1: 1

Twenty years ago, because my mother's birth chart was said to bring luck to a husband, the Dickersons gambled everything and brought her into the family.

Seven years later, once Max Dickerson had cemented his place as the richest man alive, the first thing he did was force my mother into a divorce.

The truth was, the woman he'd always loved was Carissa Henson. Now that he was free of his troubles, he could finally marry Carissa and bring her home.

My mother took me and left in tears. Max Dickerson arranged a car crash.

In his eyes I was never his daughter. I was a threat to the family fortune.

Gravely injured, my mother fled back to her hometown with me, and died there in agony on a sickbed.

Twenty years later, I became the foremost geomancer alive.

The man across from me knotted his brows. "Master Pruitt, lately the Dickerson family has been plagued by illness and disaster, and our business is going badly. We're on the verge of losing everything."

"Please, think of something. Save us."

"My father is the richest man alive. Don't worry about the cost. Whatever the price, we can pay it."

I looked at that face, so like Max Dickerson's, and said flatly, "This is karma. I won't interfere."

……

The man across from me froze.

He leaned his ear closer and asked, deliberately, "What did you say? I didn't catch it."

"This matter," I said evenly, "I won't interfere."

The man smiled. "Master Pruitt, have you gotten something confused? I'm Antony Dickerson. My father is Max Dickerson. My family is the richest in the world."

"Are you sure you want to turn us down? You'd better think about the consequences."

I looked at Antony Dickerson's face, and disgust rose in me.

The year my mother and I were driven out, Antony was only seven, but he already had the temper of a little tyrant.

He spat in my face. He threw rocks at me.

He chased after me, hurling insults, crowing at me. "My dad and my mom are the real couple. I was born before your mother ever came into the house."

"My mom told me everything. My dad only married your mother to borrow her luck and make money."

"He's got the money now, so your mother's no use anymore. Get lost, both of you."

Max Dickerson had been standing right beside him then, and said nothing to stop it.

Maybe every word out of Antony's mouth was exactly what Max Dickerson was thinking.

Seeing that I didn't answer, Antony smugly crossed his legs and propped his foot up on my table. "Master Pruitt, quit playing hard to get. You just want more money, don't you? I've seen plenty of people like you. Name your price."

I said coldly, "It isn't about money. I told you, I won't interfere in this. Leave."

Antony flew into a rage.

He jumped up and slammed the table. "What kind of game are you playing? Last year the Harringtons were already in bankruptcy proceedings. You relocated one grave for them, and just like that they came back from the dead."

"The Dickersons are in far better shape than the Harringtons ever were."

"You could save the Harringtons, but you're telling me you can't save the Dickersons?"

I looked him in the eye. "Did you not understand me? It's not that I can't save you. I don't want to."

Antony stiffened, and then something cruel surfaced on that arrogant face.

He lowered his voice and threatened me. "I'm respecting you when I call you Master Pruitt. If I chose not to, you'd be nothing but some backwoods fortune-teller in a mountain hollow."

"You dare cross the Dickersons? I'll make it so you die without ever knowing how."

It was true that all these years I'd lived in a mountain village.

But it wasn't that I couldn't leave. As the foremost geomancer alive, buying a mansion in the city would have been nothing to me.

I stayed here because I wanted to be near my mother.

After she died, she was buried here.

I pointed at the door. "You're not welcome here. Go."

Antony gave a cold laugh, then said, "I hear your family's grave is in this very village."

"A geomancer would pick herself a good burial plot, wouldn't she? That land, I want it."

He put on his sunglasses, full of confidence. "I'll give you three hours to move the grave. Otherwise, when I come do it myself, it won't be pretty."

Antony left.

I watched him go and laughed coldly. "Antony Dickerson, you think I'm still the child you got to bully back then?"

I took out my phone and sent a mass text.

For the rest of the day, I did what I always did. I read, I practiced.

At dinner, a call came in from a number I didn't know.

The voice on the other end was familiar. Antony's.

He said, all sneering singsong, "Master Pruitt, how's the grave relocation coming along? Your time's almost up."

I didn't bother answering him. I hung up, blocked the number, and went back to eating.

Five minutes later, the village chief came storming into my house.

Before I could get a word out, he kicked over my dinner table.

He pointed at me and shouted, "Gail Pruitt, the whole village has decided. Get out, now. And never come back."

"You jinx. We've put up with you long enough."

2: 2

I frowned. "Chief, last year your wife was gravely ill. I'm the one who warded off the calamity for her. Have you forgotten?"

The chief said coldly, "That was the doctor's skill. What did it have to do with you?"

"And two years ago your son was lured down South and vanished. I'm the one who worked out where he was, so the two of you could be reunited. Have you forgotten that too?"

The chief only grew more impatient. "That was the officer doing his job, tracking him down. Gail, quit gilding your own name."

He planted his hands on his hips. "Stalling with me is useless. Get out of our village, now."

"This is my home," I said. "Chief or not, you have no grounds to drive me out."

He was beside himself now. "Don't throw away the kindness we're offering you."

"Right now it's me telling you this, and me giving you time to pack up. If you don't know what's good for you, someone else comes, and they won't be so polite."

I said quietly, "You mean the Dickersons, don't you?"

Guilt flickered across his face, but he was quick to give a cold snort. "So you do know. You brought this on yourself, offending the Dickersons. Don't drag the rest of us down with you."

By then more and more villagers were crowding in.

Seeing the chief couldn't budge me, they started cursing me all at once.

"Gail, can't you take a hint? The Dickersons said if you're willing to leave, every family gets fifty thousand. Don't stand in the way of our money."

"The Dickersons already promised to get my son a spot in their company. If you don't leave, my family will never let this go."

"What's wrong with burying your mother somewhere else? She's just a dead woman. Why all the fuss?"

I looked at the villagers hurling curses at me, and something in me went cold.

These were people who had come to me for help more times than I could count.

And now, for a handful of scraps, every one of them turned on me as if they'd never known me.

After a moment, I let out a long sigh. "Fine. I'll move the grave."

My mentor once read our fortune. My mother and I were bound to this village for only thirteen years.

When the time came, my mother would be moved to the resting place fate had marked for her.

I once asked my mentor why we couldn't go straight to that burial ground, why we had to stay here thirteen years instead.

He said it was to settle a debt.

Now I understood. The debt to be settled was the one with the Dickersons.

If that was so, then let the grave be moved.

Under cover of night I went to my mother's grave and dug the earth alone with a spade.

A villager tried to come and help. I snapped at him in disgust. "Get away!"

They'd just driven me out of the village, and now they wanted to toss a couple of shovelfuls of dirt and play the good neighbor again. There was no bargain that cheap in this world.

Before long, my mother's ashes were out of the ground.

I gathered up the urn and turned to leave.

That was when I saw several luxury cars pulling up.

It was Antony Dickerson.

He looked at me with a sneer. "Gail, weren't you so full of yourself this afternoon? How come you're clearing out now?"

"Buying off your whole village didn't even cost a million. That's about what I spend on one meal."

"Poor people are so easy to get rid of. Hahaha."

Antony jeered at the top of his lungs, but the villagers acted like they hadn't heard a word, still thick-skinned enough to press in around him and heap on the flattery.

Antony lifted an urn down from the car and called out, "In a little while my ancestors go into the ground, and every one of you is going to wail for me. Anyone who cries out loud gets ten thousand."

The villagers' sobbing rose to the heavens in an instant.

The Dickerson ancestors' ashes were soon buried, and I counted under my breath. "One, two, three…"

And then every one of them froze in shock.

3: 3

Every phone on the grounds buzzed at once, a string of notifications lighting up.

"Dickerson Group hit by cash-flow crisis, shareholders pulling out one after another, former richest man's standing in doubt."

"Dickerson socialite Carissa Henson in car crash, rushed to hospital, condition unknown."

The villagers stood frozen, turning to stare at Antony in disbelief.

Antony gaped at his phone, then jerked his head toward the graves.

Last of all, he looked at me.

He came roaring across the ground. "Gail, did you do this?"

He bellowed at his bodyguards. "Are you all dead? Beat her!"

Just then, sirens wailed up the road, closer and closer.

A wave of officers arrived, faces grim as they addressed Antony. "We've had multiple reports. The women all say the same thing, that you assaulted them. You're coming with us."

Antony's eyes went bloodshot, fixed on me like a beast about to tear into a meal.

The Dickersons left. The villagers, now, looked at me with something close to fear.

Someone worked up the nerve to come over and try to talk to me. I ignored them.

Cradling my mother's urn, I walked out of that village without a single backward glance.

The next day, Max Dickerson came for me, men in tow.

Ten-some years had passed. He looked a little older now, but still polished, still every inch the man of standing.

He clearly didn't recognize me. And I would never forget his face.

"Go on. Tell me what you did." Max looked down at me, all the bearing of a man used to being obeyed.

"I didn't do anything," I said flatly.

Max let out a cold laugh. "You did nothing, and yet my family's been hit with one disaster after another?"

"Antony asked for your help. Fine, you refuse. But instead you turn around and ruin the Dickersons. So young, and already this vicious."

I kept the anger down and said coldly, "The one who steals another person's grave, that's the vicious one."

Men like Max never seem to grasp that they've done wrong.

He offered no apology. He only pressed harder. "Why did your ancestors lie buried there all those years with no trouble, but the moment my family goes into the ground, everything falls apart?"

I said, mocking, "It is good ground, that's true. But when the virtue doesn't match the place, it brings disaster instead of fortune."

I pointed at the door. "Get out. I have nothing more to say to you."

Before Max could answer, someone wrapped in bandages sprang out from behind him.

The woman's face was half hidden under the gauze, but I knew her at a glance. Carissa Henson, Antony's mother.

Her finger jabbed at me. "So it was you, using some black magic to ruin my family? You've got some nerve."

"I had you looked into long ago. You're just an orphan, nobody to raise you, nobody who cared. No wonder you've got no manners!"

"Get my son out of that jail, and pay three million in damages, or I'll have you dead the second I feel like it."

She railed at me like a fishwife, and Max just watched her with the same doting look.

I gave her a scornful shake of the head. "Ms. Henson, your brow's gone dark, there's misfortune all over your face. Keep spewing bile like this and you may well be looking at bloodshed ahead."

Carissa flew into another round of cursing.

Max said, "Gail, do you think knowing a little geomancy means you can hold us over a barrel?"

"Let me tell you, you're not the only geomancer out there. The masters I know probably outnumber the ones you do."

"One word from me, and these masters step in, and the Dickersons' troubles are solved on the spot. As for you, they'll clean house."

He pulled out his phone right then and started calling those masters, right in front of me.

Fifteen minutes later, his face was the color of ash.