Grave Concern by Judith Millar Read Free Book Online Page B

the tent. Kate turned back to the fortune-teller, terrified but determined. She knew this woman could see deeper inside her than anyone ever had or would.
    The woman asked Kate some questions, easy ones: what her name was and if she liked school. She asked Kate’s favourite colour and what month she was born. The questions seemed unnecessary to Kate, who found them trivial and beside the point. But then Kate had never visited a fortune-teller. Perhaps this was standard procedure, some kind of warm-up for what was to come. Finally, with a knobbly finger, Madama Della traced the lines on Kate’s palm. It tickled, but Kate didn’t flinch. She wanted badly to hear the message of her hand.
    Madama Della tinkled the chimes. “Long life,” she said, in a voice more abrupt than Kate had expected. “Is good.”
    Her attention moved up Kate’s palm toward her fingers. “Heart has many roads, lines going out, coming in, here and there. One very strong all through.”
    Kate hoped for more explanation, but it wasn’t forthcoming. And the gypsy’s gruff tone and definitive pronouncements didn’t exactly make it easy to ask. The gypsy seemed to lose interest, leaned back in her chair, and gazed at the ceiling. Was that all, Kate wondered? A whole week’s allowance for that?
    As Kate gathered courage to rise, the chimes tinkled again. “You are very fortunate girl,” came Madama Della’s voice, “overall. However, sorrow is coming.”
    Kate didn’t like the sound of this. Maybe her parents were right, she shouldn’t have come. But Madama Della, it seemed, was just getting started.
    â€œYou will have sorrow, yes, but happiness too. You will meet a tall, dark stranger. You will travel far, far away. For many years, you will be not completely happy nor completely sad.”
    The woman checked Kate’s palm again, as though taking a second look at a word on a page. “Yes, confused, disoriented. But you will, after a long journey, find your heart again.”
    Madama Della sat back as though satisfied.
    Not sure of proper protocol, Kate said, “Uh, thank you,” and stood up. Madama Della once more tinkled the chimes and opened her hand, indicating Kate’s chair. Kate sat down again.
    â€œNo rush, dear,” said Madama Della. “Old Della not see so good any more. Your eyes. What colour are they?”
    The question seemed odd to Kate after such deep prophecies of the heart. But then everything had been odd, from the moment she’d walked in. “Uh, sort of brown, I guess,” Kate said.
    â€œI see,” sighed Madama Della. “Just two things more. You will come back here, Kate. You will return to this town. This is real message of the hand.”
    Madama Della leaned back into the darkness as though done. She pulled her hands off the dimly lit table and folded them comfortably over the front of her many-layered skirts.
    And the other thing? Kate wondered.
    â€œOh, and prophecies I have given, these are no in order,” said the Madama. “What spirits tell me will not be tamed or harnessed. These are more like wild horses, running free everywhere. The future will come, everything, as I have said it, all in time. But most caution, Do not try to bring future by what you hear now.”
    Kate pushed off the duvet and lay naked in the cool morning air. This memory of Madama Della had been like a weird echo of itself — was she remembering the actual encounter? Or her memory of the encounter the night before she’d pointed the Drive-Away toward home? Jeezus , as Mary would say, déjà vu all over again .
    Outside her window, the snow fell gently on. Kate got up and walked downstairs. The old Fahrenheit thermometer read twenty-nine. Just below freezing. She tapped the glass face of the old barometer. As a teenager watching her dad do this, Kate was scornful: Who still kept a barometer on their wall ? Now she read