There are two sisters who live above a shop on the darker side of town.

In the entryway hangs a tired door that is mostly window, whose view is obstructed by faded shimmering curtains. Painted on the window are the spidery gold words "Psychic and Clairvoyant Services", with a faded "Walk-Ins Welcome" printed below.

If the curtains were parted, one would see a short, narrow hallway leading to a rusty-red door with a gold doorknob, guarded by waist-tall stone statue of a pensive dragon, illuminated by the single bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. The walls are a gloomy plum traced with thin teal and silver lines in repeating patterns of scales and ribbons.

The walls do not see many customers.

The sisters lurk behind the rust door guarded by their dragon, and wait.

There's a boy who lives his life surrounded by crows.

He shares his small home with three people who accept him, and a few others who do not.

He walks between his classes trailed by birds and avoided by his classmates, who title him "strange". He sees the birds out his windows, and hears them in his sleep.

Whenever there is a moment to be found he is at the old cemetery on the edge of town, surrounded by crows in the scraggly old trees above him, silent. It is the only place he has found where time leaves him, and the birds simply are, rather than when he leaves his sanctuary and they follow and cackle and do.

His sleep is restless and full of shrieks and claws. He does not see much of it.

Instead he sits, in the cool, wet night, and waits.

Underneath the skin there's a human

Buried deep within there's a human

And despite everything I'm still human

But I think I'm dying here

-Daughter, Human

You wake up from the claws of your nightmares to see that it's almost dawn.

Today is Saturday and you don't have any classes. You get up and get dressed quietly so you don't wake John across the room, and leave your room as fast as you can, shades already in place. You take your well-traveled route down the hall, down the stairs, and out the door, and you walk.

You walk down the sidewalk ignoring the little goldfinches that follow, you walk until you reach the green and brown park filled with chirping, and then you walk on the winding turning path until you're in so deep you can't hear anything but the birds. You look up and there they are- a moving ceiling of thick green canopy dotted liberally with black. The crows watch you, sometimes squawking as if to remind you they're there.

All you hear is their chittering against the wind, blocking out the sound of city. But then they stop.

Silence.

Then something

tap-

tap-

tapping

its way closer to you, and you look back down and across from you, and coming around the bend in the path is a woman.

A woman tap-tapping her cane in front of her, but looking you in the eye and grinning at you anyway.

She taps confidently toward you, staring through your shades despite her own sharp red ones, until she's only a few feet away.

Her smile widens. You feel like you're looking at a grinning shark.

"Dave Strider," she says, and it's like she's scraping the inside of your head with a spoon. "I'm glad you came."

"I wasn't aware we had an appointment," you say.

"It doesn't matter if you knew or not. I did." Her grin fades, and she takes a step closer and reaches up to touch your shades. Her grip tightens on them, and she slowly pulls them forward and removes them. Your stare doesn't falter. "Though I have to admit, I didn't expect the eyes to be quite so vivid cherry red."

You reach for her own glasses, but her shark grin is back before you reach them, and you falter. "Not yet, Mr. Strider," she says. "You're not quite ready for the truth yet." She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a business card. "Come find me when you are." She holds out the business card until you take it, replaces your shades seamlessly, and turns around, tapping back the way she came.

The din of hundreds of restless birds starts up again.

There's no way she really needs that cane.

Misses Terezi Pyrope and Vriska Serket, Psychic and Clairvoyant Services

There's an address below, along with the words "Walk-Ins Welcome".

There's no phone number, no indication one could be anything but a walk-in, but that seems to be part of the charm.

You have read over the business card a hundred times in the last week, replayed your rather one-sided conversation over and over, but you still can't make sense of it.

You don't know what "truth" you should be seeking, or are maybe not ready for, but you want to.

You thought at first you could simply pretend your strange encounter had never happened, act like it was all a dream, but your birds seem to have no intention of letting that happen. They've been restless, anxious, crying out without provocation, and it's beginning to scare you.

You hate to admit it, but you're not sure you are ready for this.

You've seen far too many sparrows for comfort, and a barn owl followed you back from class today, silent as a ghost and in broad daylight. You've learned the hard way that it pays to be superstitious, at least as far as it pertains to your birds, and it feels like there's a storm coming your way.

So you and a handful of blackbirds are following a Maps printout to a side of town you don't know well, to find a hole-in-the-wall psychic shop that you're still not entirely certain exists.

But there it is, exactly as you pictured it- a squashed brick building at the end of the block, with a set of steps down to the gold-lettered entrance.

You wonder which of the names on the card belongs to the woman you met as you step down the stairs. Before you can knock, the crumbling door swings open on its ancient hinges to reveal the grinning form of the woman from the park.

"You're on time," she says, and grabs your hand and pulls you into the dusky hallway.

The first thing you notice is the cobwebs. They're everywhere, floating above your heads and puffing up like old dust when you walk.

The second thing you notice is the other woman.

She's far back in the surprisingly deep room, sitting at a round little table, gazing into- a magic 8 ball. Jesus Christ.

When you stop at the table, she looks up, and you see she only has one eye. The one that's not glass is a strange dark, dusky blue color, and is fixed surely on you. She grins the same shark grin as the other woman. "Mr. Strider," she says, and god damn you wish these people didn't know your name. "You're on time."

"Would everyone stop saying that?" You reply. "Let's cut the bullshit. Why am I here?"

"You know why you're here," says your woman. "Don't ask stupid questions."

"Fine. Let's start with how you know me?"

"Didn't you read the sign, dipshit?" she throws back. "We're psychic."

"Clairvoyant!" shouts the other woman.

Your woman waves her off as if they've had the argument a thousand times. "She sees the future, I see what's in you. That's why we're sisters, and that's why we're a team."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"Vriska had a vision about you. I tracked you down. Your mind is very distinctive. It was easy."

You have a distinctive mind. Congratu-fucking-lations. At least that settles who's who. "What was the vision?"

They glance at each other in silent conversation. Vriska looks back up at you. "It was you, standing in the middle of a tornado of crows."

Their twin grins are both gone now. "It took us a while to decipher what it means," says Terezi. "We're still not entirely sure, though we have a pretty clear idea."

"What, then?"

"Nope! First you have to sit for a card reading."

You get the impression that what happens here isn't up to you. You take a seat.

In just a moment, a set of twenty-two substantial, heavy cards is splayed out in front of you.

"Choose," says Vriska. Her good eye is gazing through your soul.

You choose.

"Two more."

You draw out two more.

Terezi, still behind you, delicately flips the first over.

The Hanged Man.

"Typical," says Vriska. "Booo-ring." She draws it out for several beats.

Terezi flips the next card.

Death.

"I thought you said he was interesting!" Vriska exclaims. "He's drawing the most cliched cards in the deck!"

"Shut up," Terezi says flatly, and flips over the final card.

Justice.

"My favorite," breathes Terezi.

Vriska is silent.

They both look at you.

Terezi grins again.

"You've got a storm coming your way, boy," she says, and she cackles.

"What?" you ask. "What does it mean?"

"It depends," says Terezi, after a pause.

"Depends on what?"

She ignores you.

Vriska turns to her grinning partner and says, "Does he know already?"

"No."

"Well, you get to tell him. I'm going out." She stands, and you have just enough time to see she's wearing a hideous orange skirt before it's swallowed up in darkness behind the curtains she went through.

You look back up at Terezi. Her fucking red plastic glasses probably dim the effect of your normally caustic glare, but you try anyway.

She sits down in Vriska's abandoned chair. "I know you don't know, but do you have any idea?"

"If I say yes, will you make me prove it?"

"Yes."

"Then, no."

"You almost do, though."

"Excuse me?"

"You are dangling on the precipice of knowledge, Dave Strider, and you only need me to step on your fingers to make you let go."

"Is that why you're here, then? To step on my fingers?"

"Only partly. I'm also here to catch you at the bottom."

"Why will I need you to catch me?"

"Because you are falling a very long ways."

Shivers run down your spine as she says it, and you feel goosebumps reach down your arms.

You know she's telling the truth.

"Well, fine, then. What exactly is this truth I'm dangling on the precipice of?"

"I can tell you part of it. The rest you have to learn on your own."

"Of course I do."

"Of course you do." You think her cheeks must ache from grinning so much.

"Well what can you tell me?"

"I can tell you that you know you have a special relationship with birds. There are four crows outside our front door waiting for you."

"I knew that, though."

"I can tell you that they're always telling you something, even if you don't know it. They're on your side."

"Can't you tell me anything I don't already know?"

She's standing. "I'm a fucking PSYCHIC, Coolkid, it's my JOB to tell you what you already know!" she shrieks. "I see into your mind, and I tell you what's there!" You have the sensation of the room growing around you as she swells toward you over the table. "If you don't want my help, then you're free to walk out that door, but just know that sooner or later you will regret it with all your being!"

You feel her heaving breath on your face. She's not grinning now. The door behind you feels a million miles away.

"I'll stay."

"Good," she hisses, and sinks back into her chair.

"If it's alright with you," you say hesitantly, "I'd like you to step on my fingers now."

"It runs in your family, you know," she says, as if she didn't just make you almost shit your pants. "Not the birds in particular, no. But your tendencies."

"What tendencies." It's not a question this time.

"You're perceptive. Your sister, in the ways people work. Their natures. Your brother, their emotions. He tells what runs deep. But you," she pauses. "You feel death. You're drawn to it. The tick of time, life goes on, people march on around it, but not you. You feel it, and it feels you back."

You're silent.

"Sparrows are supposed to carry the souls of the dead, you know," she says. "I don't know if it's true," she continues, after a pause. "That's not my area of expertise. But you could probably tell me, couldn't you?"

You're silent.

"I look forward to catching you at the bottom, Dave Strider."

By the time you finally leave, you feel like you're going to throw up.

Terezi leads you to the door and opens it for you. Her goddamn fucking smile is blinding you, and when she opens her teeth to say "I'll find you when you need me, Coolkid," she also whacks you lightly with her cane.

"You've got to just drag that thing along to look more mysterious and shit," you say.

"No, it's because I'm blind."

"Bullcrap."

She shoves the cane into your hands and yanks her glasses off and holy shit you were really expecting nothing to be wrong. They're an awful shade of bloody solid red, and it takes you half a second to realize it's because they're glass, but holy shit. You must have let your poker face slip, because she's grinning right at you again and how does she even do that?

"I used to have just regular blue ones, but these are my favorite color."

You choose not to point out the incongruity in that statement. "Where the hell could you possibly get those monstrosities?"

"I don't know. Vriska gave them to me for my birthday the year we met!"

"So you're not really sisters?"

"Of course we're sisters, idiot, just not with each other!"

You're really not surprised at this point.

"Well, this was a fun time. I don't really have any idea what just happened, but I'm sure it was some sort of necessary. I'm just gonna go now."

"Don't go too far. I'm gonna have to find you soon!"

"…Yeah."

You turn and walk up the steps from the dark entryway, and the four crows settled on the railing squawk and shift.

You're gonna regret this so much.

You turn back around. "Do you have any idea when you're gonna find me?"

"Not really. Vriska'll tell me when."

"Well… Tell her not to wait too long. I wouldn't want to get eaten by ravens or some shit because you're holding out on me." You

glance away. Wow, those stars sure are interesting. Wait, how the fresh fuck did it even get dark in the time you were in there?

"I'll tell her to speed it up. The next time you're so much as out of apple juice, I'll pop in to make sure you're not having a panic attack on the floor!"

"I… Great. Thanks, I guess. Even though I don't really know what you did."

"You're welcome."

You turn back and walk down the sidewalk, crows following, and you feel her watching as you step into the dark.