Prologue
“What if I told you a story?” The old lady asked the back of the girl’s head who stood in front of her stand
“Pardon?” The dark head of hair spun around to face the voice. The older lady’s piercing green eyes stared at her. Looked through her own eyes, as if she had stripped the outer layers of her soul to see the centre. A cold chill ran down her spine, “Where are you talking to me?”
“Ohh, I don’t have anything to give you,” the girl told the woman.
“That’s fine, I only want your ears.” Her voice matched her face. The rasp of age laced her vocal cords. Wrapped around and added more vibration.
“Young girl, let me tell you a story; you won’t mind sitting down with me, would you?”
“Of course not,” so the brown-haired girl sat down on the older blue cushioned chair. The thread from the pattern and the patchwork dug into the back of her thighs.
“She hated Summer.” That was how the old lady started off her tale. “The blistering heat, the bloomed flowers. She hated summer.” The old lady make it sound like there used to be a like, a point in her life that Summer was the only time in the year she looked forward to. Now the like to this season was as far in the past tense as the English dialect could get.
“She hated how it resembled life; the growth and the colours. But the girl hated the reasons for hating it more.” The words left a bitter taste in her mouth. “She hated that he died in the summer, the fact she buried him in the heat and sweated through her black dress. She hated that she lived and he didn’t.”
“Who?” The brown girl asked.
“Who?” The old lady repeated. “Who died? Or who is she?”
“Both,” the brown-haired girl asked. The story hits closer to home than we ever admit.
“Who she is I can’t tell you, but who died.” The woman looked away from the girl for the first time since she sat in the chair in front of her. “Who she lost was the love of her life, in an accident that should have taken both of them.” The girl’s heart stopped. In the time before and during she never once thought to look at what this lady’s purpose was in the fair, never thought anything more than ‘she’s a nice lady who wants someone to spend some time with.’
The girl shot up from her chair, shoulders bumping into the traffic of people minding their own business. She looked at the top of the stand, then she looked at the bottom, trying to find out how this woman knew. The words on the sign read:
Fortune Teller
Her breath caught in her throat. The words in front of her eyes are ones she promised to avoid.
“Come back, and sit down my dear.” The old woman didn’t even look bothered by the young girl’s reaction. “You’re looking a little tired. Maybe it’s the long hours of little pay, and food at the castle.” The woman once again looked deep in thought. “Do tell me, is it worth it? Or do you just need a distraction?” The words echoed in the girl’s head, bouncing back and forth like a ball In the royal courtyard when the princes are bored.
“H-How do you know?” Her voice shook with dread of the answer she thinks she already knows.
“Why not? It’s part of my job to find broken souls and tell them their stories. To make them believe that they have something in common with someone, or something, even if that thing is fake.”
“But why?” She was full of questions that the old woman didn’t want to answer.
“So you can heal.” The word ‘heal’ never sat right on the girl’s tongue, the aftertaste was always bitter. The knowing of whatever’s next he won’t be there for. Bitter was the only word she could use. Though she knew it never justified the taste of sorrow that came when she remembered what her lover’s tears tasted like; after they rolled down his cheek. The salt from his pain crawled on to her bottom lip. The walking of the man in her arms brought the tang of suffering to the surface.
