The seance was about to begin. Madam Ishbarr adjusted her veil and straightened the tiny pearl dangling squarely between her eyebrows. She sat solidly in the wooden chair behind the scarf-laden table.
"Oooooo," Madam Ishbarr chanted. "Oooooo," she wailed, sounding more like a sick dog than that of the wise Madam Ishbarr, fortune teller of the great world.
"Come on. Let's get started," Sherry shouted as she rapped her fingers on the table's top.
Madam Ishbarr's eyes rolled toward the ceiling, her right hand jutted out, palm up. "Thaaat willll beeee tennnn dollarrrs," Madam Ishbarr wailed.
Sherry, the mystic's client, reached in her dress pocket, flicked her wrist upward, and placed imaginary money into Madam Ishbarr's hand.
Madam Ishbarr stiffened in her chair and placed both hands delicately on the cool fishbowl. She always liked this part best. The empty fishbowl was the best crystal ball Madam Ishbarr and her sister could find.
A sheer yellow scarf was stuffed in the bowl to simulate misty fog. One end hung over the lip of the bowl and gently lifted and fell in sync with the breeze from the window fan. Madam Ishbarr waved her thin fingers over the bowl and once again began to chant.
"Abracadabra. Abracadoom. There is a ghost in this room." She paused briefly, looked directly into Sherry's wide eyes and shouted, "BOO!"
Sherry jumped straight up, shoved the rickety card table into Madam Ishbarr's ribs and shouted back, "Don't do that! You always do that! I'm not playing with you ANYMORE!", and with that, she stomped out of the room.
Madam Ishbarr grinned her wide slanted grin and jerked the yellow rayon cloth from the fishbowl. She placed it gently to her tanned oval face and felt its softness caress her lips. "Indeed. The world is not complete without the Geat Madam Ishbarr," she whispered to herself.
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