The Fortune Teller's Fate

by Audrey Berger Welz

  “That’s my kangaroo!” Trevor cried.

  “Quiet, boy, and stay put!” his father said in a loud whisper.

  Leaping in circles, the trickster rabbit stretched out his back legs to hide who he really was, and he continued to hop until the big bear seemed mesmerized. We were, too.

  I motioned to Roman with my hands not to fire the gun. Riley stood off to the side, ready to rescue his little brother.

  Though the bear could smell the honey and the nuts, the rabbit, as even Trevor’s father could see, was utterly hypnotic. None of us could take our eyes away from him. After his restless night spent guarding a tree, the big black bear couldn’t resist; he lumbered after the rabbit in circles that grew larger and larger. By now his family had joined him, and all three bears were following the rabbit.

  I wondered where the rabbit would take them, and whether it had set a trap. But I didn’t have long to think about it. The spirits had said the boy had to be rescued before sunrise, and we only had minutes before the sun would fill the sky.

  I have never seen a brother run so fast to help his sibling. Riley raced up the tree, letting its octopus branches guide him. I waited for a hoot from the owl, who had been talking all night, but none could be heard. The sun was inches from the horizon when Riley lifted his brother onto his back. Then he stealthily brought him down to safety on sweet solid ground and into his weeping father’s arms.

  When we returned to the police station, we found Trevor’s mother asleep on a cold, hard bench. Trevor ran to her and showered her with kisses, waking her up. She pinched Trevor five or ten times to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.

  “Don’t you ever frighten your mother like this again,” she said between kisses. Then she looked over to me and silently mouthed two words: Thank you.

  Officer Harper approached me as we said our goodbyes. “Donatella, if I had heard of our evening’s tale from one of the other officers, I wouldn’t have believed it was true. I can see now why your reputation precedes you. You’ve made a friend in Charleston. If you’re ever in need of help, stop by or call and ask for me. I’ll be at your service. You not only did a good deed for the family tonight but you helped this police station save a life.” Then he had another policeman drive Roman and me back to the circus.

  I was exhausted by the time I got back to my tent, peeled off my clothes, and crawled into bed. I shut my eyes, but immediately I heard a noise and opened them again. There, between the strings of beads that hung at the entrance to my tent, stood Trevor’s kangaroo rabbit. Too tired to follow him, although indeed his charms were great, I winked at him and said, “Good night. Donatella needs her rest.”

  My head got heavier with each breath I took as I conjured up the night and reminisced about all that it brought: a boy safely returned to his mother, Officer Harper’s kind words, and a confirmation that Louie’s son Roman might after all be good enough for Spade. I started to drift. It was just as well; I couldn’t hold another thought in my head.

  Chapter 32

  Bella hoped I could talk some sense into her daughter. “Spade thinks she’s a cat. Maybe that’s why she spends so much time with Louie’s son Roman.” I smiled at Bella, but her own joke went flat on her, and she continued her rant. “I know her sisters aren’t too pleased, either.”

  I worried for Spade but believed she had a right to make her own decisions, even if I didn’t agree.

  “Aunt Donatella,” she told me, “I know you’re frightened for me, but you shouldn’t be. Walking the wire, even without a safety net, is second nature to me.” Still, I hoped she would change her mind.

  Vladimir had caved in to Spade’s strong will. Spade had threatened to walk the wire without a net someplace else if she couldn’t continue to do it at the Circus of the Queens. He tried to defend his decision. “A lot of girls her age are already married,” he said. “At least here, I can be certain every precaution is taken. She could be walking the wire without a net with any circus. There are plenty who’d be thrilled to have her.” But I knew underneath his breath Vladimir was cursing me. I felt a little guilty too for having played into her hand.

  Both sets of twins were now in their teens and Bella, Vladimir, and I had to become master jugglers to keep up with them. Nonetheless, this was what we chose. Each yes or no we’d said since the day each were born had brought us to this place.

  Lucky and Diamond were fourteen, and a frustrated Lucky couldn’t get the words out fast enough to tell me how her other half had snuck into town to meet a boy—a “townie,” Lucky called him scornfully.

  “It’s late, Lucky. We can talk about this tomorrow. Diamond is safe—she waved good night to me a little while ago.”

  Lucky stomped her feet as if she were twelve. I didn’t have much patience for her in this mood. She was at that age where she was fighting to establish her own identity and independence. Her rebellion was hard for me to understand—torn away too young from my parents and my home, put on a ship to cross an ocean by myself, I had more independence than I’d ever wanted; I never thought to fight for it.

  The next morning, I found Diamond and confronted her.

  “It wasn’t a big deal—nothing really happened,” she said. “He challenged me to a bet, and I just couldn’t let him win.”

  I told Diamond not to be so easily taken in by boys.

  “But Aunt Donatella, isn’t that how true romance begins?” She gave me a translucent smile, morphed into an older version of herself, and walked back to her tent. Diamond and Lucky loved each other in the deepest way. Still, they fought as hard as they loved.

  Though circus blood ran through Lucky’s veins, she had another side that was hard for her family to comprehend. As insecure and childish as she could be, she was also the smartest person any of us knew. I found Lucky to be quite entertaining. She had a gift for pulling words from her head and stringing them together and there were times we passed hours doing just that.

  Lucky had read Jane Eyre seven times, loved Dickens just like my Polly, and liked composing limericks. So, while her sisters perfected their circus acts, Lucky beat a different drum and recited poetry, both her own and classics.

  ¯¯¯

  When Lucky moved on from limericks to Keats and Byron, Diamond began to find her sister exciting. But though she admired her twin’s talent, the older Diamond got, the fewer people she needed. She inhabited a universe of ukulele, singing, acting, and trying to find God. And the farther she reached into herself, the more attuned she became to what some would call the other world.

  “I sit on the ground until I feel the cold, damp grass through my cotton skirt, and my hair floating up toward the sky,” she told me one summer day in Lucky’s Library Carriage. “Then I imagine myself as an ancient live oak, with roots reaching into the ground. When I feel one with both the heaven and earth, I close my eyes and watch my dreams float on by.”

  The next day, Diamond Claire had the day off, and I asked her how she spent it. “I took my ukulele out and looked for a tunnel where I could play. I played chords and blended my voice and ukulele with the echoes from the tunnel until everything just fell into place. And when it did, my thoughts seemed to vanish, and I became perfectly still. Aunt Donatella, I think this is how I pray.”

  I was stunned!

  Diamond Claire loved her parents and especially her sisters, but that summer she came to a conclusion. “I’m going to have to leave.”

  Boys found the distance she put between herself and them very alluring. Many approached her with the best of intentions. But Diamond was certain Roman was the only boy who would ever allow her to be herself.

  “One day I’m going to be on stages around the world. In my dreams, I rehearse all the ways that I might leave.”

  But nothing could have prepared her, no matter how much she rehearsed, for the circumstances under which she would go.

  Chapter 33

&nbs
p; Two summers passed. I watched with pride as Ann Marie and Spade blossomed into young women with numerous pursuers. Lucky and Diamond were also growing up fast, though Lucky had a hard time admitting that.

  The first night Kyle Erhard came to see the Circus of the Queens, no one even noticed that he was there, not even me. Though he came to the circus every night for a week, he wore dull clothing that blended into the background. He let his beard grow until he looked like a typical farmhand and was just plain, but Kyle had a plan as I would soon discover.

  He observed everything around him, wanting to get a truer sense of circus life. “What kinds of people are these queens?” he wanted to know, and he had no doubt he would find out without anyone noticing he was looking. He maneuvered in and out of the tent and even visited me early one evening in my carriage.

  ¯¯¯

  Kyle’s hand was almost twice the size of my own. The creases in his palm were so deep and numerous, I hardly knew where to begin.

  He had come to my carriage well before the main big-top show and stood in line like the rest, waiting to have his fortune told. He struck me as a likeable quiet young man, though with an air of inner certainty. Still, I saw many men such as him daily.

  “I’ve been told you’re very good,” he said. “I have someone on my mind. Can you tell me what you see?” Kyle was just another young man with a crush, I thought.

  I ran my fingers lightly up and down his arms. His hands were rough and callused, but his eyes were warm and soft. I began to think there might be something more. His hands were telling me he was a man who accomplished things. The deliberate way in which he spoke gave me the impression that when he made up his mind about something, he didn’t give up, and he was loyal to a fault. But he hadn’t come to see me to have his own character analyzed, so I kept it to myself.

  I stretched his palm out on my table and separated his fingers as I did in all of my readings. Then I pulled his pinkie finger back so I could more clearly read his lifeline. It looked like he’d live to be a hundred and five.

  “You are going to marry a woman who is impossible to hold down,” I told him. “You will have two children and live a very long life. This big love will come soon. She’s an unusual girl with fire in her belly strong enough to lift you up, and with her you will fly away. Though this relationship does not come without hardship, the rewards will be great. That’s all the spirits that guide me have to say.”

  I thought I would never see him again, so I had no reason to pay him any extra attention, but as he walked out of my carriage door, I stopped him. “Observe the little things. That is what she cares about most.”

  ¯¯¯

  The girls were readying themselves for their acts, fixing their hair and changing costumes. Lucky wanted to wear a violet brooch of mine, and I had come to give it to her. For a moment, I saw my mother and myself in my parents’ bedroom in St. Petersburg with all my mother’s jewels spread out on top of her bed. In her hand, she held the emerald brooch Lillya had given to her. And I couldn’t help but wonder where it went.

  My arrival didn’t interrupt the girls’ lighthearted bantering as they primped. I loved listening to them speak so freely. “There’s a hotshot rodeo star in the audience tonight. Rumor has it he’s the champion in bareback bronc riding,” I heard them say. Curious, I pretended not to remember which pocket I had put the brooch in.

  “My brother says it’s the most physically demanding act in the rodeo,” a redheaded equestrian chimed in.

  “I wonder if he’s here to see Ann Marie,” another said teasingly by her mirror.

  “You can’t miss him.” The redhead winked. “He’s the one wearing a scarlet shirt. He’s almost as handsome as that actor—Douglas Fairbanks.”

  “Didn’t you love him in The Thief of Baghdad?” said another girl. “What about Zorro?”

  With that, the violet brooch miraculously appeared, and I pinned it on Lucky and took my leave.

  Like many people from Europe and Russia, I was fascinated by cowboys. They were very American and I didn’t want to miss seeing a real rodeo star.

  As it turned out, without his beard, Kyle was more fair than Douglas Fairbanks but just as handsome. I never would have recognized him had it not been for the scar above his right eye. With his high cheekbones, distinctive square chin, and eyes that gleamed like gems, he was hard to ignore. It took several seconds before I realized that this was the same unassuming young man who had come to my carriage the day before.

  He’d obviously taken to heart what I had said and knew how to put on a more appealing face. Ann Marie must be the girl he has his eye on, or why else would he be wearing a scarlet shirt? Now he had my full attention!

  Many a young man came to our circus to see Ann Marie. But Kyle was different. Clearly he had wanted a chance to survey the land before he made a move. He wanted to hear how Ann Marie laughed when she was at ease and whether she had a sense of humor. What did she find funny? Was she kind, loyal? Stories of her beauty and talent had brought him to the Circus of the Queens, but he hadn’t come all this way for just a myth and a pretty face.

  “I was stunned the first time I saw her ride Ali Baba, scarlet-like flames trailed behind her,” he told me months later. “She’s even better in person, I thought. How could anyone be so perfect?”

  Throngs of young men swarmed Ann Marie’s tent that night after the show. Each were vying for her attention. But Kyle simply stayed in the background, caught her eye, and walked away. Subtle, I thought, and the scarlet shirt the perfect touch.

  ¯¯¯

  “Ann Marie said her heart started to flutter when she saw this boy in the crowd,” Lucky told me the following night. “She said it was his scarlet bow tie that set him apart.”

  Very clever, I thought. I usually wasn’t this nosey, but somehow meeting him before he revealed who he really was made me all the more curious.

  “She said he smiled and nodded, then vanished into the crowd. That was it. She probably doesn’t like him.”

  ¯¯¯

  “He didn’t come tonight!” Lucky reported the evening after that. “Ann Marie seemed a bit upset. I’m sure she’ll get over it. She doesn’t even know him!”

  ¯¯¯

  “It’s as if Ann Marie fell off a horse and hit her head!” Lucky said the next morning. “Last night, Ann Marie ran around our room like a first-class drama queen. ‘What if I never get to hear his voice?’” Lucky imitated her older sister. “‘Or see him up close!’ Ugh.” Lucky sighed.

  ¯¯¯

  Two nights later, after most of Ann Marie’s other admirers had given up, Kyle reappeared. Marvin and I had come to say good night to the girls and it was impossible to miss the bouquet of scarlet flowers—zinnias, hibiscus, and passionflowers—he held along with a scarlet kerchief that poked out of the top pocket of his jacket, embroidered with a heart and the initials AMV.

  We happened to be standing close by and as manners would dictate, Ann Marie introduced the young man to her aunt Donatella and the ringmaster Marvin. Neither Kyle nor I acknowledged we had met before, for in a way we had not. It had been the characters in the carriage, not Ann Marie’s aunt and her suitor.

  Then Ann Marie turned to put the flowers in a vase and the kerchief in her purse, though not before dropping it on the floor for everyone to see. She coyly shook Kyle’s hand, then thanked him for his gifts.

  “My pleasure,” the handsome bareback bronc rider replied. Then he tipped his cowboy hat and left.

  “I couldn’t let him know how happy I was to see him,” Ann Marie confided to me. “He’s different from the others.” Holding her new kerchief against her cheek, she spun across the room, reminding me of myself as a young girl. For a second, I felt Vladimir’s strong arms lifting me up in the air, and when I landed I felt the weight of Hervé’s hand on my back leading me to the ballroom before the fall that eventually brought m
e here and into the lives of these four girls.

  That night, I gave Ann Marie some advice: “Tuck the scarlet kerchief under your pillow. It will help you to feel close to him when you begin to dream.”

  ¯¯¯

  The following evening, just as the lightning bugs began to sparkle, and everyone else, including Ann Marie, was heading toward the big top, Kyle knocked on my carriage door, hoping for a romantic forecast.

  “I’m sorry if I wasn’t totally forthcoming when we first met,” he said. “I wanted an unbiased forecast. I hope we can be friends.”

  The boy had charisma. Even I found it hard to resist his charm.

  “I grew up in northern Wyoming, Donatella,” he told me, “where snow-topped mountains rise above white-capped rivers and moose and bald eagles roam. It’s God’s country. Our family has a cattle ranch. With my father’s blessing, I left home at seventeen to follow the rodeo. Rodeo is a part of life where I come from—it’s the circus of the West.

  “You should know that the fame of this circus has made its way across the Rockies. For over a year, I heard stories about Ann Marie. Finally, I had to come see if they were true.” He paused for a second. “Donatella, I think Ann Marie is destined to be my wife. I know she’s young, but I believe we’d be good together. She has a spirit that rivals my own. I don’t suppose you’d like to shed any light on that…” He looked at me hopefully.

  As much as I wanted to tell him what I saw in his future, I replied, “You’ll both have to come to your own conclusions. It’s the only way your love can possibly blossom.”

  “Tonight, I’m going to ask her if I can court her,” he said.

  After her performance Kyle went to see Ann Marie. “With your permission,” he said to her, “I’d like to follow the circus. I could visit with you tomorrow and perhaps the day after that, if it’s all right.”

  ¯¯¯

  As promised, Kyle appeared at Ann Marie’s door every evening, and each day he added another scarlet flower to his already swollen bouquet. Ann Marie, like her father, was an expert poker player, though, and she’d learned to hold her cards—especially the queen of hearts—close to her chest.