Holiday traffic clogs the highway making progress south a stop-and-go transaction until they cross over the Mass Pike and break free. They also drive right out from under the storm they left behind in Harmony Farms. The squeezing in her chest begins to soften as Ruby sees open road in front of her. If it’s clear ahead, both the road and the weather, then maybe she no longer needs to push the Westfalia quite so hard. It likes a maximum of sixty-two, and she’s got it wound up to almost seventy. As she backs off the pedal, she can’t help but notice Doug visibly relax. He lets go of the door handle, settles his seat belt more comfortably across his chest. Shifts the dog on his lap to a more comfortable position. Ruby reaches over and takes his hand. Smiles. He rubs her knuckles with his thumb. Smiles back.
“You feel as though all the pieces are coming together.”
“I do. I have an absolute certainty that this is the moment I have been waiting for.”
“What does that feel like? Absolute certainty?”
“I’m not sure I can describe it. I just know that this fairly recent need to solve my deepest mystery is about to be fulfilled.”
Doug says nothing. Ruby knows that he’s worried she’ll be disappointed, or worse, devastated if this woman isn’t who she hopes she is. It really is so little to go on: a coincidence of name, a shared profession. But Doug isn’t blessed with second sight. He doesn’t know the rapture of seeing that which isn’t yet. But will be. She supposes the closest thing to it is faith in God. Unseen. Real. The mighty wind that blew through her tent, smashing her props, all except the doughty teapot, surrounded Ruby with an enfolding message. Go. Seek. Find.
The parking lot at the Renaissance Faire is beginning to empty out; a long line of cars snake through the rows heading toward the exits. It is late in the afternoon and the event itself is winding down. Ruby skips the main parking lot, heads directly to the back of the grounds to the employee parking area. As she expects, it is full of RVs and equipment trailers, the temporary stables for the horses who act in the main event of the faire, the faux joust. Two are all tacked up, all the trappings of an American vision of Medieval sport hanging from bridles and covering saddles. The third act of the play will commence in a few minutes, the final “joust” between the chosen champions of Lady This and Lady That. The other two acts would have involved the challenges: spiking hoops on a lance, trick riding, dramatic tumbles off accommodating horses. This one will end in clanging swordplay. Ruby glances at the combatants, sharing a bottle of beer, and puts her money on Lord Redcoat. The guy in black never wins.
“This way.” Ruby leads Doug and the dog through the employee entrance. Either because it’s so late in the day security can’t be bothered, or because being dressed in her gold-embroidered caftan suggests she’s part of the cast, no one challenges Ruby and her escorts. She gathers the fabric of her caftan in her fingers, keeping it off the dusty path, the wood chips long since dissolved with hard use. Her trajectory takes her around the perimeter of the jousting field, between the blacksmith’s forge and the Bard’s Corner, right to a small building tucked in between the mud pit comics and the ax throwing game.
The shed is perhaps twelve by ten; a single window sports a solid shutter, now propped open. The door is narrow, a wrought iron latch and curlicue straps give it an authentic antique air. A banner hangs from the eaves: Mystic Marianna: Fortunes Told ~ Crystal Ball ~ Palms.
Ruby thinks that she’s going to be sick. Doug puts one large hand on her shoulder. “You can do this. I’ll be at the picnic tables.”
“Thank you. I’ll meet you there in a minute.”
“Ruby. Certainty.”
As Doug makes his way through costumed faire-goers, looking like a modern man cast suddenly back in time, a present-day Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Ruby is filled with a certainty she hadn’t looked for. She is certain that she loves him.
“Here goes nothing.” Ruby drops the hem of her caftan, shakes out her hair. She can hear the thundering of hooves as the joust begins. The clunk of fake lance against shield. The roar of the crowd cheering on the actors. Her breath is coming faster, as if she is also galloping across a wide field. She remembers the dreamscape of the hillside, the ethereal woman either coming or going. Her palms are clammy with nerves.
Ruby feels a slight pressure below; the Hitchhiker, nose working the air toward the open booth door, presses her forepaws against Ruby’s foot. “I am with you.”
This is interesting. Although I haven’t laid eyes on her yet, the scent of the woman sitting in this tiny house fills my mind with images of Ruby. It isn’t quite that they have the same odors, it’s that they have the same markers. That is, similar tastes in food and soap. I know that if I am allowed a deeper investigation, I will be able to find many other markers, ones more deeply buried than what appears on the skin. In the way that I immediately recognized Sabine and her playful children as blood to Ruby, I am getting a similar flavor, even as apart as these two women are. I nudge Ruby to go in. I’m anxious to confirm my suspicions.
“Don’t be afraid. Come in. Come in.” The voice is moderate, a slight accent, much like the type Ruby had used for years. Who would trust a psychic with a solidly New England twang or Southern accent, after all? “Mystic Marianna will help you to get the answers you seek.”
“I hope so.” This under her breath. Ruby steps inside only as far as the doorframe. A sudden break in the clouds and she is illuminated from behind. The gold in her caftan glitters. The woman sitting in the booth chuckles. “I see we have the same taste in caftans. Broadway Costuming, Toledo, Ohio, I presume?”
Marianna the Mystic cannot be Ruby’s mother. She is younger than Ruby. She looks more Sabine’s age. She looks like Sabine.
As Ruby lingers in the doorway, the sun goes behind a cloud, she is no longer backlit.
“Oh, my God.” There is nothing of the foreign accent in that remark. Mystic Marianna jumps to her feet. The two women, both in golden caftans, of an equal height, stare at each other with gold-flecked hazel eyes. Frozen in tableau. “I never thought that I’d lay eyes on you.” Marianna takes one step forward. It is a tiny space, and as Ruby steps forward, they are within touching distance. “We’ve been looking for you.”
The dog looks at one, then the other. She sniffs. Her tail wags. Satisfied that she knows what’s going on, the Hitchhiker takes an olfactory survey of the small space, finds a dropped French fry.
Ruby’s mouth is dry and she longs for a drink of water. She doesn’t know whether to ask questions or give answers. “My name, what I call myself, is Ruby Heartwood. I was given the name Mary Jones when I was left behind.”
“And I believe that you are my lost sister.”
At that, Ruby’s legs give out and her sister helps her to sit down, put her head between her knees. She also pulls the shutter in and flips the CLOSED sign on the door. For a long silent moment Marianna rubs Ruby’s back until Ruby feels able to sit up. Mystic Marianna takes her seat opposite Ruby, the tiny round table with a little white teapot centered on it between them. Ruby feels like a client. She’s never sat on the south side of the table before. “I have been searching for my mother—who abandoned me as an infant.”
Maybe it’s habit, maybe its professional, but Marianna puts out her hands and takes Ruby’s. “Which she has regretted every day of her life since.”
“I assume that you are her second daughter.”
“Yes. Annie.”
“I’ve been in touch with a genetic cousin of ours. She says that we come from a long line of second daughters. Who have the gift.” This last is an interpretation of Sarah Grace’s more vague remarks.
“We do. Mostly.” Annie looks at Ruby. “You’re a first daughter.”
This isn’t the line of conversation Ruby is most interested in, not by a long shot. “And our mother? I suppose I should know, but I truly don’t. Even Sabine, my … your niece, whose gifts are of a medium, has never been able to tell me if…”
“She’s alive. She’s well. She’s been having dreams about you.”
“And I of her. But I never conjured you.”
“Funny. You’ve haunted my dreams since I was a little girl.”
There is a tingling in her palms, as if Ruby can feel Annie’s blood flowing hot in her capillaries. She pulls her hands away. “We need to have a conversation without all the psychic trappings. Like regular sisters suddenly introduced as adults.”
“You have someone waiting for you.”
“I do. And it would be good for him to meet you. If only to prove that you exist.”
“I like your familiar.” Annie reaches down and gives the Hitchhiker a pat. “I’ll close up shop; it’s time anyway. Meet you at the beer stand.”
“Okay.”
Doug gets to his feet at the sight of Ruby coming toward him. The look on his face suggests that the look on her face is troubling. And yet, now that the initial shock has died down, she feels a rising tide of excitement.
“And?” he asks.
“You’ll never guess. I have a sister. Mystic Marianna is Annie Felton.”
“And your mother?”
“I’m about to find out. Will you be willing to get us a couple of beers? My sister is closing up shop.”
“I can take the dog and go hang out in the van.”
“No. Please. Stay at least for a little while. I’d rather have you witness for yourself than have to tell you about it.”
“Okay. But I’m a fly on the wall.” As if to prove it, Doug waves away an actual fly. The picnic grounds are a mess, bees and flies and wasps are coming in for their late-afternoon forage. The joust is over. The jugglers and acrobats are taking final bows. The Bard has completed his raunchy sonnets. The storm that Ruby and Doug left behind is fast approaching from the north.
Mystic Marianna has become Annie Felton, dressed in jeans, turtleneck, and polar fleece. She’s wearing the same Uggs as Ruby has on her own feet. She has pulled her hair back into a ponytail. It may be a trick of the light, or a very good coloring job, but her hair is exactly the shade of auburn that Sabine was born with. She takes one of the beers out of Doug’s hand. “Thanks. I’m Annie.”
“Doug. Doug Cross. Ruby’s…”
“Boyfriend.” Ruby takes the other beer. She doesn’t like beer, but this unique occasion certainly calls for an adult beverage in hand.
“Boyfriend.” Doug leans over and kisses Ruby. “I’ll just be over there.” He slides down to the end of the ten-foot-long picnic table, leaving these weird sisters at the other end, face-to-face.
“He seems nice,” Annie says loudly enough for Doug to hear.
“Very. Very nice,” Ruby answers. “So, rather than me interrogating you, why don’t you fill me in on the basic facts of my life?”
“I don’t know about your life, but I do know how it started.”
“It’s a beginning.” Ruby doesn’t want embellishment, just the basic truth.
Annie sips her beer and Ruby can see that, despite her seeming calmness, Annie is nervous. “You were conceived in love. But it was a star-crossed kind of love.”
“Please, keep it simple. I know how to spin a tale, but you really don’t have to do that.”
“He was married. She was twenty, maybe a little younger. You see where I’m going with this?”
“She went to a home for unwed mothers. Estelle Williamson’s place in Niagara Falls.”
“So, you do know a little.”
“I don’t know why she never came looking for me.”
“She did.”
“I don’t believe that. I was there for fourteen years.”
“Where?”
“At the convent, in Ottawa. Outside Ottawa. No birth certificate, nothing but a custodial intake record. I was disappeared.”
“She never knew that.”
Ruby is doubtful. How could a true psychic not know where her own child was? But it seems wrongheaded to have a fight with a person she has only just met. “What did she think happened to me?”
“She was told that you were adopted. Right from birth. But in those days, adoptions were closed; she wasn’t allowed any information.”
“Do you know what it was like to be raised in an institution? To live in hope every single day that your rightful parent would come and claim you?”
Annie shakes her head. Her eyes, so like Sabine’s and her own, are filled. “She thought that you were growing up a happy little girl in a happy little home. A far better situation than that of her only other alternative.”
The alternative she herself had not pursued. Neither had Ruby sent her baby away into the hands of strangers. There had been a third choice.
The two sisters sip at their warm beers and stare at the sticky tabletop. The gathering storm will soon put an end to this conversation. Already the breeze has the surrounding pine trees dancing. A fat drop of rain lands on Ruby’s caftan. Or maybe that’s a tear. She swipes at her eyes, forgetting that she’s in full fortune-teller makeup. “Shit. Sorry.”
Annie pulls a clean tissue out of her vest pocket. Hands it to Ruby.
“What’s her name?”
“Aurora.”
There is a sense of being pinched between past and present.
Ruby takes a deep breath. “Not her fortune-teller’s name, but her real name.”
“Her real name is Pearl.”
Pearl. “And where is she now?”
Annie, Mystic Marianna, hands Ruby a card with an address penciled on it. She has been expecting this question. “This is where you will find her.”
A bubble of laughter rises in Ruby’s chest, impossible to suppress. “Of course it is.”