by Sarah Fine
Apparently, ever since we’d arrived, I’d been surrounded by people who were capable of bending people’s thoughts in amazing ways. And yet, none of them had tried to put the whammy on me so far as I could tell. I was used to Knedas agents who would happily coerce a person into doing what they wanted. And then there were the ones like Arkady, who seemed to have taken it to grisly extremes. I had come to think of people with this power as evil. But these carnies—they were focused on maintaining the glamour of the carnival, but they didn’t seem interested in hurting or twisting people up. Yes, what they were up to was ethically questionable, but with the exception of some spent cash and lost iPhones, it didn’t seem to be doing any actual harm.
Betsy winked at me when she saw me, and I waved at her and kept walking, not wanting to distract her while she was working. The next booth was the fortune-teller’s—Madame Voyant—veiled with heavy velvet curtains almost completely concealing the glow from inside. A couple emerged from the little side door looking shell-shocked, and when the guy reached for the girl’s hand, she yanked it away. “I knew you weren’t telling the truth about Ashley,” she wailed.
“It was just the one time,” the guy yelped as he trailed the girl toward the parking lot. Before she reached it, a man blocked her path. He wore jeans, a black T-shirt, and a gray vest. His muscular arms were covered with full-sleeve tattoos, and his dark hair was swept back from his face in a modern pompadour with shaved sides.
He was hot. And the girl seemed to think so, too, because she slowed to a stop right in front of him. He flashed a friendly smile and reached out, running his hand down her arm.
“Hey,” said her maybe-ex-boyfriend. “Hands off.”
The pompadour guy’s smile didn’t fade as he pulled the same arm stroke on the boyfriend, and the tension in the boyfriend’s body melted away. The couple looked at each other, and then the pompadour guy stepped aside and let them continue on their way, hand in hand.
“That’s Quentin,” said a rich, mellow voice beside me. I turned to see an African American woman who was probably in her early forties. Her hair was a riot of short braids around her head, and she wore a colorful shawl. “And I’m Letisha.”
“A.k.a. Madame Voyant.”
She nodded, wearing a sly smile as she watched the couple disappear into the maze of parked cars in the field. “It wasn’t just the one time. That boy has been cheating on her for months.”
“I thought the point of this place was to make people feel good?”
“Ah, that’s overrated. Sometimes it isn’t even the best thing for you.” Letisha chuckled. “I do my best to keep it light, but some people just piss me off. And hiding the truth does no one any good. I hate when Quentin undoes my good work.”
As if he heard her, Quentin turned to look right at us through the meandering crowd of people. He winked at Letisha.
She grunted. “Too much charm on that one for sure.”
“I’m Mattie,” I said.
“I know.”
“I guess that figures.”
“Care to have a reading?” She gestured toward the side door of her booth, even as several people waiting in line glared at me mutinously.
“I think we were here first,” said one college-age girl, waving her hand at her friends. They were all wearing identical sorority sweatshirts.
“Were you? How lovely,” said Letisha, completely unruffled. “Perhaps a bit of waiting might be good for your character.”
I took a step back. “That’s really all right. I don’t really want to be told things I already know.”
Letisha laughed. “I’m a fortune-teller, dear. Don’t you want to know what’s coming?”
“You sense intentions, from what I understand,” I said quietly. “You can pick up things, but the future isn’t one of them. No one can do that.”
Her brown eyes glittered with the confidence of known secrets. “You’d be surprised.”
And before I could stop her, she had her palms on my cheeks. “So much pain here, not all of it physical.”
“Already knew that,” I said through goldfish lips.
“You have decisions to make.”
“Again with the knowing.”
“You know they both want you.”
“I—”
“But do you know one of them will kill you?”
She let me go abruptly and I staggered back, my heart beating like a woodpecker sending up a dust of bone chips as it drilled through my rib cage. I doubled over and clamped my eyes shut, unable to keep the tears from leaking out.
“Poor little reliquary,” Letisha crooned, helping me upright. “That was cruel. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. Some people have such a rich tapestry of wish and drive inside of them. It calls to me.”
“Maybe you should let it go to voice mail,” I squeaked.
“Sometimes there’s enough inside you to make even the unknown future clear. It’s a gift and a curse to be able to sift through it.” Her fingers were still wrapped firmly around my arms. “But I’m very rarely wrong.”
“I need to go . . . over there,” I said in a strangled voice, pulling away from her. “Waaaay over there.”
“Don’t waste a minute, Mattie,” she called after me. “Enjoy every one.”
Oh my God. Was she trying to scare me to death? I staggered away from the booth, savagely glad to see her line shrink as people who’d observed our encounter decided that maybe they didn’t want their fortunes told after all. I wanted to scream at them to run—suddenly this whole place seemed sinister to me, and all my live-and-let-live good vibes toward the carnies disappeared in an avalanche of anxiety and pain.
Do you know one of them will kill you?
Was that what was going to happen tonight? Was Asa going to make a mistake? Was pulling this splinter going to be fatal? Was Letisha telling me I had only hours to live?
I blundered toward the trailers. Jimmy had pointed out an empty camper that they kept for “strays,” people who joined the camp for only a season. Come summer, the camper would be occupied, but for now, as the camp emerged from its winter slumber, it was free, and I needed it badly.
“Can I offer you assistance?”
I turned to see Quentin leaning up against a trailer right next to the cotton-candy booth. Bits of spun sugar fine as cobwebs rose into the darkening sky, reflecting glints of orange-and-purple sunset. Quentin smiled as I tore my eyes from it to focus on him again. “I don’t think so. I just need some time to myself.”
“Letisha is a lovely woman who has the unfortunate quality of enjoying others’ discomfort. She really can’t help herself.”
I rubbed my chest. “And you?”
“I enjoy people’s pleasure, of course. I especially like making them feel good myself.” He shoved himself off the camper and sauntered toward me. “You look like you could use some pleasure. And maybe a lot of it.”
I chuckled weakly and put my hands up. “No, thanks.”
His brow furrowed. “Why not? I can tell you’re suffering. I could ease that.”
I wasn’t sure how to explain to him how I had come to hate naturals trying to control my moods and thoughts and body. It bothered me. It made me feel vulnerable. Too much of me had been taken away, and I was scrambling to hoard little bits for myself. “I’ve had a few bad run-ins, okay? I need to be the one in control of something like this.”
Quentin gave me a genuinely kind smile. “Then I know exactly what you need.” He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small vial of clear liquid. “A gift.”
“Why?”
He tilted his head. “Because I feel like offering it?”
I eyed the vial. “That’s from you?”
“Plasma-infused oil. Nothing tawdry, I swear. Not strong enough to do you any harm.”
“And what am I supposed to do with it?”
“Rub a little of it wherever it hurts. I’m good at relieving pain of all kinds.” He looked over to the midway lane, where the
sorority sisters had emerged from Letisha’s booth on the verge of a full-on catfight. He sighed. “Would you excuse me? Duty calls.”
He tossed the vial at me and headed back to the midway, his strides relaxed, smiling at gaping carnival guests who were clearly distracted by how damn good-looking the guy was. I bent down and picked up the vial, which had hit my hollow belly and bounced off. I bit my lip, and my fingers closed around the vial, which was still warm from his body heat. Even holding it dialed the pain back a level, though not nearly enough to allow me to sleep, which was what I really wanted to do, because being awake meant thinking and worrying.
I tromped over to the empty trailer Jimmy had pointed out. There was no lock on the screen door, but everybody in the camp was occupied, so I didn’t much care. The space was clean, though it smelled a little mildewy. The air was humid and close beneath the heat of the generator-powered network of overhead lamps that had flickered on as the sun set. Knowing I had some alone time, I examined one of the beds, a simple foam mattress neatly made up with faded flowered sheets. Perfect.
I stripped off my shirt and the desperately uncomfortable oversized denim capris. Clad in only my bra, I slid between the sheets with the vial. It really was a gift—by giving me something I could apply myself, Quentin had taken the control aspect out of the equation and made it a lot easier to accept.
Because I needed the relief. Badly. My head was swimming with thoughts of the pain to come, with knowing Ben was out there somewhere stupidly trying to be noble after causing so much hurt, and with the understanding that Asa was suffering and I couldn’t do anything but make it worse. My brain felt as if it were going to ooze out of my ears. It only added to the knife twist somewhere in the area just behind my sternum. I unscrewed the lid on the vial and dribbled a few drops on my chest, then rubbed it in. It smelled like lavender, and I greedily breathed it in. But the pain in my chest didn’t disappear as I’d hoped, so I poured a little more onto my skin, painting it in slow swirls across my collarbone and down my belly. Not wanting my bra to get totally greasy, I took it off, too, and slid a little farther under the sheets.
The Ekstazo oil made my skin warm, and the pain beneath my breastbone faded even more, though not completely. I held the vial up to the light filtering in through the horizontal blinds at the window. Only a little bit left.
Ah, well. I might only have hours to live. Why save it?
I dumped the rest out on my torso, rubbing it up over my chest and down my belly, enjoying the feel of my own hands on my skin. It had been so long since I had felt much pleasure at all. My body had become a stranger, an enemy, chipped away to nothing by the fractured magic inside me. But I had always loved it. I didn’t want to lose it. I wanted to live.
Slow and loving, I skimmed my hands up and down my arms, taking in the bumps of my wrist bones, the bend in the crook of my elbow, the bony junction of my shoulder, the ridge of my collarbone, the hollow of my throat. I took my time, minutes to cover a few inches. My fingertips circled my breasts as I breathed slowly, noticing that the pain had faded far into the background. I smiled and closed my eyes as I ran my fingers along the curve of my ribs, the flat of my belly, the slight swell of my hips, and then between my legs. My breath whooshed from my lungs as my fingertips came up wet, and I moaned softly at the rush of pleasure that made my whole body tighten.
Oh God, I had missed that feeling, that tingling need that pulled me away from worry and fear straight into bliss. Seeking more, I explored a part of me that I had sorely neglected for months, sliding my fingers up and down, spreading my legs as the promise of ecstasy ebbed and flowed, tantalizing and teasing. I lost myself in the haze of it, the irresistible pull, a path down which I knew I could find myself again, if only I kept going.
“You in here, Mattie?” The screen door swung open, and I gasped, lifting my head from the thin pillow.
Asa stood in the doorway, a plastic Target sack in his hand. For a moment, we just stared at each other. I was too stunned and disoriented to be embarrassed. In fact, my skin tingled with want and compulsion. My fingers were frozen midstroke, my other hand holding the threadbare sheet over my naked body. There was no way I could hide what I was doing.
A normal person would have apologized and backed out of the camper, cheeks hot as a campfire, or maybe snickering at the scene he’d just interrupted.
Asa was not normal.
His gaze traveled slowly up my body until our eyes met. “Don’t stop,” he whispered. He dropped the sack and let the door close slowly. He pushed it until it latched us both inside. “Don’t you dare stop.” His voice was low and rough. It was a command, not a request.
And I found I wanted to obey. My head fell back on the pillow and I let go of the sheet, moving my hand to one of my breasts, which I palmed and squeezed. My knees fell wide as I slid my fingers inside, feeling the heat of my own body. I was fully aware of the sheet sliding off of me. Fully aware of Asa tugging on it gently, revealing me inch by inch until I was completely exposed. Fully aware of his scent, and of my need.
Somewhere in the very back of my mind, a tiny voice screamed that this was dangerous, ridiculous, embarrassing.
But at the front of my mind, all I heard was Asa telling me not to stop. All I felt was my body begging me to keep going and the forbidden ecstasy of knowing he was watching.
“Open your eyes,” he said quietly.
I did. He was at the foot of the bed, his head bowed beneath the low ceiling. His eyes were on mine, his face unreadable. But the sight of him, the closeness, the tension between us, so taut and electric . . . I traced my fingertips around my most sensitive spot, rubbing quickly, craving friction that was building mercilessly to its crescendo.
“Keep them open,” he said as my eyelids fluttered. I had to struggle to comply as the spiraling pleasure threatened to rob my control. But my need to do as he said was just as compelling—it only heightened the tingling, the flush of blood just beneath my skin.
He rewarded me for my obedience almost immediately, by breaking our locked gazes to watch the movement of my fingers. His eyes flickered with raw hunger, unmistakable and searing. He inhaled deeply, and I knew he was smelling my arousal, the lavender oil, the magic. He braced his hands on either side of the narrow trailer and stared down at me writhing on the bed only a few feet away. He was allowing me to see how I was affecting him, and somehow the mere sight of it was as powerful as any touch, any stroke, any kiss I’d ever experienced.
I whimpered as I felt myself reaching the point of no return, and his eyes rose to mine again. “Come for me, Mattie. Let me see you.”
It was exactly what I needed. The exquisite twist of pleasure swelled and exploded, and I cried out as my entire body was rocked by it—my first orgasm in months. My fingers were soaked with it, my mind bright with its purity, my limbs flexing with the rush. My eyes clamped shut and I shuddered as the aftershocks began, sweet lightning strikes of ecstasy that made me moan. They wrung me out, and I collapsed, sweating and panting, onto the sheets, floating in the aching glory of the afterglow.
A soft click pulled me back to the present. I raised my head, blinking.
Asa was gone.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I sat up abruptly, still breathing hard, stunned and reeling. “Did I really just do that?” I whispered.
Biting my lip, I rose on shaky legs and pulled the sheet around my body. Asa had left the Target bag on the floor, so I scooped it up and looked inside.
A maxi skirt, size four. A bra, thirty-two B. A tank top and a short-sleeve blouse. A pair of size-six sandals. Lacy underwear small enough not to sag.
And a large package of Twizzlers.
I sank down on the bed as my eyes filled with tears, my reaction and my thoughts multidimensional, complicated. I glanced down at the engagement ring and laid my fingertip over the diamond, remembering the night Ben had put it on my finger. That feeling had been simple. Pure happiness I had been sure I would feel for the rest of my life.
But here I was, betrayed over and over by the man I had loved, and who still claimed to love me.
Yet though my vision for the future had been fractured, what alternative did I have but to return to my old life? The magical world was a strange and treacherous place, and the man who had been my most reliable guide also happened to be the most complex human being I had ever known. I was drawn to him. Fascinated by him. And I cared about him. A lot. But I wouldn’t fool myself into thinking I understood him or what he wanted, or that he really wanted me.
“We’re totally wrong for each other,” I muttered as I pulled the tags from a pair of underwear. As soon as I said it, I bowed my head and laughed, embarrassed. I was glad Asa couldn’t see my thoughts—they made me feel more vulnerable than what I had just done.
Though now that I thought about it, I had lain naked and spread in front of him. I had come while he’d watched. While he’d stayed fully clothed and fully in control, I had literally laid myself bare.
I had to face him again. Soon. How the heck would I look him in the eye?
I groaned and tore the Twizzlers package open, gobbling down a few of the plasticky red ropes, but it only triggered more memories of Asa.
I got dressed, delighted when I found a package of hair scrunchies at the very bottom of the bag. I spent one moment wishing for a mirror and the next deciding that it was probably a mercy that I didn’t have one, took a deep breath, and emerged from the camper, half expecting Asa to be waiting outside.
He was nowhere in sight. What was in sight . . . “Whoa,” I whispered, staring around me at a field of gingerbread houses, a few of which appeared to belong to elves, who waved cheerfully at me from the windows. An honest-to-God unicorn was contained in a paddock just to my left. It glanced over at me with pale-blue eyes, lifted its tail, and nonchalantly expelled a stream of glitter out its hind end.
In a daze, I walked around the paddock—and came face-to-face with the roller coaster. It flickered as I followed the progression of the cars along a twisting, looping track that rose at least eight stories in the air and seemed to defy the laws of physics. I knew it wasn’t there. But I suppose with the pain suppressed, the Knedas glamour over this place was doing a number on my mind.