The Book of Speculation (27 page)

Enola’s eyes roll and her spine shoots out of its chronic slouch, pole straight. There is a blur, movement and slapping sounds as she lays the cards in a perfect Celtic cross. I recognize the spread from
The Tenets of the Oracle.
Ten cards. Two in the center, forming the cross, one above, one below, one to the left, and one to the right, then four cards dealt in rapid succession in a line up the side. I can see their faces. They’re different from the ones in
The Tenets,
but common. A Waite-type deck, delicate, with pictures even I know. The girls angle their chairs, ponytails swinging like pendulums. When she sets the last card Enola’s head falls back sharply, as if her neck has snapped. With perfect timing, Doyle snakes a hand around and tips her back up. Her eyelids flutter open and she bends over the cards.

“Yes, yes,” she says. “Two of you love one man. Yes. Always same.” She laughs; in another woman the sound would be sexual but in Enola it’s carnivorous. “This one.” She points a finger at the blonde. “She is one with force behind her. Always chase, this one is.” The brown ponytail bobbles up and down. “This boy, he like a strong girl. See here? Swords. He like decision, confrontation.” She waves her arms, an air of madness in the gesture. “You.” She stares at the brown-haired girl. “You wait for scraps, yes? Second best for you always.” A small giggle from the girls, a joyless ripple. “See the cups?” Enola continues. “Water. In this position is change, flowing. Communication. You talk to him, yes? She does not speak.”

The girls crowd together like hens to grain, studying the cards. Abruptly Enola’s voice falls away and her jaw goes slack. She stares through the girls, beyond the tent and into something I can’t see. Her hands move, sightless birds navigating migratory patterns. A new arrangement overlays the old, six lines of six cards, each set atop the others. She turns and turns, and when she speaks again it is without trace of accent, without a glance at the cards; discarnate, the voice moves through her. I can see Death, the Devil, and the Tower, and a heart that’s stabbed with swords.

“Losses will be borne. Death rising from below. Barrenness. Empty fields. There will be no children.”

The tent begins to hum as gooseflesh rises to meet air. The girls squirm in their seats. One shivers. A flurry of silk streaks across the table as Enola grabs one of the girl’s wrists.

“All around you those you love will wither. Mother, father, and down the line.” Her words spill and Doyle pops up from his chair, cracking like a spark as he latches on to Enola, shaking her. She continues, “Your name dies with you and will never pass another’s lips. For you it is as water cuts stone, you will wear until nothing is left.” Doyle squeezes her shoulder but she is gone.

As water cuts stone.

The dark-haired girl tugs her friend’s wrist from Enola’s grasp. A tic in the neck, sand leaking from a bag and Enola folds in, her face so white as to be clear. Enola again, but less. Her eyes flick to my hiding spot, our gazes lock, and it chokes.

“Wrong card,” she says. The accent is back. “Happens sometimes. Many spirits walk these grounds.” She pats her scarf, tucks in an escaped hair, and then glares at me. “Get out.”

I snap the drape closed, a deep pain sprouting in the middle of my skull.

Doyle sticks his head outside. Peering from the tent he looks like a mounted trophy. He laughs, nervous and conspiratorial. “Bro, you gotta give it some space, man.”

“Huh?”

“You’re showing up in the cards. You’re too close. Give her like—” He pauses. “Yeah, like, five minutes.”

“I’m good here.”

“No, dude,” he says with a slow twist of his head. “You are seriously not good here. I’ve got it covered.”

“I’m her brother. Let me—”

“That’s my point; you’re too close. You’re making stuff murky.” He scrunches his face up. “Let her ramp it down, okay?” His hand comes through the curtain. He pats me on the shoulder. “Go see Thom. We told him about you and he wants to talk to you. Seriously, go. Give us five, ten minutes. Okay? He’s in the big RV with the birds on the side.” His hand disappears and reemerges holding several crumpled dollars. He pushes the money into my palm and gives me a soft shove back. “Get food.”

As I hobble away he asks what happened to my foot. “Pothole,” I reply.

“Hey,” he calls. “If you swing your right arm wider it’ll help keep the weight off your ankle, yeah? Diagonals, man. Think diagonals.” I don’t want to, but as I walk toward the smell of fried dough I find that I’m swinging my arm wider.

Enola’s face was wrong when she looked at me. The way her head snapped back, there was no control, no lie, just that voice. Something’s very wrong. Drowning wrong. I need to talk to her, and maybe I do need to talk to Thom Rose.

*   *   *

The RV is, as Doyle said, past the rides on the back of the lot, huge and plastered with white silhouettes of ducks in flight. I lean against it, taking weight off my foot, and knock. A tiny bald man answers. He wears a checked shirt, shorts, and sandals. Deep wrinkles line his mouth. His eyes are framed by squint marks from a lifetime of driving into the sun. I don’t know what I expected a carnival owner to look like, but he looks like someone’s uncle.

“Are you Thom Rose?”

“Who wants to know?” His eyes narrow, and it looks as if I’m about to have a door slammed in my face. Then he grins suddenly and flings the door open. “You’re Simon Watson, aren’t you? Anybody ever tell you that you look just like your sister?”

The camper is filled with books and papers, what looks like piles of receipts and bills, an unmade bed, and a small kitchen that is surprisingly spotless. “Sit, sit,” he says, pointing to a chair by a table that folds out from a wall. “Enola says you’re looking for work.”

Am I looking for work? Library work, but work. “Yeah, I am.”

“She says you’re a swimmer.” He opens a can of soda, pours himself a glass and offers me one. “Talked you up a lot. Said you can hold your breath for ten minutes.”

“Give or take.”

He drinks his soda for a while, contemplating. A yellowed finger taps at the table as if searching for something, a pencil, a cigarette. “It’s been a while since we’ve had any good athletics, but a breath-holder, a swimmer, that’s a hard sell for a man. Not saying we can’t do it, but it’s always been a woman. Mermaids. Put a cute girl in a small bathing suit, lots of long hair, a little peek here and there.”

“I know.” My mother was a carnival striptease. “Enola thought you’d be interested, but I told her I didn’t think it would work out.”

“Oh, no. I
am
interested. It’ll just take me a minute to figure out. Your sister’s a good kid. If she’s happier having you around and it doesn’t cost me anything, I don’t see why not. It’s been a real long time since I’ve seen a swimmer. There are those Weeki Wachee girls down in Florida, but they’re not the same. You don’t need an air tube, do you?”

“No, sir.” I
could
try it, maybe. Just for a little while, see what wandering feels like.

“Good. It’s better that way, cleaner lines. We could rework the dunk tank, maybe. That damned kid’s a pain in the ass anyway. Doesn’t matter if he’s a different kid, he’s always a pain in the ass.” He sucks on his teeth, then barrels on. “Best mermaid I ever saw was back when I was a kid. Gorgeous.” He sketches the outline of her with his hands. “A diver, too. You don’t dive, do you?”

I don’t know. Maybe, but no, at the moment I don’t dive. I tell him so.

“Shame. That’d be something,” he says. “She’d jump into this glass tank—no splash at all—and stay under so long you’d figure she’d either died or grown gills. White bathing suit, built like the prow of a ship.” He whistles. “My folks wouldn’t let me have pinups. Verona Bonn was better than a pinup.”

I hide my reaction. “I think I’ve heard of her. Any idea what happened to her?”

“Took up with a lion tamer, I think. Got pregnant. That’ll put a mermaid out of a job fast.”

Verona fell in love, had my mother, then drowned. Not so different from Mom, not so different from any of the other women. Each left a child behind, two in my mother’s case.

“This may sound strange, but Enola mentioned you let her see some of your log books? A little while back someone sent me a manuscript that I think belonged to a carnival. I’d love to have something to compare it to.”

Thom slides his chair back. His expression closes and he begins to play with an empty ashtray. “You don’t show that sort of thing to anyone who’s not family,” he says.

So, Enola is family. “Of course. I understand. No harm meant.” We resume a light conversation, discuss me taking on work until we can figure out an act. Ride jockeying, basic back breaking. I want to get back to Enola.

I am near the door when Thom says, “You aren’t by any chance Paulina Tennen’s kid, are you?”

I stop. “Why?”

“Ah, thought so. Your sister said her mom worked shows, but she wasn’t real specific. You and your sister, you look so much like her it’s uncanny. I ran across her a long time ago, back when my father was running things. I think she was working with a magician. She seemed real nice. Pretty, too. Hard to forget a face like that. You said somebody sent you a show book?”

I nod.

“That’s odd. Unless it’s got to do with your mom, one of her shows. Wasn’t Lareille, was it?” I shake my head. “Thought not. As far as I knew Michel was still chugging along.” He scratches his neck. “Any idea why they sent it to you?”

“He thought it might have belonged to a family member.”

He chews his lip, showing a tobacco-stained tooth. “Books stay with a show. If one’s just floating around out there loose, that most likely means a show went under.”

The water-stained pages lend his words an unintended accuracy. If the show fell victim to a flood it could explain the Koenigs’ disappearance as well. “It’s pretty old,” I say. “Filled with drawings. Lots of them of tarot cards.”

Thom Rose grins. “And let me guess. Your sister won’t tell you anything about ’em
.
”

I shove my hands deep into my pockets. “Exactly.”

He laughs drily. “Yeah, she’s tight-lipped. Sorry, but you’re shit out of luck with me. I don’t know much about cards except that your sister does ’em right. I like her. Keeping her happy keeps the Electric Boy happy, and that’s good for me. That kid’s a gold mine.” He opens the RV door and ushers me out. “Tell her I said I’ll figure out how to take you on.”

Limping back toward Enola I wonder what Thom would have said if I’d told him that Verona Bonn was my grandmother, that she and my mother both drowned. But tight-lipped runs in the family, among other things.

I’m about to go into Enola’s tent when the ponytail girls rush out. The crowd swallows them in a sea of patterned shirts and sunburns.

“What just happened?” I ask, lifting the tent flap.

Enola turns on me fast. “What the hell do you think you’re doing barging in on a reading? I don’t go to your work and fuck stuff up. Oh, wait. That’s right, you don’t
have
a job. And what happened to your leg?”

“Floor trouble.” I duck in. It’s sweltering, with a vague smell of clove cigarettes. Doyle is folded up lotus style on the ground by the table, a glowing lightbulb rolling around his hand. The only sign of his unease is a slight brow pinch, pulling the tentacle ends tight across his cheeks. Enola grabs a bag from under the table, shoves her hand in, and pulls out a zeppole, dripping with fat and sugar. She stuffs her mouth, chipmunking it.

Around half-chewed bites she asks, “I thought you weren’t coming. Why are you here?”

“You scared the hell out of those girls. And what’s with the accent?” I ask.

“Quit answering questions with questions,” she says and wipes the back of her neck. “Damn it’s hot. I’m going to need a swim later. The accent’s been part of the deal for a while.”

“And him?” I nod to Doyle.

“Just a thing we’re trying out,” she says.

“Brings in more cash,” he says, without opening his eyes.

“Adds to the mystery,” she says.

“Those things you said to the girls? Does that add mystery too?”

“No idea what you’re talking about.” Angry silence.

“Frank had sex with Mom.” The lightbulb stops twirling.

“Fuck,” Enola says. I tell her what Frank told me, about how they met, how long they were together. About the house. Enola makes notches in the side of a card with her thumbnail. The Hanged Man, an inverted figure strung from a cross by his pointed foot, almost like St. Peter. Not the supple cards she keeps in her skirt pocket; these cards are stiff, with backs covered in fleurs-de-lis. “Shit. Well, that screws you and Alice. Fuck, wait. She’s not our sister, is she?”

“No.
God,
no.” I say. “Mom cut him off.”

“Well, at least there’s one damned thing she did right.” She sneers and a small bead of sweat rolls from her lip.

“Little Bird,” Doyle says.

“Give me a minute to process, okay,” she mutters.

“He kicked us out of the house,” I say.

“So, come with us. Did you talk to Thom?” She puts her feet up on the table. They’re bare and dust clings to her toes. A sliver of light breaks in. “Out!” she yells. “Esmeralda is busy.” The curtain flops shut. Doyle hops up from the ground to chase after the client. His flip-flops disappear beneath the drapes. Alone again, we stare at each other. “Well, shit.” She chews a piece of skin by her thumbnail, the card almost touching her mouth. “I knew Frank had a thing with the house, but I never got why. Wow. That’s gross.” She’s fidgety. She puts down the Hanged Man in favor of the entire deck, fanning, restacking, and flipping the cards over her knuckles. “I really am sorry about Alice. That makes everything weird. Are you going to tell her?”

I hadn’t even considered it; it’s an injury none of us needs. The last she saw of me was bruised and in a broken house. She wouldn’t cry if I told her, that isn’t like her, but would she slam a door on me? Absolutely. Would she look me in the eye after? “I don’t know if it’s for me to tell. I have things to figure out first.”

“Right. Shit. Where are you going to stay? I’d offer but we’re cramped.” She shrugs.