AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Perhaps I could convince Mr. Winstead to remove them.” He was, after all, a favorite of the old man. For now.
Mistress Elena shrugged. “But we like the road, my lord Earl. It calls us. We make a round, meeting our kin here and there each year.”
“I will visit all my cousins in the north,” said Samia.
Jack saw they wouldn’t be convinced, and that made him feel more alone than ever. Soon this field would be as empty as his life in England seemed destined to be.
“You are sad,” said Samia. She turned bright eyes to the old woman. “Shall I read his palm?”
Mistress Elena gave Jack a long, penetrating look. “No, get the cards.”
Samia’s eyes widened, and her lips made an O. She wriggled around the old woman and into the caravan, returning with a small, silk-wrapped bundle.
The old woman took it and held it in her lap. “These are precious,” she said. “They came to me from my grandmother. I don’t show them often, lest people be tempted to steal.”
Jack watched, curious, as she folded back the silk to reveal a stack of cards. They were a bit larger than a normal deck, and the backs—all he could see—were heavily decorated.
“Samia, bring me that,” the old woman said, pointing.
The little girl darted over to a small table, hardly bigger than a chessboard, and brought it to sit before them. She hovered over it with bright anticipation.
“You know that you do not tell what you see,” Mistress Elena said to her.
Samia nodded, though she nearly danced in place.
The old woman turned to Jack and indicated a round of tree trunk that functioned as a chair. “Fetch that and sit,” she said.
Puzzled and intrigued, he did so and waited to see what came next.
Mistress Elena held the deck with both hands and murmured some words he couldn’t hear. He suspected he wouldn’t understand them even if he did. Then she spread the cards in a wide fan on the small table. “You will choose three without turning them over,” she said. “Be slow. Think well.”
Not sure what he was to think about, Jack let his hand hover over the cards. They all looked alike. Finally, he pulled one card each from the left, right, and center of the fan, lining them up in a row before him.
Mistress Elena reached out and turned over the one on Jack’s left. What she revealed was not a normal playing card with pips and numbers or kings and queens. Instead, the card showed an odd figure of a man dressed in medieval motley, somewhat awkwardly drawn, with his back to the viewer. He gripped a stick in one hand and what might be a sword over the other shoulder. His profile showed a pointed beard, and a cat pawed at his leg. At the bottom of the card was writtenLe Fol.
“Le Fol,” said Mistress Elena in a passable French accent. “The Fool. This card represents your past.”
“Well, that’s certainly apt. I’ve been a fool.” The words slipped out with more bitterness than Jack meant to reveal.
“It is not so simple as that,” replied the old woman. “Or so unfortunate. The Fool is a free spirit. He acts in the moment. He may make mistakes, but he also opens up many possibilities in life.”
That might sound good, Jack thought, but a fool was a fool. And he certainly felt like one today.
Mistress Elena turned over the middle card. This one showed a similarly garbed man flanked by two ladies, each with a hand on him while he kept his to himself. Overhead, a strange, half-naked figure surrounded by sunrays aimed an arrow straight at the fellow’s head. The label was upside down. He couldn’t quite…
“L’Amoureux,” said Mistress Elena. “The Lovers. This card stands for the present. But it is reversed and so suggests disharmony, some imbalance come upon you now.”
Jack said nothing. This was a bit too apt. Mistress Elena had in no way guided his choices, but still.
“The third card stands for the future,” she continued and turned it over.
On this one, a skeletal figure seemed to be digging in tumbled earth. There was no label.
“Ah, La Mort,” said Mistress Elena.
“Death?” Jack sat back. Of course, this was all silly superstition. It didn’t really mean anything. But the image was unsettling.
“It means endings, change, transformation,” said Mistress Elena. “Not dying, necessarily.”
