Jarvis laughed aloud, tossing back the mane of long white hair from his forehead. Gitalis noticed how much the man had aged in the past year of worries. The lines around his eyes had deepened and his handsome face looked worn. It was good for Jarvis to have taken the girl under his wing; she cheered him and reminded him of his own abilities.
What a tragedy that a man of Jarvis' great talents was relegated to the vagabond life of the circus when he deserved the acclaim of New York or London. It was a blessing, of course, for the circus folk that Jarvis had chosen this particular route to the future, but it was wasteful for such rare gifts to be cast before swine.
"My darling girl, you must sing each aria as if your life depended on it!" Gitalis waved the score in front of Fancy's nose impatiently. "The world does not need one more mediocre mezzo. Do you wish to live your life in poverty or to reach the stars?" He didn't wait for a reply. "The future is in your hands, Fancy. No one else's. You have a gift. The stringed instruments are child's play for you, but they cannot give you fame or fortune. The voice can!"
Fancy's head snapped up, anger and frustration evident on her face. "I am working as hard as I can! I study night and day, Gitalis. Between you and Wes and Atticus, I barely have time to sleep."
"If you still sleep you have time to learn more, wasteful girl."
"Damn you, Gitalis! I've had enough of your bullying. In the four years I've been with this troupe I've learned to sing in French and Italian, I've learned so much Shakespeare I recite it in my dreams. I play instruments, I dance, I do comedy. I hawk tickets to the crowd. If I could grow another half, you'd have me doing Harp and Flute's work as well!
"But nothing I ever do is ever enough for you! Nothing is ever good enough or professional enough or anything enough to satisfy you. I'm sick to death of your badgering. You are driving me mad. Why do you hurt me like this, Gitalis? Why?"
"Because I love you," the dwarf answered simply. "And because you will get one chance in this godforsaken world; and if you are not ready, it will pass you by like the midnight train, and you will live forever with your dead dreams and the knowledge of what might have been." His usually resonant voice sounded hollow as he turned to go.
"No chance will pass me by, Gitalis," she shouted after him. "You can count on that!"
The small man headed away from her without speaking. Tears came to his eyes and he fought them back relentlessly.
"I love you, too, Gitalis," she called after him, but he knew she meant it in a different way from his confession to her. He did not turn back but kept on walking; he didn't notice Magda until she fell into step beside him.
"Do not worry for her, little man," the fortune-teller said. "She will have more than her share of opportunity. And fame. And love. You have taught her well. You and Jarvis and the old man."
Gitalis wondered at the kind words from Magda and shook his head. When he spoke his voice was gruff.
"The old man will teach her little more. He is failing fast and you know it."
"He is pure in heart and will see God," Magda replied.
"Such bullshit! The pure in heart may see God, but it is only the lonely and desperate who need Him."
He turned abruptly at his own wagon and without saying another word, slammed the door behind him and left the Gypsy standing in the dust, a thoughtful expression on her face.
Atticus raised himself uneasily from his pillow and sniffed the air. It was the third time in a week that he'd dreamt about the snake. The first time the dream had seemed benevolent enough, a small green slithering creature had been seen hanging from a jungle branch. The landscape of his childhood had always lived inside him, and he had not been unduly alarmed by the night image.
The second dream had been of a huge boa constrictor; he'd seen it wrap its insistent coils around a baby goat and consume the struggling, bleating creature. Still, he'd put it down to chance and banished the vision with the morning light.
The third, tonight's dream, had been clear. The eyes of a demon had stared out at him from the serpent's expectant face—a predator come to claim its prey. Atticus felt the clamminess of his skin as he awoke, and shuddered in the darkness. He had seen those eyes before.
It was more than five years since he'd made his bargain with the Snake God for Fancy's life—long enough to forget that the price must eventually be paid.
The old man stood up shakily, forcing his creaking body erect, and moved to the doorway of the wagon. Outside, the stars were glittering pinpricks in the midnight sky, just as they had seemed to him in the Africa he remembered from the long ago. The reach of the gods was long and inexorable. He stood in the opening and watched the darkness for a while, unblinking, unable to return to sleep.
So the time of reckoning was at hand... perhaps he would speak of it to Magda, for she was wise in the ways of conjuring and might be able to divine the time and place of his rendezvous.
Eventually, Atticus returned to his bed, but he would not trust himself to sleep until the first faint flush of morning had tinged the horizon.
Fancy laid down the faro hand with a smug laugh. Wes, too, laughed ruefully.
"Quite the little cardsharp you are becoming, Fancy," he said, the lines around his eyes crinkling with repressed merriment. He coughed a bit into a linen handkerchief as he said it. Fancy had a good eye, quick wit, and an astonishing memory for what cards had already been dealt. "We'll teach you 'to drink deep ere you depart,' eh?" he continued, pocketing the hanky. Fancy noted that
Gitalis stared concernedly at Jarvis for a moment, then switched his eyes back to the cards in his hand.
"I doubt that Godey's Lady's Book would consider faro dealing an element essential to a young lady's education," she countered cheerily. "Now that I know how to deal, can you teach me to cheat?"
Gitalis rolled his eyes heavenward and Jarvis threw back his head and laughed aloud.
" 'Good my mouse of virtue, answer me. Shall we set the child on such a sinful path as she desires?' "
"It seems not so sinful as it is practical," Gitalis murmured with a cynical smirk. "One never knows when a bit of sleight of hand can turn the tide of providence."
"I like gambling," Fancy said. "Cards, dice, I think I have a knack for all of it."
"Will you listen to the child, Gitalis? What will God think of such shenanigans?"
"He should understand well enough, my liege," Gitalis answered steadily. "The dice of God are always loaded."
Jarvis looked sharply at the little man—the dwarf had reason enough to decry God's arbitrariness. A brilliant mind and sardonic wit entrapped in a body too small to catch the brass ring. Gitalis had been heir to a huge fortune in Europe, but the man's father had been so outraged by his son's "inadequate" stature that he'd banished him and stricken his name from the family Bible despite his wife's entreaties. It was enough to inspire more than cynicism, Wes mused... enough to inspire murder.
What would my mother and father think, if they could see me now? Fancy wondered as she left the two men. Was there still such a place as Beau Rivage? When the war was over, had Armand come back to find the ruin of their home and assumed her dead, along with their parents? She'd never felt close to her brother, their age difference had been too great. But he was kin—and he was an unfinished story.
Half of Beau Rivage belonged to her, if any part of the plantation had been salvaged. Her father had told her he would leave the estate equally divided between the two children, as had been her mother's wish.
"A woman must have her own fortune, ma petite," her maman had said. "She must not be dependent on any man unless she wishes to be."
Much the same meaning as Magda's words, although Magda knew, as her mother had not, that Fancy would have to fight for every bit of independence. And safety. None of it would be handed her on a silver salver now.
Fancy glanced at the peeling paint on the shabby tiger cage as she passed it. The circus, too, was struggling for subsistence. Wes put on a good front, but business was dwindling. She made up
her mind to talk with Atticus about it when she found him; he always knew how to calm her fears. She would speak with Magda, too— surely the Gypsy had noticed that Wes was looking unwell, as if his life force was ebbing. And his cough was too persistent. She made a mental note to see if he'd taken the decoction Atticus had brewed.
Now that she was a full-grown woman, perhaps Magda would take her into her confidence.
Chapter 9
Magda turned over the fifth tarot card and examined the picture before hen A tower burned against the night sky and bodies cast themselves screaming from its lightning-struck height. Ominous, she thought, but not definitive. A frown formed between her arched brows as she turned up four more cards and placed them one at a time beside the small circle of the tarot lay.
Swords. The ten and four of the suit. Pain, sadness; an exile, a tomb. The Nine of Wands. Strength in adversity. Ability to meet an onslaught boldly. The Last Judgment. An angel calling people from their coffins for resurrection. The card of Eternal Life.
With a gesture of frustration, she swept the cards from the table, shuffled them hastily, then cast the lay a second time.
Drumming the table with agitated fingers, the Gypsy stared for a moment at the result, then pushed the cards aside and rose from the table. She would find Atticus.
Magda made her determined way across the encampment, trying to catch a glimpse of the old man. He was never idle; if he was not performing, he worked with his hands—blacksmithing, coopering, toolmaking. Perhaps she would find him near his makeshift forge.
She caught a glimpse of his gray-fringed head, thirty feet or so beyond the lead wagon. She saw him pit his strength against the windlass—a wooden frame that wound a hemp rope tight enough to pull the staves of a barrel into alignment. Magda stood for a' moment watching the competence with which the old man forced the errant staves to his will before slipping the metal hoop around them to form the barrel shape.
"De poor workman quarrels wif his tools," she'd heard him say to Fancy once. "A man kin mos'ly always make somethin' work if he has the will to do it, honey. Don't you never let me hear you say, 'I cain't do dis, 'cause I ain't got de right tools to he'p me.' "
Such good advice... such a good, firm heart, she thought. He has given that child more than she knows.
"Afternoon, Miz Magda," Atticus called out when he saw her. "You lookin' for ol' Atticus?" He smiled in pleasure and she waved at him in return.
"You are an artist," she said respectfully.
He looked startled, but pleased. "Jest doin' what I knows to do, Miz Magda. But I do like de sound of dem kind words, all de same." He motioned her to a small stool nearby.
"Want to set a spell? I could stand a li'l company 'bout now."
"I have seen you in the cards, my friend," Magda said carefully. "There is much we could speak of, yes?"
Atticus leaned his weight on the windlass for a moment before replying. "I thank you kindly for askin', Miz Magda, but I don't rightly know if talkin' kin change what you seen in dem cards a' yours."
She noticed he did not doubt her ability to "see," merely her ability to change fate.
"We are realists, we two, eh?" she responded. Magda sat on the stool with her knees apart as a man would do, her skirt wide in front of her. She placed her hands on her knees and stretched her back in the darkening sun.
"The fools do not understand that the curse of our gift is that we know what we must face, before it comes." She laughed joylessly. "When I was a girl, my sisters would say to me 'Magda, Magda find my petticoat... Magda, I lost my ring. Look into your crystal and tell me where I put it.' As if the gift of clairvoyance was a mountebank's game for children to play at.
"They would laugh at my seriousness and abuse my 'sight' to find lost trinkets—and I would sit at my window with visions of their deaths in my mind's eye, unable to explain my burden."
Atticus lowered himself to the ground beside her. He was still strong, she saw, but his muscles did not move freely anymore; he lowered himself with care and bent his knees, as if they pained him.
"I learnt to conjure 'cause dat's de way of men in my tribe. My family got wizards, so dey 'spects me to learn wizardin', too. I 'members de first time I seen a vision. Lawd, Lawd, Miz Magda, I thought I was king of de world dat day!"
"So you asked for your gift and I did not, and we are both stuck with it just the same. A good joke Fate plays on us, Atticus. Is it not so?"
"That of preacher on Massa Deverell's plantation, he say, 'Man propose, God dispose.' Don't seem to matter which ol' god you got, dey all work de same way."
"You bartered with the gods for the child's life, did you not, my friend?" she asked gently.
"Yes, ma'am, I did jest dat." He didn't question how she knew.
"And you fear the time of payment is near at hand?"
He nodded. "I had some dreams. He comin' for me one day soon. He surely is. I don't regret dat bargain I made wif him, you understan', Miz Magda. Guess I jest not as brave as I thought I be when de time come."
"You are brave enough," she responded with conviction. "I will tell you what I know, yes?" He nodded.
"You will die within the year. She will be with you, but she will be saved. It will not be an easy death, Atticus, but not as dreadful as your God could have decreed—you will be spared the worst because of your unselfishness. I cannot see it clearly.
"You will have taught her all she needs—she will never forget the lessons. Although she fails to live by your rules at times, she will remember them and know she has erred. Your destiny and hers were entwined long ago, my friend. You were sent to be her teacher."
He accepted what the Gypsy said. "I'se had me a good long life, Miz Magda. I had me some freedom. I had me a wife and sons and Fancy. Cain't complain none, I guess."
Magda rose to go, moved by the old man's courage. She put her hand on his arm and squeezed it. "I thought you would wish to know. Forgive me."
"Ain't nothin' to forgive. Always better to know what you is dealin' wif. Don't like surprises so much now I'm old. I would've liked to see Californy, all green and gold like dey say. Would've liked to see my sons agin, see how dey turned out. Would've liked to see Fancy git what she needs outta life."
"She will have everything she ever dreamed of."
"It ain't things I worry about her havin'. Dat child needs a powerful lot of love."
"Don't we all?" Magda answered with a wry smile, and Atticus laughed a little as she turned to go. He shook his head wonder-ingly at the visit and, picking up the tools again, prepared to return to his work.
He saw the tall, exotic woman hesitate, then turn back to him for a moment.I
"You are a good man, Atticus," she said with emotion. "I admire you very much." Then she turned and made her way toward her own wagon, her long skirt flapping against her legs, her dark braid bouncing. She had not wished to demean his courage with her tears.
Fancy curtsied deeply, her face flushed with the exhilaration of applause. She wanted to shout with glee... to dance... to hug herself in congratulation. She had sung magnificently in tonight's performance. Even Gitalis had leapt to his feet to applaud her at the end of the aria, and Jarvis' face at the edge of the audience had beamed an impresario's approval.
She searched the animated crowd for a glimpse of Atticus, but he was nowhere to be seen. She felt a small, constricted ache somewhere inside as she realized that these days, the man she looked for was no longer straight and proud as an old oak, but stooped and rounded as a banyan. He'd been acting oddly, too, she thought, not himself at all.
Fancy curtsied again, blew kisses to the audience, and whirled off the improvised stage in a rustle of taffeta skirting. How she loved the feel of the lavish fabric—the sensuous sound of the stiff moire brought back memories of her mother's ball gowns, of the life that was rightfully hers.
Still flushed with the thrill of applause, Fancy ran to the wagon where Magda was readying herself for the onslaught of those who wished to have t
heir fortunes told.
"Where's Atticus, Magda?" she called out as she set her foot on the lowest step of the Gypsy's wagon. "I want to share my triumph with him. I was wonderful tonight!" She laughed, a musical, self-satisfied sound on the crisp night air.
"He's gone," Magda replied abruptly. She did not turn from the mirror to face Fancy.
"Gone where?" asked the girl, puzzled that he would go anywhere with a night's work unfinished.
"To the mountain, child. Your friend seeks communion with his old Gods. He searches for a sign."
"A sign? What sort of sign, and why now? Why not in the daylight?"
"The moon is full tonight—this is necessary for what he seeks."
"Magda, you're frightening me. He shouldn't go off by himself in the dark without telling me."
"He does what he must, girl. He has a debt to pay."
"What debt? What are you talking about, Magda?"
"He has read certain portents in a dream, Fancy. You must let him do as his conscience dictates."
"Well, I'll do no such thing, if it means he goes meandering off into the woods at night like this! Why, he didn't even stay to hear me sing and this was my best performance ever."
Magda's glance was full of contempt. "Selfish child! He grapples with the gods and you speak of songs! Get out of my sight."
Fancy backed away in hurt confusion. She was used to Magda's volatile temper, but this exchange was very strange indeed.
Chapter 10
"We must consider the possibilities," Magda said in the quiet of her own wagon.
Wes smiled and reached his arms around her from behind to fondle her breasts, a gesture that could generally soothe her most savage moods.
"No!" she said harshly, breaking away from his encircling embrace. "We must talk."
"There is nothing to talk about," Jarvis replied, annoyed. Why couldn't she leave it alone? No man wants to be reminded of his failures.