Marionette

Chapter 3 - Fortunes

Alice

I had only seen glimpses of Zachary in my first two days working as the apprentice fortune teller. Madame Yora said that he helped with other acts, but he was needed more at night.

“He’s a kind of healer,” Madame Yora said, caressing the card deck on my table. We were alone in my tent, as I ate the last bite of my sandwich for lunch. The ham felt decadent on my tongue, since my mother forbade me from eating any meat. It wasn’t anything religious. She just wanted me to eat fruits and vegetables, while I had seen her stuff herself with whatever the hell she wanted, including the neighbor’s c**k.

“Good for your kind, Alice.”

I never quite gathered the courage to find out what she meant by that. Why would I be any different from her?

“Did you hear what I said?” Madame Yora asked, interrupting unpleasant memories. “Your dream lover is a healer. You just may get him to heal you from whatever is ailing you.”

“Oh.”

I couldn’t help but sound the O with a round mouth. The shape lingered even as I felt just how dry my lips were. I licked at them, my senses coming alive with the taste of meat and salt and skin.

“You sound surprised,” Madame Yora observed, with only a faint degree of amusement.

“I am. He – um,” I hesitated. It didn’t feel right to say that I couldn’t think him a healer because of his beautiful face and muscular body.

“I know what you’re thinking,” my mentor teased. “How can a beautiful man like him be a healer? Physicians are bespectacled and thin. He’s not a trained physician, though. He’s born with his abilities. Talk to him. Go to his tent after you’re done with your shift.”

The afternoons were assigned to me while Madame Yora took on the nights. I would be free to see Zachary in action, though I felt bitter that he hadn't sought me out at all.

Still, the thought of being close to him made me press my thighs together. I wanted him. It was a strong desire, fueled by innocence and curiosity. We didn’t have to love each other to find pleasure in each other. I could still remember how he made that older woman feel. I felt everything.

“Okay. At this moment, I just want to do well in my fortune-telling sessions,” I said, ignoring the warmth of my body.

“You’ll do well because you are born into it. You are the most pliable person I know, Alice.”

“What does that mean?” I demanded, although I wanted to take back the harshness of my tone.

“You have so many powers just waiting to be unlocked. You can tell other people’s fortunes, and you can also feel what other people feel.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. So, what I experienced while peeking through the hole wasn’t Zachary’s doing. It was my ability that had me spiraling into passion. He didn’t mean to share the sensations with me.

“What you and Zachary have is incendiary,” Madame Yora rasped with glee when I didn’t say anything.

**

The woman in front of me was dressed to the nines. She wore a deep, almost brownish red velvet gown and feathers around her neck. I would have thought she was part of the circus, but she was not. With brightly manicured nails, she took three of the tarot cards as I instructed. She did it with her chin tipped high as if my simple instruction was an insult and that she wasn’t used to anyone telling her to do anything at all.

“There. Three cards as you asked,” she said in that breathy, slightly amused voice that sometimes ended too throaty. It was all so theatrical, but I wasn’t exposed to show business enough to know whether she was an actress or a celebrity of sorts. Perhaps Madame Yora could enlighten me later.

“Three cards. Past, present, and future,” I said in what I hoped was my mysterious voice. Even though I was already in my early twenties, my voice sometimes still sounded too girlish for my own liking. I followed a script that I hoped would make it all official, but the visions that came together with the cards were real.

“Oh do go on,” she said, biting her lower red lip.

A flash of memory came. I saw her on a bed, being pinned down by a large man with a round belly. Bile rose to my throat, but I held on to this vision. The man pumped himself into my client. Her white thighs were spread wide for the man. She was moaning in pleasure, but I could feel the lie.

Suddenly, I could feel what she was feeling. There was nothing. There was a bit of sting as the man thrust violently, but she – we – could barely feel him. It was so different from when I stepped inside the thoughts of the woman Zachary was f*****g. So much different.

“What is it?” my client asked, looking a little pale and ruffled. She wasn’t looking as confident as she was earlier.

“There’s a man in your life that you tolerated. It was why the card of Judgment is upside down. When you were with him, you loathed yourself. You didn’t believe in what you can do.”

She gasped. When I looked up at her, there were tears forming in her eyes. I had gone under her skin and inside her head, and she knew it.

“Right now, you have the Lovers upside down. You still don’t believe in love, and you don’t think anyone can provide you the passion you need in your life. The completion.”

“You’re right,” she whispered. “I’ve been told to come here because of this pain inside me.”

“You’re here to feel better through fortune telling?” I didn’t even bother hiding my surprise.

“Well, it’s the beginning, they said.”

“We will speak of that after I look into your future card. Oh, look. You have the Magician upright. It means you will make a name for yourself, Marissa. You will be stronger. You will meet your heart’s and body’s desires.”

“When did I tell you my name?” she asked, looking spooked at first. Her eyes, though, quickly widened with hope and excitement.

“You didn’t,” I said, surprising even myself. “The man I saw with you in the vision called out your name.”

“That was my bastard ex-husband. He bought me from my mother. He was already fifty when I was eighteen. He just died of a heart attack. I endured ten years with him. Now, I’m here to claim my healing.”

The baubles around her neck and wrists, together with the large rings around her fingers, no longer looked intimidating. They instead made me feel sorry for her. I knew what it was like. I wasn’t a kept woman like Marissa, but I was my mother’s doll. We were both under someone’s control.

“I hear someone claiming their healing,” Madame Yora’s smooth voice broke through the brief silence that followed Marissa’s declaration. My client and I both startled at the sudden intrusion.

My graceful mentor entered the tent, looking the part of a fortune teller with her gypsy white blouse and long frilly skirt. A scarf was even wrapped around her head, although her black hair still cascaded down her back.

“I’m no longer surprised you heard me,” Marissa said, chuckling nervously. “What will happen next?”

“You are Miss Woodhouse’s last client for the day. It’s already almost five o’clock. You will wait for your healing session with Zachary Ackerman, scheduled for six. Come with me for some refreshments while you wait.”

Marissa rose. Her cheeks were now glowing. She was on her way to being healed by Zachary. What kind of healing? Visions of Zachary with the blond woman came back, and I wanted to hurl. I blinked back the tears.

But you just reminded yourself that there wouldn’t be anything but s*x involved if you do come to Zachary.

Fool.

When Marissa was outside the tent and Madame Yora was about to leave, I just had to ask with that one word.

“Healing?”

“Oh, child,” she said with pity that I didn’t want. “It’s just his job.”

“You mean…”

The implications hung between the two of us. I couldn’t believe it. Did Zachary have to f**k everyone who needed healing? Did he want it? Or was he just like Marissa and me – prisoners at some point in their lives?

Madame Yora nodded. Her face was impassive. Even with my powers to dig into other people’s emotions, I couldn’t read her. After all, she had mastered her craft, and I was just beginning.

**

“Why are you so sad, Miss Woodhouse?” Hugh asked as we sat on a bench outside the circular perimeter of Crow’s Nest.

“I’m just getting used to being here,” I lied. In fact, the circus felt like a natural habitat. If I had to be honest to myself, I was nursing a broken heart for someone I hadn’t really had a real conversation with. “Oh, you can call me Alice, Hugh. I’m one of the youngest here, and I don’t think I can be called Miss or Mistress anything yet.”

“Okay, Alice. You know you can tell me anything.”

Hugh was no longer frightening, even though the daylight hadn’t been kind to his face. The grayish skin. The one blind eye. There were scars on his cheeks, as well. I felt small next to him. He could easily crush me, but I wasn’t frightened. He was the gentlest among the circus workers, if that could be believed – but it was true.

“I don’t know if I should stay here. I came here thinking that Zachary Ackerman would be meeting with me. Wanting me. He hasn’t shown any interest in getting to know me, Hugh.”

“Oh.”

He seemed sad or disappointed, or maybe he was just being polite to the silly girl talk he had to endure.

“I’m sorry, Hugh. I haven’t even asked you if you were alright.”

“I’m fine, Alice,” he grunted, but I could tell he wasn’t. I felt waves of despair coming from the gentle giant. “Oh, I need to go.”

“You need to go? Haven’t you been working all day long? It’s your break, isn’t it? It’s past five.”

“It’s my size, I think. They believe I can do anything.” He tried to smile, but it came out like a grimace. It might be because his face wasn’t symmetrical, or maybe he really was in pain.

“You deserve to rest.”

“Okay, Alice.”

“You know what. Maybe we should just run away from the circus? People always run away with the circus, but what if we leave?”

Excitement washed over me as I imagined myself protected by this large, scary-looking but kind man.

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not? Do you see any chains around our wrists? Our ankles?” I asked, almost bouncing off the bench. He had already stood up, blocking the remaining rays of the sun. I didn’t realize we were facing west until that moment.

“We are not chained, but we are bound to this place a different way, sweet Alice,” he said mournfully.

“In a different way? We?” I asked, but he was already several feet away from me.

My thoughts flew back to Zachary. If Hugh was right and we couldn’t get away from her, for some strange reason, why couldn’t I have fun here? I remembered Marissa’s appointment with the “healer.” I would be there. Even if I would have to borrow some of the pleasure, I would.

I rose from my seat, steeling myself from the pain I would feel right into my heart but looking forward to the pleasure Zachary could give. Maybe we were meant to work alongside each other like this.

When the clock went past six, I walked slowly toward my room. It was strange how my room was right next to his, but we never really talked. This time, I intended to talk to him a different way.

In my room, I waited for the moans to grow louder. I stripped off my dress and approached the peephole.