At the far end of the pier, there is a small wooden booth perched near the edge of the planked floor. In the booth sits a mechanical Siamese cat that, when prompted with a coin, will tell your fortune in purrs and meows. There is a small pink card that appears below the coin slot, with a translation of your fortune.
Tourists are frequent visitors, bored children leading the way to seek adventure on the otherwise shuttered boardwalk. The town locals tend to be more cautious about venturing out to risk their fortune. The youngest don’t remember why they avoid it, probably passed on by their parents or a sibling, but others remember all to vividly.
Before your parents were born, and maybe even before their parents were born, the boardwalk was all mermaid murals and neon. There was music and cotton candy and foot long hot dogs, carnival games and rides. Penny arcade machines lined the perimeter of the pier, the fortune cat booth the last stop. The pink cards had become a sort of prize among the youth of the town the first few summers. The fortunes were vaguely accurate, albeit mostly mundane: “A new journey will fill your life with untold memories” or “Your shoes will make you happy today”. The adults in town ignored the fortunes, dismissing the collection of cards as a children’s game.
Two quiet sisters, Brigid and Rose, were among the most enthusiastic about visiting the fortune cat. They loved the cat’s purr and whirl as the cards spit out, and every morning they would rush down the pier to be the first to get a pink fortune card. They never shared their fortunes outside of themselves as the others did, preferring to hurry back home with the cards safely tucked away in a pocket, to read together in their bedroom. The pink cards that were given to them were different, showing them details of truth yet to come. They knew their parent’s car would get a flat tire the following day. They knew that a schoolmate would be the first person in town to be stricken with polio. They knew their neighbor would break their arm in a fall off a bike. All of the futures they were given were kept tight to themselves.
One late August morning, the sisters were rushing back down the pier when they were stopped by a group of children a grade above Rose. The sister’s cards were a curiosity to the schoolmates. Whenever they saw the girls hurrying home each morning they wondered why the sisters were so secretive. What did the mechanical cat tell them? A plan had been hatched the day before to talk to the girls and ask them to share the cards as all the kids in town did.
The sisters refused to share, Brigid explaining they needed to get home as their mother was expecting them. The youth were insistent, which soon turned to taunting with the sisters’ continued resistance to showing their cards. A couple of the children were trying to grab into pockets to find the cards, egged on by some in the gang, while others ran to get help.
The sisters were slowly backed into a narrow space between two arcade games. Rose was in the back, Brigid to the front, shielding her sister and trying to talk her way out of their situation. Both girls were stepping backwards, holding hands in an awkward way through the small space. They kept their eyes fixed on their aggressors.
Finally one of the boys in the group was able to get Brigid’s card from her dress pocket. She let go of Rose’s hand to try to grab the card back. As the boy read the pink card aloud it was already too late to change the cat’s fortune, “You will be the cause of a sister’s great agony”.