This was jacked up. I couldn't see my father's future no matter how often I tried, yet here were these two giving me all their lunch money to get a reading. I pushed the money back to Rita. "Put that away. I would never charge anyone for something that's both a gift and a curse."

"A curse?" they asked at the same time, not masking their horror.

"Yes. Well, you have no idea what it's like to be me." They still wore shocked expressions. "Anyway, my visions are unpredictable. I'm never sure whether I'll see the past, present or future, and most times things are blurry."

"We don't care," Gina said and pushed the money toward me. "Try, please."

"Please," Rita added.

Dang it! They were drawing attention. This was the worst place and day to hold a seance. But I couldn't invite them to my house or go to theirs. The office was out of the question because Hawk would tell Torin.

"Okay." I planted my finger on the bills and pushed them toward Rita. "Only if you put this away." I watched her take the money and put it back in her purse. "Okay. Uh-mm, let's trade places, Gina." I didn't want anyone at the restaurant seeing my glowing eyes.

Once we traded places, I pointed at her amulet. "I need that or something that's personal and magical. Do not panic when my eyes glow or if I faint."

Gina frowned. "Do you faint?"

"Sometimes." I slid my hand along the table. Rita removed the amulet from around her neck and placed it in my palm. The power of protection in the object was strong.

Okay. Here goes nothing. I closed my palm.

Scene after scene played out, but the best part, they were clear. I was the fly on the wall looking at Rita's life. The birth, which I really didn't need to see, totally ruined OB/Gyn as a profession for me.

She received the amulet on sixth birthday. From the party decorations in her backyard, her parents had gone all out. Tableau after tableau, her life unfolded. She was around fourteen when she started working with an older woman, grinding herbs, learning spells and making some liquids of various colors. Something about the woman teased my memories, but I didn't try to chase it because things became downright bizarre.

The old woman sneaked into Rita's room while she slept and cut off a lock of her hair. Then she added it to a bubbling pot, causing smoke and a strange green fire to erupt from the pot. Then she did something even weirder, she poured some of the portion in a cup and drank it. The rest, she kept in a cupboard in her bedroom.

She systematically stole locks of Rita's hair and made more brew. Rita appeared to change. She stopped being the bubbly girl who'd laughed as she made potions. She became listless and sickly. It became too painful to watch her. The last scene was heart wrenching, but I didn't stop watching until I didn't need to.

I opened my palm and the amulet dropped on the table. Rita and Gina watched me with wide eyes and I realized why. Tears were racing down my face. I swiped at my cheeks. I was definitely not cut out for this Seeress business.

"Are you okay?" Gina asked.

I nodded. Glanced around and was surprised to see half the customers gone. "How long was I out?"

"Almost an hour," Gina said. From her voice, she wanted answers yesterday.

My watch said it was ten to one. I blew out a breath. How the heck do you tell someone they were going to die? Tread in slowly? My eyes volleyed between them, then stopped on Rita. She looked as bad as my father did after the plane crash.

"Your mother gave you the amulet on your sixth birthday. She threw you a big party in your backyard with a bouncy castle."

They both nodded, but I could see in their eyes that they knew I had bad news.

"You, Rita, played violin."

"I still do whenever I can," she said sadly.

"Gina, you play soccer."

"You only saw our childhood?" Gina asked impatiently. "Then why were you crying?"

Because I'm a wimp. "I cry when I'm happy or sad. I haven't had a clear vision since I started getting them, until I met you two. So that's kind of great." They gave me uncertain smiles as though they had no idea why I was complaining. "Anyway, when did Rita start studying herb and potions under the woman?"

"She was sixteen. Madam Bosvilles is the most powerful Seeress in our sector," Gina said. "She only works with the most gifted of witches. My mother worked with her too, but her gift wasn't that strong. Her abilities faded."

I glanced around. Her voice tended to rise. Once again, a few people were looking at us. "Keep your voice down, Gina. What do you mean abilities?"

"Communicating with the spirit world and seeing the future," Gina said. At least she lowered her voice. "My sister was as strong as you, but during a seance, she'd go into a trance with Madam Bosvilles and journey with her to the spirit world. It started when she turned fifteen."

"How long were you with her before you started feeling sick, Rita?"

Rita frowned. "The summer I stayed at her home. Why?"

"How long was your mother with Madam Bosvilles before her abilities faded?"

They shook their heads. "We don't know," Gina added.

"Madam Bosvilles has been cutting locks of your hair and making a potion with it, which she drinks."

Silence followed. Their eyes were wide with disbelief. Rita spoke first.

"No, that's not possible." She shook her head. "That's evil magic. Madam Bosvilles told me to never listen to anyone who talks or mentions evil magic. Evil." She glared at me then pushed back her chair and stumbled away from our table muttering under her breath.

Gina's eyes volleyed between me and her fleeing sister. Something weird began to happen. The chairs and tables rattled as though they were trying to jet off the ground. Not all chairs, just those closest to Rita as she staggered toward the entrance of the car. It was a Magneto moment. I expected her to lift her hands and float everything metal.

Customers didn't seem bothered. Some gripped their chairs while others reached for their drinks and plates.

"It's another one," someone said at a table a few feet away.

"Feels like a five pointer," another added.

"More like a three-point-five," someone yelled at the other end of the cafe.

Earthquakes were a dime a dozen in Oregon. We got one a day. This month alone, we'd had about twenty reports. Since they were usually about three-point-zero magnitude, except the six pointer off the coast two weeks ago, people just waited for them to pass then continued with their business. This time the epicenter followed a muttering witch.

Gina jumped up. "I have to calm her down." Then leaned down and added, "I don't believe you're evil. I never liked Madam Bosvilles and she doesn't like me visiting Rita at her estate. I should have known she was stealing my sister's powers." She started to leave, then pivoted on her heels and came back to the table. "Will she die?"

I winced. "If you don't stop Madam Bosvilles."

"I plan to. Thanks." She took after her sister. The rattling stopped. Torin appeared just as Gina went through the door. Andris, Ingrid and Blaine were right behind him.

Everything was normal inside the restaurant, but they still spread out around the room while Torin came to my table. My eyes fell on the protective amulet. In her haste to get away from 'evil' me, Rita had forgotten it. I covered it with a plate of Gina's half-eaten baklava just before my ready-to-kiss-ass boyfriend reached my table.

"Hey," I said lamely.

His eyes roamed my face. "You okay?"

"Yep. I came for some baklava and time just flew by." I stood and pretended to notice the others. "Oh, are you guys here for lunch?" I reached under the plate and pulled out the amulet by its chain.

Torin frowned, still searching for an invisible enemy. "No. I sensed you were in danger and thought you were being attacked."

The runes must have reacted to the magic and he did have a way of knowing when I was in trouble. "It was just an earthquake."

"A minor one," Nikos' server said from behind him. "We had a few rattling of chairs, but no one was hurt."

"True." I took Torin's arm and led him away from the table. He glanced back and frowned.

"Hawk said you were with friends."

"Yeah, from school." The others headed outside too. Andris was on his cell phone. "I didn't need rescuing, guys, but thanks for coming. It was just an earthquake."

"They haven't reported it yet," Andris said.

The problem with geeks was they looked up every bloody, freaking thing. "Yeah. Well. It just happened, duh." Thankfully, Rita and Gina were gone. "Let's go home."

I was still reading to Dad when I heard the doorbell, then voices followed. People who came to my house rarely used the door, let alone the doorbell. I angled my head to listen as I continued to read. Multi-tasking was my middle name. The voice grew stronger then faded. I hoped it wasn't Rita and the witches coming to burn me at the stake.

My cell phone dinged. I angled the phone and read the text message.

"Your father has visitors," Femi said.

"Who?" I texted back.

"The Jemisons."

Cora's parents. "Give us ten min."

"Why did you stop?" Dad asked, his voice low, his eyes closed.

"You have visitors. Cora's parents. Let's finish the chapter first."

He chuckled. At least it sounded like a chuckle. "It's okay, bumpkin. We can finish it some other time. I'm not ready to check out yet."

"I should hope not." It was nice to hear him crack a joke. A sucky one, but a joke nevertheless. I debated whether to kiss him, but fear of rejection kept me from trying. I only did that when he was asleep or feverish. I still didn't get visions when I touched him. "Ok, Daddy. I'll see you later."

"Go out and do something fun, sweetheart," he said.

"I did. Yesterday. We went to L.A. Connection for a party some girls threw and tonight I'm going out to dinner with Cora."

"Good. Send Femi in first. I need to look my best."

We exchanged a grin. His best would still look sickly and emaciated. I closed the door behind me and saw the Jemisons in the kitchen talking to Femi. The scent of freshly baked pie was in the air.

"Is that still warm?" I asked when I saw the two pies on the counter.

"One is," Cora's mother said and gave me a hug. "I thought you might want a piece, so I brought a cooled one too."

"Femi told us you were reading to your father," Mr. Jemison said.

"Yeah." I got a plate and a knife. "Oh, Femi, he needs you." I cut a huge slice. When I looked up, Femi was gone and the Jemisons were looking at me expectantly. What we were discussing? Oh, yeah, the whale. "We are reading Moby-Dick. It's one of his favorite books. That and The Hobbit. We finished the Hobbit last month and watched the movie. Now it's Captain Evil Ahab and then the movie." My father always insisted I read the books first before watching movies based on them.

We kept discussing books and movies, until Femi came out to get them. I carried my pie upstairs. Torin was gone since he picked me up from the Mirage. He'd taken Blaine with him.

We didn't get a chance to talk last night, but the explanation he'd given me for his disappearance for two days had seemed sketchy at best. He'd been checking on leads to whoever had robbed his mother's tomb and even got to interview his relatives. Like that would stop him from popping in and out of my room. He'd done it at the hospital, right under my mother's nose and the nurses' watchful eyes. He was up to something and his obsession didn't make sense.

I finished homework then practiced the oboe pieces for the upcoming concert. I'd stopped my daily practice after the Norns started messing with me and even fudged the entries on my practice chart a few times. I didn't feel guilty then, or now. It was the Norns' fault.

Downstairs, Femi was watching something on her laptop while working on dinner. Dad ate mainly soft or pureed foods. Cora's mother had left. Probably went shopping. She often did that while her husband visited with Dad.

"Heading to the mansion for a bit," I told her.

"When is your dinner date?"

"Six." I had a couple of hours to kill. I started for the portal, then remembered something. "What kind of potion involves using someone's hair?"

Femi froze in the process of chopping a celery stick. "The bad kind. Where did that come from?"

"Just something I saw."

"Where?" Her voice was harsh.

I shrugged. "Does it matter? What happens to the person?"

She stopped cutting the veggies all together and came toward me. The look in her eyes said she didn't like what she was hearing. The way she held the knife was unsettling. "The person practicing bad magic or the victim?"

"Both."

"It depends on what the evil Witch is after or what the person they made the potion for wants. They could control the victim. Make them sick or even kill them. Where did you see this?"

"A vision." She stopped and frowned. "The person making the potion is an old Seeress. The hair is from a young girl, a powerful witch."

Femi pursed her lips. "Poor defenseless thing. That's the kind of magic you find in old grimoires. The hag's magical powers must be waning, so she's using the girl's hair to link with her energy and steal it. If not stopped, the girl will not have any magic left in her."

"Can this make the girl sick too? You know, physically ill?"

"Only if she's a true shaman like you, a child of Old Religion. What's going on, Raine?"

"Can the damage be reversed?"

"I don't know. People who own grimoires keep them hidden. Whoever the Witch is, she will not want the spell reversed. She's probably destroyed the page with the spell. Whose future did you see, Raine?"

"A girl at school. She's sick. In fact, she's convinced she's dying. Can you use your contacts to see if we can reverse the curse?"

"Not you. I will deal with this. You must not get involved. This is evil stuff. Spells and potions." She shuddered.

"But you just said she was like me," I protested.