by Trudi Jaye
“Just a general reading. Maybe something about Bethany’s future,” said the woman, smiling nervously.
The girl looked up at her mother and shook her head forcefully. She definitely didn’t want to know what was in store for her.
Celestine waved her hands over the crystal ball, gazing down into it for a few moments. The silence hung heavy in the room before she spoke. “You’ve had a hard time recently,” Celestine said softly. “It’s been tough. But it’s going to get better now. It’s just the two of you, but you’ll do much better without him.”
The woman glanced owlishly at Celestine. “What?”
Celestine stared back. “You need to protect her above all else, do you understand me? No one else is more important than your daughter.”
The woman nodded. “I know that now.”
“If you follow that rule, you will both be fine. Bethany will grow up strong and bright. You will find a life you both love.”
Tears appeared in the woman’s eyes, and she stood. “Thank you,” she whispered. Taking her daughter’s hand, she walked out of the tent, her shoulders straight.
The next two hours were the same. A steady stream of people coming through the tent, Celestine telling them one or two insightful comments that made them walk away deep in thought.
It didn’t make him believe in her ability to tell fortunes. It made him believe in her ability to read body language and people’s expressions. She was very talented, but not with magic. He’d planned to leave after a little while, to sneak out the back without anyone being the wiser, but he became fascinated by the stream of humanity flowing through her tent.
She was masterful when it came to talking the right way to the right person. She would be gruff and difficult with one person and then soft and gentle with the next. It always ended with the customer walking away satisfied that they’d been given some vital piece of information. It was amazing to watch, and not because she was telling the future, because she did very little of that. She told the people what they needed to hear in that moment, gave them something to hold onto and allow them to hold their head up high as they walked out the door again.
No wonder she was so popular.
Something moved against his leg, and he jumped slightly. Looking down he recognized Artemis, rubbing him with her enormous cat body and trying to get Sam’s attention. She meowed. Crouching down, Sam patted the enormous cat, earning himself a rumbling purr. “What’s the matter, Artemis? You just want some attention? Or are you hungry?” He briefly considered picking the cat up but didn’t think he’d actually be able to do it. So he settled into a cross-legged position and scratched behind her ears and stroked her fur.
“Having fun?” said a voice a while later, and Sam looked up, startled at Celestine. He had Artemis curled up in his lap, purring as he patted her.
“She just wanted to say hello,” he said.
“Artemis doesn’t usually like other people,” said Celestine, her eyebrows raised as she looked down at her cat.
Sam smiled. “I have this effect on people. They can’t resist me.”
Celestine rolled her eyes and then came to sit down next to Sam. “The circus show has started, so the crowds have thinned to nothing. I thought I’d take a break.” She reached out her hand and stroked Artemis’s back. The cat butted her head against Celestine’s arm. “Traitor,” she said.
“Is it always like this? So many people?”
Celestine nodded. “This wasn’t even a busy night. The longer we stay in a place, the more people find my tent.”
“Word of mouth. They hear about you from other people.” After what he’d seen tonight, he wasn’t surprised.
She nodded.
“Isn’t it tiring? Talking to all those people? Some of them were pretty emotional.”
Celestine shook her head. “It’s like a drive inside me. I like talking to them, trying to help them. If I haven’t done it for a while, I feel like I’m blocked up. Over the winter it’s actually quite difficult, because I walk around feeling clogged all the time, and my head hurts like I’ve got a cold.”
Sam knew what she was telling him, that it was some kind of magical block. But he thought it was probably more of an emotional block, where she liked to feel like she was healing people. It meant she was a pretty special kind of person, one who cared about others more than she cared about herself.
He’d never met anyone like her before in his life. After years of standing next to a woman who did things for herself first, it was soothing to find there were people in the world like Celestine.
Celestine leaned forward again to scratch under Artemis’s chin, bringing her delicate face near to his own. Her violet-blue eyes were bright with pleasure as she gazed down at her cat, and she had a soft smile on her lips. His whole body ached to be closer to her, and Sam let out the tiny breath of air he’d been holding.
He took a chance, giving in to his desire. He leaned forward as well, catching her eyes, putting one finger under her chin. Then he kissed her gently on the lips.
Chapter 14
Bright lights and terrible images flashed into Celestine’s head. Blood, screaming, people running. The images were raw and fierce, the colors stronger, and angles sharper. It was like she was seeing it through some kind of extreme filter that made her vision even worse. She gasped and pulled back, away from Sam and his soft, gentle lips.
Artemis stood and hissed at Sam. The cat leaped off his lap and streaked out the tent and into the dark night.
She scrambled up, her heart pounding in her chest. She’d seen what he planned to do, and she hadn’t stopped him; she should have known better. All she’d cared about was feeling his lips on hers.
“I’m sorry. I can’t do that. I can’t...,” she said, shaking her head frantically, and took off after Artemis.
It was a dark night sky overhead, no stars visible, but the lights of the Carnival made everything around her bright. She felt freezing cold, despite the early summer warmth and the mild night. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she wiped them roughly away. She didn’t have space in her heart to feel sad, to cry over not being able to touch a man she was attracted to, to kiss him or be intimate with him.
“Wait! Celestine, wait up!” Sam called out to her.
She glanced back and then ducked behind a tent, using her superior knowledge of the layout to avoid him. She couldn’t talk to him right now, couldn’t explain what had just happened. She’d tried telling him the truth, and he didn’t believe her. What did that mean for them? They couldn’t be together, not if he thought she was a loony tune.
And if she couldn’t touch him... Well, that was just stupid, thinking that a man would want to be with a woman who couldn’t touch him.
She didn’t know when she’d started thinking about Sam like that, but she knew she wished they could have kept kissing. She wanted to bury her hands in his hair, to touch his face softly, to run the tips of her fingers over his stubble. She wanted to kiss him so deeply that part of herself was left behind when they separated.
But that would never happen, because she couldn’t touch anyone. A sob broke free from her chest, and she rounded another corner and bumped into a solid surface.
She looked up, tears streaking down her cheeks, into a weathered face. Viktor.
“Ah, just the person I wanted to see,” said Viktor, firmly ignoring her tears.
“Pardon me?” she said, confused. Perhaps he couldn’t see them in the dark?
“I want your opinion on something. I have this idea you’re the right person to ask for advice.”
Celestine hesitated.
“It won’t take long.” Viktor put one arm around her shoulders and guided her along the alleyway toward the thrill rides where he was usually found at this time of night.
“Where were you going?” asked Celestine. She sniffed and tried to surreptitiously wipe at her tears.
“To find you, of course. I have a gut feeling about this.”
Vikt
or firmly led her toward a ride she’d never seen before. It stood to one side, huddled beyond the haunted hotel at the end of the thrills section. “This is your new ride?” she said incredulously.
“Well, it needs a little bit of work to be sure. It’s one of Abba’s old ideas. I thought I’d give it a go.”
In front of her was the open mouth of a cat, sitting in a sphinxlike position, yawning wide, with its teeth on show. The little carriages were moving through the mouth of the cat and into its darkened interior.
“A giant cat?”
Viktor looked chagrined. “It’s not quite right, is it?” he said.
Celestine moved forward, intrigued despite herself. She touched one hand to the side of the cat’s face and felt a rumbling of emotion. She couldn’t sense enough, so she surreptitiously pulled off her glove and touched her bare hand to the new ride.
Optimism and a renewed sense of purpose popped into her head. There was excitement mixed in, and a sense of pride in what they’d managed to put together. Trepidation about whether the punters would like the new ride.
She caught a glimpse of the future and saw the same ride, but as a huge lion, its jaws open wide to welcome people in as they rode on small carriages. They were laughing and pretending to be scared as they entered the lion’s mouth.
“He’s a beautiful cat,” she said.
“But...?”
“He’s not the right kind of cat. You need something fierce, something that will give people that little thrill of fear they come to the Carnival for.”
“A big cat? Like a tiger? Or a lion?”
Celestine nodded. “Yes. A lion would be perfect. The King of the pridelands. What’s the rest of the ride?”
“It’s a mini roller-coaster for the younger kids. We haven’t finished the theme on the inside yet. So we could change it to the savannah, and have lions and giraffes and zebras inside.” Viktor was nodding his head. “Yes, we’re onto something here. Lots of noise from the animals, grasses popping up everywhere, that kind of thing. I knew you were the right person to ask.” Viktor grinned and thumped one hand on her back. Celestine stumbled forward slightly, but she was smiling. It felt good to help.
“Can we go through its mouth? I’d like to see the inside of the ride.” She was suddenly lighthearted and just wanted a bit of fun. She wanted to prolong this feeling for a little longer.
“Sure, go on in.”
Before she could stop him, Viktor grabbed her bare hand, and started to pull her toward the closest ride car.
Immediately time slowed, then stood still. Viktor’s concerned face hung in front of Celestine for a moment and then was gone, replaced by the bright lights and the rainbow colors that came before one of her full visions. Celestine scrambled for a second, trying to get her bearings before the images of the future appeared to her. After a long afternoon and night of fortune-telling, a full-on vision like this was going to hit her hard.
And then nothing else mattered; she was in the future. The Blue Carousel was spinning softly, while laughter and sounds of enjoyment floated in the air around her. She shivered. She still hadn’t recovered from what she’d seen of the carousel in her vision with Alfie.
Viktor stood next to the slowly turning ride, working on a metal box that was attached to one side. He was frowning, his face concentrating as he used a small screwdriver to unscrew something inside the box.
“Come on, Mommy, I wanna to go on the carousel,” yelled a little boy, his face filled with excitement. “I want to ride the dolphins!”
His mother laughed at the expression on his face and gathered him up into her arms. “Of course you can go on the carousel. We’ll just wait here until it stops and lets these people off. Then you can ride your dolphin.”
Celestine shifted away from the mother and son, moving closer to Viktor. He was mumbling under his breath, and she couldn’t quite hear the words. “Thinks she can... Won’t work... Wait until she sees....”
“Ah, Viktor, there you are,” said a soft cultured voice. Celestine recognized it by now, she’d heard it so many times in her visions. Veronica. “Not trying to escape me are you?”
Viktor turned his head and a look of panic crossed his features.
“I did give you some very specific instructions as to what I wanted you to do, didn’t I?”
Viktor nodded.
“And you understand what will happen if you disobey me, don’t you? That block you have inside you will cause you so much pain, you won’t know what hit you.”
Viktor opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“And did you forget something else? I have your precious granddaughter. If you do anything other than what I tell you, that sweet little baby will suffer before she dies.”
Viktor’s face went white, and he stumbled. He put his hand out to hold himself steady against the metal box. “I’ll do what you want, Veronica,” he rasped out. “Just don’t hurt the baby.”
“Then set up that spell inside the carousel and come back to your trailer. That’s an order.”
Celestine felt herself moving backwards, being pulled back to the rainbow-colored dimension, where she hung motionless before returning to the real world. She opened her eyes and saw a metal roof. It took her a moment to realize she was sitting in the carriage of the ride with Viktor sitting next to her, fanning her face.
“Oh, thank the Gods. You’re back. You were shaking so bad, I thought you were having some kind of lethal fit.”
Celestine put one hand to her head and tried to keep everything straight in her head. “I saw you.”
“Just stay calm, child. It’s going to be fine.” Then Viktor put his hand against her bare one again.
Celestine dipped back into the vision world, the rainbow colors dimmed and fractured. She saw Viktor again, but this time he was in a small, darkened van workshop, making something. He held it up, and the metal surface shone in the light from the single overhead lamp. “It’s done,” said Viktor. “It’s finally done.”
The door opened behind Viktor, and his son Henry came in, followed by a woman with bright green eyes and curly blonde hair. “Dad, come on, everyone’s waiting on you.”
“I just wanted to finish this. It’s important.”
“So’s your birthday. Come on.”
“Just one more minute...,” Viktor said.
“Dad. You’re going to miss the big announcement. It’s all planned.”
Viktor frowned. “What big announcement?”
Henry grinned at the woman and squeezed the hand he was holding. “You won’t know if you don’t come to the party.”
Viktor glanced from one happy face to the other. “You’re pregnant!” he said and then gave a whoop and a holler, throwing his cap into the air. He surged forward and hugged his son and daughter-in-law. “I’m so proud of you!”
Chapter 15
“I tell you, son, she needs to head back to the Compound. That girl’s got some serious problems going on inside her head. That fit was scary. She was shaking and moaning.” Viktor was holding his cup of coffee with both hands, and leaning across the breakfast table toward Sam. They were both up early, so they were mostly alone in the food tent.
“How did she seem after the seizure?” asked Sam.
“She was shaken up, if you can excuse the pun. Told me that my Henry wouldn’t have a baby for years to come.”
“And?” Sam leaned closer to Viktor.
“I went straight to Henry and Fee, and asked them if they was tryin’. They admitted they’d been going to tell me on my birthday in a couple of weeks. Fee just found out she’s pregnant. It’s still early days, so keep it under your hat.” Viktor beamed with pride, his ruddy cheeks glowing.
A strange feeling curled around in Sam’s stomach. Why would Celestine give what she would have thought was bad news to Viktor like that? Given the way she’d responded to the people the night before, he was sure she wouldn’t have just blurted out that someone was going to remain childless for
years. It seemed tactless.
She’d been so good at handling all those people and their reactions.
He was missing something.
Except, perhaps she’d been upset? She’d run away from his kiss and then, by all accounts, had run into Viktor and had gone with him, then had another vision. She’d probably been just too exhausted to do more than blurt out what she thought she’d seen.
“I’ll talk to her again. Jack will probably agree with your assessment of the situation.”
Viktor nodded. “She’s a good girl. I wouldn’t want her to get hurt. Gave me some excellent ideas for the new ride, to make it more accessible to the kids.”
Sam nodded absently. “She understands people really well. I watched her yesterday in the fortune-telling tent.”
“One of the most popular sideshows, that’s for sure.” Viktor nodded.
“Do you think she might be right sometimes? I mean....”
Viktor shook his head. “She’s a lovely girl, has a real good grasp of people and the way their heads work, but she ain’t no fortune-teller. These fits she’s having, they’re messing with her head. Her brain is telling her things she thinks is real. She’s one of us now. We’ve got to protect her from herself.”
Sam nodded. “You’re right. I’ll talk to her.” A small part of him wanted Celestine to be right about her abilities. He wanted her to be able to tell the future, because then she would be okay. The seizures would have an explanation, and it wouldn’t be that she potentially had a serious physical disorder inside her brain.
But he needed to get over that. He needed to acknowledge that he was attracted to her, and that it was messing with his ability to see things clearly. He shouldn’t have tried to kiss her yesterday. He’d forgotten all about her touching phobia in his desire to be closer to her. He was her damned doctor, for crying out loud.
She wasn’t someone he should be trying to get closer to.
But something inside him kept going back to her. “I’ll go talk to her now, Viktor. See what she says.”