The Favors of Lady Chrysanthemum

The character of Chryssie was created by my friend Monodreams, who also drew the cover image.

You wander listlessly down the narrow rows of the little community garden. In spring, there would be some good symbolism here, about how the world around you is blooming into greatness while you can only observe. Now it's November, and there aren't a lot of blooms left. You raise the hood of your sweatshirt. You're a snake, but not the kind with a built-in hood—a gentle-eyed male garter snake with brown scales tinged with green. Stuffing your paws in your pockets, you envy the warm-blooded people around you, the squirrel mothers and deer babysitters watching their children on the playground, in the colder half of the year.

You wander east, along Chambers Street, trying to get more distance from campus. How much longer can you delay deciding on some more concrete future for yourself—or at least, what degree you want? How much longer can you wait for inspiration to strike you from the blue? You indulge in sonder as you try to imagine the purpose that guides the rapid steps of other pedestrians. Your own slow purposeless steps, your tail dragging on the pavement, pause when something mundane inexplicably catches your eye.

Looking at the cracks in a building, you think you can make out the outline of a bird with folded wings. A heavily weathered sticker in the shape of a star lies between some of the cracks. Capriciously, you walk in the direction the sticker suggests to you. A few minutes later, you find yourself in an alley. You have the rare experience, in this busy city, of there not being anybody else in your field of view.

You look around. In the middle of the alley, there's a tiny storefront. The awning says "Lady Chrysanthemum's Fantastic Fortunes and Favors", followed by something in Chinese. It's decorated with an Eye of Horus, a cartoon drawing of a crystal ball, and lots of other less easily recognized symbols. In the dark and dusty window, you can make out a big, shiny piece of quartz sitting in a stand.

You were pretty sure there was a little museum of some sort here, last time you looked. Now it's practically vanished and this fortune-teller is here instead, looking for all the world as if it was a longtime neighborhood institution. Curious.