Foretold (27 page)

Lucia giggles when Libo returns with newly woven blankets, just big enough to make a bed for a pair of miniature primates. They’re even embroidered with dancing monkeys—shamelessly perfect. For this, Libo leaves the court with funds to build a water mill for his fullery.

“You haven’t even pretended to play fair,” I say. It’s obvious now: she told all of them to bring something specific, and she would give them the gold they needed to follow their dreams. Now I’m anxious to see what Tasius will bring her. Surely it’s something greater than exotic pets and things to keep them.

We pass several days in the atrium, watching Celeris and Cursor charm all that come near them. They’re happy, silly creatures, free to roam the palace as they like. They’ve taken to introducing themselves by dropping from the pillars onto people’s shoulders.

This morning, they squeal and retreat to our laps when the door crashes open. Tasius strides in. Clothing wrinkled, hair mussed, he’s ridden quite some way to be here, and didn’t stop to pretty himself. Yet another check in his favor—for Lucia, at least. Swiftly, he approaches us, then drops on
one knee to take Lucia’s hand. “I have finished your sister’s quest.”

I fail to hold my tongue. “Excuse me?”

“He said,” Lucia answers, leaning her head toward mine and pointing toward the gate, “he’s finished your quest. Well … made it possible for
you
to do it rightly.”

Valerian stands there, a hand on Carnifex’s bridle. I feel at once curiously light and completely leaden. Vaguely, I’m aware when Lucia takes the monkey from my hands, but I can’t seem to move my blood or my body.

With Celeris settling on her shoulder, Lucia stands and pulls me to my feet. “When I asked why he wished to marry me, he said he didn’t. That he thought the only way to get to you would be through me.”

“Then why didn’t he see me? Why didn’t you tell me?” I start to bristle, but I’m distracted when Valerian raises his fingers; he waves at me. He smiles.

Drawing me down, step by step, Lucia says, “Because I was arranging things. I told you, in
my
court you could do whatever you like. And now that’s true in Father’s court, too.”

My gaze turns to Tasius. He looks so disgustingly pleased with himself, I almost want to pinch him. But Lucia casts him a playful smile; they glow with shared pleasure. And it’s then that I understand.

To become Lucia’s consort, Tasius had to complete whatever task she set before him. It’s our law, our
tradition
. Like my father, it is immovable. So if Lucia’s quest was to bring me a suitor, and if Tasius did so, earnestly, in all faith—Father would have no choice but to honor it.

One day, my sister will be a kind and clever queen.

“You don’t have to marry him,” she says, nudging me again. “But I’d try kissing him, at least.”

Her words release me. I fly down the steps, my headscarf
unraveling behind me. I run to him, crash into him—catching his hand and pulling him to my level. It’s a long way, and deliciously worth it, because his mouth is hot and tastes of cardamom. It fits mine exactly. I desire, and I’m desired, and before I know it, he’s hefted me to his shoulder.

I can see the whole court; I fly above it. Everything else that will pass between us, Valerian and me, is meant only for us. It’s precious, and all you should know is that my heart beats with his, and I am happy.

But you should also know this:

One day, the minstrels will sing the story of the Princess Corvina’s quest for the Cup; they’ll make it seem as if I were light-forged all along. I hope that you’ll remember it wasn’t so. I wasn’t the Chosen One.

What distinguishes me is that I chose myself.

When I was six years old, my mom sent me to school for a month. It was the first and last time I ever set foot in a real school. My mother said she was tired of moving around and decided it was time to settle down and “plant some roots.” Even at six, I knew it wouldn’t last, but I was willing to take what I could get. That’s what you do when you don’t get much.

On the first day, I wandered into the classroom holding my mother’s hand like all the other kids. I was wearing a brand-new blue dress. I looked like a regular kid on the outside, which is the only part that counts. It’s the face the world sees, the one you can change as many times as you want. After lunch, the teacher, Mrs. Hale—I’ll never forget her name—called us to the rug in the front of the classroom. It was Share Time, and she asked us what we wanted to be
when we grew up. I had no idea. I spent most of my time thinking about what I
didn’t
want to be.

Hands flew up. The girl with the brown pigtails wanted to be a ballerina. The boy in the orange shirt, a garbageman. Hands kept raising and more jobs floated around the room, until the boy next to me called out, “I wanna be in the circus.” A hush fell over the group as the idea circulated like a virus. After that, almost everyone Mrs. Hale called on decided they wanted to be in the circus too.

When it was my turn, I didn’t say a word. One thought threaded its way through my mind:
Who would want to work for the circus?
There was only one place worse—a place where the big tent was replaced by dingy trailers and cheap amusement park rides. Where you paid to see fortune-tellers and a bearded lady instead of trapeze artists and lion tamers. The place my mother had worked my whole life, and the one I was sure we would be returning to eventually, because she never left for long.

Once a carny, always a carny.

I slip out of my jeans and reach for the peasant top and ankle-length skirt balled up on the floor of the trailer. It has tiny bells sewn around the hem that chime when I walk barefoot across the lot. Between the skirt, bare feet, armload of bangles, and tangle of necklaces laden with mass-produced charms from the mall, I’m supposed to look like an exotic gypsy. It’s beyond cliché, but that’s what the marks—I mean the customers—want. The illusion I’m a mystical fortuneteller, who can watch their futures unfold through a glass ball I bought online for $29.99.

Two years ago, on my fifteenth birthday, Mom offered to let me have her old crystal ball as if she was passing down
a priceless heirloom, instead of the diversion I used to con people out of their money. I ordered my own the same day. There should be some honor among thieves. Even if the thief is your mother.

It’s just after dark, and by the time I leave the trailer, the lot is already packed with skanky girls in tank tops and cutoffs, chain-smoking Marlboro Lights. They’re crowded around the entrance to the Freak Show, flirting with Chris. I call him CR because he’s a shameless cradle robber. He’s twenty-five, but he looks closer to my age, which is the reason Big John makes him work the Show. The girls line up by the dozens, spending five bucks a pop to flirt with CR for thirty seconds before they check out the two-headed snakes and the Devil Baby—a disgusting silicone “alien” fetus floating in a glass jar full of murky liquid that passes for formaldehyde. CR said Big John bought it from a special-effects studio in Los Angeles that specializes in custom body parts for horror flicks. Between the flat snubbed nose and the curled claws, the Devil Baby is beyond horrific even if it is silicone. The Freak Show tent is really dark inside, but you’d still have to be an idiot to believe that thing in the giant pickle jar is a demon baby.

This whole place runs on stupidity.

Everyone knows the games are rigged, the rides are rusted death traps, the hot dogs aren’t made of anything that ever resembled a cow or a pig, and the silicone fetus isn’t the devil’s spawn. That’s why my mom and I, in our belled skirts and bare feet, are so important.

Fortune-tellers are the reason people ignore the rest of the cons at a carnival. We’re the one thing they actually believe in. Even the nonbelievers. They climb into the trailer, part the silk curtains, and tell you how they know everything you’re about to tell them is a lie. Until you tell them
the
one
thing they want to hear. The thing that makes them believers.

We’re the ultimate grifters.

Because after we reveal the secrets your future holds, we go back to our trailers, take off the hoop earrings, and throw those bell-covered skirts on the floor until tomorrow.

When I get to the trailer with “Fortune-Teller” written on the side in cheap pink paint, there’s already a line outside it.
Good. Let them wait
.

It only makes them hungrier for the crap I feed them when they get inside. I push past the couple standing at the base of the steps watching me expectantly. “Follow me.”

Let the games begin
.

I scoop up my skirt and climb the makeshift stairs, a splinter cutting into the bottom of my foot. I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood. The tiny sliver of wood is like all the other painful things inside me that I will never be able to dig out.

I close the door behind my customers and turn the knob on the glass oil lamps, bathing the room in dim reddish-yellow light. The walls are lined in colorful silk fabrics my mother artfully attached with a staple gun. More fabric is draped from the ceiling, twisting above the small table where my glass ball waits to decide their fate.

The two of them are holding hands, giggling and whispering. “What do you think she’s going to say?” the girl asks.

“That I’ll love you for the rest of my life,” he says.

I steal a glance. They aren’t much older than me, but I know right away the girl is nothing like me. She’s happy.

“Please take a seat.” I gesture to the chairs in front of the shimmering un-crystal ball. “What is it you desire to know this evening?”

They sit down, hands still tangled together. “Aren’t you a little young to be a fortune-teller?” the guy asks.

Of course I am
.

I should be in school, holding hands with a boy, picking out a dress for some stupid dance. But that was never the future my mother saw in her own crystal ball.

“I come from a long line of mystics and my gift manifested early.” I pause, as if the ridiculous way I’m speaking isn’t dramatic enough. “Which means I’m very powerful. I assure you that whatever your futures hold, I will see it here.” I wave my hand over the ball with a flourish.

The girl leans forward in her seat expectantly. She has long, wavy black hair just like mine. “What do you see?”

I don’t
see
anything, because I’m staring into a hunk of glass I bought online for thirty bucks. But I can’t tell her that; I have to say something profound. Something that will change her life—at least for a few days.

I frown, the muscles in my face tightening in mock concern.

“What’s wrong?” The girl’s posture changes, stiffening to mirror mine.

“I cannot get an accurate read.”

“You saw something.” Her boyfriend is watching me carefully, aware that I’m hiding something. I can tell from his expression that he thinks it’s the truth. He’s half right. “Was it bad?”

I look away. “I don’t want to say.”

The girl inhales sharply and her boyfriend puts his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. “You have to tell us. Please.”

“Are you absolutely sure you wish to know?” The question hangs between us, sucking the air out of the room.

This is the moment.

The one that determines whether or not I’ve played my part well enough—jingled those bells on my skirt with enough resolve. You have to give a moment like this space to breathe and time to take hold.

The black-haired girl nods without taking her eyes off me.

I have her.

I can tell her anything now and she’ll believe me. If I were my mother, I would weave a tale of a bright future, ticking off the number of children she and her boyfriend will have by counting the lines on the edge of her hand. I try to imagine it for her, but I’m not my mother.

The knot in my stomach tightens, born from fear and shame. The pressure and pain build, splintering into a thousand shards of glass that tear apart my insides. There’s only one way to stop the pain.

I have to release it one tiny shard—one vicious fortune—at a time.

“Enjoy what little time you have left,” I say. “You won’t be together by the next waxing moon.”

“I don’t—” The girl shakes her head, confused.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Her boyfriend sounds angry, but I can tell he’s afraid. Fear is the easiest emotion to read.

I cover the ball with a scarf, as if I can’t bear to look at it myself. “I’m so sorry. The eye never lies.”

I don’t need any help with that
.

“But we’re getting engaged,” the girl pleads. “Right, Tony?” The tears are falling now, leaving pale streaks in the foundation that’s too dark for her natural complexion. “It has to be a mistake.”

I don’t respond. At this point, silence is more powerful than anything I can say.

Tony stands up, knocking over the chair. He pulls the girl out of her seat, his knuckles white as he grips her hand. “This is a load of crap. You can’t see the future! We’re getting married. Aren’t we, Heather?”

Heather nods, but I see the doubt spreading across her features. Tony doesn’t take his eyes off me as they back out of the trailer. He reaches the door and pauses for a second, offering me the chance to take it all back—to see another future for the two of them. When I don’t, he slams his hand against the door, sending it flying open.