Andrew and Piotr watched the girls leave. Only Minnie glanced back and gave him a sympathetic look. Flora and Sylvie were set on finding the delivery driver, not gazing into crystal balls.
He’d show them.
Andrew pushed his glasses up his nose, ready for action.
They both stood and headed for the door. Andrew led the way, sure that his best friend was at his back.
The market buzzed with the sound of shoppers and traders and just passing-through-ers. Andrew weaved his way through, glancing back now and again to make sure Piotr’s mousy hair bobbed behind him. Now that they were getting closer to the fortune teller, he felt slightly less confident. A bit more, well, frightened. What if she told them terrible things about the future? What if she said he was never going to be a star? Never going to be in films? Or on telly? Or even be the host of a local radio show?
He wiped his palms against the front of his jeans.
He mentally gave himself a shake. This was ridiculous. He had nothing to be scared of. His future was bright. Everyone said so. Even teachers, when they weren’t telling him off.
They were at the tent.
It wasn’t an easy-build pop-up style. It was made of proper canvas, with ropes and poles attached to heavy weights to anchor it. If he squinted, he could imagine a knight in armour stepping out of it, ready to joust. The door flapped a little in the breeze and the air around it smelled of burning incense. It made his nose itch.
‘Ready?’ Piotr asked.
‘Let’s do it.’
Andrew pulled back the fabric door and stepped inside. Immediately he was struck by the gloom, the shadows. A second layer of purple fabric lined the inside of the tent. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. Pinpricks of bright light seeped in from tiny tears in the purple, like stars shining in the night sky. And there was a small lamp on a table in the centre of the tent casting an orange glow. The lamp battled bravely but fruitlessly with the shadows.
Two green eyes flashed, low to the ground. Andrew nearly yelped. Then he felt soft fur, warm, weaving its way in a figure of eight around his ankles. The fortune teller’s cat. Phew.
A voice came, whispering, from a dark corner. ‘Who comes to seek the wisdom of Elspeth?’
Andrew looked at Piotr. He could make out the moon-pale skin of his face, but his dark jumper blended against the purple background, making his head look disembodied. Severed.
Andrew gulped. ‘Err, hi, how are you? We, err, that is, we … I’m Andrew, this is Piotr. And I guess we’ve come to seek wisdom. Or at least, to find stuff out. If that’s the same thing.’
The woman chuckled. ‘A babbler, I see.’
There was the sound of rustling silks, then the smell of tobacco and spice, and the woman stepped forward. Elspeth was short, almost as short as Andrew and definitely not as tall as Piotr. It was hard to make out much more until she reached the pool of light cast by the lamp. She sat down at the table. Her face was lined, but her hair was still jet-black. Her clothes, like the inside of the tent, were black-and-purple drapes, layered over her body in billowing folds.
Andrew was impressed at how fortune-tellery she was managing to look. She could help – then Flora would see.
She scooped up the cat. It was dark as midnight and its strong purr was hypnotic. Elspeth waved them forward and they sat on the cushions she indicated. Andrew sank down quickly, surprised at just how wobbly his knees were feeling. It must be the incense. It was bound to make him light-headed. He gripped his hands into fists.
‘Seeking your fortunes, boys?’ Elspeth asked. She raised a dark eyebrow and a smile curled on her red lips. ‘That will be two pounds.’
‘Not my fortune,’ Andrew managed to say. His mouth was strangely dry and his tongue stuck uncomfortably to the roof of his mouth. ‘Advice, we need advice.’
‘Interesting,’ said Elspeth. The word was breathed like a secret. ‘What do you need advice about?’
‘You’d think she’d know,’ Piotr whispered, very unhelpfully Andrew thought.
‘I heard that,’ Elspeth said sharply.
‘Sorry,’ Piotr said, dropping his head and breaking her gaze.
‘I can only see the future when I spread the tarot cards, or bring about a trance-like state,’ Elspeth said, sounding quite grumpy. ‘It doesn’t happen just by looking at you. So, why don’t you tell me why you’re here and stop wasting my time?’
‘Sorry,’ Piotr said again.
‘Do you know anything about curses?’ Andrew asked quickly, before she could get worked up.
‘Setting them or lifting them? Setting them costs more.’
‘Lifting. Definitely lifting.’
‘It depends. Some curses can be very powerful, very dangerous. Others are like annoying puppies; they get under your feet, but they’re pretty harmless. Wait. Let me see the nature of what we’re dealing with.’
She pushed the cat off her lap. It dropped to the floor with a disgruntled mewl and then was lost to the shadows. Elspeth lifted a dark cloth from the floor. As she unwrapped it, Andrew saw that it swaddled a deck of cards. Tarot cards. They looked old, bent and scored by time. ‘Cut the deck,’ Elspeth instructed, placing the cards in front of Andrew. He did as he was told. The papery edges of the cards felt fragile against his fingertips. ‘Now, deal five cards, face up.’
He turned the first card. A woman sat on a throne. The faded colours had once been red and green and gold, but were now pink and blue and yellow.
‘The Empress,’ Elspeth said. ‘A strong woman. Your mummy?’
‘What?’ How could she know?
‘Your mother perhaps?’
He turned the next card. His skin pricked into goosebumps. A man stood on a chariot. The chariot was being pulled by two black-and-white sphinxes in Egyptian headdresses.
The next card. A lion.
‘Strength,’ Elspeth whispered. ‘Strength returns after an arduous journey.’
The fourth card. Two dogs howling at the moon.
‘But the strength has become confusion. Darkness draws close.’
The last card.
Andrew’s hand shook as he laid it on the table. A man hung, by his feet, from a gallows.
‘The Hanged Man,’ Elspeth whispered. ‘Not always as bad as it looks.’ Her laugh was not entirely kind.
‘What does it mean?’ Andrew asked. ‘Is it really about my mother?’
Elspeth stared at him for a moment. It felt as though she was unwrapping each layer of his skin, staring right into the heart of him.
Then she spoke. ‘Your mother is poorly, yes? You need to know what to do for her?’
‘Sort of,’ Andrew agreed. ‘She was getting better. But then the cat arrived.’
‘The cat? Ah.’ Elspeth tapped the card with the lion roaring on it. ‘This cat?’
‘No, it’s a real cat. Well, a mummified one. With a curse on it.’
Piotr nudged him suddenly, catching an elbow right in Andrew’s rib. He gasped and glared at his friend.
‘Your friend is worried that you speak too much,’ Elspeth said. ‘He is probably right. You seem to be a talker. But in this instance you can tell me nothing that the cards don’t already say.’
‘Is there a curse then?’ Andrew leaned forward, his hands clasped around his ribs to guard against Piotr’s elbows. ‘Can we lift it?’
‘The cards say yes, and maybe. All was well, until this sudden change. Whether you can change the course of the chariot depends on how well you can listen.’
Andrew’s heart sank a little. His report cards always said ‘needs to listen as well as talk’.
‘At the point where day becomes night –’ Elspeth held a painted finger above the picture of the moon ‘– at twilight, that is when the curse is at its strongest. If you can find out why the curse was set, perhaps you can lift it. You need to listen to the voices of the void.’
‘How exactly do we do that?’ Piotr asked.
‘Simply by paying attention. If the voices want to be heard, then they will speak to you. At dusk. When the veil is thin. Right. That will be three pounds.’
‘You said two!’ Piotr protested.
‘Cursed cats is extra,’ Elspeth said firmly.
Andrew paid up, and Elspeth tidied away the cards, back under their cloth cover.
‘Be careful,’ she said, as they left the tent, ‘curses are dangerous, remember.’
From the shadows, her cat hissed.