Bastien Read Free Page B

something you all must see for yourselves.”
    Adeline shivers and loops her arm through mine. “I do love a good mystery,” she says.
    “Fellows, let us take the night by the horns!”

    Chapter Four
    Louis leads the way through town. The village of Fauve is far removed from this place, yet I could easily call it home. Cobblestoned streets weave between buildings tall enough to have three rows of windows. No thatched roofs here, all are covered with sturdy shingles.
    We walk at a brisk pace. There are still merchants about, finishing their final tasks of the day and closing their shops for the night. They are not welcoming of our presence, but as long as we don’t disturb them, the townsfolk are willing to tolerate us for the coin we always leave in our wake.
    Louis leads us all the way to the edge of town, where the cobblestones level out into stomped dirt and the houses become smaller and older. Not far off is a Gypsy village. I can hear the drums and fiddles from here. This is as near civilization as the Gypsies are willing to come.
    Many still wander in the way of their people, but most have settled here, in wagons turned into shacks, built up into what might pass for an abode. Fires are lit in the distance, perhaps some sort of celebration. Of what, I don’t know. Then again, Gypsies don’t usually need a reason.
    We stop before a shack consisting of four separate walls held together by rope and covered with oiled cloth. In front of the curtain which serves as a door sits a hunched woman in a cloak.
    An old barrel stands as her table, and on top of it is a deck of cards. Her hood is so large it covers her face. I see nothing of her except her hands, one smooth and young, the other gnarled and old.
    “What is this, Louis?” I ask, unnerved by the sight of an old woman. “Have you suddenly developed a taste for the arcane?”
    He laughs. “This is merely the...”
    A single gnarled finger rises to point at my chest, and the air is suddenly too thick to breathe. The woman gathers her cards and places them face down on one edge of the barrel.
    They somehow hover nearly half over that edge without tipping over.
    Adeline clutches my arm. “Bastien?” she says uncertainly. I can’t find my voice to reassure her.
    “Is this part of the game?” Adrien asks.
    “No,” Louis says. “Last time wasn’t... she didn’t...”
    The hag slams her old hand on top of the barrel, demanding silence. With her young hand, she takes cards off the top of the deck and arranges them in a circle.
    “Listen, we just want to enter,” Louis says.
    The hag holds up a young finger in a staying gesture and indicates the spread with her old.
    “What is she doing?” Adeline asks, half hiding behind me. Under normal circumstances I would laugh at her and extricate myself from her hold. At the moment, I am too unsettled to speak a single word. The hag pointed at me, she is looking at me. Whatever fortune she is about to divine is mine. I don’t want to see it. With everything in me I dread the first card being flipped. But for the life of me I cannot look away.
    The smooth hand of youth reaches gracefully for the card farthest from her and flips it. The card says Wheel of Fortune and at its center is a golden wheel of the Zodiac, with star constellations clearly marked around it. It’s upside down.
    “It would seem the odds are not in your favor,” Louis says. He sounds bored.
    I dare not breathe as the withered hand reaches for the second card in the circle. Judgment.
    Also reversed. A set of scales tipped on one side mocks me from the makeshift table and as I am staring at it, the wheel in the first card breaks before my eyes. This is a hallucination. It must be.
    I am drunk, or perhaps it’s a trick of light and the wheel was never whole.
    A lump forms in my throat and I cannot clear it. I choke on the next forced inhale as the third card is turned. The Hermit. Nothing more than a hooded figure, hunched the same way as this hag