Emily Arsenault - The leaf reader

Copyright 2017 by Emily Arsenault

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Soho Teen

an imprint of

Soho Press, Inc.

853 Broadway

New York, NY 10003

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-61695-782-7

eISBN 978-1-61695-783-4

Interior art by Emily Arsenault and Ross Grant

Interior design by Janine Agro, Soho Press, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Al Chute

Search Continues

for Missing Girl

Colesbury Daily

March 12

Police boat teams and diversalong with about a hundred volunteerscontinued their search for Andrea Quinley yesterday, scouring the Whitfield River and its surrounding woods.

Were working well together and were staying positive, but its been forty-eight hours now. As time passes, our concern grows, said Colesbury police chief Robert Swindon during a brief press conference on Thursday afternoon.

The sixteen-year-old girl, a junior at Colesbury High School, has been missing since Tuesday. Andreas parents say she was last seen at her home that morning. Andrea complained of a cold and stayed home from school. Her mother left for work at 9 a.m.

The last phone call on Andreas cell phone, made at 10:50 a.m. , was to her friend and classmate Matthew Cotrell. Matthew was in class and did not pick up. When Andreas father returned from work at approximately 3:30 p.m ., his daughter was not home.

That evening, Andreas blue Toyota Tacoma was found abandoned off Bartons Notch Road, at one of the Whitfield River scenic areas. Her cell phone was found in the front seat of the truck.

Charles Quinley, Andreas father, says Andrea often enjoyed fishing and hiking along the Whitfield, both with her family and friends and on her own.

Its possible she felt better later in the day, saw that the snow was starting to melt, and decided to get some fresh air, Quinley said. Or, knowing Andy, I suppose she might have been playing hooky.

Andrea is well known in the community for her impressive performance on the Colesbury girls basketball teamthe young forward had just begun playing on the area All-Star team, and last year was designated by the Connecticut Courier as the state junior varsity MVP.

Authorities fear Andrea may have slipped on the rocks near the river. There are no signs of foul play.

Chapter 1

Back when Andrea Quinley went missing, I never thought it would have much to do with me. Sure, it affected everyone in Colesbury in a things-like-that-dont-happen-here sort of way. Andrea was a year ahead of me in school and friendly with meas she was with just about everyone. And I was, of course, as sorry as anyone else that something terrible mightve happened to her.

They feared the worst about the river, but they didnt find her. Andreas story went national on the sleazy Martin Report not surprising since Mitzie Martin is partial to stories about pretty, missing teenage girls. Then spring came. Mitzies camera crews left. And then summer stretched and simmered along and no one found anything. The have you seen andrea ? signs on all of the shop doors faded and curled at their corners. There were no more vigils or fundraisers. The newspaper articles about her became infrequent, then stopped altogether.

School started again. My junior year. Andrea wouldve been a senior. But everyone started to think of Andrea Quinley as old news. Sad and disturbing old news, yesbut still old news.

Surely those people who had been close to her still thought about her every hour of every day.

But the rest of usreluctantly, guiltilysettled into the idea that she was gone.

I know I did.

And I know I never thought shed appear in my tea leaves.

Chapter 2

If you cant get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

Ms. Platt read this quote to us in English class sometime in the fall of last year, back when I was a sophomore. Its from George Bernard Shaw.

I loved it. I can relate to the whole skeleton thing.

I dont have just one skeletona single, secret thing Im ashamed of. I have more like a chorus line of skeletons rattling casually around me, always: Creepy house. Foul-mouthed grandmother/guardian. Absentee mother. My brothers reputation for drug issues, whether thats deserved or not.

Im so painfully, obviously not your typical Colesbury material, its almost laughable Id ever tried. Id learned by sophomore year that I was never going to be embraced as a soccer girl or a student leader. Id spent most of middle school and ninth grade trying to pretend it was possiblejoining clubs I didnt like and babysitting like a madwoman to try to afford the kind of clothes most of the Colesbury golden children wore. By tenth grade, I was ready to try something new.

I couldnt pretend anymore. I had to make my skeletons dance. If I was going to have to be creepy, I figured I may as well find a way to make it interesting.

It was around then that I found the book about tea-leaf reading in my grandmothers dusty shelves. It was a stinking, yellowing thing from the sixties: Cosmos in a Cup: A Guide to Tea-Leaf Reading. On the cover was a girl with hippie hair staring googly-eyed into a teacup while tiny stars swirled above her head. G. Clara claimed it was never hers. She said it came in a box of books she got for a dollar at a tag sale. G. Clara never cops to anything hippie.

Tea-leaf reading is a kind of fortune-telling, I learned from the books introduction:

The art of tea-leaf readingor tasseomancyis an ancient one. The practice spread from the Orient to Europe with the trade and consumption of tea.

Of course, it borrows much from other ancient forms of divination. Throughout human history, people have sought out patterns or signs to help them forecast the future: in sand, bird formations, stars, entrails.

Tea-leaf reading has become less commonplace since the invention of the teabag. Still, it is one of the easiest and most accessible forms of prophecy. All that is required is a teacup, water, loose tea, and an open mind.

After you drink a cup of teawith loose tea, not a teabagyou leave the last bit of liquid and tea leaves at the bottom of the cup. Then you flip the cup over on its saucer and turn it around three times counterclockwise, concentrating your thoughts on the cup. When you turn the cup right-side up again, you look at the images formed by the clumps of tea leaves. Its a little like spotting pictures in the clouds. Someone might see a penguin where someone else might see an ironing board.

Cosmos in a Cup had a long Symbol Key toward the end, arranged alphabetically:

Wagon: A positive change is coming.

Wall: Resistance or misunderstanding. Also: a physical or mental barrier.

Wheel: A journey with a positive outcome. Often a
metaphorical journey of discovery.

Window: Consider looking at things from a different
perspective. Also: psychic ability.

Wolf: Envy, within oneself or from ones associates. Can also signify a greedy or vicious adversary.

Wreath: Sometimes signifies a ceremony to comea wedding, a graduation, a funeral. Also: a symbol of loss, grief, or death.