Don't Tell Ellie
Chapter Six: Neon

Conveniently nestled beneath my apartment building is a 24-hour corner store called Saaid’s. It’s owned by Saaid Almasi and run by his son, Amon. I’d learned both their names quickly when I’d moved here, my two-pack a day habit sending me into the store at all hours.

“Ellie B!” Amon is smiling from behind the counter when I enter, “cat food? I think we’re out of Fancy Feast, but we’ve got...”

“Nope, I need a pack of Marlboro Reds.”

“Ellie,” Amon widens his eyes, “but, you quit!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. You gonna help me out or should I go across the street?” I say amusingly, Amon and the owner of the bodega across the street are currently in a convenience store war.

“Shit, I better never catch you over there!” He grabs a pack of Marlboros and places it on the counter, “eleven-fifty.”

“Jesus Christ! They were just nine dollars!” I rifle through my purse and produce a twenty.

“That was last year, kid,” he hands me back a ten-dollar bill, “think of this discount as an incentive to stay away from that shit can across the street.”

“You got it,” I playfully salute him and grab my cigarettes.

“And quit smoking! It’ll kill you!” Amon calls after me as I exit.

One subway ride and two blocks later I’m standing in front of a small storefront with a purple neon sign that reads, Madame Endora - Psychic Reader.

I put a cigarette between my lips and light the end with my long black candle lighter. When I quit I threw away anything that reminded me of smoking, including all of my lighters, this was all I had left.

I take a few drags and can’t stop myself from grimacing at the taste, the feeling of smoking gives me a rush— a nicotine high, but I don’t particularly miss the taste. I take one last pull and throw the half-smoked cigarette on the sidewalk, stomping it out with the sole of my sneaker.

“You got this,” I take a deep breath and enter the psychic shop.

The smell of incense is almost overpowering, Nag Champa and sage are burning away in silver trays on an altar covered in gems and spiritual relics.

“Welcome, welcome,” a dreamy voice floats to me from the back room, “I feel a strong presence from you,” I roll my eyes, “there’s a rage in your soul, please come through the beads so that I may take a closer look at you.”

I step through the plastic beads harshly, my arms crossed over my chest, “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Holy shit, El!” My mother’s best friend, Vivienne Harris, is seated behind a small table, the room is lit by red lights and decorated the same as every fake psychic shop I’ve ever been to. Crystal balls, tarot cards, wax candles, and tapestries.

“Hello, Viv.”

“Honey!” She rises from her seat and rushes towards me embracing me with all the strength her thin frame has to offer, “I’ve missed you so much! You never answer my calls, I’ve texted you and you know I hate texting, how are you, little bug?”

Her sultry psychic voice is gone, replaced by her thick Brooklyn accent.

“Madame Endora?” I laugh after we’ve finished hugging.

“Don’t you love it?” She clasps her hands together and her wrists jingle, overflowing with bangles and charm bracelets, “I feel like it’s more...mystical, ya know?”

“Isn’t that the name of the mother from Bewitched?” I arch an eyebrow.

She waves a dismissive hand in the air and winks at me, “No one remembers that show anyway. Come sit down! I haven’t seen you in almost a year,” Vivienne grabs my hands and drags me to a seat at her table, “How have you been?”

“The same,” I shrug.

“You still working at that bar, what’s it called?”

“Thermal, yeah I’m still there.”

“Well, that’s different, I knew you had it in you to commit to a job for longer than two weeks.”

I chuckle, “Yeah, different. Mind if I smoke in here?”

“Only if you give me one!” Viv grins and pulls out a tin ashtray from under the table.

I sigh, exhaling a long stream of smoke toward the ceiling, “Do you remember how you’d always read my mother’s tarot cards?”

“Of course, she was religious about it, always worried about the future.”

The air has gone stale in the psychic shop, I could use a drink, but it’s not even noon, “Did you ever see anything in those cards?”

“Like what?” Viv is starting to look uncomfortable, and it’s not misguided, I never speak about my childhood.

“Like did you know I was going to disappear?”

Viv is chewing the side of her lip, her cigarette ash is long and about to tumble to the table, forgotten between her fingers.

“I knew something might happen, but I didn’t know what. The cards aren’t a window to the future, they’re more of a hint to what could happen.” The ash has finally fallen and Viv takes another drag. “Plus, I’m not really psychic, I’m just, you know, in tune with the universe.” She tries a small smile.

“Look, I know that the majority of predictions that come out your mouth in this shop are bullshit, but I also know that some of it is true, you knew when my family died, you were there before the cops were even called.”

“Ellie, what is going on? You’re worrying me.”

“Viv, how did they replace me?”

She grabs my pack of cigarettes and lights another as if chain-smoking is going to change the conversation, “Unconscious.”

“Where?”

She looks up to the ceiling and blows out an exasperated cloud of smoke, “In that house, the old Victorian.”

“Tell me what you know about that place.”

She’s looking at me now, her pupils dilated, eyes flitting back and forth between mine, “I know what everyone knows about that house—it’s where they found you three weeks after you’d gone missing.”

“Did my mother ever say anything about the house? She lived across the street from it her entire life,” I’m starting to feel like I’m grasping at straws, but Vivienne and my mother met in college, she is the final link I have to the past, anything she might remember could help me figure out what the fuck is going on.

“No,” Viv pulls at the collar of her shirt uncomfortably, “There was nothing to say, that place was always the same, practically abandoned. Some rich family owned it and paid for the upkeep. They weren’t even investigated, can you believe that?” Viv grimaces. “As I’m sure you know, there’s tons of irrelevant bullshit in your file, but that family name is only written on a single page of it...” her mouth is hanging open mid-sentence, “Please don’t tell me you’ve never seen your file.”

“I’ve never had any reason to,” I say defensively. I wanted it to be like it never happened.

“Well, if you’ve got questions that’s where you need to start because I don’t have answers. You never told anyone what happened to you and your parents had to live with that until the day they died,” Vivienne extinguishes her cigarette, smashing the filter down with force, “No one was ever convicted for your abduction, and that rich fucking family acted like they had no idea how you got in their house, but if you want my opinion—they knew.”

“Do you remember the name of the family?”

“I’ll never forget it,” Viv shakes her head and her eyes float down to her palms as if the name is written on them, “Marston.”