I never should have gone to see that goddamn Oracle.

“Know your truest fate!” the signs outside the shop had advertised in swirling, inky letters. “Find your purpose! Destiny awaits!”

“Destiny my ass,” I muttered as I rounded the corner of Bridget and Strauss. I hadn’t even wanted to see the Oracle, really, but it was because of my sister Luna that I had.

Luna was all about stuff like that. Oracles, prophecies, fate, destiny. I never believed in any of it. But after she’d noticed I’d been feeling a little lost lately— I was two years out of college, alone, bored, and working a dead-end day job at the local Shake Shack— she’d pestered me until I agreed to go.

It was a mistake. The only thing that happened was the Oracle had charged me at least double my paycheck, waved her hands around like the shawl-draped insanity case she was, and then slid a Magic 8 ball at me across the table.

“Look to this for guidance, child,” she’d said in a crackly voice, one that reminded me of the Wicked Witch of the West. “And you shall find your true purpose.”

I’d offered her a flat smile, thrown my money in her weird skull-shaped jar, and walked out, snarling at the Magic 8 ball in my hands. It looked like something I could buy at the nearest Dollar General.

God damn Oracles.

I should call Luna right now, I thought angrily as my leather shoes slapped down in the puddles on the sidewalk. Tell her how much that crazy old croon did for me. Another fruitless expense added to the list, right after my overpriced rent and my insurmountable pile of student loans.

I was still wallowing in my own waste of a life when the rain started. I groaned, trying to walk faster. My apartment was still three blocks away. I could take an Uber, but I had neither the money to pay for it nor the patience to wait for it.

I kept walking. The rain kept coming. Soon it had escalated into a full-on downpour, drenching my trench coat and making my socks squishy. I could barely see, it was coming down so hard, sheets of water blocking my view of the street signs.

“Shit,” I muttered. I realized I’d made a wrong turn somewhere. I didn’t recognize the storefronts in this area, nor did I see any pedestrians or cars on the road. I pulled out my phone, about to try Google, when a big red window popped up: NO SERVICE.

Okay, I really was out of options now. Lost and alone on a Friday afternoon in the middle of a freaking thunderstorm.

“Come ON,” I hissed at my cell phone as I held it up higher, trying to catch a signal. “Come on…” Still nothing. Only now, the screen was dark, because water had seeped into the cracks in the phone, shorting it out.

I growled and shoved the device back into the pocket of my trench coat. That’s when my fingers grazed something sleek and round tucked in there too: the Magic 8 Ball.

Well. I supposed I had nothing to lose at this point.

I pulled out the ball.

I breathed out into the humid, smoggy air, closing my eyes. I did not, under any circumstances, believe in any of this crap about fate or prophecies or any other made-up shit like that. But I was wet. And cold. And desperately, hopelessly out of luck.

“Just tell me how to get out of this,” I mumbled into the black plastic, and then I shook the Magic 8 ball hard with both hands. After a moment, I turned it over, staring into the tiny triangular window of glass:

LOOK UP.

“Huh?”

I did. And there, barreling towards me though the storm at about fifty miles per hour with both headlights gleaming bright, was a city bus.

“AH!”

I jumped out of the way just in time. The bus screeched to a halt beside me, tires splashing murky water up and drenching me even more than I already was. I sloshed towards the doors, growling, ready to march right up the stairs and demand the bus company better educate their drivers on speeding and pedestrian awareness, but I never got a chance.

Because there, sitting in the driver’s seat, was that goddamn Oracle.

“Oh, hello, child!” She waved, shawls swinging. “Ready to go find your true purpose?”