By a Charm and a Curse(19)
I remember how perfectly tuned the cards Jules and I received were. “Am I supposed to write something on all the cards? How will I know what I need?”
“Hold your horses, Em,” he says.
My fingers twitch into a fist. “You don’t get to call me that.”
“Fine. Take it, Emmaline.” He thrusts the card at me.
“I don’t see how—”
“Take. It.”
My plastic-y smooth molars attempt to grind together, but they’re perfect little cubes and they simply glide over each other. I watch carefully to make sure that I’ve taken the little card, since I can’t feel it in my grip, and hold it up to stare at the creepy doll on the front.
“Now give it to me,” Sidney instructs. I clamp my mouth shut but fork it over, jamming it against his chest. As he’s looking at it, he smirks, a movement that brings out a dimple and crinkles his eyes. “Tell me what you really think.” When the card is flipped over, there’s text in vibrant red ink where there had been none. You are an asshole.
Sidney jumps in before I get my wits together. “Don’t ask me how it works. The freaky twins tried to explain it to me once, but all I heard was blah, blah, psychic intent, blah, blah, physical manifestation. If you want to know more, I’m sure that Pia would be happy to talk your ear off about it.”
The night is quickly darkening around us, the golden glow of the lightbulbs burning brighter. I’m fairly certain some of the people walking down the alley are patrons and not carnival workers. What if someone from school comes by? What if they call the cops? Duncan did a good job with the makeup—he sculpted cheekbones out of nothing, and with my darkened brows and cat’s eyes I could easily pass for twenty—but is that enough? A low thrum of disquiet falls over me, and my fingers twitch rapidly.
“Expect to screw up tonight. But I’m going to be right over there if you need me.” He points to a nook between a cotton candy maker and someone selling kettle corn. Why is he doing this? Is it guilt? I mean, I know Leslie told him he had to watch over me, but that doesn’t mean he has to actually help me. “Tomorrow you and I will ride with Leslie and go over my notes.”
Wait, notes? So not only am I stuck in this poor excuse for a body, but I’m being critiqued, too? Before I can tell him what I think about his idea of “notes,” the curtain swishes back in place and the booth shakes as the door slams shut. I’m still reeling when I see him walk around the side of the booth, waving a brief hello to the woman pulling cotton candy and settling in against the other booth. His gaze flicks down and up and down again before he pulls his hands out of his pockets and mimes laying the cards on the shelf.
Right. The cards.
The moment my clumsy fingers touch the neat stack, the cards scatter in the drawer. I don’t dare look at Sidney to see what he thinks of my bumbling. Instead, I concentrate on laying out orderly rows of cards on the black-fabric shelf.
When they’re all laid out and there’s nothing inside the booth to worry over, I look around. People flood the aisle between booths. Their hands are full of deep-fried meats and unruly ribbons of prize tickets, soda cups, and neon-furred stuffed animals. Their gazes dart from booth to booth, pausing briefly on that which is bright, brighter, brightest. All too rarely do their glances stop on me.
How am I supposed to trick someone when no one ever gives me the time of day? All I want is to go home to sleep in my own bed tonight. But as the avenue pulses with people who are looking every which way but at me, I know that’s not going to happen.
The night wears on, and I have a few lonely quarters in the bowl on the shelf and I’ve given out some senseless fortunes, one to a girl who couldn’t have been more than ten, one to her brother who was even younger, and one to an old lady whose husband dropped the coin in the slot for her. All the while, Sidney has been watching, empty food wrappers and soda cups piling at his feet
The night grows darker, the patrons fewer and farther between, even in this crowded area of the carnival, and my feeble hopes of passing along this curse tonight are suffering a slow death. Sidney is chatting up the girl who works the cotton candy machine instead of watching me. The chill night air from outside is seeping into the box, making the twitching and jerking worse. I have failed.
That’s when Jules walks by.
Her hair is a ratty mess, the curls crushed and twisted up into a messy knot. She has on the same clothes she wore last night—an oversize purple sweater slipping off one shoulder and jeans that used to be black but have faded to a smoky gray. Her eyes are puffy and red, and her shoulders slump. Shawn, the boy she left me to go flirt with, is by her side, looking as though he’d rather be anywhere but here.
Sidney didn’t say what to do when the only person you could call a friend comes looking for you. What to do when this girl has been crying her eyes out for you. When a walking, talking reminder of what you’ve lost comes trudging past your booth.
If this body were any softer, it would crumple beneath the weight of the stupid mistake I’ve made.
“Come on, Juliet,” Shawn says. The crowd muffles his voice, but the noise of the carnival patrons can’t hide his boredom. “Do you really think you’re going to find Emmaline when the cops couldn’t?”
Jules stops suddenly, forcing Shawn to a halt, too. “Yes. Maybe.” Tears streak down her cheeks, and it’s easy to tell they’re not the first of the night. “She came here with me. And I left her when I should have stayed, and now she’s gone. I have to make it right. I have to.”