AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You will have a long life.”
“Do you always say that?”
“If I see a long life,” Samia responded seriously. “If I do not, I am silent.”
“I suppose people won’t pay to hear they’ll die young,” Harriet quipped.
“I did not ask you for payment,” answered Samia, letting go of her hand.
“I’m sorry, Samia. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
The little girl looked away, more like a disgruntled adult than a child.
“Please forgive me,” Harriet continued. “It was a silly thing to say.”
“Very well.” Samia looked back at her. “Not all is for money.”
Harriet nodded solemnly to show she understood. Samia had offered a gift, and she had not valued it sufficiently.
“Do me,” said Sarah, leaning forward on her log.
“Perhaps it is enough,” the little girl replied. She was not completely mollified.
“Oh, please,” said Sarah. “I so want to hear what you see.”
After a pause, Samia bowed her head in agreement.
Harriet and Sarah switched places.
“We will find a story together, engraved in the hand,” said Samia. It was the same thing Mistress Elena had said, Harriet remembered. The little girl had learned her elder’s confident tone as well.
“That’s a wonderful description,” said Sarah. She held out her hand.
Samia took it and bent over the palm. “The line of your mind is very strong,” she said after a while.
“All those books you’ve read,” said Charlotte in a satirical tone.
“Or vice versa,” Sarah replied.
“What?”
“Perhaps I read because I was always destined to.”
“Trust you to concoct a fantastical explanation.” Charlotte and Sarah made faces at each other.
“Hmm,” said Samia.
“What?” Sarah looked down at her hand in the child’s fingers.
“There is something.” She traced a line. “Health and success and fate cross together here. That is not common. It means some great thing coming to you, I think. You must take care.”
“An adventure?” asked Sarah, thrilled.
“There might be danger,” Samia replied, frowning earnestly over her task. “You should be watchful.”
“We’ll never hear the end of this,” Charlotte said to Harriet. “Sarah will be waiting for her adventure when she is a querulous old lady.”
“It will be sooner than that,” said Samia. Harriet couldn’t tell whether she understood Charlotte’s ironic tone.
