Not Just Voodoo

by Rebecca Hamilton

  But I could tell something was coming—it was just out of reach, not quite in my view, like a storm gathering on the horizon, waiting to break into wind and rain thrashing around me. For now, it was just a feeling.

  I had no idea how wild the storm was going to be.

  2

  Two hours later, I browsed through the book shop. I’d found several dollars in change on the midway, and then hit a bonus—a five-dollar bill, wadded up tightly, hidden in the grass in front of Crazy Jimmy’s funnel cake joint.

  I now had enough money for both the Jane Austen anthology and another book or two. Dad would complain when I came home with more books, but I knew I could get around him by promising to trade in several more the next time we got to a town with a used book store.

  I loved the way bookstores smelled—like paper and ink and quiet. It made me think of how libraries ought to be, though most of the libraries I had been in smelled slightly different. More dust and older books, overlaid with the burning ozone scent of the several rows of computers that inevitably greeted a patron on arrival.

  No, overall I preferred the fragrance of new books.

  Even now, I stood in the new releases section with a hardcover mystery open in my hands, holding the book up to my face and inhaling deeply.

  “You know, you could probably get some actual drugs if you need to snort something.” The deep, male voice behind me was laced with amusement, but I still jumped and slammed the book shut as I spun around, a heated blush crawling up my neck and blazing into my face.

  Hastily, I shoved the novel back into its space on the shelf. “I was just….” My voice trailed off as my mind caught up with my eyes and I took in the guy standing behind me.

  He was probably about my age, tall and muscular, with dark blonde hair and bright green eyes. If I had seen him on the midway, I would’ve taken him for a local football jock—the kind of guy who might show up with a group of friends, all of them already drunk and raucous, determined to show off their own superiority to the carnies at work. The type of townie we would do everything possible to screw over. A mark to con out of all the cash he had on him. The kind of idiot who dropped a five-dollar bill on the midway and never even noticed.

  All of that flashed through my mind in an instant, even as I realized that he seemed totally incongruous here in the bookstore. Guys like this weren’t generally big readers.

  “You like that author?” He asked, nodding toward my re-shelved book. “I enjoyed her first few books, but lately she seems unwilling to deviate from her formula at all.” One corner of his mouth tilted up, creasing a dimple into his face. He waited for me to respond, his eyes sparkling with mischief, as if he knew exactly what I had been thinking about him.

  I glanced at the book I’d been sniffing, trying to think what to say. The silence stretched out a little too long.

  “If you haven’t read any of her books, you should start with the first one. We have it over here in paperback,” he suggested.

  Oh, no. He works here.

  This time, the heat flaring into my face was as much anger as embarrassment. Any second now, he was going to demand to search me, to check to see if I had stolen one of the books I’ve been smelling. It was nothing new—the double stigma of a Gypsy heritage and a carnie lifestyle combined in me to create the perfect scapegoat when someone wanted to catch a shoplifter. I probably looked like I couldn’t afford to buy anything.

  I glanced guiltily at the hardcover book. Truth was, I couldn’t afford it. Not if I also got the Austen collection.

  Luckily, I didn’t need to be able to buy the hardcover. I hadn’t read any of that author’s books—I had simply picked one up at random to inhale the new-book-ness of it. Maybe if I got the paperback, he’d leave me alone.

  “So do you actually talk?” the guy asked.

  “I haven’t read anything by her,” I mumbled.

  “She speaks.” His grin undercut any sarcasm that might have been in his voice. “Here.” Reaching past me, he pulled a paperback off a nearby shelf.

  The warmth of his body wafted the scent of him to me as he was leaning closer, and for the first time in my life, I thought I might be smelling something even better than a new book.

  My face flamed hot with embarrassment for the third time in as many minutes.

  What am I thinking? This guy’s a townie. I can’t get involved with him.

  For one thing, I didn’t have time. In a few days, we’d be packing out of this podunk town and off to new adventures—that’s what Manny, the carnival manager, always said, anyway. More likely, we’d be off to another nowheresville to provide a little fun and excitement.

  In my head, I could hear Jana, who ran the ticket-counter, asking, “Who says we shouldn’t get a little of our own back?” I was never sure if she meant money or sex. Dad said both. Granna always sneered. And Mama just laughed whenever Jana said it.

  Still, I knew all three of them would have a full-blown conniption if I followed Jana’s example, so I simply said, “Thanks. I’ll read it.”

  A second dimple appeared on the townie’s face. “She’s got something like twenty of them. They’ve all got a number in the title, so you can keep track that way. They have absolutely no redeeming literary value, either, so they make great travel-reads.” He looked at me out of the corner of one eye as he straightened the books to cover the hole he’d made when he took the book out of for me. “You do travel a lot, right? I mean, you’re with the carnival that’s in town?”

  “Yeah. For a few days.” I clutched the book tighter in my hand. Usually, this was the part where the accusations started.

  The blonde guy just nodded, though. “Wow. That must be so cool, getting to travel all over like that.”

  I shrugged. “It’s okay. It can get kind of old, though.” I gestured expansively, taking in the whole bookstore. “Not every town has a place like this. I’d love to work here.”

  Now it was his turn to shrug. “I like it okay. Let me know if you need any help with anything, okay?” He started to move down the aisle of shelves, then paused and half-turned to speak to me over his shoulder. “Maybe I’ll see you there? At the carnival, I mean.”

  Now I was the one who grinned. “Maybe so.”

  3

  I had to rush to drop off my books in the RV and get changed into costume—a caftan thing made of scarves that I slipped on over my tank top and jeans—to start the night shift. Granna was having me do my first round of tarot readings tonight. Our carnival fortune-telling was a weird mix of fake and genuine readings. Granna had taught me the patter to use—what to say when a reading of a palm or the cards showed something negative. Carnival patrons didn’t leave tips for bad fortunes, so I had learned to pad the negative with the positive, to offer the bad in terms of things to watch out for.

  As the night wore on, I grew more and more comfortable dealing out the tarot cards. Like my grandmother, I used a standard Rider-Waite deck, easily available everywhere. However, I didn’t let anyone else use my cards, or even touch them, except in the context of a reading. Townies—my grandmother insisted on calling them “clients”—could pick a card when asked or sometimes even shuffle the deck. But only I dealt the cards.

  After three hours of fairly steady traffic, the cards felt warm in my hand, and Granna was confident enough in my abilities to head back to the RV for an early night.

  I was all alone when the bookstore-guy and three of his friends came into the tent.

  The other boys were laughing and hooting, but bookstore-guy stood very still and stared at me, the slight smile on his face bringing out faint traces of his dimples.

  Big Joe, the head roustabout and our unofficial bouncer, poked his head inside the entrance and made eye contact with me. “You okay, Kizzie?”

  My gaze flickered between bookstore-guy and his friends. “I’m okay, Joe. I’ll call you if I need you.”

  Joe nodded. “I’m right next door.”

  “Thanks.”

  B
ookstore-guy turned to his friends. “You go on. I’m going to get my fortune told.”

  “Dude,” one of his friends said. “I thought we were looking for some chick.”

  “You are such an idiot, Steve,” another friend said, grabbing the first one by the arm and tugging him toward the exit. “Catch you later, Evan?”

  Bookstore-guy—whose name was apparently Evan—waved one hand without looking at his friends as they left. I was a little glad to see him blushing for once.

  “So,” Evan said as he pulled out the chair on the other side of my tiny reading table. “Kizzie, huh? Nice name.”

  “And you’re Evan. Don’t let me keep you from going to find your chick.” Despite my acerbic words, I couldn’t keep from grinning at him.

  “Maybe you could just tell me my fortune, save me some trouble.”

  “You sure that’s what you want? Sometimes the cards will give you something you don’t want to hear.”

  “If that’s the case, maybe it’s something I need to hear.” He leaned his elbows on the table, put his chin in his hands and stared at me with those sparkling green eyes.

  I began shuffling the cards from one hand to the next. “Maybe so. Then again, it’s never a good idea to second-guess the cards. Maybe we should go ahead and lay them out, see what pops up.”

  “Excellent plan. I can’t wait.”

  I took a breath to try to calm the fluttering in my stomach as I prepared to do a reading for this beautiful, flirtatious boy. “Close your eyes, and concentrate on the question you want answered, or the issue you’d like to see illuminated.”

  “That’s easy.” He gave me a significant glance before shutting his eyes and inhaling deeply.

  I closed my own eyes as I shuffled, letting the oversized cards run from one hand to another, concentrating on Evan sitting across from me. I imagined a cord running between us, energy connecting us in bright silver strands. In my mind, I pictured power circulating through those strands, in time to our heartbeats and breath, looping from him to me and back again.

  When the room practically thrummed with energy, and the cards had grown hot with handling, I opened my eyes to find his green gaze fixed on me.

  “Are you right-handed?” I asked.

  Evan frowned in confusion. “Yes.”

  Setting the cards on the table between us, I said, “Cut the deck with your left hand, holding your question or issue in your mind, then re-stack the deck. When you’ve done that pick it up with your right hand and give it back to me.”

  He followed directions without asking any questions, though I could tell he wanted to.

  Holding his gaze with mine, I fanned the cards out face-down across the table.

  “Choose ten,” I said. “Place them face-down in a pile to your right.”

  I half expected him to pick cards haphazardly, to treat this as a joke, a way to get to me. But he didn’t. His hand hovered over the cards, moving back and forth as if he were looking for something in particular.

  After he had deliberately chosen ten cards from the deck, I swept the remainders into a separate stack and set it aside. “Now pass your cards to me with your right hand.”

  Evan handed the small set to me, and as I reached out with my left hand to take them, my fingertips brushed against his. The energy I had imagined running between us exploded in a tiny shower of internal sparks that sent shivers running up my arm and down my spine. It was all I could do not to squeak and let go of the cards. But Granna had impressed upon me the importance of never letting go of the cards in the middle of a handoff.

  A quick glance at Evan suggested that he probably had felt something very similar. I didn’t want to analyze it too much—whether it was a physical reaction to his presence, or something more metaphysical, I simply wanted to enjoy it, despite (or maybe because of) the light flutters of anxiety it sent through me.

  I held onto the cards he had given me with my left hand and placed my right hand atop them, then sent a quick prayer up to whatever deity might be listening, asking for protection from evil as I completed the reading.

  I guess the gods weren’t listening that night.

  I began flipping the cards up onto the table, laying them out in a pattern Granna had taught me at the beginning of the summer. Three cards in, those light flutters had grown stronger. By the seventh card, they had become ping balls bouncing around inside me. When I set out the tenth card, they all turn to lead and dropped to the pit of my stomach at the same moment.

  I’d gotten good at disguising my expression when I did readings for clients. Evan wasn’t fooled for an instant.

  “What is it? What does it mean?” He asked, his expression serious.

  “Give me a minute,” I said. Picking up the leftover cards, I shuffled through them quickly, then began reciting the alphabet in my mind as flipped through them again. I turned the card face-up when I got to E. Then I did the same thing for V, A, and N.

  The lead balls in my stomach rolled around.

  Then, although I wasn’t entirely certain that he had been thinking of me as I did his reading—despite his flirting, for all I knew he was there hoping to get good news about a sick relative or something—I went through the same process, but this time spelled out my own name.

  By the time I hit the final E in Kizzie, I felt ready to vomit.

  4

  Here’s the deal: I understand odds. Mama and Dad took turns homeschooling me when I was little. I finished all the work for high school by the time I was fifteen. And most of my early math lessons came in the form of the games of chance some of the other carnies ran—both in legitimate carnival booths and on the side.

  Out of the seventy-eight cards in a tarot deck, there are twenty-two Major Arcana cards. They’re the big deal cards, the ones that show the huge life events, the serious issues.

  Granna called them the “the big, secret magic cards.”

  The chances that any reading could be made up entirely of Major Arcana cards was something like one in… Well, one in an enormous number.

  And that’s what I was getting now.

  None of it was positive, either. My gaze skipped from card to card as I tried to find some way to give him the optimistic reading Granna always insisted customers wanted.

  The petitioner’s card, the one that represented Evan himself, wasn’t a problem. The Sun card suggested a person of light and warmth, someone who was fun and energetic. And the fact that the petitioner card was crossed by The Wheel of Fortune card wasn’t necessarily bad.

  But the cards in a tarot reading don’t hold only their own meanings—they take meaning from all the cards around them, as well. By itself, the Wheel of Fortune card merely suggested something karmic at play in Evan’s fortune. Similarly, the influence of The Hanged Man didn’t say anything worse than Evan’s recent past had included a period of introspection, of waiting.

  But it went downhill from there.

  I let my fingers play over the layout of the cards, lightly touching them one at a time as I considered all the connections and possibilities.

  The future-influence card was The Devil, and suggested some form of temptation—something that Evan should say no to, but wouldn’t want to. And although the best possible outcome was The World, indicating completion of a major task (all of it based on The Magician, a card of skill and growing knowledge of the arcane) that Devil influence undercut what might have been a potentially positive reading.

  Even worse, the rest of the reading suggested that Evan was holding on to illusions, and surrounding himself with friends who were fools in the worst possible way—not necessarily the usual Fool of the tarot, with his happy-go-lucky step into the unknown, but the kind of friends who were too unworldly to see the danger Evan was about to step into.

  Whatever that might be.

  The last two cards of the reading worried me the most, however. The Tower card in the position of the petitioner’s hopes and fears suggested that rather than being naïve, Evan had some idea o
f the dangers he faced—enough to fear disaster, to worry about his world falling apart around him. And that final card, the most likely outcome if something didn’t change, terrified me in a way it never had before.

  Death doesn’t mean death.

  No matter how often I repeated it to myself, however, I couldn’t shake the hard rock of fear that had settled itself on my chest.

  “So, what does it mean?” Evan asked, peering at the cards with interest.

  I frowned, trying to decide how much to tell him.

  Granna’s voice in my head chastised me, reminding me that dukkering for the townies meant telling them what we wanted them to hear—and that meant telling them what they wanted to hear.

  But as I opened my mouth to start my usual patter, to tell him about change and completion and new opportunities awaiting him, the room began to spin around me. The air in this curtained-off back section of our show tent grew so thick and heavy that I couldn’t draw breath.

  My eyes rolled up into my head until I could see nothing but the inside of my own skull, even as I felt my eyelashes fluttering.

  Without intending to, I began to speak, my voice echoing from somewhere inside me in a way that made it sound deeper than it ought to.

  “Beware the wheel and the light and the call of the dark. Learn what you must of the magic of night, but live in the day. Leave the past behind, for your waiting is at an end. When the tower crumbles and your death is at hand, know that that the sun cannot survive without the moon, as the moon has no light without the sun, and lovers’ days fade under night’s bright star.”

  My voice dwindled away, and I slumped forward, finally able to close my eyes entirely. Another heartbeat passed before the air thinned again. I drew in a great, ragged breath, and sat up straight. Dragging my eyelids open, I waited for my eyes to focus. A single bead of sweat rolled down the side of my face as I worked to slow my heaving chest. I felt as if I had run a mile.