It was a strange reaction, but this had been a strange forty-eight hours. Mary was bruised, achy, sore, and jet-lagged. And this hocus-pocus stuff—even though nothing so far seemed made for tourists and crystal-clutchers—had Mary out of her element.

  The helper lady who had answered the door when Mary and Deidre first arrived moved into the sitting area. The woman had the feel of someone who had done yoga all their life—centered and balanced, unfazed by someone else’s thoughts or prejudices about how she chose to spend her time.

  It was a cultural difference, Mary reminded herself. She’d seen it firsthand. There were a number of nursing students and nurses from India that Mary met along the way who thought having one’s charts done was banal. Just part of a decision-making process. Granted, they usually sent the inquiry via a website and got the answer back. Mary had never heard of someone having to travel halfway around the world. Okay, not halfway; that was an exaggeration, but still.

  The helper smiled at Mary as if she could hear Mary’s inner monologue and found it amusing. She scooped her hand in a follow me, and said, “If you would please come with me, your friend is just concluding.”

  Mary glanced at the clock and was surprised to find that nearly two hours had gone by. It had felt like ten, maybe fifteen minutes. “Oh,” she said. “You know that I don’t have an appointment, right?”

  “Yes, your friend Deidre was asked to bring you.”

  “Bring me? Me specifically?”

  Helper lady smiled and turned to walk down the hall.

  Mary scrambled around the table to follow.

  Emerging from an ornately carved door, Deidre clicked it gently shut behind her.

  As they came toward each other, they grasped hands. Mary leaned in, “Weird?”

  “Interesting.” Deidre frowned. “A decision to be made.”

  “Borneo?”

  “Career came up Fairbanks, Alaska.” Deidre’s eyes looked troubled.

  “That’s the traveling nurse’s program.” Mary squeezed her friend’s hands harder. “That’s exactly where they wanted to send you in the summer if you took the fall rotation to Mississippi.”

  “Yeah, I know. Uncanny, right?”

  “I don’t know,” Mary whispered. “Did you mention it to anyone? Did you post about it on social media?”

  “And have our bosses know I’m looking for another job? Heck no. You and my cat, but Socks promised not to meow it to anyone.”

  “Okay.” Mary released their grip to brush a hand down her arm. “Goosebumps.”

  “Please.” The helper lady looked at Mary and gestured into the room, indicating Mary should go in.

  Deidre leaned in to whisper. “We’ll talk about it later.” Then, back in normal conversational tone, she added. “I’m going to walk in the garden and think. If I’m not back in the sitting room, that’s where you’ll find me.”

  Mary nodded and then moved into the office. Could be a therapist's office or a lawyer’s. It was professional, with a large desk that Mrs. V. sat behind. There were scrolls of charts in front of her.

  “I’m not sure why I’m in here,” Mary said as the door clicked close behind her. She stood wary and uncomfortable on the oriental carpeting. “I’m between jobs and not getting a paycheck, so funds are tight. I can’t afford,” Mary looked around the sedate luxury of the room, “this.”

  Mrs. V. scratched her nose. “Yes, well.” She extended her hand toward a chair. “Please sit.”

  Mary perched on the edge, lacing her fingers in her lap.

  “It’s in the stars.” Mrs. V. smiled a stress-free smile, and Mary wondered what it felt like to be like that, like a brook babbling along, swerving out of the way of rock and obstruction, easy. Mary hadn’t felt easy in her skin since she peed on her at-home pregnancy test back in her teens.

  “I was looking at my own chart a few days ago,” she swept her hand over her desk where the rolls of parchment formed a pyramid. “And it was so curious. I saw that a client who was to come this week had died.” She leaned back, folding her hands beneath her bosom. “Within moments of reading that, the phone rang. It was a client’s daughter saying that her mother passed away unexpectedly. She was asking if I would reimburse her mother’s payment as they needed that money for the funeral.”

  Mary blinked. This cost Deidre some amount of money sufficiently large enough to pay for—or make a significant contribution to a funeral? What was she thinking?

  “I have found that everything is aligned,” Mrs. V said. “A space was open, the last in my day. So I searched the charts, asking who needed an intervention?” She stopped. “You do know the time of your birth, correct?”

  Did she? Why yes, yes, she did. It was a lifelong insult to her older sister that Mary had had the audacity to be born on her birthday.

  “Twelve-oh-one on September fourth. I know this because my mom tried super hard to push me out before midnight so my sister Diane—also born September fourth but three years earlier—would have her own birthday. But no.” Mary felt her shoulders rising protectively toward her ears, and she put some effort into lowering them down again. “I sucked in my first breath at twelve-oh-one.”

  Mrs. V put her pen to paper, and blue ink looped over the white surface.

  “Throughout our entire lives, Diane, my older sister, complained that,” Mary changed her voice to mimic Diane’s. “‘Everything that’s mine, Mary wants, and she just reaches out and takes it.’” Too much information and yet, Mary couldn’t seem to stop herself. If she kept talking, she’d push away whatever it was that Mrs. V. wanted from her.

  It honestly didn’t feel like this was some kind of trick to pry Mary’s non-existent funds from her hand. But something was going on here, and weirdly, Mary could feel in her bones that this was it. Her life was about to change in a dramatic and drastic way. “Now granted, what Diane thought was hers wasn’t always. The last piece of pizza. The last scoop of ice cream. The opportunity to lick the bowl after Dad made a cake. Yeah, it was usually food-related.” Mary felt the corners of her lips wiggling nervously as she forced a smile. “Other than food, our tastes weren’t very much alike, and I wouldn’t want her things. She liked playing board games and doll babies. I liked books and more books.” Her mind sent her pictures of her younger self under the covers in her childhood bed with a flashlight and a book that gave her more than goosebumps. They required her to keep reading until the heroine got to safety, which could take all night.

  Those books pushed Mary to read faster and faster, hoping to get to the end where the hero and heroine were safe in each other’s arms.

  That was how Mary had framed life as a child. A series of disasters that, when surmounted, brought the hero and heroine to their reward, a happily ever after.

  Just a silly worldview that her own life trajectory had tried very hard to debunk.

  Mrs. V. tipped her head, clearly reading Mary’s discomfort.

  Mary swallowed hard. “Yes, ma’am, I was born a minute after midnight.”

  This scene seemed like it could come straight out of one of her beloved novels. Even Mrs. V.’s response was perfect for the pages of a thriller. “One minute after midnight. And to so many lives, that minute means everything.”

  What?

  “You’re lonely.” Mrs. V. put her pen back on the pad.

  Mary felt tears press behind her eyes. “No, I’m here with my best friend, Deidre. We’ve been inseparable for over twenty years.”

  “You’re lonely.” She repeated with a heavy emphasis on the lonely.

  This felt like a trap, like she was being coerced into an emotion. “No. I’m an introvert. People exhaust me. I’m a nurse like Deidre. I spend twelve hour shifts in the hospital. Lots of people. Good colleagues. We all get along well. And when I had days off that job, I was training for my certification to become a flight nurse. You know, I transport patients in a helicopter either from one hospital to another or a medical emergency to the hospital. Lots of people. Too many people, really.” And as Mary tossed out her words like ineffectual buckets of water on a raging fire, Mrs. V. nodded along.

  Mary’s emotions became a pressure in her sinus cavity, reaching toward her ears and down her neck. She took a deep breath and sensed the inside of her chest as hollow and dark.

  And lonely.

  Mrs. V. laced her fingers as her elbows perched on the armrests. “I’m sorry for your loneliness. We shall see if there is something in your chart.” She leaned forward to pick up her pen and poised it to write. “And the place of your birth?”

  “Cranberry Falls, Rhode Island. It’s just outside of Providence.”

  After writing that down, Mrs. V. searched a phone app and wrote out a string of numbers and circles to indicate longitude and latitude degrees.

  “Uhm, I don’t live there now. I live in Norfolk, Virginia.”

  “The place of your birth helps me to calculate your astrological sign and houses.”

  “No, I wasn’t born in a house. I was born at St. Catherine’s Hospital in Cranberry Falls.”

  “Yes,” Mrs. V. nodded, a smile in her eyes. “There are different influences on human life on Earth. These include the movement of heavenly bodies. We are interested in learning today how you interact with the celestial movement. Let’s discuss Deidre for a moment.”

  Was that ethical? HIPAA really didn’t apply here like it did at work. Still, it felt like gossip.

  “Why did your friend wish to know the GPS coordinates of the places she is supposed to be on her birthday?” That question sounded rhetorical, so Mary sat still. “There are three things that people usually ask.” Mrs. V. tapped her thumb to her pinky. “Tell me about my career, prosperity, and wealth.” Her thumb moved to the ring finger. “Tell me about how to fill my heart with love.” Then, her thumb came to her middle finger. “Tell me what the heck I’m supposed to be doing with my life.” It was funny to hear Mrs. V. say heck. “I try to help my clients progress in one of these areas by giving them three coordinates for a place where they can shift their life trajectory. It’s up to them which they pick and if they follow through. I have given three destinations to Deidre, for example, and now she has a specific date and her options. She must grapple with and decide which to take or to leave all three unexamined.”

  Mary felt odd. Her stomach was churning. Today had been weird.

  Mrs. V. continued. “I look at the different influences and find the place on the globe that best facilitates a choice. Your friend will tell you on her birthday that it is far better for her career to be in Fairbanks, Alaska. But that is a choice. I found in her charts that if she goes there, she will lose the opportunity to experience great love. If she goes to the great love, she will have difficulty throughout her life with her money.”

  “Love or money. She should pick love. Unless—don’t you give a third choice?”

  “What will advance her in this lifetime? Yes, this is a third choice.”

  “And couldn’t you see how that will impact her? Like, if she’s in that spot on that day and this thing happens, her finances would look like this, and her love life would look like that?”

  “I can tell her how the Heavens align, but there are still hard choices for her to make. What does she want most?”

  “What would you say?”

  “I am a spiritual being moving through a human experience. This is a phrase repeated throughout the millennium in myriad ways. I do not seek out love, fame, or fortune. I try to learn and grow. That is how I spend each birthday, in a state of growth, in a place that will best facilitate my evolution. But this is my path in this lifetime. Others need to learn other lessons. Bringing the opportunities to someone’s attention is all I can do. And, too, once presented an opportunity, not everyone can open themselves to grasping it.”

  “Because it requires spontaneity?” Mary was beginning to sense a theme over these last couple of days. And then she suddenly remembered that she’d left her wet clothes in her washing machine back home where they were rotting.

  “Typically, this is so. And you,” Mrs. V. held up a finger, “seem to be someone who might struggle with spontaneity.”

  Mary pressed her lips together. Wow, that felt too personal coming from a stranger, Deidre, sure. But this lady?

  Mrs. V. smiled with that tiny exhale of amusement as if she heard Mary say that aloud. “So, I was explaining to you, that as I looked at my personal charts and as I went into deep meditation to speak to my soul, I discovered that I was being called to intervene in a series of events that were unfolding. I discovered that your friend Deidre had the birthdate I was looking for among those who had reached out to me for future appointments. I saw in my meditation about her role in this process that she was not the person I sought, but she had a friend—you, I am hopeful,” Mrs. V. turned her palm up to indicate Mary, “to go to the right place and be there at the right time.” She patted the scrolls in front of her. “But I will look. Your birthday is tomorrow, Deidre told me.”

  “Tomorrow. Yes. Forty.” Mary held up jazz hands. She wasn’t sure she was following this. Was Mrs. V. saying that —? Nah. “Why do people have to come see you in person?”

  “Simple. I read the charts, but I also read the person.” She laced her fingers. “These two things inform me and the approach I take.”

  Mary put her hand on her chest, spread her eyelids wide, and shook her head. She didn’t have money for any of this.

  “Yes, I know you are not a paying client. Put yourself at ease. No one will follow up with a bill. I will ask only one thing from you: when I discover why you are here, you will heed the call.”

  Mary gave an unblinking shake of her head. “Look, you already know my birthday is tomorrow, and I have no travel money. So unless this place is close by —” Mary shrugged.

  Mrs. V extended a languid hand toward a table. “My assistant has set out tea for you. The view out the window is lovely. If you would give me some time, I will work on this question.”

  Mary was awkward as she got up from her chair to move to the other side of the room. She didn’t seem to be able to coordinate her movements. Mary wondered briefly if she had hit her head going down the mountain and, in her terror, hadn’t realized it. After pulling a napkin across her lap, Mary glanced over at Mrs. V. Her glasses now rested on the tip of her nose as she focused on her desk. With her fingertips under her hair, Mary started at the base of her scalp and moved her way over her head with slow, concentric circles, looking for tender spots. She was a little disappointed to find none. So, not a head injury.

  The tea was fragrant. The finger sandwiches and pastries yummy. The view out the window peaceful. And Mary let herself rest in the wingback chair, head supported in the little corner.

  Mary was surprised when she heard Mrs. V.’s voice rouse her from the half-doze. When she turned her head, the look on Mrs. V’s face gave Mary pause. The yoga had slipped a bit, and there was stress there. Probably not like the lotion of stress that Mary rubbed into her skin on a daily basis, but yeah, there was stress there.

  “It’s quite extraordinary.” Mrs. V. leaned back in her chair, sliding the glasses from her face and dangling them from her fingers as she assessed Mary.

  Mary moved the teacup from her lap where she had rested it back to the table, then gripped the sides of her thighs, clenching her stomach, ready to take a blow.

  “Three questions: love life, career and material life, internal life.”

  “Yes?” Oh, this seemed bad.

  “All are informed by your going to the exact same geographical location on your birthday tomorrow.” Mrs. V. leaned her head at an extreme angle as if trying to see Mary from a different point of view. “Well, I knew from my meditation that this was a special case.” She laid her reading glasses on her desk. “I’ve never had a client reading where two locations coincided, let alone three.” She breathed in and squared her shoulders. “Yes, quite extraordinary.”

  Mary clenched her teeth. Shit! She was being sent to Borneo.

  “Tallinn, Estonia.”

  Mary pulled her chin back and considered that name. Estonia, she knew she’d heard of that country. Place it on a map? Not so much.

  “It’s across the Baltic Sea from Helsinki.”

  Nope, if it wasn’t a place a submarine might go, Mary didn’t pay it much attention. Geography wasn’t a big part of her education or her interest. She only had a passport because she and Deidre had gone to the Canadian Expo last year. “Okay.” She’d do an Internet search back at the hotel.

  “I highly suggest you leave in the morning on the first flight. The very first flight available in the morning.” She emphasized. “You need to be there without any hitches as early as you can on your birthday.”

  “No hitches.” Mary’s takeaway was that in her meeting with Mrs. V., Deidre had been handed the quandary of deciding her priority shift next year. But Mary was handed an ultimatum.

  “If I understand this situation right, Mrs. V.” Mary stammered, “you looked at your charts, and now you’re telling me that if I, Mary Alice Williams, get on a plane and fly to—where was it? Tallinn, Estonia? That everything will change—my love life, my career, even my life’s trajectory?” A nervous giggle peppered her words. “That’s a lot to ask of a single geographical spot on a single day in one’s life.”

  The giggle was replaced by a chest-crushing wave of anxiety and a dawning sense that there was some truth to what she was being told.

  Whew. This was not part of her normal reality.

  At. All.

  If fate was calling, should she pick up and say hi?

  Or had she already tumbled down a mountain today, and that was enough spontaneity and adventure for one trip?

  Chapter Nine

  September Fourth

  Tallinn, Estonia

  Halo met up with the team in the lobby. They were doing a ruck run to the airport since it was only six miles away. They’d connect with Nutsbe and Max, then take cabs back to the hotel for breakfast. Halo adjusted his straps so they wouldn’t rub blisters into his shoulders. Doing their morning runs with a light pack, say thirty or forty pounds, was one of the ways his special forces team stayed primed and ready to jump and go when a mission went hot. Seemed Iniquus trained like the Commandos.