The Ice King (The Witch Ways 0.5)(9)

“John of Gaunt.” the fortune teller said. Lachlan halted his ascent, one foot on the gate the other still in the Goose Fair. He looked around. The fortune teller puffed out cheroot smoke.

“John of Gaunt…” she repeated and waited for a response. Lachlan was not much of a historian, his studies had been mathematics, physics, chemistry.

“I’m sorry?”

“The tent. It didn’t belong to Richard the Lionheart…” she spoke in a matter of fact voice, pinched out the cheroot before putting it into her skirt pocket. “You were wrong…it belonged to John of Gaunt.” she paused, then ducked back into the raggedy tent. Lachlan Laidlaw stood by the gate for several minutes, his hand on the crossbar, his foot perched, ready to go. He could not go. He stepped back from the gate, his mind replaying the fortune teller’s comments and after about five minutes he turned and looked at the tent, the pennant cracked a little in the rising wind. A black wolf. A white ground. Beyond him the fairground music was whiny and discordant.

Inside, the tent was cosy, a small table dressed with a green damask cloth and two neat fold up chairs. There was a small woodburner chugging out warmth, a kettle sat on the top and the fortune teller was stirring tea in a small, slightly chipped, brown earthenware pot.

“Are you going to read the tea leaves?” Lachlan asked, lashing out a little in defence of his own unease.

“No. I’m going to drink the tea.” the fortune teller said and poured two cups, she pushed one across the table to Lachlan. “Take the weight off…” she suggested. Lachlan’s stubborn resolve kept him standing for a few more minutes,

“Tea’s getting cold.” she advised with a glance to the untouched cup.

“Is that a prophecy?” Lachlan said. The fortune teller sniffed and reached for a small leather duffle bag. She dug around and retrieved a rather battered parcel of sandwiches. She offered him one.

“Hungry?” she asked. Lachlan’s stomach betrayed him, growling greedily at the scent of the ham and mustard and possibly, yes, a slice of cheese in there. Lachlan, defeated, sat.

“Did she go off with the motorcyclist?” the fortune teller asked picking a stray sliver of cucumber off the tablecloth and putting it back into her half of the sandwich.

“Hm?” Lachlan had never tasted such a good sandwich, he looked up at the fortune teller.

“Your girlie…she went off with the man on the motorbike I presume?” she sounded weary. Lachlan nodded.

“She’s not my girlie.” he said and sipped some tea.

“She’ll be killed on the back of that contraption.” the fortune teller chomped a mouthful of sandwich. “Sometime next week. Thursday I think.”

Lachlan felt the mouthful he was currently munching dry up in his mouth. The fortune teller stared at him.

“Oh yes. I forgot. ‘It’s nonsense’.” she said with a wry smile.

“What nonsense do you want to tell me?” he asked, putting on, he thought, a good show of bravado. “I haven’t any money.”

The fortune teller gave a short, wry laugh as she turned from the table and bent down. From a rough hessian sack she produced a crystal ball. Lachlan wanted to laugh, but, somehow, an instinct told him this was not funny.

“There’s a stand here somewhere…” the fortune teller glanced around at the sparse contents of the tent and when no stand became apparent she placed the crystal ball onto the cloth. It did not roll, it was, Lachlan could tell, very weighty indeed.

“What do you see?” she asked, her eyes glancing at the ball.

“Isn’t it supposed to be what you see?” Lachlan’s bravado surfaced once more. The fortune teller ignored it.

“What do you see?”

Lachlan looked at it, the globe of dense glass was about ten inches in diameter.

“Nothing much. It’s a good lensing effect on the cloth. I can see the fibres…magnified.” Lachlan sounded braver than he felt. His eyes were finding it quite hard to look into the ball itself. He chanced it, ha, nothing, he was right, except there was a slight flaw.

“There’s a flaw, look, in the top right here…” his eye was drawn to the flaw, a tiny black speck and then the speck moved, four legged until it became a black wolf walking across snow and more specks, white this time began to flurry and drift.

“It’s a snow globe?” Lachlan laughed and looked up to the fortune teller, she was not smiling, only waiting. Inside the ball the snow deepened. He could see the landscape now, it was very beautiful, lovely craftsmanship to capture the snowlight like that, the grey, the tinge of bronze “It’s a good one…well ma-.” he stopped talking. Walking across the snowscape, a man. Walking. Walking.

“Recognise him?” the fortune teller was matter of fact. Lachlan took his turn to stare her down.

“No.” he lied. The fortune teller shook her head, held her hands up in surrender. She reached a finger and rolled the crystal ball around to a different spot on the table. As she did so Lachlan could see that the only thing that changed within was his point of view of the snowscape. He could see the wolf in the far distance, see the man’s face now, not that he needed to.

“Know him now?” she sniffed. Lachlan got up from the table, knocking it as he did so that his cup toppled and tea spilled across the cloth.