The Fortune Teller

by Gwendolyn Womack

  Why Mikhail would want Fritz to take over the Bossard account was not only beyond her but also an insult. A fleeting thought crossed her mind. “Does Theo Bossard have an issue with my work?”

  “Not at all.” Mikhail shook his head. “On the contrary, he’s been full of praise.”

  The thought of Theo speaking to Mikhail about her was just as unsettling. What had he said?

  “We have a new account you need to jump on right away.” Mikhail handed Raina the open file on his desk. “Set it up.”

  “A new account? Are you kidding me?” Semele finally let her anger fully surface. “I’m in the middle of one I happen to care about!”

  She and Mikhail were supposed to spend the next several hours going over the collection and hammering out potential strategies for the auction next month. She had also been anxious to discuss the manuscript and Marcel’s note. And now her account was being handed over to Fritz?

  “What if I say no?” she asked. Raina laughed and Semele wanted to throttle her. She shouldn’t even be here.

  “I’m sorry, Semele.” Mikhail met her eyes.

  During the five years they had been working together, she and Mikhail had developed a strong mutual respect as well as a shorthand for communicating with one another. He was telling her the decision was final.

  “Where is the client?” she asked.

  “Beijing,” Raina informed her with barely disguised glee as she reviewed the file.

  Semele closed her eyes. She couldn’t believe this was happening. Part of her wondered if this was some sort of plan to get her out of the picture. Why Beijing? Why now? She should be swamped with preparations for the auction. Now she was being shipped off to China.

  Raina stood up to leave. “I’ll get with the new clients and set up your travel,” she said and sauntered out.

  Semele waited until the door closed and then turned back to Mikhail. “Is this a roundabout way of firing me?”

  Mikhail let out a surprised laugh. “No, I give you my word. I know this seems out of the ordinary. But sometimes I have to make decisions for the good of the company. The Beijing account is more important. You’re needed there.”

  Semele refrained from questioning him further. She sipped her coffee instead and tried to make sense of what was happening. She didn’t see how an account in Beijing could be more important than Bossard. And Mikhail didn’t even know about the manuscript yet. She needed to broach the subject.

  “There’s one piece in the collection that I think is going to be significant.”

  He cut her off. “Turn your notes over to Fritz by this afternoon and he’ll sort out everything. Why don’t you take the rest of the week off?”

  Mikhail was already walking toward the door. Semele stood in a daze and followed him.

  “Recharge, get rested,” he said. “We’ll discuss Beijing first thing Monday morning.”

  Semele looked from him to the open door, not ready to walk through it yet. “Seriously? You’re giving me the rest of the week off.”

  His eyes softened at her bewildered look. “You’ve earned it.”

  Her mind was in a tailspin. Yes, she had earned it. But she didn’t want to go anywhere next week.

  This was all so unlike Mikhail. Normal Mikhail would want to go over each piece of the Bossard collection with her immediately. He would follow her down to the tenth floor and get so caught up that he would cancel his afternoon appointments so they could keep talking. Normal Mikhail would never want her to take time off, and he would never reassign a collection.

  “Give Fritz your files and I’ll see you Monday,” he said, holding the door open for her to go.

  Semele left, knowing her face betrayed her hurt and confusion. She couldn’t help thinking this turn of events was because of the manuscript. Ever since she had found it, she’d been on edge. Her gut told her someone knew she was reading the memoir, and clearly Mikhail didn’t want her to discuss it.

  “Semele,” he called her back.

  She turned around and saw the concern on his face.

  “There will be other collections,” he said gently. “Let this one go.”

  She nodded, not sure if she could.

  Could I have saved my family if I had only foreseen the fire?

  The question haunted me until I read Wadjet’s scroll. She explained how the future had a course, yet our lives remained fluid like water, leaving us with a choice in all things. Life’s greatest mystery was how these conflicting truths existed in harmony. It was the reason why intuition existed at all.

  Perhaps pain was a teacher. After the fire, I began to cast the Oracle’s symbols to divine the future. I no longer questioned what they were telling me, and my intuition grew stronger.

  I began to prepare for the journey they foretold. I had to believe that from the ashes of this tragedy, a new life was waiting for me.

  The director of the library handled my father’s and brothers’ funerals and negotiated with the embalmers. I waited for seventy days for their bodies to be returned. All who knew them judged their lives as virtuous, and I was assured their place in the afterlife was secure.

  My father’s wealth paid for each sarcophagus, and I buried them in our family tomb. I sewed what remained of his fortune inside my cloak. With luck I would have ample funds for my travels to Antioch, as well as means for several years if I lived frugally.

  When I heard The Grebes, the largest Roman merchant ship ever to enter our harbors, had docked, I wasted no time.

  My father had known the ship’s captain. He once saved the man’s personal books from being confiscated by the library and instead kept the transcribed copies for the library’s collection—something my father was prone to do when he could. He did not agree with the Ptolemies’ edict and believed one of life’s greatest tragedies was for a man to have to part with his books. I hoped the captain would remember my father’s kindness and grant me voyage.

  “Of course I remember, girl!” the thick, barrel-chested man bellowed. “Now why are you bothering me?”

  Amid the shouts and orders as the ship readied to sail, I spun my tale—that my husband waited for me in Antioch—and added that I was with child, for good measure. The captain looked at my slim frame and frowned but did not question my story.

  “Pay your way and stay out of my way, and we’ll have you in Antioch by the week’s end. Now get on. We’ll be leaving shortly.”

  “But I need to get my things.”

  “Hurry up then. I won’t wait.”

  I could tell he would leave me if I wasn’t back in time. I ran home calling on the speed of Hermes.

  With no time to consider, I stuffed my bag with every valuable I could seize. First I emptied my mother’s jewelry box. Then I packed her comb, hand mirror, and perfumes, along with my father’s favorite reed pen, a huge stack of parchment, and my brothers’ sistrums—percussive instruments used in the festivals. They had no value or use, but I had to take something from each of them. Then I bundled the pottery jar holding the Oracle’s symbols in a swath of silk, along with Ariston’s translation. I laced the gold key on a cord around my neck and tucked it inside my gown. The metal felt cold against my skin.

  The library key was now my talisman. Wadjet had chosen me to safeguard her symbols and help them survive. Now all that remained was my set of painted replicas and a translation of her words from a fledgling physician. In my eyes I had already failed.

  I ran all the way back to port and boarded The Grebes only moments before she pushed off.

  The captain saw me dash down the plank and laughed. “I’ve never seen a woman with child run so fast.”

  I blushed and hastened to place a hand upon my stomach. The old man chuckled and turned back to his business.

  Once on deck, I stood in awe. The ship was massive, bigger than it appeared from the docks. The hull stretched 130 feet long, and the vessel had three masts instead of one to accommodate the tonnage of its cargo. There was a complex system of ropes and kn
ots rigging the square sails; it looked like one of the magical contraptions Ariston’s uncle had crafted.

  I walked down the middle of the deck, trying to keep out of the way. One of the ship hands nodded gruffly and motioned “Passengers over there.”

  A handful of men clustered in a corner: three scribes, a merchant, two priests, and a Nubian warrior with a goat. I nodded to the motley group with confidence, as if young women traveled alone all the time. Then I took a seat on the bench. The Nubian’s goat came over and nuzzled me.

  The warrior surprised me by addressing me. “She smells the spice in your perfume.” He spoke softly.

  I looked up at him and nodded, hesitant. Nubians had earned the hard-won reputation of being the fiercest fighters in the world. They were not to be crossed. I decided to let his goat lick my hand as much as the animal wanted.

  Among all the merchant ships, The Grebes had one of the finest reputations—it carried Egypt’s wheat to Rome, wood from Lebanon, oil and wine from Greece, and delivered papyrus throughout the Mediterranean—but still, a week aboard any vessel was a long time. We would travel along the coastline to Antioch, stopping along the way in Damietta, Ascalon, Tyre, and Tripoli to unload cargo, and then finally dock in Seleucia at the mouth of the Orontes River. From there I would take a barge up the river to the city.

  The idea of traveling alone both thrilled and terrified me. As the ship pulled away from port, the key hung heavy around my heart. The library shrank smaller with a distance impossible to bridge, for I knew I would never return to Alexandria again.

  We passed the lighthouse and I forced myself to face the sea.

  My old life was behind me, and my one chance at happiness existed in an unknown future. Antioch was a growing metropolis, often called the Rome of the East. I tried to imagine what Ariston’s home was like and began to worry that, in a city of over half a million people, I would never be able to find him at all.

  As if the Fates could sense my fear, the voyage seemed doomed by the end of the first day. High winds threatened to batter us into the coastline, and a relentless storm followed overhead, meting out punishing rain and claps of thunder.

  Fear took root inside me. What if I died at sea? No one would be there to bury me, and I would never find my way to the afterlife. Shipwrecks were a frequent occurrence, and by the second day all the passengers, everyone except the Nubian, were convinced we would die.

  I watched him look out to the water, his stance straight and regal against the rain. Was the warrior unafraid of death, or did he simply know he would not perish on this voyage? I had no such certainty.

  * * *

  It was the knife at my neck that woke me.

  “Make a sound and you’re dead,” a crewman hissed in my ear as his hand reached under my cloak.

  The knife cut into my skin and the blade burned as blood ran down my neck. When I whimpered he pressed the blade deeper. I could feel his body against me, and bile rose up in my throat.

  The man stopped groping when he felt the coins hidden inside my cloak. “What’s this? The nymph comes with gold?”

  He moved the knife away from my neck to cut a coin from my cloak. The moment the blade lifted, a slicing sound blew past me and an arrow landed in his chest. The man made no noise as he slumped to the side.

  I was free of him and looked up with terrified eyes. In the darkness I saw the Nubian, bow in hand, kneeling on his pallet twenty feet away.

  He came over with the stealth of a cat, picked up the dead man, and lowered him over the side of the boat. It all happened so quickly. When the Nubian was rid of him, he took a piece of cloth from his bag and wrapped it around my neck.

  “The wound is not deep,” he whispered.

  Shock took hold of me and my body began to shake. In a panic, I looked around to see if anyone was watching. The Nubian did not seem concerned.

  “Why are you traveling alone?” he asked.

  My teeth chattered as I shivered uncontrollably. “My family is gone.…”

  “And the husband you are joining?”

  So he had heard my story. His eyes held surprising gentleness. I shook my head, unable to fathom the outcome if he hadn’t intervened. My eyes dropped to the intricate necklace banded around his neck.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  He helped me stand and moved my pallet to be closer to his. “I have a daughter. May the gods watch over her as they do you.”

  I lay down near him, and his goat licked my arm in a show of welcome. Filled with gratitude, I stared at the vast balcony of stars glittering above me, while beneath me the ocean rocked, lulling me to sleep as a mother would a child, and my fear vanished.

  Five of Swords

  The knock startled Semele; she’d been immersed in translating. She opened her office door to find Fritz gloating like a blue-eyed Bavarian boy. She fought the urge to slam it in his face. He had wanted the Bossard account and now it was his. She couldn’t believe she had considered buying him champagne.

  “Don’t screw it up,” she snapped.

  Fritz chuckled and wagged his finger at her. “Temper, temper. Someone’s milk got spilt today,” he said with a heavy German accent. She gave him a withering look he seemed to enjoy. “Anything I should look at first?” he asked in a more serious tone.

  “All of it?” she answered sweetly.

  She didn’t include the scan of Ionna’s manuscript in the USB drive she gave him, nor did she mention the manuscript’s existence. Let Wonder Boy find that gem on his own.

  He took her files. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure the auction is the highlight of the year while you’re eating egg rolls.”

  “You know I’m ready to kill you.”

  He laughed. “Sorry, Semele. You’re just too irresistible. What in the world did you do to piss off Theo Bossard?”

  She looked at him blankly. “Nothing,” she said, knowing she sounded defensive. Maybe Mikhail wasn’t being honest and Theo really was behind her reassignment.

  By the time Fritz left her office, she was in a black mood. She ignored all the mail that was still piled up and picked up her mother’s letter. She may as well open it. Nothing could possibly make her feel worse at this point. It was probably a belated birthday card with a check to go shopping. Usually her mother took a train to the city to give Semele the check in person. They would hit her favorite antique markets and vintage clothing stores in Chelsea and Williamsburg for the weekend. But not this year.

  Semele hadn’t talked to her mother in six months. She knew she needed to call—the holidays were coming soon. But her mother would only start crying and apologizing again. Semele didn’t know if she could take the drama. Something in her had broken the day she found the adoption papers, and she wasn’t sure it could ever be fixed.

  With a sigh she ripped open the envelope to find a fancy Papyrus card decorated with kaleidoscope patterns and flowers.

  Her heart sank when she saw her mother’s penmanship. She could tell by the extended word length and spacing, the height of the letters and strokes, that her mother had been drinking when she wrote this. Even her signature looked shaky and weak, and the angle slanted downward. Her writing carried all the signs of someone struggling with depression and their sense of self-worth.

  Semele returned the card to the pile, wishing she had never opened it. It actually made her feel worse.

  She grabbed her purse and laptop and turned off the light. Her mother, office politics, and China could wait. She was officially done with this day.

  * * *

  She was headed toward the subway when her cell phone rang. She glanced at the number and stopped walking.

  “Semele Cavnow,” she answered in a clipped voice.

  “Semele, it’s Theo. I was calling to check on the delivery.”

  “The delivery was fine.” Her tone hardened. “You’ll be pleased to hear I’ve been taken off the account.”

  There was a pregnant pause. “What are you talking about?”

>   “Our senior consultant, Fritz Wagner, will now be overseeing your father’s collection, per your request—”

  “I didn’t request anything.” Theo cut her off. “I don’t want anyone else handling my father’s collection but you. Only you.”

  Semele didn’t know what to say. So much for Fritz’s theory. Now she had made things worse by upsetting her client—ex-client.

  “This is unacceptable,” he stressed.

  “Mr.— Theo, I’m sorry but it wasn’t my decision. I thought it was yours.…” She trailed off.

  “No, Semele. It wasn’t mine.”

  The warmth in his voice reached out to her. Thousands of miles apart and it was as though they were back in the gallery.

  He let out a pained sigh. “I’m afraid I didn’t handle our good-bye as I should have. There are things I need to say.”

  She waited for him to continue.

  “Semele … I’m struggling.”

  His admission twisted her inside. She wanted to tell him she was struggling too, and had been ever since they’d kissed. But saying so felt like cheating on Bren all over again. Instead she said nothing.

  A long silence passed between them.

  “Let me handle Kairos,” he said, sounding frustrated again. “I’ll call you back,” and he hung up.

  Semele stood rooted on the street as people rushed past. Was Theo actually going to demand she be put back on the collection? Here she was trying to forget what had happened in Switzerland, and just hearing him say her name like that wasn’t helping.

  She was sure Mikhail would figure out a way to get Theo to accept Fritz: her boss was a master at handling difficult clients. Maybe it was better if Fritz took over. Fritz would be the one to review the collection piece by piece with Theo after all the appraisals were finished; he’d be the one taking him to client dinners and holding his hand through the auction process. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like Fritz was the better choice. Theo Bossard made her make very bad decisions.