The Last Reading

She gently traced the lines on his hand with her thumb. “I see deceit and malice,” she said accusingly, looking into his eyes with her unseeing, milky white ones. She then added, “And a disregard for others.”

The palm reader, Alice May, then rose and gingerly made her way to the cupboard on the far side of the room. She gently cast her hands over the trinkets that adorned the old, oak surface. Some were merely ornamental, decorative pieces that she had acquired over many years of her life. Some were more precious to her, and much more valuable.
She sighed, put her hand to her heart and then returned to the reading.

“When you first came to me, I felt something in your lines that confused me. Each time you returned, everything became clearer,” she continued as a tear ran down her cheek.
All Peter could do was look wide eyed with a muffled scream back at the old lady.

He’d been coming for readings for weeks. Each time he’d helped himself to a bit of jewellery. This time he’d sat in the chair in her dusty old den, drank the usual cup of tea that she always offered, but this time had fallen into a deep sleep.

“I don’t think you have a good bone in your body,” she continued, as she felt each line, each intersection on his palm. “I fear you may be a lost cause.”

She stood again and threw the severed appendage into the open fire. Peter tried to scream. His mouth was sealed tight with crude stitching, his legs tied tightly to those of the chair. His wrists were nailed to thick wooden tabletop that he had sat at for the last few weeks of his visits to this mystic witch.

“On the other hand, maybe you’re not all that bad. Maybe you deserve another chance,” she said.

She fumbled for the hacksaw beside the chair, felt her way up to his other arm and started to grind through skin, flesh, muscle and finally bone.

His eyes rolled in his head, his pupils widened in pure, electrifying agony as she began to remove the other hand.
After some effort it detached from his wrist. She then sat down, turned it over, and began to give him a second reading for free. Deep within her, she hoped to find a line that would give her reason to spare him. But, even as she began reading it, she shook her head, solemnly. All Peter could do was shake his head violently from one side to the other. His muffled pleas for forgiveness went unheard by Alice.

~ Ian Sputnik