The Girl from Everywhere (The Girl from Everywhere #1)(26)

“Nix? N-I-X? But another meaning is nothing.”

“So I’ve heard. Many times.”

“But did you know, if you spell it backward, X-I-N, it is ‘happy’ in Chinese?”

I paused. “No, I didn’t know.”

“Quite an interesting name. Both lucky and unlucky all at once. Five must be your number.”

“Five?”

“Wu. Meaning is ‘me’ and also ‘not.’ Me and not me. Nix and Xin. Happiness and nothingness. Would you like me to draw your charts?” She gestured vaguely to a numerology table decorated with phoenixes cavorting up the sides. “I can tell your future for half a dollar,” she offered, her blind eyes staring into the space above my head. “Who you will marry. How you will die.”

“I’d rather not know.”

“Your mother didn’t want to know either,” she said, shaking her head. “Her number was four.”

“Four?” I said, my voice eager. “What does that mean?”

She held out her hand and waited patiently; it took me half a minute to decide to place a half dollar on her wrinkled palm. She rubbed the coin between her thumb and forefinger before tucking it into her thick cotton belt. Her hands found a stack of thin rice paper on one of the shelves; she peeled up one sheet and laid it on the counter. Then she picked up a bamboo brush and a pot of watery ink with a flourish.

“I will write it down for you, so you will not forget.” I rolled my eyes, but at least I was getting a show for my money. “This is five. Your number.” She stroked the brush across the page, slow and deliberate. Her eyes were half closed; she must have been working by feel. “Wu. And this is for your mother. Four—si,” she whispered as she drew the Chinese character, leaning in closer. “Death.”

“Death?” I waited, but nothing more was forthcoming. I gritted my teeth, then, feeling tricked. “That’s nothing I didn’t already know.”

“Ah?” She lay down the brush and threw sand on the ink. “Well, it is not difficult to tell the future of a woman who only has a past. I told your father’s future once. He is seven, that’s the number for togetherness. And for ghosts. Have you changed your mind about learning your own? Perhaps it shall be a tall stranger and a long journey.”

“No, thank you.” I didn’t bother to keep the disgust out of my voice.

A smile crossed her lips and died in her eyes. “You don’t believe?” She slid the paper over to me. Her writing was choppy and ungraceful. “Odd, considering your father’s profession.”

I gasped. Never before had I met a stranger who’d known about Navigation; my father had always insisted on secrecy. “I suppose I’m considering your profession.”

“Apothecary?”

“Charlatan. Although I suspect it’s better than opium dealer.”

“Auntie Joss is a dealer of many things,” she said. “Exotic wares. Special cures. Rare spices. Information. Is there nothing else you seek?”

“No.” I slapped my hand down on the paper and slid it off the counter. “Not from you.” I rolled it up and started for the door, and then, from the corner of my eye, I saw the serpent was still moving, and not from the natural rocking of the liquid in the jar.

Out of the center of the ring of golden coils, a scaly head lifted above the waterline, blinking its emerald eyes. The creature had tiny backswept horns and short whiskers on its chin; it wasn’t a snake at all. I’d only seen a sea dragon twice before—once at the edge of a mythic map of Thailand, and once frolicking in a fjord in the eighteenth-century Baltic Sea. I leaned in close, my breath fogging the jar.

A forked pink tongue tasted the air, once, twice, and then the animal moved urgently toward me, sliding up and down inside the container as if trying to find a weak spot. Tiny pearlescent claws scrabbled against the glass.

“I told you he wasn’t dead,” Auntie Joss said. She lifted the lid, and the dragon rocketed upward to clutch the rim of the jar, the water dripping off his scales. He cocked his head and peered at me.

I forgot my anger. “He was my mother’s?”

“For a time.”

Wonderingly, I reached out my hand; he leaped onto my wrist and scrambled up my arm, tiny claws pricking my skin through the fabric of my dress. Before I could stop him, the creature went straight for my neck and closed his jaws around the pearl at my throat.

“Oi!” I tugged hard on the necklace; it popped free of the dragon’s jaws. He strained toward it, but I closed my hand around the gem.

“What have you got there?” Auntie Joss said, leaning in. “What is that? Are you wearing pearls?”

“Just one.” The pink tongue tickled my fingers, exploring for weakness.

“He must be hungry,” she said. “I can’t afford to stuff him, price of pearls being what it is.” She held her hand out again.

The dragon settled around my neck, nestling into my shawl, his nose wedged into the O formed by my forefinger and thumb—still wrapped tight around the pendant—and his tail draped down my collarbone. He was as smooth as a snake, but unlike those cold-blooded creatures, he was warmer than my skin. I tucked the roll of paper under my arm and dug my hand into the purse for some coins, pressing them into her palm without counting them.