CONTENTS      THE INTERIM HOUR      FIRELIGHT TWINE
THINGS I'VE LOST      COSMIC PROFILES     AUTHORS

Anne-Mary Phelps was thirty years old, with undistinguished brown hair that refused to have body; a face that was pleasant enough, though lacking that intangible characteristic that makes some faces memorable; and a figure that wasn't unattractive, but seldom fitted off-the-rack clothes. In other words, to all appearances, she looked perfectly ordinary, and would have been happy to be that way, too, except she had a gift.

She'd never felt entirely comfortable calling it a "gift." True, it was handed down like an heirloom: her mother's mother had had it, and one of her mother's sisters, and even one of Anne-Mary's father's second cousins. But a gift was supposed to be something nice, and being able to perceive other people's auras wasn't always. It could be very unnerving to have to put up with the weirds and wisps that certain people's cosmic profiles seemed to attract, though that could come in handy whenever she staged a midnight junk-food raid on her local convenience store.

But like it or not, reading auras was the only thing she was really good at. Still, she refused to employ her gift with the kind of extravagant trappings often used by other possessors because she'd found that theatricality made her work more stressful than it already was. So, having gotten an Associate's Degree from a junior college, she ran a small business — Marie's Consultations & Forecasts — with an office in one of the professional buildings on the edge of the business district, and with a receptionist who, though she wasn't psychic, wasn't fazed by the paranormal.

Anne-Mary preferred to get clients by referral, which saved her the hassle of skeptics. She couldn't explain how she did what she did, and found it extremely irksome to deal with people determined to prove her a fraud. Of course, referrals were sometimes skeptical, too, but they got over it. They wouldn't be there if they weren't predisposed. Still, because she had an office in public, she did have occasional walk-ins.

Getting ready to go to lunch, she thought over this morning's consultation. The client had been a referral — a fairly successful executive roughly her age, who ostensibly wanted to have some idea of his newborn son's educational potential. "What I need to know," he explained, "is what he's likely to be so I can figure out how to pay for it."

Of course, without seeing the child, she couldn't say much, and, even then, she doubted that she'd be able to tell a future doctor from a real estate agent. But in any event, his son's potential wasn't the executive's problem. And that, she'd considered as she'd slowly slipped into a trance to better examine his aura, was what her work was all about.

Every time the subject of his job came up, the dome-like haze around him erupted in flashes of angry orange that were quickly smothered by frigid blue. Then, for a moment, his aura would sag, its energy sapped by his vocational conflicts. And she knew at once that, if he kept at his job, his plans for his son would fail, because his job would kill him. But she also saw that he was completely unaware of this.

A spirit guide, she thought to herself as she said goodby to Linda and left her office, wasn't what people supposed. But if he hadn't been a first-timer, she might have been tempted to stretch the truth by telling him that his spirit guide was suggesting he get job counseling.

She once again felt a certain envy for normal, non-psychic workaday types. Though their lives were guided by energy nodes, they viewed their problems in tangible terms — things to be done, people to deal with — not as the complex interaction of forces the way she did. But reaching the street, she looked up the block and saw the sidewalk was filled with the frantic flashes of many frustrated auras.

How can they live like that? she instinctively thought, then once again decided she was probably better off strange.

When she got back to the office, however, Linda, usually unflappable, breathlessly told her a walk-in was waiting. "He's already in your consulting room, and you've got to tell me what you find out!"

"Linda, you know I never discuss my clients."

"Yes, but you'll see what I mean." Her eyes seemed mystifyingly eager. And even more perplexingly, her aura pulsed in a lusty crimson.

Shaking her head, Anne-Mary paused to ready herself for a stranger. Unlike a referral, for whom she had some basic reference points in advance, a walk-in's aura was hard to interpret until she'd interviewed him a bit. And that could get awkward because a walk-in was usually here on the spur of the moment, and felt understandably nervous. She took a deep breath, then went in to meet him, and understood Linda's reaction at once.

In front of her desk sat the most astonishing male she'd ever encountered. His hair was an almost blinding blond, his face a seductively tawny brown, his eyes a richly gold-flecked bronze. And he wore an impeccably tailored tan suit that thoroughly reinterpreted "husky."

But what astonished her even more was his aura, which was simply bizarre. Its innermost aspect, which should have appeared as a very thin layer of blue-tinged gray, was a dense and dusky turquoise — a texture and color she'd never seen before. The secondary — his personal energy — shimmered like a desert mirage. And his surround was a riot of hues that shifted like a kaleidoscope.

"I'm Marie," she warily said, as he stood and warmly shook her hand. But "warmly" wasn't quite the right word. His hand felt decidedly hot.

"Stephen Perrin," he declared. Then his figure was washed by a pale yellow-green.

Going to sit behind her desk, she wondered why she had the impression he wasn't exactly telling the truth. "So, what can I do for you, Mister Perrin?" she asked, as he sat back down.

"Well," he began with a boyish smile, while becoming enveloped in voluptuous violet, "I'm not from this city, but I work for a firm that's thinking of opening an office here." He paused, as if uncertain what to say next, and once again that pale yellow-green swirled up around him.

Why did she think that wasn't true, either? "And what did you hope to find out from me?"

A blood-red pulse of energy burst from his eyes. "What our prospects are. AthWare, Inc., the firm I work for, likes to cover all the bases before committing to office space." Another blood-red pulse burst out and whizzed past Anne-Mary's left ear.

She flinched. "And what does AthWare, Inc. do?"

"Software ... mainly for agribusiness and light-industrial applications. And since you offer consultations and forecasts, I thought I should talk to you first." He paused again and glanced around, emitting brief pulses of red like a Star Trek phaser at various parts of the room. Then the upper part of his aura abruptly expanded above his head and started rotating like a pinwheel.

Anne-Mary got the improbable impression that he was extremely proud of himself. "I see," she remarked, though she still wasn't sure just what he expected of her. And then she noticed that he was attracting an extraordinary number of energy nodes — more, and more intensely focused than even with genuine mystics. If the average person was able to rely on only one or two spirit guides, this guy could apparently access a whole battalion of highly seasoned trackers.

"But I guess," he went on as his aura began to undulate, "before we continue, we ought to discuss your fee." He shrugged, and a brilliantly satin-like pink billowed out in all directions.

Trying not to gawk, she asked, "What does your firm want to know?"

His eyes began to glitter, then gave forth with what looked very much like a cascade of perfect yellow diamonds. "The prospects here for a business like ours. The city's demographics are good, but we need a feel for the growth potential."

She realized he'd mistaken her for a different kind of consultant. But something told her not to try to correct the mistake just yet. "Perhaps you should tell me a little bit more," she suggested, as a sapphire haze descended from just above his head to envelop his robust shoulders. Then unobtrusively slipping into a trance, she focused her skill on him. "For instance, where is your company based?"

"Miami," he replied, though that pale yellow-green swirled up to betray him again.

"And you're from Miami yourself?"

"Yes." But with a flash, his surround exploded, hurling out psychic eddies that spun away like miniature galaxies.

From her inner retreat, Anne-Mary reflected on these peculiarities, then felt she had to venture, "Do you mind if I make an observation?" She hesitated, as the everyday part of her mind began to protest that she was about to say something idiotic. But weird as it was, even from her point of view, this seemed to be the only conclusion she could draw from the evidence. "You're not human, are you?"

His mouth dropped open, as he was engulfed in a vibrating indigo cloud shot through with what looked like a spray of molten brass. "How could you know?" he nervously whispered. "Damn! What did I do wrong?"

She had to admit that wasn't the confirmation she'd have preferred. "You thought I worked as a business consultant. But that isn't what I do."

"I mean I really studied for this," he muttered, as his aura turned a very gloomy ochre. Then he started to rise from his chair. "But believe me, I don't mean any harm."

She absently motioned for him to sit down, and to her entranced surprise he did. On his face was the look of a little boy about to be punished for some misdeed. But something about his aura suggested he was extremely old. That could explain all the energy nodes, she thought, as her mind took a closer look, and at last discerned what he most likely was. "You're from another planet."

"Well, sort of," he dolefully answered. "I mean I guess we were a long time ago." Then he narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "But how could you possibly know that?"

"For one thing, your personal energy."

"Personal energy?"

"Your psychic metabolism."

"What are you talking about?"

"Your aura. I read auras. That's what I consult. And your aura is alien."

He ran a hand through his golden-blond hair. "My aura? You mean that science fiction stuff about psychic powers? I can't believe you're serious!" But then a ruddy and oddly cheerful glow grew out of his midsection. "Oh, I get it. This is a set-up, isn't it? You've been positioned by my advisor to see what I do when I'm caught off-guard." And he started to chuckle, as his surround once more expanded above him into a vortex of personal pride.

Though she didn't know what he meant by that, she felt put off by his skepticism. "You think you've been deliberately tricked? Well, just think it through again. I know you couldn't possibly have been sent to see me, so you must have come here entirely on your own."

He frowned and admitted, "I found your listing in a local business directory."

"So, how could this advisor of yours have known you'd end up here?"

He gave her a very defiant stare. "But how could you know what I really am?"

For a moment she returned his stare, but couldn't repress a derisive laugh. "You come from outer space, and you've never heard of auras?"

"Uh, look," he mumbled as he suddenly stood, while his aura darkened to an ominous brown. "I think I'd better get out of here. And I wouldn't advise your trying to stop me." He started backing toward the door, as his array of energy nodes began to roil about his head. "And," he added in a growl that struck her as being rather unconvincing, "I hope you won't be foolish enough to tell anyone about this."

Bristling at his attitude, she demanded, "Or else what?"

For a moment he came to a halt, and looked completely nonplussed by the question. "Well ... that is ... I didn't intend to have it sound like that." Then muttering "Damn!", he turned and fled with all his manifestations streaming out behind him like the tail of a comet.

The next instant, Linda appeared at the door and demanded, "What was that all about?"

Anne-Mary shook her head. "I'm not sure I could tell you, even if I wanted to."

"Well, it must have been something awful. I mean, he ran out of here like a bat out of hell. What did you tell him?"

"The truth, I guess."

But though she'd never have the slightest idea what that answer really meant, Linda sighed, "I suppose you never expect a guy as good-looking as that to have a lousy cosmic profile."

Copyright 2005 by Ralph Sperry

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