“I knew it would be good for something.”
Sometimes working with the unnatural could hit odd speed bumps. They didn’t always have the same dread—or understanding of—mortality as people did. Sometimes it was weirdly comforting.
It could all still wait for later, but the fact he didn’t have to pretend his “later” was in short supply paradoxically took some of the weight off his shoulders. He might die tomorrow, but corn dogs first.
* * *
There wasa woman in the lee of one of the tents, head bent over cupped hands as she click-clicked on her lighter. The dull sparks thrown off the flint picked out freckles and short-cropped iron-gray-dusted hair. She looked up as they approached her.
“Hey,” she said. “You guys have a light?”
Ledger gave his pockets a quick, performative pat and then shrugged her off. He expected Wren to do the same, but instead, Wren produced a packet of matches from his back pocket. She grimaced as she turned the paper fold between her fingers, but she still gave Wren a quick nod.
“Thanks,” she said, fumbling a thin, flat match out and striking it on the strip. It fizzled the first time, and she had to try again. This time the head flared, spat, and caught, and the woman clutched it between stained fingers as she raised it to the end of the cigarette clamped between her lips. The smoke tangled through her lashes as she inhaled. The end of the cigarette flared, threads of tobacco curling as they turned to ash, and she shook the match out. She flicked it to the ground as she straightened up and took the cigarette out of her mouth to exhale. Her arms were covered with stick n’ poke doodle tats, once-black ink faded down to blue. “I’m trying to quit. I swear I smoke more. Here.”
She held the matches, pinched between her fingers, out toward Wren, but he waved them off.
“Keep them,” he said. “I can get more.”
The woman laughed and shook her head. “Oh, no,” she said. “Bad enough to take a gift from the likes of you. I ain’t taking charity.”
Wren cocked his head to the side as he took the matches back. “Should I be offended?”
“She’s not wrong,” Ledger said.
It wasn’t “later” yet, but if Hark was looking for Ledger, he’d not find him down here. Ledger tugged at Wren’s sleeve.
“You look worried,” the woman said, her attention suddenly on Ledger. “Bad day, hon?”
Wren snorted. “Better than tomorrow is gonna be.”
The woman ignored him as she took a drag on her cigarette, her cheeks hollowed out painfully. She flicked the ash off, licked her fingers, and pinched the butt out with a sizzle.
“You want a reading?” she asked. “Guaranteed to come true in a week or your money back.”
“You’re not here that long,” Ledger pointed out.
She grinned. Her teeth were very white and very even. “I suppose that’s true,” she said. “Don’t you want to know what tomorrow will bring, though? If you and pretty boy here have a future?”
“We don’t,” Wren said, his voice gone flat. “There. I did your job for you. Do I get paid?”
She bent down to tuck the butt of the cigarette into her boot. “Not my job,” she laughed as she straightened up. “I don’t even know if I’m going to smoke the rest of that cig or not. But I can let you jump the queue to see Madame Persephone. If you cross my palm with paper?”
She stuck her hand out. The lines on her palm were etched out in faded ink, as if she’d decided to write her own fortune years ago.
Ledger would usually say no. Fortune tellers were a con. Even the real ones. Maybe especially the real ones. But the carnival smelt nearly as strong—if less gag-inducing—as Earl, and even a bad idea was an idea.
He got his wallet out of his back pocket and pulled out a fifty. The woman snatched her tattooed hand back before he could touch it to her skin.
“Not money, a ticket.” She wagged her finger at him disapprovingly. “You got to have a ticket to ride, sir.”
“I don’t have a ticket,” Ledger said.
Most of the time, he was glad that he couldn’t smell what people were. He knew enough about his neighbors because the walls in the apartment building were thin; he didn’t need to sniff out any other secrets. Right now, he wished he knew for sure what to believe, the warm eyes or the predator’s smile.
“Who comes to a carnival and doesn’t want a turn on a ride?” she asked.
Before Ledger could answer, Wren butted in. “He hates joy,” he said. “But he’s got a ticket.”
