The Fortune Teller's Daughter (19 page)

Don’t be so rational, Serafine,
she’d say with too much exasperation for a twelve
year old, as if my skepticism badly disappointed her.
Sometimes things are
because they are
.

They. Are. Not.
Then twelve year old Serafine stomped and screamed and in a fit of
irrational rebellion, threw her mother’s very old, very favorite deck of tarot
cards into the dining room fire.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to believe her when she
told me to set out milk for the faeries in the spring or that she’d seen my
future and I should definitely wear my goulashes to school.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to believe Eli when he
told me he could make origami cranes fly.

It was that a small but terrified part of me believed
it was more likely they were playing a cruel joke and the moment I admitted it
was all real and I believed with all my heart, they’d pull back the curtain and
show me how I’d been fooled.

I wasted hours distracting myself by wandering around
tents looking for the Harlequin Carousel, believing more and more that I’d been
sent on a Snipe hunt, a hazing for the new girl that everyone seemed to be in
on. Horus told me I’d find it when I wasn’t looking and Mama George said it I
could only find it when it rained. Lily didn’t tell me how to find it but she
sighed and confessed she’d had her first kiss upon the carousel when she was
very young. She ran away to the join the carnival the next day.

Katya, while giggling with a group of eavesdropping
acrobats, claimed the carousel had standards. Holding her hand up to the top of
her head, far above mine, she mouthed “
You have to be this important to ride
this ride
.”

Micah insisted if I went out into a big empty space
between tents, turned around counter-clockwise ten times while reciting
I
call the carousel, I call the carousel, I call the carousel
, it would
appear.

(It did not.)

When the early morning weather shifted and began to
drizzle, hardly enough to make me feel more than damp but too cold to keep
pursuing a fable, I decided to head back to my tent. I turned back the way I’d
come and walked right into the damn thing.

There it was, surrounded by a cloud of low mist
hugging the forest floor, like the damn thing appeared from the beyond without a
hint of irony.

The building had a domed roof and four carved columns
in the corners. The carousel itself was populated by characters of legend, a
black knight astride a black horse chasing down a giant dragon several rows
ahead. Griffons, unicorns, hydra. Giant tigers with saddles and bridled ravens
as big as dogs. My carriage was pulled by three great, monstrous black horses
with garnet jewel eyes. Another, smaller sleigh was pulled by a team of large
mice.

The platforms of each tier and all four columns were
carved in silver angelic creatures (from above) and demonic dark blue creatures
(from below). The ornamentations were frozen in a great, epic battle on the
precipice of victory and defeat.

Elena, the dancers’ manager, had me pulling costumes
apart all day, and the carousel, alone in the drizzling, gloomy weather, made
for a cozy hideout.

A hiding place mostly from Eli, but also from Katya
and her bedazzled girl gang. There were rumors I wanted to avoid at all costs.
Whispers about the Magician and his latest conquest.

Whispers about the magician and his latest rejection.

I missed him. 

At breakfast that morning I heard the Magician’s shows
last night had pushed the boundaries of his greatest illusions, packing his
tent each show and forcing Rook to assign bouncers when it reached capacity. I
heard no one had seen him perform such astonishing feats of magic since long
before
Imaginaire
went dark. I heard people could hear the applause as
far as the Midway and the Ferris.

He came to breakfast late looking tired and irascible.
We didn’t share anything approximating acknowledgement. He sat with Lily who
sat alone until he showed up. She didn’t eat, I noticed, but went through the
motions as if attempting to mimic everyone else but missing the context.

They spoke in hushed secrets. When I couldn’t pretend
not to watch any longer, I escaped to the carousel and brooded.

Things were not turning out exactly like how I
expected them to be. I didn’t expect to make enemies or crave the touch of a
secretive, ageless magician, or defend myself as my mother’s daughter, which
itself was laughable considering how much I’d always hated that distinction.
Now it made me feel a little sick when caustic comments were murmured in my
general direction.

And I missed her.

“My love,” she had said and knelt where I sat on the
curb, street sludge darkening my tennis shoes and her knees. “My love, why are
you crying?”

I wiped at my eyes and nose, making the mess worse.
“They called me dirty. Because of my freckles. Because I’m ugly.”

The tears weren’t even from my hurt feelings. They
were from my childish anger and helplessness. It bubbled up inside me until I
didn’t know what to do with it. Until it felt like a ball in my throat that I’d
choke on. We never stayed anywhere long enough for any of my classmates to get
to know me beyond what they saw. They never liked what they saw. I didn’t know
how to defend myself.
Dirty girl,
they taunted,
even God didn’t bother cleaning her up.

“Oh Sera.” The way she said my name eased the pressure
in my chest. She said it like it meant something more than
me.
“You’re lovely, like a star. Those kids don’t
know anything, not yet, but I do. You’re mine and I don’t make things that
aren’t beautiful.”

“You don’t have freckles,” I protested.

“I made you unique,” she whispered. “One of a kind. No
one else in the world looks like you, because no one else could ever get the
freckles right. I did that on purpose.”

I believed her. For years. I believed that she’d
sketched me out in her notebook and gotten it all just right before fitting me
together like a puzzle. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I realized she’d
lied to me.

And I never forgave her for it. Right up until she
died I’d never forgiven her for making me believe I was special.

Finding
Imaginaire
had given me that sense of
self I hadn’t had since that day on the sidewalk. It made me feel unique and on
purpose. Nothing here seemed a coincidence, so I had to believe it wasn’t.

Including me.

But now I faltered again. It was exhausting, believing
in something.

Eli.

Stupid magician.

“I’ve been looking for you.” The accent startled me
out of my memories and I twisted around in my seat to find the Magician resting
against the outstretched wing of a shimmery green dragon, it’s wingspan as wide
as the platform, its eyes peridots, as bright as tiny stars. He had his arms
crossed lazily over his chest, his ankles crossed in front of him.

He stared at his feet, his messy black curls falling
across his forehead.

For a panicked second I wondered if I’d summoned him
with a thought.

I launched myself out of my seat and put the carriage
between us. I caught the pole of the Pegasus and held on like I might fall
down.

“I did not expect to find you here, which is probably
why I didn’t. The carousel’s a little…” He gestured for a word. “…
recalcitrant
.
It doesn’t even listen to me, which begs the question, who does it listen to?
But that’s maybe a conversation for another time.”

He cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“Why?”

“Why?” he repeated dubiously. “I have no idea why it’s
disobedient and impossible to control. I didn’t build it. Although I am now
completely unsurprised that it found you. You’re both charmingly unmanageable.”

“No,” I snapped, and squeezed my fist until it hurt. I
swallowed my temper. “Why were you looking for me?”

“Oh.” He uncrossed his ankles and shoved his hands
into his pockets. He hesitated. “Last night I made Katya disappear and reappear
in an empty seat at the middle of the room. I lit a sword on fire and swallowed
it. I became invisible once and created a menagerie of circus animals out of
smoke from a single cigarette.” His memory caught him off guard and for a
moment I thought I saw a smile, but it was gone before I knew for sure. “The
tent smelled like brandy and cherries all night. There were people waiting
outside ten deep to get in. I can’t remember the last time my theater had to
turn people away.”

His confession confused me. It sounded like bragging
except that he seemed more worried than excited. He toed a smudge on the
painted platform with his boot.

I ran my hand across the horse’s saddle and looked
anywhere but at him.

“Sounds amazing.”

“I was wondering if you were able to come watch. I
saved the best for the last performance. I thought…”

“No. I didn’t see your show.”

He went quiet and I didn’t turn around. Between us
there was nothing but the sound of birds in the trees, the rhythm of light rain
drops striking leaves and the mossy ground.

“Serafine.” He started across the platform and I
shrugged away to the other side of the winged horse. He stopped immediately.

His next words were cut off by Micah calling my name.
I turned and saw her leading several others, including Katya, across the field
at a run to get out of the rain.

Eli backed off. “Nevermind. This was a mistake.”

Before he could escape, the other girls were upon the
carousel and he was trapped against the static column at the center of the
carousel.

“What are you doing here?” Katya asked, circling the
Magician before sliding up onto a griffon near him.

“I need a reason?” He controlled his expression,
settled into his usual guarded gaze.

She glanced towards me, not so subtly. She reached her
long arms above her head to grasp the pole and rested her temple against it
between her elbows. She pouted and the way her back swayed and stretched made
me viciously jealous. I didn’t want him to notice, though I was sure he had.

I looked away as Micah wove her way around the mythic
animals to spin round one of the silver poles to sidle up onto the Pegasus I
hid behind. “Hop up baby, I’ll give you a ride. It’ll be romantic.”

She mooned her big eyes down at me and I couldn’t help
it. I swatted her away, laughing despite myself.

Pretending my heart wasn’t pounding in my chest or
that Eli’s voice hadn’t badly displaced me.

Katya kept his attention, though barely. He did not
rise to her flirting. She pouted.

“Make it turn on, boss.” 

Eli was patient, but short, as if he were speaking to
a child. “I have no power over the carousel, Katya. I can’t make it do
anything.”

“Laying it on a bit thick, isn’t she?” Micah murmured
conspiratorially.

I tried to ignore them and Micah’s disapproval, but it
was impossible to keep my attention from him for long. When I looked over at
him, his eyes were locked on mine. I shivered and Micah noticed.

“Would you like to see the carousel?” she asked
softly, emphasizing
you
and nudging me with her elbow. She followed my
gaze to the Magician’s.

“Micah,” I scolded, but after hesitating, I nodded.
“Very much. I’d like to see it lit up just once.”

His eyes narrowed. He knew very well that Micah was
manipulating him and it made me nervous that it seemed to work. The Magician
claimed not to be able to make the carousel do anything, but at my wish he
pushed away from the center column and came close, closer, much too close. I
hugged Micah’s side and followed his hand across the wooden tiger, the polar
bear, coming to settle on the nose of my Pegasus. If I turned towards him we’d
have touched.

Micah watched him carefully. Everyone watched him,
including Katya, riveted to his every movement. Everyone but me.

 First there were tinkles, like wind chimes or rain on
glass, and then the lights faded on and the chimes were joined by a low rasping
organ piped through the middle chamber of the carousel. The haunted carousel
dirge worked its magic as the lights ghosted, dim to bright, as the platform
began to spin. The creatures rode over autumn wooded glens, somewhere far away
from the carnival and the rest of the world, their poles more like leashes than
paths. Beside me, I could almost feel the Pegasus strain into the wind.

The giggling girls quieted and clung to their beasts.
There was something serious about the carousel, something remarkable. Something
from another time and another world, from books and words and fables. From
legends.

As the carousel turned and turned, Eli withdrew his
hand from the horse’s head. I felt him linger. I could almost feel him touch
me. Instead of turning to meet his gaze, the one I could feel on the back of my
neck, I looked at Katya who stared at me with a kind of confusion and dislike I
hadn’t seen since I was a little girl.