“And yet,” Florence thought, “they are passing her in ahead of those others! Can it be that this priestess has already heard of this child’s money?” For the first time in her life she began to believe that at least some of these fortune tellers knew everything, even the innermost secrets of one’s heart. The feeling made her uncomfortable.
The room they entered was weirdly fantastic. Its walls were covered with paper so blue that it seemed black. Over this paper flew a thousand tiny imaginary birds of every hue. The floor was jet black. On a sort of raised platform, in a highly ornamental chair that seemed a throne, sat a very large black woman with deep-set dark eyes. She was dressed in a robe of dark red. As the two girls entered, she was swinging her arms slowly up and down as if to drive away an imaginary swarm of flies, or perhaps ghosts.
“I am—” June began.
“No, child. Don’t tell me.” The woman’s tone was melodiously southern. “I’s a priestess, a voodoo priestess. I’s the great, great granddaughter of Cristophe, the Emperor of Haiti.
“Listen, child!” Her voice dropped. It seemed to Florence that the lights grew dim. “At midnight in the dark of de moon, on de highest mountain in Haiti, dey took me an’ a big black goat, all black. Dey sacrificed de goat in de dark of de moon. But me, honey, me dey made a priestess. To me it is given to ask and to know all things. As I look at you now, I seem to see no father near you, no mother near you, but girls, one, two, three, oh, mebby a dozen. That right?”
“Yes, I—”
“Don’t speak, honey. You come to ask where your Daddy is, and I—I am here to tell you. Only—”
“I—I’ve got ten—”
“Don’t speak of money, not yet. I—”
The priestess broke off suddenly. Florence had entered silently, but had fallen back at once into a dark corner. For the first time the priestess became conscious of her presence.