All Hallows' Eve by Vivian Vande Velde Page A

Bailey Leonard, and the psychic had simply said no—which was what Marissa would have guessed in any case, Cara's boyfriend being very obviously not as much in love with Cara as Cara was with him. Obvious to everyone but Cara, for whom the negative had come as a surprise. She had asked, "Well, who, then?" but the psychic had said that was another question, and if she really wanted an answer, the group would have to buy another round of questions—for (of course) fifty dollars.
    While Cara had still been considering, Rodney had asked, "Who will
I
marry?"
    Marissa had always suspected that Rodney had a bit of a crush on Cara—though Daphne maintained Marissa was a hopeless romantic and that
none
of the girls was or could ever be Rodney's type. Still, Marissa thought maybe he'd asked in the hope that the psychic would tell him he'd marry Cara.

    But the psychic had told him he would not marry at all—which had caused Daphne to arch her eyebrows at Marissa.
    Daphne, who was
not
a romantic, asked whether she would be accepted at Stanford, and the psychic had said yes, and that her acceptance would be in her mailbox Monday.
    Marissa liked that this prediction would either come true or not in three days, which would give the rest of them a hint as to the psychic's accuracy, but JoLyn called it a waste of a good prediction. She asked, "Will I lead a happy life?"
    "Happiness is subjective," the psychic had said, which had caused a howl of protest from all of them. It was hard to say whether the man had planned to leave the prediction at that, but after their outburst of catcalls and, "Not fair," and "Come
on
," he asked JoLyn, "Are you happy now?"
    "Yeah," JoLyn had said. "Sure."
    "You will never," the psychic told her, "be less happy than you are now."
    So that had been the one unequivocally good fortune. Though Daphne at Stanford wasn't bad.

    Now the psychic asked Cara, or maybe them all, "Do you have any further questions?"
    Cara shook her head, and so did the others.
    The psychic stood, which apparently meant they weren't going to be offered a Halloween candy bar or a glass of water or an opportunity to use the bathroom, or even a "Good-bye, it's been fun."
    This—or the fact that it had gotten cold and started raining—put Rodney in a bad mood, and as he stepped out the front door he muttered, "I can tell fortunes, too: Smoking'll kill you."
    Hard to tell if Rodney meant the comment for them or for the psychic, but the psychic
did
hear. He said, quietly and without emotion, "Yes," then closed the door firmly behind them.
    They lingered under the overhang that someone with more ambition than this particular psychic might have tried to make into a patio. At seven o'clock, the night was dark, and the rain was pouring. Their breaths condensed in the cold.
    "I hate driving in the rain at night," Daphne said. "It makes me nervous."
    "Hey, I'm relaxed," Marissa said. "I don't know about the rest of you—but I know I'm safe."
    "You're also not legal," JoLyn said, lording it over them just because she and Daphne had already had their birthdays and could drive at night. She took the car keys from Daphne. "And you all know you're safe with me, because I would not be happy if I had an accident. And you have all heard it..."—she shouted for the entire Lily Dale community to hear—"
I am destined to be happy.
"

    Cara muttered, loud enough for JoLyn to hear, which meant she wasn't serious, "If you're destined to drive, then I'm destined to be scared."
    Rodney said, "If we don't get out of here soon, we'll be destined to need an ark instead of a car."
    So, screaming as though they were melting, they ran to the car, JoLyn and Marissa in the front seats, Rodney sitting between Daphne and Cara in the back.
    The rain came down so hard, the windshield wipers—even on at maximum—had a difficult time keeping the windshield clear. The raindrops were fat and verging on being sleet. The fact that the streetlights reflected and glared on the