The Fortune Teller's Daughter (15 page)

I shook my
head, feeling the ever present rock in my chest making it hard for my heart to
beat right. I could feel him watching my face but I couldn’t look at him.
Instead I picked at the fray around the cuff of my jeans. I didn’t know why I
was telling him all the reasons why I was such a wretched daughter. It felt
good and terrible to confess.

“She was so
beautiful, like some kind of escaped queen from an exotic land far, far away
and me with my frizzy red hair and awkward body screaming
thank god I don’t
look like gypsy trash!
at the top of my sixteen year old lungs.” I leaned
my head back and stared into the ceiling for answers. Not that I knew what
questions to ask. “I was so ridiculous. I had no idea.”

One of Eli’s
brows rose as he studied me carefully.

“Two days
ago I interrupted the electrical signals keeping my brother’s heart beating.
With my mind. You were young. Families are complicated.”

I shot him a
look.

“You can’t
stop someone’s heart with your mind.”

The Magician
fanned the cards in a perfect, evenly spaced circle, face down. “Serafine, I am
a magician. I can do anything I want.” He tapped a finger against the bottom of
the spread. “Think of one of these cards. Hold it in your mind. Just one. Got
it?”

I picked the
four of diamonds. “Got it.”

He twisted
the fan back into a single deck and cut them randomly. “Is this your card?”

The card he
revealed was the ace of spades. I shook my head.

“Nope. What
kinds of things can you do, oh great one?”

He cut me a
look, but his eyes brightened with repressed laughter. “All kinds of things,
little bossy one.”

He
reshuffled the cards and turned over the top card. The king of hearts. “How
about this card?”

“You’re not
very good at this.” I shook out my hair so that it fell around my face. “Can
you make me blonde?

“Yes, but I
wouldn’t want to.” He leaned forward so we were close. I could smell the
plastic of the cards and the familiar, masculine scent from his bed. “Third
time’s a charm.”

He turned
the deck face up and fanned them out one more time.

And every
single card had become the four of diamonds.

I
tsk
ed,
but inside I felt giddy bubbles of pleasure. As always, every trick the
Magician performed made my insides go wobbly. I’d never seen such magic.
Likely, I would never again.

“You are a
showoff.”

He restacked
the deck and with a wave made the whole thing disappear.

“I am a
magician.”

I shrugged
and came up on my knees so that, with him sitting, we were almost nose to nose.
“Same thing.”

He
considered this, took a loose red curl that had fallen into my eyes, and tucked
it behind an ear.

“Yes, you’re
right,” he relented. “Same thing.”

“Good news
for you, I’m told they found me my own tent. I’m sure it’s half collapsing and
one of my new fan club members will set it on fire while I’m sleeping, but
you’ll get your bed back.”

“Ah. Well.”
He clasped and unclasped his hands between us, a nervous, human gesture that
made him oddly vulnerable. I wanted to slip my fingers between his to give him
something to hold onto, but the desire was too enormous to act upon.

He continued
in his quiet, accented voice. “I cannot stop them from acting childishly, but
they won’t hurt you. They would not dare cross me.” His head dropped forward so
that I was left staring into his curls instead of his face. They were so messy,
as if he’d run his hands through them so many times. “You’ve been through quite
enough, don’t you agree?”

Touch
him.

Absolutely
not.

Touch him
right now.

My hands
lost their minds and carefully, cautiously, like approaching a wild animal,
touched his raven black curls. He coiled, prepared to jerk away. My heart beat
itself black and blue against my ribcage as I pressed through his hair a bit
harder, petting the soft curls through my spread fingers. I dragged my nails
lightly along the cowlick at the back of his head and a shiver ran along his
spine, tensing and aggressively relaxing the muscles down his back. I touched
my way down the scoop of his long neck and the wild animal yielded completely,
dropped his head lower in submission.

I could hear
his breathing alter, deep, ragged, needy breaths. His shoulders rose and fell
with them and skipped breathing altogether when my fingers stroked the downy
soft hair on the back of his neck.

His hands
settled on my hips, tugged at the hem of my shirt until he had the fabric
bunched up to the spot where my jeans stopped and my skin started. His hands
rested there, two fingers in contact with my skin, my pudgy middle that never
felt so fine as it did in his grip. My whole body reacting like it had never
been touched by another human being in its entire existence. My madness begged
me to bend down and press my mouth to the hollow where his neck and shoulders
met, where the hair was fine, almost fawn brown, and baby soft. I imagined
touching my tongue to his spine and feeling the electricity and power of his
body rushing through mine.

As if he
could read my mind, and I wasn’t entirely sure he couldn’t, I heard the barest
moans growl at the base of his throat. 

Barely, he
dragged my hips an inch towards him until his forehead touched my belly and we
held suspended in time and space, connected so very far from all the important
erogenous zones and yet I’d never felt so naked, so intimate, so bared to
another person as I did at that moment on my knees, caressing the back of his
neck with my thumbs.

Not trusting
the strength of my voice, I murmured softly, “You need to sleep.”

“I don’t
sleep.”

His voice
vibrated against me. He inhaled, tightened his hold on my waist and pulled me
closer until his eyes were pressed tight against my stomach. Encouraged by his
closeness I allowed my hands to travel beneath the collar of his shirt, to the
coil of lean muscles that made his shoulders so strong. They jumped as if
ticklish to my touch. He sighed and
mmme
d against me.

I closed my
eyes and reveled in the sensation of his body. The back of his neck, his
shoulders, my stomach, these were suddenly the most sensitive, alluring centers
of pleasure. I wanted to kiss him madly, the kind of kiss that leaves a person
lightheaded because they stopped bothering with breathing.

I hardly
know you
. It was a heartbreaking thought, but it didn’t diminish my want.
My need. I found myself pulling lightly at him, urging him closer, and he
responded by dragging his hands up my bare skin, onto my back, clasping me to
him so I couldn’t get away if I wanted to. The cool tent air licked against my
exposed spine and it felt wonderfully indecent.

“Serafine,”
he exhaled, a painful sound that preceded the softening of his hold on me. I
weakened. “I can’t. I…you cannot be another distraction.”

He didn’t
pull away altogether, and neither did I. We moved in small allowances, like
pulling off a Band-Aid. Afraid of the pain of ripping it off too fast and going
too slow just to make it hurt longer.

“He haunts
you, doesn’t he?”

He sighed.
“Every minute of every day for the last twenty-two years. He’s never bothered
to seek me out before now.” After a moment, he added, “He’s close. He’ll come
for me again and soon, I think.”

“For the
key?”

He murmured
yes
,
but it was little more than an exhale.

I knew the
answer before I asked the question, but I asked it anyway to give him the
chance to surprise me. “Will you tell me why he came after you and how you
think he is still alive?”

Eli’s hands
returned to the first position, scraping the edge of my bandage to hold my
hips. I ran my hand down as far along his back as I could reach, the other
stayed in his hair, a feeble attempt to keep him from pulling away.

“You do not
think he’s dead or you wouldn’t be so cavalier about having been the one to
kill him. Even if your logic gets in the way, some part of you believes it.” He
lifted his head and brought his gaze to meet mine. It was unsettling, having
him see the want in my eyes. “And no, I won’t burden you with more than
necessary. Some secrets are better left dead.”

I settled my
hands on his shoulders. He sat up so that they slipped onto his biceps and
brushed the edges of his tattoos. “Will he? Leave them dead?”

“No, but
I’ll leave them be as long as he’ll let me.”

Someone near
the tent flaps cleared their throat pointedly, traces of annoyance giving away
Alistair Rook’s presence even without me turning around.

Eli removed
his hands from my waist and as if I hadn’t had my hands all over him moments before,
he pulled my hands off his arms and lowered them between us. Briefly, before he
let go, his thumbs caressed my palms. A secret, intimate touch we wouldn’t
speak of.

“You should
go.” The soft, sleepy, wanting voice was gone like a switch, leaving behind the
lieutenant voice he reserved for orders and carnival business.

“Right.” I
climbed off my knees and risked a glance down the aisle to where Rook stood. He
clutched his cane in front of him and once he had our attention, he started his
slow, stately hobble up the aisle to the stage. He didn’t look pleased, but
that might have been normal for him.

“Serafine.”
I turned at the stairs to face him. Eli produced a pack of cards from thin air
and tossed them to me. “Perhaps later you can teach me more of your kiss bought
tricks.”

I smiled and
turned the deck over to see the top hat design on the back. I hated reading
fortunes, but I loved the feel of cards between my fingers.

“Perhaps.
After you’ve gotten some sleep.”

“I don’t
sleep,” he reminded me coolly.

Eli
approached the edge of the stage to meet Rook whose default setting had slipped
from
none too pleased
to
you are in serious trouble
.

“Good day,
Serafine. I take it you are getting on alright?” Rook said as I hurried past.

“Oh, yeah,
thanks. And thank you for letting me stay, by the way.”

He nodded.
“And Serafine?” I stopped at the door and turned. He tilted his head and
narrowed his sharp, bird-like eyes on me. “For god’s sakes, no more brawling.”

__________________

Before.

We made
paper crafts on Mondays to sell outside the tent as souvenirs. This was before
the fighting and the blaming, back when I thought my mother called the moon
into the sky every night and granted wishes and cast love spells on tourists.

We didn’t go
to the market on Mondays, the traffic was always too slow to bother, so instead
we covered the kitchen table in paper and glue and made things that didn’t
exist before.

While I
worked on a mobile of origami cranes, she made something else, something
secret. She wouldn’t let me see it until she was done, but I caught sight of
her pressing silver brads through layers of cut paper when she thought I wasn’t
looking.

When I was
done I hung my mobile in the tiny kitchen window in our apartment that stared
out into a trash alley between buildings. Light changed through the colored
paper and the cranes turned as the flew in sweeping, measured circles.

When my
mother finished, she stood with a crossbar of popsicle sticks between her
fingers, fine white thread dangling from each of the four corners. She curtsied
and lifted her paper doll into the air for me to see.

My mother
had created a paper marionette.

In my memory
the light coming in through the window was buttery yellow and on it floated
dust motes that fell and settled on the blue Formica kitchen table. I smiled
and sat on the edge of the window bench and watched the tiny paper arms sashay,
the waist bend, the dancer rise on tiptoes. The way the light struck Cora’s
lovely black hair made her seem so much younger than she ever was.

Before the
dancer finished her number, my mother’s fingers twisted and I saw that there
wasn’t just one set of crossbar sticks, but two, and with a turn the dancer
became not one, but two, joined at the hip to her sister. Four legs performed
several quick
degag
é
steps, then two legs performed an
arabesque
,
their outside legs stretched long at the hips.

“Olivia,”
she said, fluttering the left girl on toe-point, then the right. “Suzette.”
They were identical dolls except for their eyes. Olivia had wide round orbs and
Suzette’s were narrow and seeking. My mother waggled her fingers and both
dancers performed a series of jumps.

“I knew them
once,” she said. “Conjoined twins from Avignon. One of them loved easily. The
other one lied easily. I adored them both.”

__________________

A woman in a
high blonde ponytail and black square-shaped glasses with a clipboard
surgically clutched to her chest, stood in the middle of a cyclone of fabric
and half naked girls. Correction,
we
stood in the middle of a cyclone of
fabric and half naked girls. She took up the smallest amount of space possible
and seemed twenty seconds away from a meltdown that only tranquilizers would
cure. Tufts of very blonde hair haloed her small face, giving her the look of a
chronic abuser of forks and electrical sockets.

She cleared
her throat as if it would help her be heard over the clamor of girls freaking
out over lost boob cups and ripped Spanx.

“You’re
going to help the girls with their quick changes in the burlesque tent tonight.”
A balled up scarf smacked the side of her face and she closed her eyes briefly
but did not unclutch her clipboard. “Have you ever laced a corset?”