The Ice King (The Witch Ways 0.5)(8)
“It’s not.” he matched her insistence.
“Lach…what is the matter with you? It’s the Goose Fair it’s all nonsense that’s the point of coming, to lose yourself in the fun of…nonsense.” she was snuffling at him again and he found her twinkly tinkliness was like broken glass. He was realising that he wanted to get away from Olivia Dashford, lacy knickers or not. He reached into his pocket for the last of his money.
“We’ll have to walk home” he looked at her. Walking home was not one of Olivia’s favoured pursuits, in fact, as Lachlan thought about it, she would prefer to ride home in a golden carriage driven by white horses.
“You can give me a piggy back” she giggled and kissed his cheek. He felt the tug of her hand as she led him towards the fortune teller’s tent. He pulled back.
“Aren’t you coming in?” Olivia pulled her displeased baby face. Lachlan felt an urge to slap it.
“Only enough cash for one of us. You want to know the future, I’m going to…”
Olivia was not dismayed and before he had finished the sentence she was ducking in through the grubby tasselling on the slightly frayed doorway. Lachlan paused a moment, he had been going to sit on the gate and wait, but that seemed like a bore, and he soon wandered off.
He meandered around the Goose Fair, the sounds clashed at him, each stall and ride seemed to have a different tune playing from it and the effect was a cacophony. The colours of the paintwork on the signage began to nag at him, the distressed gilding, the blood red, the vein blue and bilious green. There seemed to be weapons everywhere from the shooting galleries to the dart games, it was, somehow, a small war zone. Lachlan felt his discontent rise. Roll on Oxbridge, he was no longer part of this, there was something else waiting for him and it was Elsewhere.
It appeared that Olivia Dashford had an epic future ahead of her as it took her a very long time in the fortune teller’s tent. Lachlan walked the entire Goose Fair and returned to find her still inside. He waited, impatiently, sitting atop the farm gate.
At last, she emerged, at least, he thought it was Olivia, this young woman seemed smaller somehow and drawn in, her face a pale cross oval. She stepped towards him and offered a wan smile.
“Shall we head back?” her voice was not tinkling and, he noticed, she did not take his hand.
They walked through the fair, their silence at odds with the clatter and whirl around them.
“Was it fun?” Lachlan ventured at last. Olivia turned a harsh glare on him, her eyes like black glass.
“You think you are very clever don’t you Lachlan Laidlaw. So very, very clever…” there was bitterness and spite in her tone. He shrugged it off.
“I said it was nonsense.”
She said nothing, her glare intensifying.
“Nonsense? Hm. She knew about you.”
Lachlan could imagine the spiel that Olivia had been spun about her future with her boyfriend.
“You’re pretty Liv, anyone could guess you had a boyfriend…” Lachlan dug his hands into his empty pockets. Oh, not quite empty, a coin left.
“Called Lachlan Laidlaw?” Olivia challenged him, folding her arms tightly across her chest, her foot tapping. Lachlan considered this evidence for a good long moment.
“It’s the Goose Fair Liv, everyone knows everyone around here…” his argument was shaky. The Goose Fair was a travelling fair and none of the stallholders and fairground people were local, but he stuck with his only logic, his possible reasoning. Olivia unfolded her arms and looked impatient.
“Yes. Well. Whatever you say, clever clogs. Shall we go for the bus?” she managed a sham smile. Lachlan shrugged.
“I said…if you went in to see the fortune teller…we’d have to walk home.”
“What?”
“I’ve no more money, Liv. No bus fare.”
The furious scream she let out silenced all the fairground clatter and, at the nearby Hook a Duck stall, killed one prize goldfish of a particularly nervous disposition.
She flounced off and, Lachlan realised, he was rather relieved. He stood for a few moments watching her stride through the stalls, pushing small children out of her path. At the far end of the Goose Fair he could see Doug Kittredge trying his luck at the shooting gallery and Olivia was very careful indeed to barge into him. Doug Kittredge had a motorcycle.
Lachlan, suddenly, did not want to wander home. He needed to clear his head and so a further round of the Goose Fair seemed a good option. His plan was to look nonchalant and carefree but leave by the far gate near the fortune teller’s tent. This route meant he could cut across the field at Five Bar Farm and avoid the road and any chance of Doug Kittredge’s motorcycle buzzing past him with Olivia riding pillion. Was he hiding? Was he skulking? Yes, Lachlan admitted it to himself. Elsewhere, that was where he needed to be.
The fortune teller was sitting outside her tent smoking a cheroot. The aromatic smoke curled across Lachlan’s path. She was ordinary looking, dressed in old black clothes, a long skirt and a jumper riddled with holes. Her only concession to classical fortune telling attire seemed to be a black linen scarf that sparkled with beads. Lachlan was aware that she was watching him as he approached. He nodded greeting because she was staring so hard.
Lachlan put a foot onto the bottom of the five bar gate, his hand reaching, ready to lift himself up and over to freedom.