Page 4 of Horoscope to Love
“I think I’ll take my chances.”
"When it comes to your happiness, Sweetheart, I won't. Do your old Gran a favor and clean yourself up." She eyes my sweaty work shirt over her thick tortoiseshell glasses. "You never know who you might meet.”
With those cryptic parting words, she pats me on the shoulder and heads back towards the front door.
I stare after her, wondering if she knows something I don’t. But after a quick sniff under my arms, I realize that her advice to clean myself up isn't from the universe but just from the odor of working all day.
MATILDA
“Take a right at the stop sign,” my GPS instructs.
“What stop sign?" I ask out loud as I look around the main road lined with storefront shops and no stop sign in sight. "You useless piece of—oh shit!”
I slam my foot on the brake just in time when I notice an older woman walking across the street in front of me. She freezes in place as my brakes squeal to a stop. My front bumper can’t be more than a foot away from her, but she hardly seems phased. If anything, she looks curiously at me over her tortoiseshell glasses before a slight smile spreads across her lips.
“I’m sorry!” I call out the window to her.
She waves at me like we are old friends and continues on her way across the street like she didn’t almost get run over by a woman not looking—oh my gosh. Paige's warning that I needed to be on the lookout today replays in my mind.
“There is no wa—” I start to say, but a car honks its horn behind me, eager for me to move along.
Did that really just happen? Did Madame Zodiac’s prediction actually come true? Or am I just trying to make a round situation fit into a square prediction?
More and more questions pop into my mind, but I can’t seem to come up with any logical answers other than she might actually be legit. Paige would be squealing with delight if I told her that.
By the time my GPS announces my arrival, my questions are put on the back burner as I take in the sight of the beautiful but slightly rundown Victorian house that belongs to Madame Zodiac. At least according to the address, I got from the newspaper.
I’m not sure where I imagined her living—a small house in suburbia or a small one-bedroom apartment over a laundromat—but this aging Victorian seems to fit better than anything I could picture in my mind.
None of the lights are on in the house, but it’s still too light out in the early evening for that to tell me definitively if anyone is home.
I get out and head up the front steps to the door. My curiosity to actually meet this Madame Zodiac increases with each step. I lift the large brass knocker and tap it three times, but the force opens the door slightly.
“Hello?” I call through the open space in the door, but there is no answer.
I push the door open wider and poke my head in to look around. It looks like the house might be under some construction because the furniture in the front room is covered with white tarps, and there is a ladder leaning against the wall with paint cans surrounding it.
“Hello? Madame Zodiac?” I call out again. I feel silly calling her that, but I couldn't find a legal name for her. "I'm sorry just to walk in, but the door was open and—”
“Who are you?” A deep angry voice asks from behind me.
I turn quickly to see a man standing with only a towel around his waist and an angry scowl on his face. His dark hair is wet and pushed back. Water droplets sprinkle his thick muscled chest.
“I’m so sorry—” I turn again to avert my eyes from his deliciously naked form.
“Look out!” He yells just before the flash of pain hits me, and everything goes dark.
