Talk about the most evasive “storytelling” you’ll ever witness.

“Really?” Brig looks a little too excited, still sitting in the gutter, covered in New Orleans’s finest sewer water. “Will you read my palm? I feel bad I broke your little table, and I want to make it up to you.” Pulling a twenty from his wallet, he waves it in the air as if to say, Come and get it.

“Dude, she’s not going to tell you anything you don’t already know. You’re a nitwit who can’t see past his own damn feet,” Rogan interjects with an eye roll, voicing what no one else will say.

With a smack to his stomach and a sharp eye, I step in front of him so he can’t make the situation any more awkward than it is.

The palm reader eyes the bill quizzically and then snatches it from Brig’s fingertips and sits next to him on the street. I stifle a sigh as Reid, Rogan, and I step closer, our broad shoulders forming a brotherly barricade. A part of me wants to stop this, to pick Brig off the scum-laden streets of New Orleans and drag him to the pretzel joint, but with how invested he looks, I know he’s going to be unmovable.

Brig holds up his hand. “Take a picture, Rogan, and send it to Mom. Tell her she’s about to find out if I’m going to give her any grandkids.”

Rogan rolls his eyes and takes a picture while the palm reader gently takes Brig’s hand in hers. Eyes closed, head tilted to the sky as if looking for answers, her fingers dance across Brig’s skin.

“Oh, that tickles,” he whispers.

Silently we stare at her, watching her lightly sway with the wind breezing through the narrow streets of the French Quarter.

She takes a deep breath in through her mouth, eyes still shut, fingers now pressing deeply into Brig’s palm.

“I see . . . brothers.”

Oh, for Christ’s sake. Right there, see what I was talking about? Professional con artists, stating the absolute obvious.

“I have three of them,” Brig says, getting into it.

“Hell, I’m not drunk enough to watch this,” Rogan comments with a long groan and irritated stance. The palm reader flashes an eerie glare in his direction, sharp and calculating, before returning to Brig’s hand.

“They’re protective, with big hearts.”

“You betcha!”

I roll my eyes. How long is this going to take?

“They’re going to get you into trouble one day.”

Brig turns his attention on all of us. “You motherfuckers. I knew you would double-cross me eventually.”

The palm reader spouts off a few more generic things, Brig interjecting with his commentary the whole time, though I block the rest of the reading out. From what I can tell, it’s all bullshit. The lady is clearly just trying to make a few bucks off of drunk tourists.

When she opens her eyes, they settle on the three of us watching over our little brother. “Who’s next?”

Like the moron he is, Reid holds his hand out excitedly. “Please, for the love of all bare boobs on Mardi Gras, tell me I’m going to run my own restaurant again someday. I really need a break here, lady. Give Daddy the good news.” He bounces on his feet, pumping himself up for what I can only imagine is going to be one massive fabrication from this professional liar.

Rogan scoffs, the most outspoken among us, and presses his hand against Reid’s chest, backing him away from the palm reader. “You’re kidding, right? You didn’t tell Brig anything we didn’t already know. Why would we want to pay you another twenty dollars to hear about how we’re . . . I don’t know . . . wearing shoes, when we could be spending that money on soft pretzels with extra salt?”

Can’t agree with him more. “Yeah, we’re not interested. I’m sorry my brother smashed your table, though. I’ll keep a better eye on him.” I nod my head toward the lit-up street behind us. “Come on, dude, let’s go get a pretzel.”

“What I speak is the truth,” the palm reader insists, standing up and squaring her shoulders.

“Yeah, we know, because you said the obvious. He has brothers who are going to get him into trouble.” I roll my eyes again. “Pretty sure our three-year-old nephew could have predicted that.”

“Yeah. Sorry, lady.” Rogan helps Brig to his feet. “You’re a hoax.”

“Here.” I reach into my pocket, wanting to solve the problem quickly and get the hell away from this lady. “Here’s forty more dollars for a new table. I’m sorry Brig’s beignet butt smashed it.”

Looking irritated, the lady comes closer. “What I do is not a hoax. It’s sent to me straight from the cosmic forces above.”

A strangely chilly gust of wind whips by us as we all take a moment to glance around, silently communicating about the batshit crazy woman in front of us. And almost in unison, we throw our drunk heads back and guffaw.

Midchuckle, Rogan holds on to Brig for support and gasps, “Cosmic forces! Shit, that’s good.” He wipes at his eye.

She shoots a venomous glare in our direction, spending at least five seconds apiece on each of us, never wavering her stare, only letting it grow more and more intense. We fall silent, our laughter blowing away with the wind.

Sheesh, she’s fucking scary.

“You’ll regret this,” she sneers.

Okay, this is getting to be a little too intense. Time to get out of here. But Reid seems to have other plans, his anger taking over. Classic Reid. I can see it in his shaking shoulders, in his clenched jaw: the anger he harbors for other reasons has surfaced and is about to come out.

“Oh surrrre.” His voice drips with sarcasm. Typical Reid. Placing my hand on his stiff chest to calm him down, I start to guide him away.

But not quickly enough . . .

Another gust of wind blows past us, this one stronger than the other, pushing me back a step as street trash whips around us. When I turn to the lady again, she’s standing with her arms spread, head tilted toward the dark sky. Her velvet robes blow angrily in the strengthening wind.

With bone-chilling conviction, her words pour forth:

“Those who belittle and make others feel worse will feel the ungodly wrath of my curse.” Snapping her head forward, she eerily points to all of us, and we draw close together as the wind blasts us from behind. “Listen to me, to the words I have spoken.” Her voice grows stronger, louder, more sinister. “From this day on, your love will be broken. It isn’t until your minds have matured that the weight of this curse will forever be cured.”

She slams her arms down to her sides, and the wicked winds die down, the litter that was whirling around us like some kind of tornado feathering down to the street. The palm reader stands idly, eyes lasering in on us.

What the fuck just happened?

Reid and Brig are gripping tightly to my arms; Rogan’s knuckles are white as they clutch Brig’s shoulder. I scan each of my brothers, making sure no one has turned into a rooster head or any crazy shit like that. Together, we take a deep breath, and—

Reid starts laughing again, but nervously this time. “Okay, lady, thanks for the ‘curse.’” He uses air quotes and then nods in the opposite direction. “Pretzels, here we come.”

I cast one last glance at the palm reader, eyes boring in on our backs, a chill running up and down my spine.

Rogan and I follow close behind as Brig brings up the rear. “Hey, wait up,” he calls out. “You guys, I think she was serious back there. She actually cursed us with broken love.”

I bite my tongue as we round a corner, not wanting to project my niggling, alcohol-induced fears on my younger brother, but honestly, that entire situation back there was pretty alarming. Where the hell did all that wind come from?

But being the protective older brother, I wrap my arm around Brig’s neck and pull him close to me. “There is no way you’re going to believe that, are you?”

“I mean, there was wind and shit.” Yeah, the wind got me too, bud.

Rogan rolls his eyes. “It’s called coincidental timing. There’s no way she controlled the wind and set some crazy curse on us. That just doesn’t happen in real life.”

“But what if she really did?”

Wanting to ease the anxiety in my very gullible little brother, I shake my head. “Brig, I can promise you, that palm reader gets her jollies from scaring tourists. Believe me, there is no broken-love curse. Okay?”

Five days later . . .

“You’re such a good boy, Griffin.”

Mrs. Davenport looks up at me as she perches on her mauve wingback chair. Hands steepled under her chin, gratefulness shining brightly in her eyes. It might not seem like much, but this right here is why I wanted to become a volunteer firefighter: to help out the people of my small town.

I twist the cover back onto the smoke detector, pocket the old battery, and hop down from the chair I borrowed from Mrs. Davenport’s little kitchenette set. She lives in a quaint brick apartment building known in Port Snow, Maine, as Senior Row. It’s where all the singles over the age of seventy go to live. It isn’t very big, but they have their fun during the day in the courtyard, hit up the early bird specials out on Main Street, and turn out the lights by eight.