He turns toward me then, so close I can almost taste the beer he’s been drinking. “That’s when I figured it out. Audrey might have been my soul mate, but I was never hers. So I ask you, Benjamin, how the hell is anyone supposed to break this curse when Audrey and I couldn’t?” Unshed tears line the lower lids of his eyes, trembling. “I waited for years. For her. Only for her. And she refused to even think for one tiny second I could be right about breaking the curse.”
I clear my throat, trying to rid myself of the doubt that’s built up there. “Emma and I are different—”
“You think I didn’t think that about Audrey and me?” He stands with more grace than I would have thought he’d be capable of at the moment. He is a stark, still shape against the clouds that tumble over one another.
“So I found the first girl with low self-esteem who wouldn’t be missed and I transferred the curse. And it worked. That is what sealed the deal for me, that is what convinced me that breaking the curse is impossible—when I put myself to the task, when I tried to pass the curse along, it happened. I have loved your mother for so long it’s all I know how to do. So I ask you—” His voice breaks here, and for a moment I’m not sure if he has it in him to keep going, but he does. “If she and I can’t break this damned curse, who the hell can?”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Benjamin
The next night, I stand among the townies in line to have the great Katarina Marx read my fortune. They jostle in a good-natured way, like being at a carnival has made them revert to their kindergarten selves. The air is humid enough to make their closeness uncomfortable but not enough to make me want to give up.
I could pull rank and jump the line, citing that I need to fix something in the tent or that I’m there on carnival business, but I don’t. I want to steel myself, to make sure that this is really what I want to do.
Sidney rattled the hell out of me. But it’s not the same with Emma and me. A little voice nags at me—but they knew each other longer. They had time to get to know each other. They had a relationship before the curse. A hundred doubts are having a rave in the empty warehouse of my brain.
The line moves faster than I expected. Most patrons leave the tent much happier than when they went in. A few do not. I don’t even know what I want to ask Katarina, but something is pushing me insistently, telling me I have to see her. Suddenly I’m standing before the painted entrance to the tent, with nothing separating me from her except some brightly colored canvas. Then, after a couple who look like they’re on the brink of an argument rush out, all tense angles and tight mouths, I go in.
The twins have been relegated to a small side table immediately to the left of the entrance to give their grandmother the place of pride in the center of the tent. A cat, black and sleek and with a small white triangle on its chest, has draped itself on the shelf holding all those precious bottles of wine. Incense burns, but not so much that it’s obnoxious or overpowering. And then there is Katarina herself.
Fortune-telling must merit changing out of yoga pants. She wears a beaded black dress not all that different from the one Emma wears as part of her costume. The similarity is so strong that a pang hits me in the chest hard and fast. Her eyes are lined with black, her lips stained like wine. I take my seat on the little chair in front of her.
“Benjamin, darling, what a surprise.” She is most definitely not surprised. “How can I help you this evening?”
“Would you read my fortune?” I have always let the twins use me as a guinea pig. Palm readings, tarot cards, tea leaves, divining—I’ve done it all. And while they’ve been right about far too many things, I never took it seriously. Until now.
Her long spindly fingers reach across the table and beckon for mine. If fingers can be taunting, hers are. Her hands are smooth, but the flesh around each knuckle clings close to the bone, and each joint is pronounced. Rings with stones of black and red and blue glint in the reddish light of the tent. Her nails have been filed to a subtle point and are painted a red that’s darker than blood but brighter than black.
I place my hand in hers.
She leans forward to examine my palm, her long hair piling up on the table underneath her. One of those dark fingernails traces some of the heavier creases; the big one running almost straight across until it suddenly veers toward my pointer finger, the one curving around the meat at the base of my thumb. There are half a dozen smaller ones that catch her attention, and even the tiny creases that gather just under my pinkie finger merit inspection.
Finally, she lays my hand down on the table and leans back in her chair. Movies and books and the few times Pia’s read my palm for fun told me what should have happened—as she pointed out each divot and line and fold, there’d be an explanation to go with it, a theory, a ridiculous number of children I’d surely father somewhere down the line. Instead she just sits in that overly big chair that I now recognize from her living room, and she peers at me over steepled fingers.
“Darlings,” she says, gesturing toward the twins with a beckoning wave of those tricksy fingers, “I think it’s high time to further your education.”
Pia gasps at the same moment the cards Duncan is shuffling go flying out of his hands.
Duncan slaps the table with his palm. “Hell yes, Grandmama! We’ve been practicing our scrying and—”
Whatever else the twins had been practicing, I’d never hear it, because Katarina shuts her grandson down with a wave. “You,” she said, pointing to Duncan, “tell everyone outside I am closed for the evening.” Duncan rushes out of the tent, the flaps to the entrance billowing behind him.
“You”—she points to Pia, who looks so excited she might explode—“bring me those candles and extinguish all the others.
“And you,” she says to me finally, carefully, powerfully, “stay here.” Her knowing eyes seem black in the dim light, and pinpricks from the flames dance upon them. “You and I have much to talk about.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Emma
A hint of rain falls through the air. I can’t quite remember what the close, damp touch of humidity feels like, and the thought both scares and saddens me. The giant oaks sway a wicked dance just past the edges of the carnival. If there’s a storm coming, none of the carnival patrons notice or care, so I head to my box. I don’t want to be there, but I can’t stand the thought of being in my wagon without Benjamin, who I haven’t seen since last night.
I’ve become so used to the jostling and the crowds that it takes me a moment to realize the reason things seem weird this evening is that there are fewer people crowded around booths and games, and a good number of them are all funneling toward the center of the carnival. I slip into their stream, letting them propel me toward their goal.
Once I push away my own thoughts and concerns and start to pay attention to my surroundings, I begin to figure out what’s pulling this crowd away from the kettle corn and sleights of hand. A man is shouting, his voice just this side of hysterical and more than a little drunk. Although the noise of those around me keeps me from hearing everything, I have a terrible feeling about what I’ll see.