The Fortune Teller's Daughter (24 page)

“More.
Surely you saw her do things that you couldn’t explain.”

I shook my
head. “I always found a way to explain them. I thought she was lying to me.”

“She was
a...” he searched the air for the right words. “Once upon a time they would
have called her a hedge witch.”

“Like, are
we talking house made of candy, fattening up little children?”

“More like,
love potions, healing salves, curses, divination.”

“Huh.”

His corner
of his mouth kicked up. “You believe me?”

I ran my
hands over his bare chest and admired the shape of him in the morning sunlight.
“You wouldn’t lie to me if you ever want me to get naked for you again.”

He laughed
then, a full bodied, shaking laugh that sounded foreign and wonderful. I
grinned and stole a quick kiss from his smiling mouth.

“Cross my
heart.” He twisted a curl of my hair around his fingers and leaned back,
pulling me with him. “It’s more like, imagine if all the stories you’d ever
been told as a child held a little bit of truth to them. Imagine that they
happened a very long time ago. But like most things, people couldn’t just allow
there to be wonderful, impossible things to exist without wanting to possess
them. Without hunting them out of fear or greed. Imagine that they passed their
heritage on to their children, with humans, a little bit less but maybe easier
to hide. And enough time passes that there are only children of children of
children left in the world, that the originals are all gone, but there’s still
a little something out there that is impossible. That’s what the carnival is.
The last generation before these bloodlines go out of the world forever. Rook
finds them. The carnival protects them.”

My knee jerk
reaction was to deny, to block any consideration of such an outlandish, wild claim.

Instead I
leaned back and swallowed this story. I thought of all the impossible things I
had seen. The magic I knew was here, no matter how much I wanted to deny it.

“Women so
beautiful they break your heart. The acrobats who move faster than people ought
to move.”

“Yes.”

“The
strongman who can lift four girls onto his shoulders.”

“The fortune
teller who knows the future.”

I shook my
head. “I’m not anything though.”

“You’re
mine.”

“But why I
am I not like her?”

He
hesitated. “I don’t know. She might have been the end. She might have been a
random accident. I don’t know much about her past.”

“You and me
both.” I rested my forehead against his chest and listened to him breathe. He
folded his arms over my bare back and stroked my spine with his thumb. “It’s a
lot to ask me to believe.”

“I know.
I’ll answer any questions that I can. This is your world now.”

“My father.”
The words came tumbling out faster than I could stop them. “Do you know who he
is?”

He frowned.
“No. I asked Rook if he knew, but he didn’t. There is something you should know
though. Your last name, Moreau, it’s not Cora’s. It’s Alistair’s. Rook is his
stage name.”

“Wait, no,
wait, what? Say that one more time. Slower. And in English.”

Eli
hesitated, then shook his head. “We don’t either. You’re not his, but he thinks
perhaps she wanted you to have a name that meant something to her. She could
have chosen any name in the world, but she chose the director of the carnival
that she loved. I don’t think there was any name she’d have trusted more.”

For some
reason, I looked at my hands. They were the same as hers, except for their
coloring. We both had the same narrow fingers, the same short nails. Once,
after a particularly bad day at my new school, she placed my hand against hers,
matched them almost perfect. She’d said,
see, we’re not that different
.

She’d given
me a last name as a gift.

And it was
better than the truth.

“Thank you.
For telling me.”

“I wish I
could tell you who he was. But to be honest, Alistair will never admit it, but
I think he kind of likes the idea of you carrying his name.”

I wanted to
ask about Castel, but did not want to ruin this. Another night and I’d ask and
he would tell me. But today I wanted to return to last night, play it over and
over in my thoughts. Remember why I was sore in all the best places. Why I woke
up with a bite mark on my shoulder and aching breasts. Why I felt such deep
satisfaction in his arms.

Rewind to
the moment I told him I loved him. This stranger who I’d known in my heart for
my whole life.

*  *  *

Katya held
up a black and white striped dress to her body, elongated her neck, and stared
at herself in one of Lily’s elaborate mirrors.

“This would
look awesome on me.”

Lily didn’t
glance up from her pile of hats. “You don’t have the chest.”

“I have the
chest,” she protested, lifting what little she had into her hands. “Look, I
have a chest.”

“You’ve got
the chest of a pre-pubescent boy. Sorry K.” Micah gave her a look of pity
before diving back into the back of Lily’s closet.

Katya pouted
and I couldn’t help but grin. I handed another garment back to Micah. “This
goes in the back.”

“Now, Sera’s
got a chest. She’d fill out my dresses nicely.” Lily tapped her chin as she
chose one hat, but disposed of another into the ‘donate’ pile. Not for the first
time this morning I wondered about what Eli had said about knowing what she
was. She was beautiful of course, gorgeous beyond words. She was the kind of
beauty men wrote sonnets for. What strange, wonderful blood ran through her
veins?

“Let’s leave
my chest out of this, shall we?”

Katya
wrinkled her little nose and tossed the dress she’d been holding onto the chair
where the discard pile was growing. “If you like the look of a girl who has had
one too many desserts, I guess.”

“Hey.” Micah
peeked out of the tulle and satin heaven she’d fallen into. “We all agreed to
be nice. Truce while we pick through Lily’s clothes like thieves.”

“Besides
which,” Lily tickled her cheek with the length of feather she plucked from one
of her Victorian hats. “There’s no such thing as too many desserts.”

“It’s fine.
I am not ashamed of my desserts or my chest. So, now that that’s settled. Do
you want this one?” I held up a pink and blue corset for Lily to consider. She
wrinkled her nose and shook her head.

“I’m over
pastels.”

“No pastels.
Got it.”

“And Eli
clearly has no problem with your desserts.” I shot Micah a look to kill and she
shrugged innocently. “What? It’s not like we’re not all thinking it right now.”

Lily and
Katya exchanged glances, then shrugged and nodded.

“Everyone
saw you leave with him last night after he got all jealous and growly. The
rumors, sweetheart, they are a-flying.”

“I didn’t
see anything.” Katya pouted again and then settled her eyes on me where I knelt
in the pile of clothes. She looked hurt, sincerely hurt. “Why you? I don’t get
it.”

Frustrated,
I threw down the dress I was holding. “I don’t know, Katya. He and I…fit. End
of discussion. We fit.”

“Everyone
put your claws away.” Lily frowned at us, then reached behind her to take a
small white square of paper from her vanity. “I almost forgot, your inamorato
had this delivered for you. A love letter. If I were any less of a lady, I’d
gag.”

Katya stuck
her finger into her mouth and mimed the act for her. “I’m over it. I like them
masculine, thanks.”

I snatched
it from her and moved into the corner out of the way of the piles. A love
letter. It seemed completely ridiculous and out of character for him.

Like a
teenage girl, my heart pounded as I broke the seal. 

Meet me
by the west gate.

Right
now.

Come
alone.

“What’s it
say?” Micah peeked out of the closet on her knees. I glanced at her, grinned
and went for the door.

“I have to
go.”

“Hey we’re
not done!” Lily yelled.

“Don’t wait
up.” I waved and ducked out before anyone could physically restrain me since
that was what it would take to keep me from getting to him.

I didn’t
know how long ago the note had been delivered, but I prayed he would still be
there.

The main
grounds were saturated in guests, children and families moving in and out of
the more popular tents. I slipped through the line at the Hall of Mirrors where
people could see themselves as they wanted to be seen, a particularly addictive
illusion that kept some vain guests at the same mirror until closing only to
have them return the next day and the next. The applause rolling out of the
Galaxy told me that Annabelle’s main crew were on the trapeze, a favorite for
children when the angels took to the skies.

I ran
through the tents, took the long way around the food court to avoid the crowds
and ended up out of reach of the main fair grounds, near Eli’s tent. I slowed
to catch my breath, still clutching his note. We were to meet later, but
perhaps he couldn’t wait, though this seemed like an odd place to sneak away.
It was quiet here, the fair ground noise behind a solid row of tents, but it
was still very
public
. Anyone could find us out here and I didn’t fancy
the idea of being found by a family of four kissing the stage magician like my
life depended on the magic of that kiss.

No one
manned the west gate. It was small and unadorned. If anyone didn’t know it was
there, they’d walk right out past it, but I could find the break in the pattern
of iron trees and the small lock set in the knot of a tree trunk.

I did not,
however, see my Magician.

Without
knowing what else to do, I lingered in the area, searching the trees for a sign
that he’d been here or that he was coming back. I touched the lock, the perfect
shape of a large, old fashioned key. I paced.

“So you’re
the paramour.”

I spun
around towards the thick, British accent. So familiar, but so different. He
stepped out of the trees wearing a long grey trench coat, hands in his pockets,
looking as calm and non-threatening as any other visitor to the carnival.

“You!” I
stumbled back away from the fence, slipped, and caught myself against a tree to
break my fall. I clung to it, panic making my breath come in pants.

“Me!” Castel
mimicked me with a breathy squeal. He laughed and hugged himself inside his
coat. “I love it when girls fall all over themselves for me.”

“You can’t
cross the fence,” I warned him, as if saying so made it so. He shrugged,
stepped right up to it and wrapped his hands around the bars.

“That’s not
actually accurate. I could walk right in if I wanted to, but my brother would
know instantly where I was and I’m not ready for another family reunion since
the last one went so well.” He narrowed his eyes. “Although that’s as much your
fault as ours.”

“You tried
to kill me.”

“You pushed
me from a speeding train. We’re even.”

“We’re not
even! There’s no breaking even when you try to strangle someone to death.”

“Oh, do
relax love. I’m only here to talk. Honest.” He held up his hands.
I have nothing
up my sleeves
. “I wanted to meet you. You know who I am.” He flashed his
canines. “And you’re
Serafine
.”

“I really
don’t think that’s necessary.”

Castel
crooked a finger. “Come here. Let me see your head. How is it? It looks like
it’s healing. I had no idea how important you were to my brother or I would
have played nicer with his toys.”

“Wow, that’s
not going to happen. I’m going to stay right here until you look away or my
knees stop shaking, whichever comes first, then I’m going to run screaming that
way.” I slid my hands back against the bark of the tree for support, wishing to
god my knees really weren’t shaking as hard as they were.

He fairly
bristled with energy. Not like Eli. There was something electric about the
other brother, something that made his black hair almost blue and his irises
spark randomly as if he had exposed wiring behind them.

Castel’s
face changed, the crazy grin fell and he looked suddenly tired, like Eli most
days. He leaned forward and rested his forehead between bars and stared at me,
searched my face silently for a long time.

Then, “You
remind me of her. You use sarcasm to deal with your fear and anxiety. She did
that too. She had a filthy mouth when she got really nervous. Before the
curtains would go up she’d say something like, God I hope they are all buck ass
naked, every last one of them.”

“Who’s
that?” I swallowed. “Katya?”

Castel
balked. “Hell, are you kidding? Of course not her. She’s a poor replacement.
No.” he rested his forehead against the bars again. “I mean
Olivia
.”

He said her
name so that it took a long time to cross his tongue. He said it with a sigh.

“I don’t
know who she is. I haven’t met her.”

“No,” he
snarled. “You wouldn’t have because she died before you were even born.” His
angry face disappeared as quickly as it had come. “He hasn’t told you, I see.”

The
accident.

“Told me
what?”

“About why
Imaginaire went dark, of course.” Castel pushed away from the fence and started
pacing back and forth past the gate. “Why don’t you come out here and I’ll tell
you?”

My nerves
frayed and I laughed, an inappropriate, humorless sound. “I don’t think so.”

“It was
worth a try. Sometimes girls in
amour
are stupid.” Castel pulled at his
collar and slipped the long grey coat from his shoulders and hung it from an
iron branch. “Do you mind? Of course you don’t. Now, where to begin?”