Palms of Prophecy

The carnival appeared overnight, like magic in the abandoned lot behind the strip mall. Maya stood before the purple velvet curtain, palms sweating so bad she wiped them on her cutoffs three times. Inside, a woman with kohled eyes and way too many bangle bracelets reached across the small table.

"You're running from something, child."

Maya flinched. That morning, she'd literally been running—lacrosse practice, Coach screaming about colleges and scholarships and futures that felt too real, too fast. But this lady meant something else.

"Your friend line is troubled," the palm reader continued, tracing Maya's hand with a fingernail bitten to the quick. "Betrayal coming. But also something sweet."

Maya pulled her hand back. "You're just guessing."

"Am I?" The woman smiled, revealing a gold tooth. "What fruit is yellow outside, pink inside, and tastes like summer itself?"

"Papaya?" Maya guessed, weirded out.

"Take this." The woman pressed something into her palm—a folded paper, slightly damp. "Don't open it alone."

Outside, she found Carlos sitting on the curb, vaping mango-flavored something he'd totally gotten from his older brother. His palms weren't sweaty. Carlos never got nervous about anything.

"What'd she say?" he asked, blowing a cloud that smelled suspiciously like actual mango.

"That I'm running from something. And that there's betrayal coming." Maya unfolded the paper. It was a hastily drawn map of the carnival, with an X marked near the food court.

"Bro," Carlos said. "That's literally where they're selling papaya bowls."

"No way."

"Yes way. My cousin said they're bomb. Also, he saw Jenny making out with Tyler behind the Tilt-A-Whirl."

Maya's stomach dropped. Jenny was her best friend. Tyler was the guy Maya had been crushing on since September, the one she'd been running from at practice every time she thought about confessing. The palm reader was right.

"You okay?" Carlos asked, surprisingly gentle.

Maya looked at the map in her hand. The X near the papaya stand. Maybe the prophecy wasn't about betrayal at all. Maybe the sweet thing was right now, Carlos sitting beside her on a curb, offering to get papaya bowls like that was a normal thing people did.

"Yeah," she said, finally breathing. "Let's get that papaya."