The Book of Speculation: A Novel

They had of late acquired two small stools in Croton, but Ryzhkova’s stare told him to sit on the floor. She tapped his shoulder and urged him down. “More grounded.” She patted the boards. “Good for cards.”


She had draped the walls and ceiling with cloth as she would for their clients, but the portraits looked out from between the folds of fabric. She gestured to the paintings. “It is good for them to watch. I paint them from memory. Except Katerina. My Katya sat for me.” Each portrait was illuminated with gold. “When my hand was steady, before the fingers bent.”

Her eyes trapped him as she began the ritual of cleansing. She produced a bushel of herbs from an unseen apron pocket, lit them with a candle, and began making symbols in smoke.

“Today, you,” she said. “To tell others what will be is to become part of fate.” The popping of hips and back preceded her sitting. She winced, folded her legs, and faced him. He realized the cart must be uncomfortable for a woman of her years. “You must know your own fate to read the cards, so not to mix your tale with others’. You see?”

She smacked a card to the floor. The Page of Pentacles, a young man, dark in skin and hair, holding a single star, would represent Amos in the reading. “Smart, eh? Like you. Stubborn. Scared. Young body, old mind.” She tapped the center of his forehead with a sharp fingernail before turning another card. She moved so quickly Amos could barely follow.

“Queen of Cups. Much water. Change. She dreams, yes? Rules over you.” A fair-skinned woman, dark haired, light eyed. Ryzhkova’s crooked fingers danced and twitched as she spoke. The wagon began to feel small, as though it could not contain them and his body might burst through it. Something was happening. Ryzhkova turned over a card and blanched. A dark card. Lightning cut across its background.

Her stooped spine jolted straight. Her eyes rolled back, unseeing. Amos reached for her and she clamped down on his wrist. A flat, strange voice flowed from her.

“Water comes, strangling what it touches as if made flesh. Father, mother, all will wither. You will wear and break until there is nothing. For you it will be as water cuts stone.”

A whisper crawled up Amos’s neck. He snatched his hand from Ryzhkova. She shrieked.

He jumped, feet skittering on the floor, then leaned in to look at the reading. Ryzhkova quickly covered the cards and cleared them away, muttering in a language that was a hypnotic mix of thumping and lilting. She folded the deck into a scarf and stuffed it back into the box, then closed her eyes and breathed. Amos could not say how much time passed before she moved again, before she said, “Strong future. Much change. Beware of women.”

She departed, leaving him alone in the wagon.

A month passed. Ryzhkova made no mention of the reading, though she took to asking him to spend more time with her at the close of day. He did not pry.

In summer the roads through New Jersey flooded and the wagons became mired, slowing northward travel to the promised prosperity of the Hudson River Valley. Days of backbreaking pulling, pushing, and digging wore on the troupe. Amos and Benno were too tired to stand straight, and even Nat’s strength was exhausted. By the time they reached the Hudson, Amos was unable keep his eyes open to study cards.

When his head drooped, Ryzhkova brushed his muddy cheek. “I would paint you,” she whispered. “I would put your face with my family.”

That night, Amos tried to sleep in Peabody’s wagon but could not. His legs ached with restlessness and his mattress stuck him no matter which way he turned—odd, as it had not bothered him before. Racing thoughts plagued him, of the reading Ryzhkova had done, the seer’s hands moving the cards around, of the dark one he’d seen only briefly. Its image refused to take shape. He’d sat through countless readings and had never seen Ryzhkova have such a spell. Perhaps she was ill. The thought troubled him. He opened the wagon door, silencing the hinge with his palm so as not to disturb Peabody. Peabody talked to himself, sketching and scrawling as he murmured the occasional comment about “impossible roadways.” Amos smiled despite his disquiet.

Outside the sky flickered with heat lightning and balmy air made his limbs slow. He heard the snapping of a fire that others tended and watched their shadows trip from the flames, Susanna’s cracking and twisting as she practiced contortions.

From the woods came movement.

A volley of electricity lit the night a bright purple, illuminating the campground with the harshness of midday. Were it not for the flash, he would not have seen the girl stumble from the trees, drenched, shivering, clothed in a nightdress that clung to her legs, dirty and sodden. She wore no shoes. Her feet were bloodied, and her black hair hung to her waist, riddled with knots and leaves. She was a convergence of angles and curves, light and dark. His feet hit the ground noiselessly as he moved toward her.