The Fortuneteller’s Fate - Elizabeth Addie

[Ceri Shaw]

Anya clicked her rings together, tapping her lucky rhythm, and breathing excitedly as she crouched behind a mossy tree trunk waiting for the less-fortunate rhythm of her pursuers’ footsteps beating on the ground. Inexplicably, she felt giddy rather than fearful, as any normal woman should have felt under the circumstance. Maybe Anya was not normal. She had been called many things in the past two days, including devil-woman and heretic, but not the name she expected: fraud.

Anya learned the art and manipulation of fortune telling from her Romanian mother and business sense from her Russian father at an early age. Her mother always said to “look for the words that pierce the heart.” Every seeker of advice and knowledge of the future has an answer they want confirmed already in mind. A skilled fortune teller is simply a perceptive and intuitive person who tells people what they want to hear.

Three days earlier Anya and her siblings, along with the shiftless assortment of criminals which comprised the gypsy caravan set up tent poles in a small Scottish village. The village was pleasant enough, with beautiful green rolling hills, and seemingly a ratio of one church to every three villagers. Needless to say, these folks were in need of some entertainment, which the gypsies were more than willing to provide for an adequate amount of coins.

On the first night of the travelers arrival, the villagers began filtering into the carnival grounds as the sun set and eddies of wind whipped through the chilly dusk. Anya felt a tingling of her skin, which she always experienced before a lightning storm, along with a strange combination of excitement and unease. Several villagers left her tent unimpressed by the skill of her readings, and insulted by her underestimation of their intelligence. She thought to herself, “if you are so enlightened, why do you have stakes in the town square for the burning of witches?” and chuckled lightly at her inner wit. Although she had been trying to dupe the villagers, she felt insulted by their doubt of her powers.

This anger left her as a small frightened woman with long auburn hair entered and cautiously sat down. “I have a feeling something horrible is going to happen” she whispered in a shaky voice. Anya looked into the woman’s eyes more deeply and felt a shiver up her spine. Her heart raced and the earth seemed to tilt beneath her, causing her to clutch at her table, and putting her eyes level with the crystal ball. The glass orb which had formerly been used only as a prop came alive with images of the small woman and a young boy. “This young boy is your son” Anya felt herself say. The words poured from her like a woman possessed. “I see you at his bedside weeping. He is covered in pox and boiling from inside. He is dying. You must go to him!” Anya’s head dropped to the desk as she passed out and the woman fled from the tent in search of her son.

The next day Anya’s sister, Nastacia told fortunes while Anya went into the village to buy thread and buttons, and combed the forest for mushrooms. When all necessities were bought and all fortunes told, at night Nastacia came to her sister’s tent to count coins and discuss the locals. “These villagers are a fearful bunch. They proclaim themselves non-believers but their eyes say they are afraid we are witches. I don’t trust them.” Both sisters agreed it would be best if the caravan moved on to another town ahead of schedule, but doubted that their stubborn brother would consent. As expected, Ivan refused; teasing his sisters for being such talented frauds that they managed to spook even themselves. Ivan had the first and last word on issues of income and travel, and the sisters did not ask again.

On the third day in the village it was again Anya’s turn to tell fortunes. She was preparing for her day by putting on her lucky jewelry and lining her eyes with charcoal in an exotic fashion when Ivan interrupted her. “You have got to get out of here now. The villagers think you are evil, and they are ransacking the tent looking for you right now. A little boy died, and they think you cursed him. I don’t know what you did, but you …” She didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence as she heard the yells and chanting of an angry mob, and darted out of the trailer, underneath a wagon, and into the woods.

Running deeper through the trees on uneven ground, stumbling, and scratched by branches, she slipped on a mossy rock and tumbled into the nook of the tree. She pulled her shawl around her, let her bramble of dark hair fall over her face and neck, and leaned into the tree, its pulse matching her own. Surrounded by the sweet smell of forest decay she dug her fingers into the ground and let the energy of the earth pass through her body. She was not hidden very deep in the forest, and soon the voices and sound of trampled branches approached. Although her logic told her to stay in the tree and pray to be passed over, a sensation of power came over her along with the sudden insight that she must rise and face the crowd. She saw the outcome of staying in the tree in her mind: she would be discovered, chased and brutally captured. Instead, she forced herself to stand on her shaking legs and address the mob. “Stop!” she commanded. The crowd looked at her befuddled. Half of the fun of a witch hunt is the chase, which she had so inconsiderately deprived them of, she thought. “Tie her up” the leader said. Anya put her wrists behind her obligingly for the bulky oaf with the rope. “Allow me to explain..” Anya began to say, but was cut off by the oaf heaving her up over his shoulder savagely, knocking the wind out of her. Her rib ached, and as she looked up she saw Ivan and Nastacia looking at her in despair, and realized she had made a terrible mistake. These people wouldn’t listen to her pleas of innocence. They would consider her words the manipulation of a cunning witch, that is if they could even hear her over the sound of her body engulfed in roaring flames. “Stop!” cried a voice which echoed like her own. “She’s innocent!” It was the mother of the deceased boy. “She didn’t predict my boy’s death.” “Then who did?” asked the council leader impatiently. “I did. I could tell he was getting sick before it was obvious. He had a fever and the chills.” “She’s lying,” a small man bellowed surprisingly loudly, “My mother lives in the house next to hers. The boy was in perfect health and outside playing in the grass on the day the prediction was made.” A rumble of anger passed through the crowd. “String her up” and “she’s a witch!” a few men chanted. Without deliberation, the small woman was bound and shoved into the wagon alongside Anya. “Very heroic, now you get us both killed. Tell me your name.” said Anya. “Larena.” “Good, Larena, now I know the name of the woman responsible for my death.” Larena made no reply, and the two women clung to the wooden boards inside the wagon as it pitched and tossed on its voyage along the bumpy ground, trailed by the noisy mob of villagers.

The villagers unloaded the accused witches at the center of the town, where a platform with several upright posts stood. “I’m not a witch, release me” Anya pleaded, but her voice was too quiet to be heard over the cacophony of the crowd, which had grown upon its arrival in town. Well, I’m finally giving them a spectacle they’re entertained by, and they’re not even going to pay me, Anya thought ruefully. “Oh, they’ll pay all right” said Larena. Anya looked to Larena in amazement. Did she really just read my thoughts or did I say that aloud? “The former” said Larena, casting an intense gaze at her fellow “witch.” Now you should hear me also. Nod if you do. Anya nodded. I need you to remember the thunderstorm from your first day in town. Close your eyes and calm your heart. See the clouds grow heavy and feel the dampness on your skin. Feel the shiver up the back of your neck and hear the thunder moving closer. The mental instructions from Larena lulled Anya into a state of consciousness where she no longer remembered her circumstance, until a searing pain in her foot caused her eyes to pop open, and she saw a flame licking at her feet from the base of the stake to which she was apparently now tied. “Don’t lose focus” hissed Larena from the stake beside her. Although the flames were similarly dancing below Larena, she appeared unaffected. To her surprise, Anya noticed dark clouds moving swiftly overhead and felt splashes of rain. “It’s starting to rain,” the short man from the crowd announced, “and it’s going to put out the fire!” A split second later the man with a passion for stating the obvious became the contact point for a lightning bolt which shot through his body and made a chain through several other villagers standing to his right. The crashing thunder was instantaneous, as was the stopping of the heartbeats of those struck by the lightning. By now the rain was falling steadily and had completely extinguished the flames under Anya and Larena. In the midst of the panic none of the scattering villagers thought to remove the two witches from their stakes. Ivan climbed up over the side of the platform and said “Thank God you’re still alive.” “I think your thanks are misplaced” Larena said, smirking meaningfully. Ivan released the women from their stakes, and the three of them mounted Ivan’s horse and rode back to camp.

While Ivan and the crew hastily packed, Anya and Nastacia could barely contain their curiosity about the small woman with such unusual gifts.

“Why did you risk your life to defend me to the villagers?” Anya asked.

“I already knew my boy was going to die when I came to you. The power to see the future does not come with the power to change its course. Illness and death are laws of nature which cannot be tampered with” replied Larena.

“Is seeing the future, hearing thoughts, and smiting ignorant villagers with lightning bolts not defying the laws of nature?”

“No. That’s a part of nature which people don’t yet comprehend.”

“Why did you go to me for a fortune if you already knew the fate of your boy?”

“I cannot always distinguish a vision from motherly worry. I needed an objective soul for the reading, who was also capable of being a conduit to the unknown for an authentic reading. It was fortunate that just at the moment I needed help discovering my fate a carnival came to town with you, a fortune teller. I took this as a sign, and when I came to your tent the storm approached, I could see and hear the air crackling around your head. That was how I knew you had the potential to tell me what I needed to know. I was hoping you would gaze into the crystal and see a healthy young man playing, but I knew in my heart this would not be the case. And … it wasn’t. I’m very sorry for all of the trouble I’ve caused you. I hope you can forgive my weakness. When I came back to town after the reading with my worst fears confirmed, I couldn’t hide my sorrow from the old woman who lives next door to me. When she asked what was wrong, I broke down and told her of my boy’s fate. As soon as I saw the look of suspicion on her face rather than sympathy I knew I had made a mistake. I tried to say that it was only fear, and that my boy will be fine. But after he became ill and died she told the town council of my prediction and they paid me a visit with torches and pitchforks. I’m not a brave woman, so when they accused me of sorcery I laid the blame at your feet. They accepted this gladly, as they would rather burn an unsavory foreigner than one of their own.”

Anya laid her hand on Larena’s shoulder in a gesture of forgiveness. Ivan called out “climb on, we’re heading north.” Larena hesitated as Anya and Nastacia climbed onto the wagon. She knew returning to village would be a death sentence. Nastacia and Anya put out their arms beckoning Larena into the wagon, and helped hoist her up. “Hurry Larena, you will be the star of our show.”