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reading JULIE HOROWITZ, FAMED MYSTIC. TALK TO YOUR DEPARTED LOVED ONES.
    â€˜Give me a minute,’ said Jim, and ducked his way in through the tent-flap. Inside, in tangerine-colored gloom, a young woman in upswept glasses was sitting at a small card table, with Tarot cards spread out in front of her. She looked more like a secretary from a 1960s comedy show like
The Beverly Hillbillies
than a ‘famed mystic’, capable of talking to departed loved ones.
    â€˜Hi,’ said Jim. ‘I was wondering if you could possibly help me to track down a spirit.’
    â€˜Of course. I can find
anybody,
so long as they’ve passed over. Who is it – somebody who was very close to you?’
    â€˜Actually, I don’t know them at all.’
    â€˜But you have a name? I have to have a name to call on.’
    â€˜Unh-hunh. All I know is that something walked through a woman’s back yard a couple of days ago, and it may be responsible for drowning her son.’
    â€˜I don’t understand how I can help you, I’m afraid.’
    â€˜I need you to come to her house and tell me if it really was a spirit, and, if it
was
a spirit, exactly what species of spirit it was.’
    Julie Horowitz took off her glasses and stared at Jim solemnly with bulging, unfocused eyes. ‘You’re talking about something called a spirit-trace. I’m afraid that’s way out of my league. I find spirits by connecting the yearning grief of the living with the bitter regret of the recently dead. I don’t do random manifestations. Especially random manifestations that might be irritated at being interfered with.’
    â€˜Do you know somebody who does?’
    â€˜I’m sorry … I don’t think you’ll find anybody like that here. We’re not ghost hunters, we’re more like an encounter group between the living and the passed-over.’
    â€˜I see. Well, thanks for your time, anyhow.’
    â€˜You’re welcome. But if you
do
manage to find somebody to do a spirit-trace for you, you should be very, very careful. I heard about a medium in Bel Air who tried to trace the spirit in some movie producer’s house, and she hasn’t been able to stop screaming ever since. Literally.’
    â€˜Great, thanks for the advice.’ Jim pushed his way out of the tent and back into the sunlight. ‘No luck, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘These people can let you talk to your dead Aunt Rhoda, but that’s about as far as it goes.’
    â€˜Maybe we can go for lunch now?’ asked Karen.
    â€˜Sure,’ Jim agreed. ‘Jennie, how about I run you home? I’ll have another try tomorrow. I know a couple of people who might be able to help me.’
    â€˜All right,’ said Jennie. Her disappointment was hidden behind her large dark sunglasses, but Jim could hear it in her voice. He took her arm and led her through the crowds toward the park entrance.
    They were passing a stall hung with hundreds of different mirrors when Jim saw the white-faced young woman in black reflected in almost every one of them. She was looking at him out of mirrors with gilded frames, mirrors surrounded by seashells, hand mirrors with brass fairies for handles, distorting mirrors and mirrors with strangely tinted glass. Beside her stood a mime in a baggy white Pierrot outfit, with a face as cement-white as hers, and a black-painted slash for a mouth.
    Jim turned around – while Karen and Jennie, not realizing that he had stopped, continued walking toward the entrance. The young woman stayed where she was, but she kept on staring at him with the faintest of smiles, her lips as white as the rest of her face. She had a broad forehead, and wide-apart eyes that were gray as a winter sky. Her dress was shiny black silk, with a close-fitting bodice and a full skirt, almost medieval. She was very full-breasted, with a large silver cross in her cleavage.
    Jim walked up to her. The mime