By a Charm and a Curse(67)
Fortune-telling must merit changing out of yoga pants. She wears a beaded black dress not all that different from the one Emma wears as part of her costume. The similarity is so strong that a pang hits me in the chest hard and fast. Her eyes are lined with black, her lips stained like wine. I take my seat on the little chair in front of her.
“Benjamin, darling, what a surprise.” She is most definitely not surprised. “How can I help you this evening?”
“Would you read my fortune?” I have always let the twins use me as a guinea pig. Palm readings, tarot cards, tea leaves, divining—I’ve done it all. And while they’ve been right about far too many things, I never took it seriously. Until now.
Her long spindly fingers reach across the table and beckon for mine. If fingers can be taunting, hers are. Her hands are smooth, but the flesh around each knuckle clings close to the bone, and each joint is pronounced. Rings with stones of black and red and blue glint in the reddish light of the tent. Her nails have been filed to a subtle point and are painted a red that’s darker than blood but brighter than black.
I place my hand in hers.
She leans forward to examine my palm, her long hair piling up on the table underneath her. One of those dark fingernails traces some of the heavier creases; the big one running almost straight across until it suddenly veers toward my pointer finger, the one curving around the meat at the base of my thumb. There are half a dozen smaller ones that catch her attention, and even the tiny creases that gather just under my pinkie finger merit inspection.
Finally, she lays my hand down on the table and leans back in her chair. Movies and books and the few times Pia’s read my palm for fun told me what should have happened—as she pointed out each divot and line and fold, there’d be an explanation to go with it, a theory, a ridiculous number of children I’d surely father somewhere down the line. Instead she just sits in that overly big chair that I now recognize from her living room, and she peers at me over steepled fingers.
“Darlings,” she says, gesturing toward the twins with a beckoning wave of those tricksy fingers, “I think it’s high time to further your education.”
Pia gasps at the same moment the cards Duncan is shuffling go flying out of his hands.
Duncan slaps the table with his palm. “Hell yes, Grandmama! We’ve been practicing our scrying and—”
Whatever else the twins had been practicing, I’d never hear it, because Katarina shuts her grandson down with a wave. “You,” she said, pointing to Duncan, “tell everyone outside I am closed for the evening.” Duncan rushes out of the tent, the flaps to the entrance billowing behind him.
“You”—she points to Pia, who looks so excited she might explode—“bring me those candles and extinguish all the others.
“And you,” she says to me finally, carefully, powerfully, “stay here.” Her knowing eyes seem black in the dim light, and pinpricks from the flames dance upon them. “You and I have much to talk about.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Emma
A hint of rain falls through the air. I can’t quite remember what the close, damp touch of humidity feels like, and the thought both scares and saddens me. The giant oaks sway a wicked dance just past the edges of the carnival. If there’s a storm coming, none of the carnival patrons notice or care, so I head to my box. I don’t want to be there, but I can’t stand the thought of being in my wagon without Benjamin, who I haven’t seen since last night.
I’ve become so used to the jostling and the crowds that it takes me a moment to realize the reason things seem weird this evening is that there are fewer people crowded around booths and games, and a good number of them are all funneling toward the center of the carnival. I slip into their stream, letting them propel me toward their goal.
Once I push away my own thoughts and concerns and start to pay attention to my surroundings, I begin to figure out what’s pulling this crowd away from the kettle corn and sleights of hand. A man is shouting, his voice just this side of hysterical and more than a little drunk. Although the noise of those around me keeps me from hearing everything, I have a terrible feeling about what I’ll see.
When I turn the corner, it’s worse than I imagined.
Sidney is thirty feet in the air, walking across the top of the long shack that is the haunted house ride. The tall building suddenly seems taller, the construction more rickety. And up as high as he is, the wind is unhindered by the booths and rides.
“Aud-rey Sin-ger,” he croons into the night. It’s a wailing birdcall, repetitive and forlorn.
Some of the laborers have gathered at the base of the ride and lean against the metal railing to look up at Sidney, talking about finding a ladder or Leslie or both, but no one actually moves to do anything. Sidney treads along the edge of the roof on unsteady feet, and the sight makes me angry.
Clowns gently usher the townies down other alleys, toward the bright flashing lights that are much better than the bright flashing lights right in front of them. Vouchers are slipped into palms, free samples that are much, much bigger than normal are offered, anything to get them away from Sidney and his spectacle.
“Sidney!” My voice feels small in the wide night, eaten up by the bleating of games and the muttering onlookers and the gusting wind. He scans the crowd that’s gathered but can’t seem to find me, so I step into the empty space in front of the ride. “It’s a fine line from ‘goofing around’ to ‘actually suicidal,’ you jackass!”