive, and she realized that at that moment… her fortune was a second chance to fix her life.

The amethyst gave her the second chance, but it was she who decided to mend the broken pieces of her life. Linda stopped her work at Fortune Tellers and began her studies at law school. Upon completing her schooling, she and her husband were the loving parents of two children, Lalani and Jason. 

She realized that the woman she had spoken to all those nights ago was correct. Knowing one's fortune was not what one seeks… Rather, it's accomplishing one’s goals and fulfilling one’s dreams that truly satisfies a person… To Linda, she felt as if she had done just that…