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Spirits Follow Me Here, Too: a Short Fiction (Part II)

May is National Short Story Month, and in honor of National Short Story Month, I decided to write a short story combining my interest in tarot and witchcraft with fiction. I hope you enjoy the result. Here is Part I.

Immediately upon seeing her, I knew she was everything I was not. She let light in places where I had locked myself in the dark. It was a bar, and though Dennis knew I was only seventeen, he also was more than happy to look the other way if patrons chose to buy me drinks.

When she sat down at my table, I had already been watching her. She had been raucous – loud and unmistakable. I saw her at the bar, munching on some of the peanuts Clifton, one of the bartenders had put out before the bar opened. She drank beer from a green glass bottle and spoke in a hearty voice as though she knew everyone, and they certainly knew her.

By the time the band hit the stage, she was already swiveling her hips as though she had grown up at The Crow’s Nest, and for all I knew, she had. Then, exhausting herself, she plopped down at my table. At first, I don’t think she even noticed me. I didn’t have a client and I was doing a spread for myself. A simple Celtic cross.

She had been gulping down a dark liquid from a glass when her bright, curious eyes caught mine. And, as cliché as it sounds, something altered. What was hard in her softened. What was loud became gentle. What could not stop fidgeting – froze.

She slid me a green glass bottle like the one she had been drinking from. It collided with the cards I’d drawn out on the table.

“Oh, Jesus,” she exclaimed as the beer foamed, threatening to spill over onto my cards. She scooped up the bottle just before its foamy head splashed onto the deck, but this girl, this tornado, looked bewildered nonetheless.

She chugged a big gulp of it down. “I don’t even know if you drink,” she admitted, “I just saw you sitting here alone and wanted to buy you a drink.”

I cleared my throat and gestured toward the tarot cards.

“Oh,” she replied, sucking in on her lower lip and furrowing her eyebrows. “Solitaire?”

“I do tarot readings,” I corrected, staring into her intense brown eyes. They were riveting. Such a deep shade of brown, they could almost black. I could hardly distinguish her pupils from her irises.

For the second time, she said, “Oh,” but this time, she sounded startled, “I’m sorry. I know last month, Dennis hired a palmist and some fire eaters. He had to downsize and let the fire eaters go. They got to be too much of a liability. Are you trying to work? Should I go?”

I laughed. “You can stay.” I piled the cards I had drawn and shuffled them back into the fold. I inhaled deeply before closing my eyes for the briefest of seconds. “Would you like me to do a reading for you?”

“Yeah, and how much is that going to cost me? Just a down payment on a new house and my life?” She smirked.

I arched an eyebrow.

“Sorry,” she muttered, “my grandma poisoned me against psychics. Said y’all are a bunch of swindlers and con artists.”

Rolling my eyes, I replied, “You can pay whatever you like or nothing at all. My nonna taught me how to be a witch, and it’s just being in tune with your own gifts. So, maybe next time, don’t swallow the poison,” I suggested.

She nodded, flinching slightly at the barb of my words. “Can we start again? I’m Vee.”

I smiled. “Nice to meet you, Vee. I’m Nikita.”

And the spirits giggled for they knew, this was the beginning of something much bigger than me.

Isabelle Palerma

This short story is entirely my own content – no A.I. used to create this.

A Seraphic Metamorphosis: a Short Fiction (Part II)

You take a deep breath, not sure whether to believe this man named Micah, but what choice do you have? You cannot stay locked in his bathroom with a pair of nail clippers forever.

As you trudge out of the bathroom, he offers you a weak smile – not the generous grin from before. “You’re not a mutant,” he says, as if that’s going to make you feel any better.

“Gee, thanks,” you mutter.

He shrugs. “I’m trying here.”

That’s when it hits you with all of the strength of a bullet train. Yes, you might have slept with Micah last night, but you’re in a relationship.

Your girlfriend won’t be mad. She probably is sleeping with someone else too, but she will be jealous you slept on silk sheets and the guy you slept with has a bidet, which probably cost more than your rent and monthly utility bill.

Anyway. You should probably hurry back to Shiloh, but right now, you have more questions than answers, and he’s out of bed and making eggs that smell to die for.

Finally, you say, “What do you mean you know all about the feathers on my finger?”

He turns to you, flipping the omelet. “I mean,” he says in a pedantic tone, “I know what they are. Why they showed up.”

You want to find out more. Your mouth is watering. You’re hungry. You’re not sure if you’re hungry for details or for the cheddar-and-ham omelet he is preparing like a three-star Michelin star chef. But before he can elaborate, your phone begins to blare your familiar melody, “A Seraphic Metamorphosis”, by your favorite band, Compensated Endeavor. He grins and grabs you by the waist, grinding against you.

You smile, the tiny wings on your pinkie fluttering. Sheepishly, you jam your hand against the skin of your hip, wishing you were dressed. “It’s my ring tone,” you mumble, “I better answer that.”

Shiloh’s voice floods your ear, breathless and frightened and small, “Hey,” she says, “it’s your mom. Something with her heart.”

You listen to her breathing and can hear your own heart whooshing in your ear. This is not good. You look down at your hand – the flittering feathers have vanished.

Like they were never there at all.

… to be continued.

Isabelle Palerma

This short story is entirely my own content – no A.I. used to create this.

News about my Chapbook & Novel!

Hey there!

It’s been a while since I’ve updated, but if you follow me on social media, (which I highly recommend you do) you’ll know that my chapbook is almost complete! We have a title, my publisher and editors have polished it, and I just have my final checks to do before we take it to print. That being said, we’re doing some pretty unusual and cool things with its formatting that I think you all will be excited to see once it’s in print. I’m so excited to share this labor of love with all of you.

Speaking of labors of love, I’m currently going over the first round of edits for Catching Dreams that my publisher has sent over before sending it to the publisher. The first round of edits involves tightening up the prose, tidying up some redundancies, and just overall polishing it up. From there, it will go to the publisher’s editors, go through more editing, and then, hopefully, we’ll start drafting up a cover and it will – fingers crossed – hit the bookshelves in 2025!

I am so excited to share with you the progress of my journey. Also, while I have been away from my website, two of my poems were published in a local literary magazine called Perspectives. If you are interested in receiving a copy, please let me know and I can send you an autographed copy.

That’s all for now, but be sure to keep checking my website for more updates!