The moment the vendor placed the dishes before her, a new presence materialized at their table—a middle-aged man, his face etched with worry and exhaustion. He was clearly a vendor himself, judging by the worn apron and the faint scent of spices clinging to his clothes. His eyes, red-rimmed and shadowed, darted nervously around the market as if searching for something he couldn't find.
Ekaterina observed him with a detached curiosity, her gaze lingering on the lines of despair that creased his forehead. She sensed a deep well of anguish within him—the desperate plea of a father consumed by worry.
Without hesitation, she offered him a smile—a rare display of warmth that transformed her features and softened her enigmatic aura.
"Sir," she began, her voice a silken whisper that belied its power.
"Let me do your fortune telling."
Her voice was so sweet, so utterly devoid of artifice, that it resembled a winter breeze—a gentle caress that carried a hint of icy magic. It was a voice that could soothe the most troubled soul, and it seemed to resonate with an unspoken understanding of the man's suffering.
The vendor, initially taken aback by the unexpected offer, hesitated for a moment before slowly lowering himself into the chair opposite her. He looked at her with a mixture of skepticism and desperate hope—a man clinging to any lifeline in the swirling storm of his despair. He nodded his head, a weary gesture of surrender.
"Okay kid," he said, his voice hoarse with fatigue.
"So you look at my palm or face?"
Ekaterina's expression remained serene, her gaze unwavering.
She didn't immediately reach for his hand or attempt to scrutinize his features. Instead, a subtle shift occurred within her—a quiet focus that seemed to draw upon an unseen well of power.
"I can do all of that," she replied, her voice still soft but imbued with a newfound authority.
"But so lazy at the moment. Let me do it with my tarot cards."
She gestured towards a small, intricately carved wooden box resting beside her plate. It was unassuming, yet it radiated an aura of ancient wisdom and arcane knowledge.
With a delicate hand, she opened the box and revealed a set of tarot cards—not the brightly colored, commercially produced decks one might expect, but rather a collection of aged, hand-painted cards with symbols and imagery that seemed to pulse with a faint inner light.
"I will only do one fortune telling."
She shuffled the cards with a practiced ease, the soft rustling sound a counterpoint to the market's cacophony. Then, with a flourish, she laid out a single card—the Tower—reversed. It was a stark and unsettling image—a crumbling tower struck by lightning, its inhabitants falling into chaos.
But Ekaterina didn't dwell on the negative connotations of the card. Instead, she interpreted it with an uncanny precision that seemed to bypass logic and tap directly into the currents of fate.
"Let me see your missing daughter," she began, her gaze fixed on the vendor's face.
"She has been missing for the past seven days. Your face features shows you been distress, your wife is pregnant again…" She paused momentarily, allowing the weight of her words to settle upon him.
"As for your daughter, it is at Mugy St APT C89, but it is best to call the cops. They are other missing kids there, do it now because tomorrow morning they will move to a different location." She finished, wiping her mouth delicately with a silk napkin, her expression devoid of any emotion beyond a detached observation.
The vendor's eyes widened in disbelief, his jaw slack. He stared at Ekaterina as if she were an apparition—a messenger from another realm. The details she'd provided were eerily specific—the seven days of anguish, the worry etched into his features, even the news of his wife's pregnancy.
The silence that followed Ekaterina's pronouncement was thick with disbelief and a burgeoning hope that threatened to overwhelm the vendor. He remained frozen in his chair, his eyes darting between Ekaterina's veiled face and the tarot card still lying face-up on the table. The vibrant sounds of the market seemed to fade into a distant hum as his mind struggled to process the information he'd just received.
"Thank you… thank you," he stammered, his voice trembling with a mixture of gratitude and incredulity. He reached out a shaky hand, as if wanting to grasp onto something tangible—a reassurance that this wasn't all a dream.
"Thank you, thank you," he repeated, the words choked with emotion.
"But… how? How did you know?"
"Fortune teller, Feng Shui master," Ekaterina replied she than went back to eating not caring anymore.
The vendor's disbelief gradually shifted into a frenzied urgency. He sprang from his chair, his earlier exhaustion momentarily forgotten in the face of this newfound revelation. His eyes darted around the market, as if searching for something—anything—that could corroborate Ekaterina's words.
"Mugy St APT C89," he muttered under his breath, committing the address to memory. His hand fumbled in his pocket, retrieving a battered cell phone. With trembling fingers, he dialed a number and pressed the phone to his ear.
"Honey, it's me," he said, his voice shaking with a mixture of excitement and trepidation.
"I know where she is. I'm going to get our little girl back."
As he spoke, he began to move through the crowd, weaving between stalls with a newfound purpose.