The Fortune Teller

by Gwendolyn Womack

  Nettie wondered how much her grandmother knew. Perhaps she knew just as much.

  * * *

  The night before they came, Nettie helped her mother bathe and brush her hair dry. Galina sang along to a favorite song on the radio. Nettie could sense the change in the air: it was as though they were stealing this moment of joy. Soon they would no longer have these simple comforts. A black maw was descending on them.

  The next morning the family sat down at the table and had breakfast. Galina puttered around the kitchen, humming the same tune. When Nettie’s father left for work, she ran to the door and hugged him longer than usual.

  “What’s this, Solnyshko?” He laughed. “I’m not going on a trip. I’ll see you at supper.”

  “Yes, Papa.” Still, she squeezed him harder and tried not to cry. Solnyshko, Little Sun, was his nickname for her. She would never hear it again.

  After he had gone, she returned to the table and sat down to wait. Sergei read the paper over coffee. Kezia sat quietly, holding her cards on the table.

  Nettie watched her grandmother’s fingers twitch; it was the only sign that Kezia was bothered. A sliver of sunlight pushed through the blinds and illuminated them in a golden light.

  To know when a moment will become the last is a painful burden. Nettie bathed in those final seconds, feeling her family’s love and wishing she could stop time forever. Then she blinked and life continued its tick forward. The moment had ceased.

  A sharp knock came at the door.

  Suddenly half a dozen state security men were swarming the room. They spoke in a chaotic rush of words, each one a cataclysm.

  “Come with us!” “You are arrested!” “You don’t need anything!”

  Galina screamed as a man dragged Sergei out of the room like a sack. They took her next, kicking hysterically. She reached out for Nettie. “My daughter!”

  “Mama!” Nettie cried. But Kezia held on to her, placing her cards in Nettie’s hand.

  “What about the girl?” one of the men asked, motioning to Nettie.

  “Too old for the orphanage. Bring her.”

  “That would be a mistake,” Kezia said in a strong voice. She maneuvered Nettie in front of her and anchored her there. “My granddaughter is a psychic, even more powerful than Messing! She can tell anyone their future—even Stalin!”

  The name Messing had the desired effect. Wolf Messing was considered the most powerful psychic in the world. He had escaped Germany, where Hitler had put a price on his head for predicting the outcome of the war. Messing had sought refuge in the Soviet Union, even though Stalin publicly condemned psychics to bolster the country’s new atheism. But in reality the government continued to study psychic events. They simply moved their paranormal research underground, where it was conducted in secret and controlled by the KGB. Wolf Messing was the only psychic Stalin acknowledged openly, while he searched the four corners of the country to find others just as powerful.

  Kezia had just made Nettie valuable in their captors’ eyes.

  “Wait here,” the man ordered. He left to talk to the commanding officer.

  Kezia brought Nettie’s hands to her lips and kissed them. The time they had both foreseen had come.

  “I don’t want to leave you,” Nettie cried.

  “But you must.” Kezia held firm and gathered enough strength for both of them. “Don’t cry. Don’t call out. Do as they say.” She squeezed Nettie tightly. “We are in the devil’s den now. But you shall live through it. You will.”

  Nettie held on to her until the officer returned.

  “Come with me.” He forced them apart, yanking Nettie down the stairs. Another guard led Kezia behind them.

  Outside, Nettie saw her family standing in line behind an army truck. She could hear her mother’s cries. Nettie climbed into the back of a different truck, and the guard ordered her to wait. She watched an officer place her grandmother and grandfather in one line and her mother in another.

  Nettie’s truck shifted into gear and lurched forward, driving away. She furiously blinked back tears to keep her vision clear. She had to see them.

  Her family kept their eyes on her, never wavering, as if they could stay connected forever. Nettie watched the distance extend between them, like a ribbon about to be cut.

  The Devil

  The manuscript ended there.

  Semele wiped the tears from her eyes, unable to believe that was it. There had to be more pages missing. There had to be.

  Someone had defiled the manuscript. Someone had cut out the ending.

  She felt bereft. The culprit could have been anyone over thousands of years of history: a copyist with an opinion, a religious clergyman intent on editing works, a government official from a new empire whose job it was to censure—the possibilities were endless. She shook her head in frustration. It could even have been whoever broke into her hotel room.

  Now she understood why someone would break into Kairos to steal this manuscript. Ionna had predicted the rise of Stalin and both world wars with the detail of a historian looking forward instead of back. This memoir was truly a journey through time, spanning two thousand years.

  A deep shiver ran down her spine as she thought back to Kezia and Nettie’s story. The whole family must have died. Where had the guard taken Nettie? Now she would never know. Finishing Ionna’s manuscript had only burdened her with more questions. There was no resolution.

  Semele rubbed both of her temples, feeling a splitting headache coming on. She thought about the package her parents had received when they adopted her. She needed to find it tomorrow.

  Her eyes grew heavy, and she was unable to escape sleep any longer. She reached over to turn out the light and looked at the dream stone on the nightstand, struck by the timing of Macy’s gift. It sat there like a message, a reminder. Dreaming was the one thing she had always tried to avoid—because her dreams always brought answers, answers she didn’t necessarily want. But she needed them desperately now.

  As her consciousness began to slip through the sieve into the realm of dreams, for the first time she yearned for her grandmother.

  Ace of Cups

  The countryside whizzed by like a windmill spinning too fast.

  Semele sat in the back of the car, just a young girl. She rolled down the window and leaned her head out, letting the air whip her face.

  “Darling, we’re going in circles,” Helen said to her husband as she turned the map in her hands upside down.

  “What’s this?” Joseph stepped on the brake and the car slowed with the rest of the traffic. “Some kind of accident?” He tried to see ahead.

  They inched forward and soon had a clear view from the left windows. Up ahead a man lay in a pool of blood with a mangled bicycle beside him. His broken body was bent at the wrong angles, and his open gaze held the empty stillness of death. Semele had never seen anything so graphic. Their car passed inches from the wreck; the door was the only barrier between her and the man’s body.

  Then the dream took over. Semele was no longer on the ground. She was staring down at the accident from a bird’s-eye view. The moment merged into another time and place: now she was in a helicopter.

  She was older and Theo sat beside her. She looked out the window at a sprawling city, knowing a monster waited somewhere on the ground. She turned back to Theo, then leaned across the seat and kissed him, as if this moment together might be their last.

  Theo whispered something in her ear and kissed her back. The roar of the helicopter filled her ears, and the world tipped beneath the blades. They wrapped their arms around each other, reveling in their need and the hunger of being alive.

  Then the helicopter descended into the future and the dream caved in.

  King of Wands

  When Semele awoke the next morning, fragments of the dream stayed with her. She remembered the car ride and the bike accident—those were real memories her subconscious had served up. When she was nine her family had gone on vacation to Austria and
she had seen an accident on the side of the road. She hadn’t thought about that trip in years.

  Then there was the helicopter ride with Theo—and that kiss. What had that been about? Her thoughts returned to the moment she’d shared with Theo in the gallery. She had replayed their stolen kiss a thousand times.

  A heady sense of anticipation filled her. Theo would be here soon. They had a lot to discuss. But first, she had something very important to find.

  * * *

  She looked all day, in every drawer and cabinet, in every inch of closet space. She was growing more frustrated by the minute. It was Wednesday and she had to return to New York tomorrow. Mikhail expected to meet with her Friday morning to discuss Beijing, but she couldn’t leave New Haven without finding what her grandmother had left her.

  For the first time since her father’s death she entered her parents’ bedroom. Her mother had already given up on the search and had gone downstairs to make dinner. Semele could hear her singing something terribly off-key, possibly with a glass of wine in hand.

  Semele grimaced. “God, please help me.”

  She lay back on her parents’ bed and closed her eyes. For a moment, she felt herself drifting off. Then she looked over at her father’s nightstand. All his things were still there: Fahrenheit 451, his favorite book, the earplugs he wore at night because “his beloved wife snored,” and the Geiger wristwatch he took off right before bed.

  He had bought the watch on that same trip to Austria so many years ago and had refused to get a new one. Helen could only talk him into replacing the leather band.

  Semele picked up the watch and laid it across her chest. Closing her eyes, she felt her body become heavy and, for a moment, it felt as though her wrist had become his. Her mind emptied, floating untethered. Suspended in this limbo, her mind brought forth the answer she was seeking. With a gasp she opened her eyes and sat up. She knew where her father had put the package.

  The Tower

  The bank opened at eight the next morning. Semele and Helen arrived at 7:55 with the key to her father’s safe-deposit box. Semele had to bribe her mother with a venti-macchiato-something to get her out of the house: Helen was not a morning person. She wore oversized sunglasses and sipped her coffee stoically.

  “Why haven’t you looked in it yet?” Semele asked again. It had been six months since her father died, and her mother had yet to open the safe-deposit box.

  “Because everything I need is in the house. I have no idea why we even have one.”

  Semele had thought it odd too when she came across the key.

  Inside they both presented their IDs, her father’s death certificate, and the will. The manager escorted them into the back. He took out the box and led them into a small private room and told them to take their time.

  Semele looked at her mother. “Do you want to do it?”

  “No, you go ahead.”

  Before she lost her courage, Semele gave the lock a decisive turn and opened the lid.

  Inside was a legal-size envelope thick with papers. On the front her father had written:

  For Semele Cavnow

  A square box wrapped in old postal paper rested on top of the envelope. The paper had been opened and taped back up.

  Semele motioned to the box. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

  Helen nodded.

  Semele already knew what was inside, but she still couldn’t allow herself to believe.

  Her heart pounded in her ears like the ocean in a shell. She unwrapped the paper with shaky hands to find Rinalto’s wooden box, the one so perfectly described in the manuscript.

  When Semele opened the lid she felt like a part of her was no longer in the room. Her world and Ionna’s had finally collided.

  “My word,” Helen said. “What are those?”

  Semele placed the cards on the table.

  Time had preserved their brilliance. The twenty-two cards—Ionna’s originals—looked more weathered than Rinalto’s matching fifty-six. But together they created the oldest tarot deck in existence.

  There was a photo tucked inside the box. It was a small black-and-white of two women: a mother who looked about forty-five and a young girl, no more than fourteen or fifteen. Semele knew exactly who they were.

  There was no mistaking the dark-haired girl, posed with a hand on her hip and a dare in her eyes—Semele’s real mother when she was young. Her grandmother looked just as Semele had imagined, except for the sorrow in her eyes.

  Nettie was staring straight into the camera lens, as if she knew the picture was meant for Semele. Semele turned the photo over.

  Semele,

  I cannot cut the card in half

  and come back for you.

  Forgive me.

  We are always yours,

  Nettie

  Semele took a seat at the table, unable to speak.

  Nettie had foreseen Semele’s question from the card exhibit in Amsterdam, the one she had carried inside her heart every day afterward.

  Her grandmother had written the answer before Semele had even asked the question.

  Semele could feel her reality shifting. Her grandmother was the Nettie in the story. These cards had been kept for her, entrusted to her father, who had known their worth and hidden them in the safest place he knew. As curator of the Beinecke, he had recognized their incredible significance.

  Her mother hovered beside her, looking concerned.

  “Do you want to open the other package?” she asked gently.

  “No,” Semele whispered. “You do it.”

  While her mother opened the envelope, Semele studied Nettie’s handwriting, analyzing every line and curve. Nettie had been left-handed. Her hands had been shaking with nerves—or illness—when she wrote the message. The script slanted downward with sadness, yet the lines showed strong conviction.

  “Oh, I’d wondered what happened to this,” Helen said as she pulled the pages from the envelope. “Why is this here?”

  When Semele saw what her mother was holding her whole body went rigid. She had been prepared for the cards, but not this.

  Reaching out, she took the pages. It was a photocopy of Ionna’s writing alongside her father’s handwritten translation.

  “How did Dad get this?” Semele asked, her voice now barely a whisper.

  “Some collector in Europe asked for his help earlier this year. I don’t remember his name. Your father was shut up in his office for weeks translating it.”

  Marcel Bossard.

  Her mother had no idea what these pages were. Semele flipped to the back and found the place where she had stopped reading the night before. Here were the lost pages. Marcel had given her father a complete copy of Ionna’s manuscript, and her father had translated every last word.

  King of Pentacles

  Semele looked out the train window on her way to New York. The scenery passed by in a muted blur, like an impressionistic painting she was no longer a part of. She now had Ionna’s cards along with her father’s copy of the manuscript.

  This must have been why Marcel and her father were going to meet.

  Semele shook her head, her mind spinning at the implications. She tried to center her thoughts. First she needed to authenticate and date the cards. She had to be sure they were real, and there was only one person in the world she could trust with that project.

  She had called Cabe right before getting on the train. He agreed to meet at their favorite coffeehouse. He would run the tests today and then get the cards back to her after her morning meeting with Mikhail. Her only problem was how to broach the subject of Raina with Cabe. He needed to know she couldn’t be trusted.

  Semele’s hands instinctively tightened around her purse. Rinalto’s rosewood box was nestled inside, bundled in some of Helen’s old scarves for protection. She was afraid to even look at the cards. Her father’s translation was tucked next to them.

  Why was her father’s version complete, while hers had missing pages? She could have taken out th
e remaining pages and read them on the train, but she was worried about what she would find at the conclusion of Nettie’s story. Someone else didn’t want her to see that part either, or they wouldn’t have hidden the pages from her.

  Theo—he was at the heart of all this. He had to have known about their fathers’ connection, that Marcel had given Joseph the manuscript. She had so many questions for him. Tomorrow couldn’t come fast enough.

  * * *

  As soon as she got back to Manhattan she backed up her hard drive on an external. Then, borrowing a page from her father, she opened a safe-deposit box and locked away the hard drive. If her computer was stolen, she would still have a copy of the manuscript. That alleviated some of her fear. She kept her father’s translated copy with her. No one knew about that—she hoped.

  She hurried to the café to meet Cabe but slowed down in horror as soon as she walked through the door.

  Cabe was sitting in the back booth with Bren.

  Bren. She had never called him back. She gave them a meek wave and a smile. Bren glared back; he was furious.

  Cabe hurried over and gave her a hug, whispering into her ear, “Sorry.”

  “You could have warned me,” she muttered under her breath.

  Cabe pulled up a chair, leaving her and Bren to face off on opposite sides of the booth. Cabe tried to lighten the mood by poking fun at her outfit. “Looking good, Catgirl.”

  She shot him a withering glance. She had raided her old closet at her parents’ house and the pickings had been slim. The black turtleneck sweaterdress looked sixties mod with her winter boots. The last time she had worn this dress was in college.

  “Listen, guys, I can’t stay long.” Cabe made a show of checking his watch. “But you two feel free to hang.”

  Bren ignored Cabe’s attempt at normalcy and kept his attention on Semele. “Are you in some kind of trouble?” He leaned forward. “I’ve been calling you all week.” He stressed every word, clearly livid.