The Fortune Teller's Daughter (12 page)

The smell of
the Carnival. The way it breathed as if alive. Only when it was quiet could you
hear the memory of all the performances that had come before. All the applause
and the tears of wonder.

Now he could
only think of the girl bleeding in his arms who’d pushed his brother from a
moving train without hesitating. She’d done it without it even occurring to her
to hesitate. There had been danger and if Eli couldn’t protect her, she’d damn
well protected herself.

This was
what he was starting to realize - Serafine Moreau did not look like much until
she proved you wrong.

Georgianne,
Imaginaire’s
doctor, rounded the corner when he reached his wagon. She was a big woman,
twice as big as most of the men and ten times as scary.
Mama George
to
most of the crew and she looked every bit the affectionate title they’d given
her. Fuzzy brown hair haloed her head, flattened on one side, still in her
outrageous flowered bathrobe and slippers. She carried her black medical bag.

“What is
this?” she demanded in a loud whisper. “Elijah, what is going on?”

“Inside,
Georgianne, quickly.”

He took Sera
to his bed. She settled into his pillow, still creased where he’d slept the
night before, her copper hair fanned across the white linen. While Georgianne
turned on the bare light at his dressing table, he worked to get her coat off.
She was of little help in that endeavor, whimpering whenever he jostled her too
hard.

As he
settled her back down his hand grazed her side and she cried out, rolling
instinctively into a ball. He immediately yanked his hands away.

Her shirt
was soaked in drying blood.
The knife.
His knife. He’d thought Castel
had missed when he’d thrown it at Sera, but of course he hadn’t. Castel never
missed.

Together
they lifted her to sit and pulled her ripped shirt over her head. Georgianne
didn’t ask what happened, and for that he was grateful. He’d have to face Rook
and that would be bad enough.

The knife
hadn’t cut deep, the graze long from belly button to hip bone, but it had bled
plenty and it was not pretty. She’d scar.

Another scar
to add to all the things he’d never be able to make up for. 

Serafine
shivered and clutched her arms across her stomach, too out of it to be
embarrassed wearing only a black bra and pants. He would have to have been
blind not to notice the delicate lace material stretched around her heavy
breasts, clinging to her shoulders where fireworks of freckles colored her pale
skin. His hand lingered on her arm where they tapered off.

It must have
been his lack of sleep or his exhaustion, but the ridiculous desire to count
every last one of them overwhelmed him.

“Avert your
eyes,” Georgianne admonished as she tossed the destroyed shirt to the floor.

“I…sorry.”
He shook his head.

“Well don’t
look. For heaven’s sake. Get her something to wear.”

Numbly he
got one of his shirts from his dresser and Georgianne dressed her. Sera seemed
to wake from her trance enough to try and help, but it was clear her vision was
off when she couldn’t quite find the arm holes.

There were
few things in this world he could not do, wonderful, terrible, impossible
things. With this girl, bleeding and bruised, he came up with nothing. There
was no way to help her. No way to touch her.

Though he
very much wanted to try, which made being ordered out of the way all the more
difficult.

Restless, he
paced.

“Can you fix
her?”

“She’s not a
doll, Eli. She’s not a marionette with her strings tangled.” Georgianne tilted
her head so she could see through the half lenses. Sera closed her eyes when
the woman pushed her hair away from the wound. “Has she been sick?”

“Twice.”

The doctor
nodded. “I’ll sew up the wounds. It’s the best we can do. With the head injury
we’ll have to wait and see.”

“I’m going
to have answers or I’m going to kill him!” The tent flaps flung open to frame a
furious Alistair, still in his striped pajamas. He leaned on his cane and
zeroed in on the Magician.

“What the
hell is going--” He stopped when his eyes fell on Sera. “My God. Eli. I thought
I told you she couldn’t stay.”

“He found
her.” Eli pulled the canvas door closed after making sure no one stood too
close to eavesdrop. “He found us. It’s time to pull up stakes, Alistair. We
have to run.”

Georgianne
pushed between the two men for the small washroom in the corner. A luxury for
the star acts. She filled a water basin while the two of them argued.

“What do you
mean he found you?
He?
Are you sure?”

“Quite
sure.” Eli paced while Georgianne began cleaning Sera’s face. “Especially after
he tried to put a swallowing sword through my gut to see if it would spill
fire.”

Alistair
exhaled rudely and turned his attention to Cora’s daughter. “My God. I thought
we’d have more time.”

“We don’t.
He’s coming and now he knows who Sera is. She’s not safe out there alone.”

Georgianne
was gentle cleaning the wound and exposing the girl beneath the mess. Eli
stalked behind them, stopping to run a hand through his hair and look away when
Sera whimpered.

“Poor
darling. Serafine, is it? Where did you come from, sweetheart?”

 “She’s
Cora’s.”

Georgianne
stopped suddenly to peer closer at Sera’s face. “You don’t say. This is Cora’s
little girl, is she? My goodness, you’re not really a little girl anymore, are
you? Has so much time really passed?”

“You knew
Cora had a daughter?” Alistair moved close, but not too close.  There was
something about all that blood that made even the hardened director hesitate.
Beautiful girls were not meant for such damage. “Why was I never informed?”

Georgianne
snorted rudely and peered down the length of her nose at the carnival director.
“Of course I did. I’m the one that told her she was pregnant. About time too, I
told her. But good things come to those who wait. It was only nights before we
went dark.”

“She died.”

Everyone in
the wagon froze and turned their attention to the fortune teller’s daughter.
Sera touched her right eye and rubbed it as if to clear sleep from the corners.
She stared at her hands then up into Georgianne’s rumpled, but kind face.

“I…” Georgianne
faltered, pulled her glasses off to clean them unnecessarily. She cleared her
throat, put the glasses back on and continued with her work on cleaning the
blood. “It’s going to need stitches. I hope you’re brave.”

“She is.”
Eli could feel Alistair staring at him and he did not give the director the
chance to dissect him. “She pushed Castel from a moving train.”

Georgianne
sucked in a hissing breath and shot Eli a look mothers perfect that screamed
Watch
your mouth
! without having to say a word. Rook leveled him with a
patronizing glare.

“Must you
say his name?”

The tent was
too small and hot with so many bodies in it. He couldn’t remember the last time
so many people were allowed in his bedroom. A girl. Maybe two on a very bad
night. Never so many people he had no intention of bedding.

So he paced
once more. “He put Sera’s face through a window and tried to take my key. I’m
tired of giving him more dominion than he’s due. His name has no more power
than mine.”

“That
doesn’t mean we want to hear it spoken inside the gates.” Georgianne yanked
open her black bag and dug out her supplies. “Do something useful, one of you,
and distract her while I sew her up. I can give her a little something for the
pain. Not much. She’ll need to be brave once more.”

Alistair took
the spot beside her on the bed without waiting to see if Eli would go to her
first. The old man took her hand in his and patted it grandfatherly with more
affection than the Magician had ever seen his friend show anyone.

Without
looking at him, the carnival director said, “Tell me what happened.”

“Ca--”Georgianne
shot him an impatient look and he scowled. “My
brother
sent men to her
apartment looking for me. He must have eyes here, either inside or not. He’s
charismatic, he could have any number of followers working for him now. They
must have followed me to her. I got her out only to have my
brother
confront us on the subway. I don’t think she was part of his plan until I tried
to protect her. Then she was just a means to an end for him.”

“What did he
want with you? To kill you?”

“If only.
That would have made it so much simpler.” He touched the key beneath his shirt
to make sure it was still there. And then because he couldn’t check one without
the other, he touched the lock tattoo on his wrist. “He wanted the key. He
wanted me to open the lock.”

Alistair
swore. “You didn’t give it to him I hope.”

“No. I gave
him Sera instead.”

He didn’t
need to look at his friends to know their shock, to feel their disgust even
though they knew as well as he did that giving Castel the key would be
tantamount to burning the carnival to the ground with everyone inside. As soon
as he’d made his choice, he was ready to change his mind. The lion-haired girl
did not deserve to be so casually brushed aside and left to defend herself.
Everyone in the carnival owed their lives to Serafine Moreau, though they’d
never know it.

“He forced
me to make a choice. I made it.”

“Then how
did you both survive without having to give him anything in return?”

Eli ran a
hand through his hair and turned so he wouldn’t have to face their inquisitive
eyes. “I lost my temper. He was about to snap her neck and he kissed her and I
just reacted. I tried to stop his heart.”

“Elijah! You
were not meant to use your power like that.” Georgianne dropped her glasses to
stare at him, her shock and disappointment the least of his worries. He’d never
used his power to hurt another person, not even Castel when they faced each
other the last time as the main stage tent burned around them. He hadn’t known
he had it in him.

What he
couldn’t admit to his old friends was how it felt to see Castel’s mouth against
Sera’s. How it felt to see him take something he didn’t deserve. He couldn’t
articulate it even if he wanted to. It made no sense and there weren’t words in
all the languages to describe it. So he left that part out.

“It doesn’t
matter because it didn’t work. He’s stronger than he used to be. He resisted.”

Before they
could offer up more unnecessary outrage, Sera’s voice cut them off.

“He deserved
what he got.” She looked dazed. He doubted she’d remember any of this. “Like
sucking on a frog.”

Georgianne
grinned and glanced between Alistair and to where Eli busied himself trying not
smile.

“I like
her,” she decided. “I hope we plan to keep her.”

“Don’t say
it like that,” Eli warned them. “She’ll gloat.”

__________________

White and
yellow kernels opening with a pop, doused in golden butter fat, light as air,
sticking to my tongue, bursting with flavor.
I was six. Maybe seven. We
were in upstate New York in October and the trees had gone Technicolor and a
traveling carnival had come to town. We drove a half an hour in a borrowed Ford
pick-up to reach them in the mountains. It was my first carnival.

This was
what I remembered.

 My mother
on the midway. My hand in hers. Her kaleidoscope quilt skirt brushing against
my cheek. My mother handing me a red and white striped cup of hot popcorn. Me
stuffing the first fistful into my mouth. My mother’s laughter. “
Don’t make
yourself sick, Serafine, my little queen.”
Her fingers in my red curls,
pushing them out of my face. “
Let’s go sneak some to the elephants.”

__________________

Atop a chair
in the middle of the room, a girl stood on her forearms, body contorted into a
graceful
C
. Slowly she extended the stretch until the
C
formed an
O
and her toes touched her nose.

I gasped
and, startled, she tumbled onto the floor.

“Micah,
really. You’ll wake her.”

“Too late.”
She righted herself and pointed. “She’s aliiiiiiive.”

The girl
wiggled her fingers in the air and swayed her body back and forth until the
older woman sitting in the chair next to her wacked her on the top of the head
with her newspaper.

“That’s
enough, necromancer.” The woman peered through the bottom half of her bifocals.
“Good morning, darlin’. How’s your head?”

My head. A
cottony sensation filled up the space between my eyes. A dull ache emanated
from a spot near my left temple. It burned like a scratch and throbbed in time
with my heartbeat. I wiggled my fingers out from beneath my blanket and felt
gauze taped where it hurt.

Not entirely
sure I wasn’t dreaming, I pressed my face into the downy soft pillow. The
pillowcase smelled faintly masculine, the sheet starched taught but soft
beneath my body. There was a dent in the mattress where one person had laid the
same every night for a very long time. I fit inside of it so that it seemed to
cradle me.

“Maybe she
has amnesia you think?”

“Shhh,
Micah. Really.” The woman set her newspaper aside and stood. Her largeness
filled the room, stout as well as round. The floral dress she wore seemed very
old fashioned, but it fit her pin curled mouse-brown hair and tiny glasses. “Do
you remember anything, love?”

I did. Sort
of. I remembered her voice. The girl on the floor seemed familiar too, but I
couldn’t place her. Her face was small, perfectly circular with apple shaped
cheekbones and thin eyebrows. She wore her snow white hair pixie short. She wasn’t
exactly small though, kind of thick like a boy. Muscular and stubby. I could
almost place her. Almost.