One night, I I took the diamond ring off the middle finger of my left hand and put it away in a box. My father had given me that ring, and I never took it off, not even to bathe, but that day I removed it—and all my disguises. I put on very plain clothes and walked out into the street.

The moon was full, and the streets were alive, but I was a phantom as I retraced my steps to Atlantic Avenue, where I had first seen the sign: PSYCHIC READINGS.

I approached the blue neon storefront but didn’t ring the bell. I kept walking—first down to the dark, lapping waters of Brooklyn Bridge Park—then to Borough Hall, where the gold statue of Justice looked down over the municipal courthouses. I was magnetized by the sign, and I was circling something, desperate for someone to talk to, for someone to hear me, for someone who would listen and hold space for even the darkest truths. 

I stood on the threshold of the storefront. 

I peered through the window.

I took a deep breath. 

I rang the bell, held my breath, and the door opened.

The fortune teller  who answered the door had long dark hair and sympathetic eyes. She was heavyset, moonfaced, and beautiful in her gravity. 

 “Oh, Sweetie.” she looked at my tears with surprise and genuine concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said, turning my face away from her inquisitive gaze. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” she said. 

“I shouldn’t be here,” I said between gasps. “I’m in the wrong place.”

“Or maybe this is just where you are supposed to be,” she said gently and opened the door wider. “Come in. Sit down.” 

The fortune teller ushered me into a chair, and I buried my head in my hands.

“Now,” she said. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“Can I—can I—can I…”

“Breathe, Sweetie. Breathe.” she instructed. “Take your time. Catch your breath.”

“Can I have a glass—of water—please?

She stood efficiently and disappeared into a back room. 

I wiped my ears with the back of my hand and looked around the tiny parlor. There were chintz curtains framing the neon window and two king chairs, upholstered in a golden brocade. Between the chairs was a small wooden table with a scarred surface upon which sat the usual clichés: a gold plaster model of a human hand, a deck of Tarot cards with blue-plaid backing, and a crystal ball. 

The woman returned with a glass of water and a handful of tissues, which she placed on the table beside her crystal ball. She settled back into her chair, and we regarded each other in silence a few moments.

“Now,” she said, when I had caught my breath. “Tell me why you’re here.”

I was silent for a long time. Finally, I whispered, “I need help.”

“I know you do, Sweetie,” she said. “That’s what I’m here for.”

She settled back in her chair and picked up the cards.

“I have the same deck,” I mumbled.

“They may look the same, but my cards are different,” she said.

“I was hoping you would read my palm,” I said, extending my hand, but she wouldn’t touch my hand.

“That’s not what you need right now,” she said and nodded to a sign on the wall that read: FULL LIFE READING. $75. CASH ONLY.

I pulled the money out of my pocket.

“I’m not going to take your money,” she said. “Not until you tell me what’s going on wit you.”

She had a thick Brooklyn accent with a tinge of something I couldn’t quite place. 

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know what’s going on. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I wake up terrified in the middle the night. I’m so scared I can’t breathe, but I don’t know what I’m afraid of. 

She shuffled the cards as I spoke. 

“Okay,” she said. “Put your money on the table.”

I did as she instructed.

She handed me the deck and said, “Shuffle the cards and meditate on a question.”

I closed my eyes and handled the cards.

Then she said, “Cut the deck and give it here.”

When I opened my eyes, the money had disappeared from the table. The fortune teller took the cards out of my hands and swiftly began laying them out on the table. 

My teacher, Delilah, read the cards like glyphs, explaining the iconography and narrative significance of each card in turn. She might say, for example, that the High Priestess is a card of feminine magic and intuition who sits on an underworld throne and rules over the waters of the subconscious. She represents darkness, mystery, and psychic forces. Her wisdom leads us beyond the veil, revealing knowledge beyond the forces of rationality and reason. But this fortune teller did not read the cards as if she were reading from a philosophical text. She read the cards as if she was reading the signs of my body or words inscribed in the book of my life. 

“You have a magic about you,” she said. “But growing up you always felt different, like you didn’t belong to this world.”

She turned over another card. “You was always a good person, a giving person. You always tried to do right, but it didn’t matter. Somehow things always went wrong. You’d give the shirt off your back and get nothing in return.

“Now, I see you was involved with a man,” she said. “Yes or no?

My mind flashed to Burkan. 

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Now, this man, he cared for you—but at the same time he hurted you.”

“He cheated,” I said. “He cheated on me for years, and, on some level, I knew it, but I didn’t let myself believe what was going on.”

“When did youse break up?” She asked.

“Three months ago.”

“The cards tell me that this man did love you in somewhat, but he also wanted to hurt you. There was a part of him likeded it.”

I took this in as she continued.

“No one ever helped you.”

Then she turned over the Three of Swords, and her face fell. “And these three years are the hardest of your life. You lost someone—or something—very important.”

There was an expectant pause.

“Yes or no?” she demanded, and I started to cry. 

“What is it, Sweetie?”

“My father,” I said. 

“I’m seeing something tragic happened. What was it?”

“Suicide,” I choked on the word. “Three years ago.”

She pressed her right hand to her heart and looked at me with pity and knowing. “His spirit is wit you—always.” 

I knew this. This was the problem. I was haunted.

She turned the next card. “I see you and your father shared a special bond. Without him, you feel lost, like you lost part of yourself.”

“It’s not that simple,” I said. 

“It’s never simple,” she said. 

“My father was a complicated man.”

“Complicated, yes, but in some ways, youse understood each other. I see from this card that your father had a hard time expressing his feelings, showing his true self, but he loved you even if he didn’t know how to say it in the right way.”

I looked down at my hands.

“Sweetie, I hate to say this, but I have to tell you the truth. There is a dark cloud around you.” 

“What do you mean?” I asked. 

She turned the next card. “This is serious,” her voice was grave. “You are on the wrong road. You are living for the flesh.” 

I bristled. 

Her eyes narrowed, and she continued, “But there is another way. The path of spirit.”

“What do you mean?” 

“You are at a crossroads,” she said. “Which way you choose will mean everything.” There was urgency in her voice. “You need a deep, deep healing, and you don’t have much time.”

She reached past me, opened a little mirrored box, and withdrew a crystal. “This is rose quartz,” she said, holding the rough, pink stone out for me to see. “For love.” 

I reflexively reached for the stone. 

“For self-love,” she said as she drew the crystal back in towards her chest.

“I’m not sure I believe in self-love,” I said.

“Self love is the first love, Sweetie.” She explained. “You can’t love anybody else until you learn to love yourself.”

I wasn’t sure I believed her, but I wanted that crystal. 

“I can help you, but you have to trust me. I need $150 and three days.” 

“I don’t have the money on me.”

“There’s a cash machine on the corner,” she said. 

“I have the money at home,” I said.

“Where do you live?” She asked.

“Not far,” I said.

I walked home in a trance. I had the money in my checking account, but there was something important I needed to do. I climbed the stairs to my apartment, turned the key in the lock, and slid my father’s hollow book off the shelf. It looked like an antique, leather-bound volume, but it opened to reveal a secret compartment lined in beige velvet. In the box was a pair of immense diamond studs, a string of black pearls, a baroque, heart-shaped locket embedded with rubies, a sterling silver fountain pen, and an old white envelope that read PROPERTY OF CHRISTINE GARDINER, in my father’s handwriting. Inside the envelope was $3,000 in cash. My father had handled this money and tucked it into a hidden zippered compartment of the luggage he gave me for Christmas the year before he died. 

Carefully, I transferred $150 into a separate envelope—and then—as if compelled by an invisible hand, I crumpled the new envelope to make it look older, then copied onto it the words PROPERTY OF CHRISTINE GARDINER. The result of this haunted operation was was a passable approximation of my father’s penmanship. It was as if I were enacting something just below the surface of my consciousness—and, as I did it, I vaguely recalled sitting with my father in his study, copying signatures on tracing paper. On some level, I wanted to psychic to see that the money was coming from somewhere—at the same time I was concealing its origins. I slipped the forged envelope into my bag and stepped back into the night.

When I arrived back at the storefront, the psychic was standing out front, smoking a Marlboro light. She lit the cigarette, took three puffs, and extinguished it as she saw me coming. “You was gone a long time,” she said.

“Did you think I wasn’t coming back?” I asked.

“I knew you was coming,” she said. “I knew you was coming since weeks ago.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I sensed you,” she said. “I felt your vibration.”

Back in the office, she closed the door to the street and drew the curtains, closing the veil to the street.

“Now then,” she said, “Did you bring the money?”

I reached into my bag, withdrew the forged envelope, and observed her observing me. I took the money out of the envelope and extended it to you.

She raised one hand in protest.

“Not yet,” she instructed. “First hold the money to your heart. Then close your eyes and make a wish.”

I did as I was instructed. With all my heart, I wished for freedom, and I wished for the truth.

“Good,” she said, “Now blow on the money three times and give it here.”

The money disappeared into her drawer.

“What did you wish for?” She asked.

“I don’t want to say,” I responded with a half smile. “If you tell a wish, it won’t come true.”  

“You’re not easy, are you?” She said with a laugh, sliding a piece of paper and a blue ballpoint pen across the table. “Write your full name and her birthday here.”

She read my name, silently mouthing the words, then handed me the pink stone. It felt cool to the touch, then flashed warm in my hand. 

“I want you to take this crystal and meditate with it for three days.”

“What do you mean meditate?” I knew, but I didn’t know.

“Keep it wit you wherever you go. Hold it. Sit wit it. Feel the energy.” 

I closed my eyes and felt the faint buzz in the palm of my hand.  

She handed me a card. It said, “CHER, SPIRITUAL PSYCHIC MEDIUM,” and her phone number was printed at the bottom. 

“You call me anytime, day or night,” she said.

I put the card in my pocket. 

“You will come back to me in three days,” she said. 

I nodded.

“Now, this is important,” she said. “Don’t let anyone else touch that crystal.”

“Why not?”

“You don’t want to mix the energies.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I nodded as if I understood. 

***

On the first day, I kept the rose-colored stone in my pocket. It was supposed to show me the way forward, but every time I touched it, I saw only my childhood bedroom. I recalled that when I was very small—four and five years old—my twin bed was an island. The nightlight was the moon. The white curtains billowed like clouds. The bedposts were sweet fruit trees. I lived in a cave and only ventured out of my hole to pick pineapples and gather water for tea. The rest of the time, I burrowed deep underground. It was dangerous on the surface. There was a fox with claws and hot breath that came to my room in the dark. 

***

On the second day, some friends invited me to the beach. It was very hot, but I couldn’t shake the chill in my bones. I put on a bathing suit and looked in the mirror. My reflection looked hollow. I smeared sunscreen in bright white streaks over my body and face. I wore a black sundress and dark glasses, covered my shoulders so they wouldn’t burn, and walked out in the bright light of day.

The windows were down. Everyone sang along to the radio, but I was quiet and focused on the road as it unfolded. Storefronts flashed by on Flatbush Avenue. The airfield unfurled. We drove over the bridge that spans the bay. 

As soon as my friends spread blankets over the sand, I walked down to the water’s edge. The sun beat down on the dunes, but the waves were cold. I waded through the turbulent shallows, clutching the pink crystal in my left hand. The waves were hypnotic. I sat on a rock and watched the thick foam swirl around the remnants of a ruined pier and then ebb back out to sea. Everything was shimmering. 

I was there, but I wasn’t there. My mind had again wandered back through the years to my childhood bedroom. I was older now—seven or eight. There was a gray smudge the size of a quarter on the wall just above the electrical socket where my nightlight had been. The synthetic curtains now drooped with age, and the window looked out over the backyard, separated from a two-lane highway by a single-file line of trees and a chainlink fence. The cars, like the waves, roared by at regular and irregular intervals, casting flashes of light and moving shadows over the walls. 

My heart was racing and I felt very afraid. It was a frozen fear. All sensations were drawn inward from my extremities, coiled halfway between fight and flight. I was totally alert, transfixed, and unable to move in a breathless, dreadful anticipation.

I closed my eyes, and I could see only one thing: Freddy Krueger—the monster from the old movie Nightmare On Elm Street—with his twisted features and the blades of his hands. 

I looked down at the pink crystal in my left hand and wondered how much time had passed. I took off my dress and dove into the cold, crashing water as if it could wash the dark thoughts from my mind.

I got out of the water and returned to my friends—sprawled out on blankets and drinking beer in the sun. I lay down in the sand and closed my eyes. My vision kept fluttering back to that dark, familiar room. My bed was no longer an island; it was a horror show where I lay in wait for Freddy Krueger, who came to me at night and stabbed me with the knives he had for fingers. I could still feel it: the blades of his hands. I remembered preparing by stuffing pillows up the front and back of my pajamas so that the feathers would take the thrust of his knives—and the anxious anticipation of not knowing. When would he come?

I got up and ran back to the water. I waded out deep and let the waves crash around me, trying to wash the memories away, but they kept coming. Then I saw something else—not exactly a memory—-but a vision perhaps—of Freddy’s deflated mask and glove in my father’s dresser drawer. 

***

On the third day, I sat at my table, surrounded by books, and tried to consider things rationally. I was nearly 30 years old and had recently defended a doctoral dissertation. I had spent years of my life in the library stacks, reading Freud Jung, and Lacan.  I was a competent researcher, capable of formulating a research question, reviewing the literature, developing a working thesis, and framing an evidence-based argument. 

Now I wondered, Why would a child, safe in her bed, be so afraid?

 I opened my laptop and read an article about “cinematic neurosis,” or “the development of somatic responses and paranoid ideation when a vulnerable subject watches a film with violent or triggering content.” I reasoned I wasn’t alone; many in my generation grew up afraid of Freddy Kreuger, the scarred demon who murdered children in their dreams. Nightmare on Elm Street was Wes Craven’s breakthrough film, and Freddy was a ubiquitous pop culture icon, but when I read a synopsis of the movie, it occurred to me that I had never actually seen the film, though I did recall seeing Freddy’s face in a movie trailer that played on the little TV in the corner of my parents’ bedroom. I read an article that described Kreuger as an embodiment of the American nightmare and learned that  Wes Craven had once described his iconic villain as “the bastard father of us all.”

As I was reading, I realized that I wasn’t afraid Freddy Kreuger would kill me in my dreams; I feared that he would touch me in my sleep. This was a subtle but crucial distinction. Mine was a visceral fear, a known sensation. I didn’t want him to touch me—again. 

From the safe distance of decades, I began to wonder if the fear I had called Freddy Kreuger might, be more accurately called by another name.

When I spoke to my friend Marream on the phone that day, I asked her, “Do you think it’s possible for a child to be afraid—truly afraid—of something that is not real?”

It sounded like a rhetorical question, but Marream considered it thoughtfully. Finally, she said, “On some level,” she said, “All fears are real.”

Back at my desk, I googled Freddy Krueger and learned the character was played by an actor named Robert Barton Englund. 

I studied his pictures carefully. 

Unmasked, the man looked just like my father. 

***

That night, I returned to Atlantic Avenue and peered through the neon glass of Cher’s storefront. There was an adolescent girl sitting in her chair. I tapped on the window. The child disappeared into the backroom, and Cher appeared to open the door and let me into the tiny front parlor, which was separated from the backroom by a partition wall—sponge-painted in gold—that did not reach all the way to the ceiling.

“Excuse me, Sweetie,” Cher said as she opened an interior door and said something brusque in a language I did not understand. From my vantage point, I could see a muted, flat-screen television mounted to a wall of a makeshift living room. 

Three adolescents—two boys and girls—filed through the parlor and out onto the street, followed by a handsome man with luminous mint-green eyes and a snaggletooth. They seemed to have materialized from a secret compartment, and I was surprised the backroom was large enough to accommodate them. 

“My husband is taking my children to church,” Cher explained.

I glanced at the time. It was 10:00 pm. 

“Your daughter looks just like you,” I said.

“No, she does not,” Cher said adamantly. “My daughter is beautiful.”

As Cher settled into her chair and pulled her long, shapeless garment around her, I noticed a bleach stain on the hem of her skirt. 

“So tell me, Sweetie,” she said. “What did you see?”

“I’m not sure,” I lied.

She nodded to the crystal clutched in my left hand.

 “I’ve seen a lot,” I admitted. “But I’m not sure what it means.”

“OK, well, I seen a lot too,” Cher said. 

She started off slow. “You was always intelligent.” I wasn’t impressed. A simple Google search would have yielded my Ivy League affiliation. She continued, “You was always very intelligent,  but no matter how smart you got, how hard you tried, nothing was never enough.” 

I didn’t say anything.

She continued,“When people look at you, they see a beautiful girl, but you always felt ugly, ugly on the inside.  

I recoiled at her words but couldn’t deny them.

“I see you troubled,” she said. “You was always very troubled.” 

I inched back in my chair. I felt I was privileged, always very privileged.

“I seen your father’s spirit very thick and heavy around you,” she said, and I leaned in. “Your grief is keeping him tied to this plane. His soul is trapped between worlds. We must release him of this bondage you are holding him in.”

Her words made me angry and very sad, but I couldn’t deny that it was my fault. Of course, it was always my fault. 

“How?” I asked.

“There is a ritual. We will light nine pillar candles,” she said. “As an offering to guide him into the light.”

This sounded beautiful.

She continued, “The price for this sacred work is $3600.”

I coughed. “$3600? That’s a lot of money for candles.” 

“These candles is from the Holy Land of Egypt.”

“Still, ” I said, “It’s too much.” 

“You will bring me the money,” she predicted. “To save his soul—and your own.”

“This is ridiculous,” I started to rise in my chair. “I don’t think this is the way.” 

Suddenly she leaned all the way in. Her eyes were fixed over my shoulder, and she seemed to hear a voice that was beyond my range of hearing. Her lips moved inaudibly for a moment. Then her eyes locked into mine, and she raised her voice in a clear, direct question.

“What happened to you, Christine? Why can’t you look in the mirror?” 

I sat back down. 

“Why can’t you get dressed in the morning?”

My vision flashed to all those fitful mornings, standing over mounds of ill-fitting clothes, cold, desperate, with nothing to wear. I thought about how many times a day I changed my costume, how often I saw the hateful girl in the mirror.  My shoulder began to ache, a stab with every breath—a pain I’d carried with me since childhood. I shifted in the chair, clutching my left shoulder with my right hand and felt a throb in my left knee. 

“What happened to the left side of your body, Christine?”

“I don’t know,” I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“There is one more thing,” she drew a breath. “I don’t know how to say this nicely, so I’m just gonna say it. Spirit shows me you was sexually abused.” She said it clearly and not without pity, gesturing towards me ever so slightly on the word “sexually.”

Now she had my full attention. My body language broke open, and I leaned in, but I couldn’t find my voice.

“Well?” Cher was patient.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” I said finally, softly. “Wondering if—but I, I don’t remember.”

“What happened, Christine?”

“The lawn man did something to me,” my voice sounded small and flat, like a child’s. “He wanted me to sit on his lap. I saw his penis.”

“Yes,” Cher shook her head sadly. “But it wasn’t just that.”

I started to cry.

“Christine,” she said earnestly. “We must do this ritual to free your father and to cleanse you of all this trouble and shame.”

I wiped my tears away. “$3600 is too much.” I was adamant.

“What is it worth to you?”

I thought about it. Finally, I said, “$1000.”

“$1000? To save a soul?” Cher laughed and crossed her arms. “Not possible.”

I relented. “$1500.”

“You are tough,” she said with admiration. “Very, very tough.”

I looked her in the eye.

“Fine,” she said, “$1500. Bring it to me tomorrow.”

“Let me sleep on it for a few days,” I countered. “I’m going out of town tomorrow,”

“That’s not how this works.”

“We’ll see,” I said noncommitally. “We’ll see.”

I stood up to leave.

“Wait!” She said. “I have to tell you something very important.”

I sat back down. 

“You must keep meditating. Take the crystal with you. Carry it with you at all times, but don’t tell anyone that you came to see me.” 

“Why not?”

“You are very raw and we must protect your energy until we figure out what’s going on wit you.”

I tucked the rose-colored crystal into my pocket and wandered down the streets of Brooklyn, barefaced like a child, praying to a God I no longer believed in for forgiveness and deliverance. I walked alone, peering into the well-lighted windows of the grand brownstones. Back home, I placed the pink crystal on my bedstand and collapsed into a dull, dreamless sleep.

This was twelve summers ago. It happened on June 15, 2012. I know this because of one dated sentence in an old diary that  reads, “In desperation, I sought the spiritual guidance of a storefront psychic named Cher.”