“Well!  That was a waste of money!” Sally said to herself as she walked away.  When Julie had suggested they go to the psychic fair,  Sally had attempted to talk her out of it, but instead found herself dragged along to the shabby hotel at the end of the high street.  Julie had been in a state of high excitement all day, and had nearly driven Sally mad with her incessant speculation about what her own future might hold.

“Listen Julie, there is no way that anyone can see into the future! It is all a load of rubbish!”
Sally had stated during their lunch break earlier that day.
“Yeah?  Well explain Nostradamus then!”  Julie had retorted.
“Julie, the man was possibly mad and spoke in riddles so obscure that  every translation of his work seems to be different!  And we’re hardly talking about people with a similar pedigree here are we?”
“Well all I’m asking is that you come and see for yourself”.  Julie gave her friend a challenging look and said
“Of course if it makes you nervous….”
Sally gave an exasperated sigh and shook her head.
“I’ll come, but only to prove that it’s all a load of rubbish!”

The ‘fair’ was held in the upstairs ballroom at the hotel.  Despite the surrounding décor having seen better days, Sally was grudgingly impressed by the trouble that the ‘so-called’ psychics had taken with their stalls.  Some had drapes behind them printed with all kinds of runes, sigils and the like and one had taken the trouble to dress like a gypsy, complete with crystal ball.
“who do you fancy seeing then?”  asked Julie  “ What about that bloke over there with the long hair and occult jewellery?”
Sally pulled a face and cast her eyes round the room.  In the corner she spotted a little old lady she hadn’t noticed before.  The woman was sitting at a table covered with a simple purple cloth, Sally was intrigued, despite her cynical views.  There was no sign up advertising her name, no business cards, no signs, no tarot cards, in fact no mystic paraphernalia apparent anywhere.  As she looked, the woman caught her gaze and smiled.  Sally felt warm and without really noticing what she was doing, drifted over to the woman.

“Sit down my dear”.  The woman said.  “ I spotted you immediately you came in, I knew you were destined to choose me”.  Sally eyed the woman sceptically.
“Ah, I see you are not convinced.  Well, let’s see if I can change your mind.  Let me see your hand dear..”  Sally interrupted;
“Hang on, how much is this going to cost me” 
“Normally I charge ten pounds, but tonight, for you, I will charge five” the woman replied.
Sally mutely passed a five pound note over and held out her hand.  Despite a voice in her head telling her this was a bad idea, she was strangely excited to hear what the woman had to say.
“Ah, I see a lot here.  A past filled with problems.”  You’ll have to do better than that to impress me!  Sally thought.
“ An unhappy love affair…”  Yeah, yeah, everyone has had one of those, just get on with it, thought Sally (who was beginning to regret parting with her cash).
“ I see your spirits being dampened but then a lucky break, very soon, maybe within the next few days.  I see a tall, dark stranger leaving his mark on you, and you surrounded by bright lights at the end of which you will have found your soul mate.”  the woman sat back looking very pleased with herself.
No flipping wonder thought Sally, she just conned me out of a fiver!
“Is that it?”  Sally said
“Surely my dear, that is more than enough good fortune for anyone?” the woman responded.
Sally got up huffily and went to find Julie, who had to be almost physically removed from the long haired one’s presence.  On the walk home Sally was subjected to a barrage of questions that she fended off with a couple of non-committal replies.  Julie didn’t notice, as she was far to busy describing how Robert and herself had matched auras and that she had a date for the following night!  At this Sally felt resentful, okay so she thought he was an idiot, but she hadn’t come away with a date, just a load of predictable twaddle that kept repeating in her head in the most annoying way.

Over the next couple of days, Sally kept busy and had erased the memory of the wasted money from her mind.  She even found it easy to be pleased for Julie that she had found a new man and seemed ecstatically happy.  On the Friday following her brush with other worldly things she found herself walking to work alone, as Julie and Robert were going away for a long weekend.  The drizzle that had started almost as soon as she left the house had now turned to driving rain and she cursed herself for having left her umbrella indoors. Her previously good mood of the last few days evaporated.  Her new boots were beginning to pinch and slid alarmingly on the wet pavement.  Lost in her own miserable thoughts about life in general she did not notice the boy on a skateboard hurtling towards her.  At the last moment they were alerted to the others presence, the boy deftly swerved around her but Sally slipped on the wet pavement and crashed to the ground with her foot under her. 

The pain was excruciating and she now felt more miserable than ever.  As she sat there wondering how on earth she was going to get up, a pair of arms hauled her upright, and a kindly, deep voice said;
“Blimey, you went down a treat there! Are you ok?”  Sally turned around to look into a pair of very blue eyes in a very sooty face.  It took a while to register that the man was a sweep, and that he had left sooty marks on her brand new pink coat as he had picked her up.  Thinking; What were the chances?  You don’t see many of them about these days, tears welled in her eyes. The day could not get any worse.
“Here, don’t cry”.  the man said as he offered her a (thankfully) clean hankie.  “ I think your ankle needs looking at”.  With that he hailed a taxi (which miraculously sped to a stop in front of them and before Sally was able to protest, she was ensconced in the taxi and it sped her towards the nearest casualty unit on the sweep’s instructions.
After an interminable wait at the hospital, she was ushered into a cubicle and helped onto the couch by a nurse who promptly disappeared, mumbling about a doctor coming in shortly.  Thankfully after she had extracted all the amusement value from the posters displaying various nasty diseases on the wall, a doctor swept in and immediately turned on the lamp at the side of the bed to look at her ankle.
“Hey!”  exclaimed Sally as the light temporarily blinded her.
“Sorry.”  said the doctor as he examined her.  “I suspect a fracture so I will send you to x-ray to confirm and if my diagnosis is correct it will need plastering”.
“ Oh great “, thought Sally as her eyes filled with tears yet again.  The doctor silently held out a tissue to her and then regarded her thoughtfully.  Sally looked at him quizzically, and he flushed and turned away.  Suddenly the words of the clairvoyant came rushing back to her….no surely not…her heart began to race. 
As he left the cubicle he turned back to Sally and said:
“Hope to see you later then”.  Sally felt the stirring of excitement, the rain, the sweep, the break, and the light, it all fitted!  As a bonus she now acknowledged that the doctor was really quite dishy. 

In a highly charged state she was wheeled down to the x-ray department and realising she was in for a long wait, she decided to check her boots for signs of damage.  She suddenly realised that she only had one boot with her and
racked her brains to remember when she last had both.  She looked up as someone said: “Hello there!” Puzzled, she looked up at a man with admittedly gorgeous blue eyes grinning at her.
“Snap!”  He said as he held out a boot identical to the one in her lap.
“You dropped this when you got in the taxi this morning” the smile he flashed at Sally did weird things to her stomach.  She was thinking how handsome he was without a layer of soot when she realised he had spoken again.
“Sorry, I didn’t catch that” she apologised
He grinned at her “Oh I just said, does this make us sole mates then?”.  Sally laughed and replied;
“You never know, it could be on the cards!”