Cooking the Hook - NEW

       "Put out your hands, palms up. In this one," she touched the girl's right palm at the intersection of two prominent lines. "Ask yourself what you want. Don't speak the words." Anna tapped the center of the girl's other palm. "Ask yourself what you need, again, silently. Think only the questions, not the answers. We'll leave the answers to the cards, yes?"  She  fanned the deck face down across the table and shuffled twice, letting the cards purr. "Now cut the deck and we'll see. " The woman reached across the table, lifted half the stack, set it aside, and cut again, and a third time.  Why was s he stalling?  "Are you ready?"  The woman nodded and knotted her fingers in her lap. She  dealt the cards facing the woman, left to right, smoothly silent. "What you want and what you need." She turned up two cards and put two more between them, face down and out of her reach. She tapped it once. ...

 She burrowed into her pillows and pulled the sheet over her head. “Where did you go?” “It’s not a where,” Sam spoke from the darkness. “Is this a dream?” “Yes. The only place and time we have. Who were you praying to?” “What?” “You called out to Hecate, Isis, Yemana, and Mary. They might shed tears for you, but that’s all.” “And Jack.” “Yes, Jack. Your knight always, but where was he? Mortal just like yourself and still in a cage of his own making.” “I needed him.” “And you got me. He can’t be with you every moment, and you’ll likely outlive him if he doesn’t...” “Don’t say that. Go away." “I can’t until you hear me out.” She put her palms flat over her ears, only to find his voice as deep inside her as Jack ever was. Intimate. Sam’s voice curled in her head like smoke. “You need to understand what you did and how you did it. Gathering power when you were lying on that hard, shiny, unclean floor, hiding from the violence that you knew was coming.” “I didn’t know.” “Yes, you did. ...

  The restaurant was a rambling, one-story clapboard building. The weathered wood had never seen a coat of paint, and the windows were frosted over with grime. Strings of Christmas tree lights festooned from the eaves and looked permanent. It was midday and there were only three cars and a pickup parked out front. Behind the building, close-cropped grass stretched into the distance. Two small vintage propeller planes were parked a short walk from the rear of the building. As late as the fifties, small airports like this dotted the countryside, their accompanying bars hung on the edges of the now mostly unused fields. They ducked inside the cool darkness. The bar stretched the whole length of the room, lit by vintage neon beer signs shining through ranks of sparkling bottles of liquor and polished glasses. The timbered ceiling sloped back to an addition where small tables lined the wall of windows that looked out onto green. The old airplanes looked ready to fly. The bartender nodde...