Harry Styles

Clair

Thunder pounds and lightning strikes above the distant streets. Rain splashes against the front window of her store. A mystic shop passed down from each generation of women in her family.

Bushels of lavender hang above her head as she sweeps up the dried, fallen petals. The smell of patchouli and sage floats invisibly in the air and clings to her skin and clothing with stacks of old books on topics such as fortune telling and witchcraft lining the shelves.

Dark night has already swept across the small tourist town and while most of her business was done during the day, she sometimes caught a rambunctious group of college-bar dwellers leaving after last call. They'd stumble in, drunk and curious about what's housed in the walls. But the rain on this night seems to prevent the usual evening riffraff.

The store is well lit with homemade candles and soft lighting from various lamps topped with aura-inspired scarves.

Pitch black suddenly floods her store as each bulb goes out.

"A blackout?" She sets her broom against the front cash register. Grabbing a candle, she quickly walks to the back to unsuccessfully flip the light switch on and off. Returning to the main room, she feels the cool glass of the shop's front window against her cheek. Hot, worried breath fogs the letters of the shop's name pasted from the inside — CLAIRVOYANCE — when the power suddenly comes back on. "HOLY SHIT!"

She jumps back at the sight of piercing green eyes on the other side of the glass, hands cupping either side of his brow to protect his sight from the precipitation. The heavy, quickened heartbeat matches the pace of the steady buzz of her shop's neon "FORTUNE TELLER" sign.

The bell of her front door chimes as the man from the other side of the pane walks in. She holds the broom in front of her as though she's wielding a samurai sword.

"I'm sorry to startle you, miss. Your sign said 'open' before the power went out." The man slips his black leather jacket off his arms and shakes off the rain. He swings his head back and forth, long, damp curls falling in front of what she thinks is a handsome face. White thin fabric, soaked from the elements, clings to his upper body like a second layer of skin above his soaked black jeans. "It's raining cats and dogs out there!" He lifts his head.

"I was right. Handsome." Her eyes widen. Always buried in the insides of others minds, in combination with general social awkwardness, she had a tendency to say what she was thinking out loud. "And gray?"

"Excuse me?" He gives a charming, nervous chuckle as he hangs his jacket on the hook by the front door next to her royal blue hooded cloak.

"Gray. Your aura is gray." She drops the broom to her side and squints her vision to focus more intently on the color, or lack thereof, around him.

"And what about the handsome part?" He grins.

"What can I help you with?" She shakes her head in embarrassment and evades giving clarification. "We were just getting ready to close."

"Sorry, it's just my car broke down and I was hoping to use your phone. You're the only place that seems to be open on this street." He looks up at the hanging flowers, down to the decrepit books, and then to the hand labeled jars of herbs and oils. "What kind of shop is this?"

"You can call it a few different things," she says retrieving the shop's landline. "Apothecary. Spell book library. Fortune teller. But overall, it's just your run-of-the-mill mystic shop. Here." She passes him the phone.

"Thanks." He clicks it on and holds it to his ear. "Hm... doesn't seem to be working. Maybe something to do with the power outage. Do you have a cellphone?"

"I don't have one. Too much radiation." She jokes, continuing to observe his energy.

"Ah. Interesting. Not many like you these days. Mine's dead, unfortunately." He slowly stalks to a bookshelf and pulls a title down. The Acquaintance with Darkness. He briefly flips through the pages and scans the words, head down. "Mind if I just wait out the rain? I can work on my car after, it's just pouring out there. Between that and the night, I can't see a thing."

He turns on his heels to face her directly, his black boots squeaking against her old, mosaic flooring. She's always been good at reading people. Figuring out how they operate. Learning about their wants and needs without even speaking with them. But it's different with this stranger. Out of all the people that have ever walked into her shop, he was the first genuine mystery to her. An unsettling fact to someone with her set of skills.

"This place is wild," he comments, slamming the book shut and pulling her out of her trance. "How long has it been here?"

"Oh, um... my shop? Before I was even born. My great great grandmother opened it in the early 1900s. She passed it down to my great grandmother, then my grandmother, so on and so forth. I'm sure you get where this is going."

"Wow. Interesting. So are you some type of witch?"

"Not really. I am clairvoyant though. The latest in a long line of clairvoyant women in my family. My mom's side to be specific."

Not many people actually took such interest in her. She was used to being the one to ask the questions. New people were so transparent to her. It never dawned on her how opaque she is. To anyone else, his questioning is normal conversation. To her, it's an interrogation.

"Clairvoyant? Like you can read my mind or something?" He steps towards her slowly, giving her a closer look at his tattoos.

"That's part of it in a sense."

"Can you read my mind right now?" His tone drops to a flirtatious octave.

"It doesn't work that way," she responds matter-of-factly, aware of his subtle intent but self-conscious enough to convince herself otherwise. She never really understood how beautiful she is.

She stands on the other side of the counter and locks the cash register drawer. One of the last closing tasks. "It's more like I can see into the future."

"Did you see me coming then?" Harry drops his elbows onto the counter, hand clenched in hand, and rests his chin on his knuckles to look at her more directly. Now in close proximity, she sees a crack in the gray. A small hint of light green.

"Green, like your eyes," she says her thought aloud once again.

Love. Healing. Innocence. The color sets her nerves at ease.

"There you go again," he says with a half smile. "Thank god you can't read my mind right now. If I may be so blunt, I find you incredibly intriguing. What's your name?"

With swarms of crows in her stomach, she picks at a small candle burn in the wooden countertop. "It's Clair. It's a family name." She answers, looking to the window. "Looks like it stopped raining."

"Clair the clairvoyant with her name on the building," he responds melodically, ignoring her last point. "You're not at all what I thought..."

"What do you mean 'what you thought?'"

"You know, you see someone and you have that first impression of what you think they're going to be. I'm usually right about my first impressions and I can figure out how to talk to someone but with you I'm not quite sure how to act."

Without Clair realizing, he's in the same conundrum as her. He isn't clairvoyant but he's always been a fierce judge of character and was always able to bend and mold his personality to fit those he interacted with. He got a high off of being wanted, albeit needed, and Clair is the first person he's ever met where he didn't get the response that he aimed for. No longer were his tricks granting him the upperhand. A striking blow to his ego.

"I'm Harry, by the way." He reaches out to shake her hand. "Pleasure to meet you, Clair the clairvoyant."

"Nice to meet you too," she says, reciprocating the handshake. They both let their guards down as their palms touch, the contact mimicking the atmosphere outside the shop. Tense. Almost electric.

Their hands linger, allowing them both a few more seconds of thunder and lightning between their life, love and heart lines.

"I have to say, Clair, I have an open mind about almost everything, but I've never been a big believer in stuff like this." He looks around, playfully running his ring-clad fingers across tied bunches of sage in a basket next to the cash register. He picks one up and sniffs before throwing it back, confused wrinkles between his brows. "However, if it means anything, I rather enjoy watching you talk about it."

Harry reaches forward to move a stray piece of her long, brown hair behind her ear as though he's plucked his moves straight from a cheesy 90s romantic comedy. She leans into it though, suppressing her grin.

"How about I read your fortune? On the house." She goes to the front door to lock up, hesitating for a second before inserting the key.

"You want to make a believer out of me, huh?"

"It'll be quick. Follow me." She walks to a dark room at the back of the shop with Harry at toe. She peels open the thick dark red curtain, behind which sits a small circular table, two chairs on either side. She lights several candles and signals Harry to sit.

"Give me your hands." She puts her hands out, palm up, in the center of the table. A power current surges between them again, from the tips of his toes to the top of her head. Before closing her eyes she imagines how he'd react if she leaned over and kissed him.

"Now what?" he asks. She wonders if maybe he can read her mind.

"Close your eyes. Try to clear your head but don't stop thinking, if that makes sense. Just focus on your breathing."

Black boots click on black pavement, making it difficult to see where the street begins and his feet end. His breathing is shallow. He zips his leather jacket up tight and digs his hands into his pockets to warm up.

He stops, ducking behind a nearby bush. Ocean waves and another single set of footsteps ring in the distance like a haunting metronome.

"Where are you going?" He whispers to himself. The sight ahead is obstructed by the thick, unkempt branches. "Fuck," he slaps the leaves and ducks further into the bush.

I can't do this.

Yes, you can.

But what if I don't want to anymore?

It doesn't matter. You don't have a choice.

He waits several more seconds before continuing. He quiets his walk. Stifles his heavy breathing. A tin trash can tips over at his right, the loud bang startling him. A black cat darts across the street and into the yard of a house to his left.

Stop being a pussy.

"Shut. The. Fuck. Up." He hits the top of his head with the hard bottom of his palm after every word.

She's getting away. You're going to lose her.

He speeds up, pulling a pair of black leather gloves from his jacket pocket. Hurriedly slipping them on, he pauses momentarily to secure them and bends down to lift his pant leg to reveal a large knife strapped by a leather case around his ankle. The shiny metal is held before him. His eyes stare back with guilt in the reflection.

A mass of colors surround his head. Clouded red tussles with streaks of light green. Negative energy and deep-seeded anger fight the innocence he so deeply wishes he could live with. He gives in to his stronger half and stands, his vision locking on her strolling in front of him.

To have peace in his mind, he has no choice but to fight. The personification of the duality of man.

He begins to jog, making up for the time he lost at war with himself. The smells of patchouli and sage become stronger and stronger.

You're almost there. No turning back now.

Two large tears fall from each eye. He lets them drop and settle at the corners of his frown before wiping them away with the sleeve of his jacket. He sniffles and cries harder like he did when he was an abandoned young boy. He remembers craving the embrace of his non-existent mother. How all he's ever wanted was love.

She turns around at the sound of his sadness. Her brown hair reflects waves of gold and honey under the porchlight of her house's front door. Her royal blue cloak glistens with old rain.

"Harry!" She says excitedly. But her smile is brief.

Before he has a chance to second guess and turn back, he digs the blade into her side.

He refuses to make eye contact with her. Instead, he lets her go limp in his arms.

Do it again.

He begrudgingly stabs into the front of her stomach.

"Wh- wh- why?" she asks, gasping for breath, her hands clutching her stomach.

Again.

"NO!" The hard shell of an empty human Harry always was before begins to crumble with each droplet of blood that hits the concrete. He disintegrates. He wishes he could rewind. "I'm so sorry, Clair."

He brings her down to his lap to take one last look at the face that could have changed him. Save him.

He brings his bloodied glove to her face, leaving her DNA in the shape of his hand on her cheek. She puts her hand over his. She looks deeply at him, her eyes begging. Sad. Not necessarily because what's transpired. But because she sees who he really is.

"L- l- light green," she says just before her mouth pools with blood. She doesn't struggle. Her soul simply leaves her body behind.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He rocks her dead body back and forth, hugging her tightly to him, wishing her heart was beating next to his.

Clair drops Harry's hands and abruptly scoots her chair back. She stares at him. The whites of her eyes are visible all the way around the hazel and black center. The brightness of his aura sends her into shock. She slowly covers her agape mouth. She can't cry. She can't flee. All she can do is what she's always done — observe.

"Clair? Is everything okay? What did you see?"

Soooooo this was really out of our comfort zone, as was Lucy. But we're really happy with how these one-shots are turning out. Please let us know what you think! And be sure to check out all of the authors participating in Spooky Week 2019!

Love,
Fat Bottomed Girls