Her mouth widened. Her eyes narrowed. With a trembling finger, she pointed.
“You!!”
But she wasn’t pointing at Luna.
She was pointing at Henry.
Chapter 12
Me?Henry thought – before, a moment later, his brain caught up with him.Well, of course me, I suppose.I’mthe one she cursed, after all. Even if I have no idea why.
He was about to give a voice to this thought when Madame Fortuna cried out again, her finger still leveled in fierce accusation, her eyes wild with fury.
“You! Howdareyou!”
Her voice was really getting quite loud, and a few of the other stallholders were turning around to look now, concerned expressions on their faces, and Henry really couldn’t say he blamed them.
He lifted his hands conciliatorily – or as conciliatorily as he could, with Madame Fortuna waving her finger in his face.
“I just want to talk, since I think there’s been some kind of –”
Mistake,he never got to say, because in the next moment Madame Fortuna opened her mouth wide and bellowed, “You broke my heart!”
The next thing out of her mouth was a miserable wail, and she lifted her hands to cover her face as she started crying – andnot just crying, but deep, wracking sobs, as if Henry somehow reallyhadbroken her heart.
But I’ve never even met her before!he thought desperately.What is shetalkingabout?!
“I – I really didn’t. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Madame Fortuna in my life,” he said, turning to where Luna was standing beside him, her mouth hanging open in shock and surprise. It seemed that, in her upset at laying eyes on Henry, Madame Fortuna hadn’t yet noticed that Luna – the woman whose photo she’d stolen – was here too.
Oh God, Luna doesn’tbelieveher, does she?Henry thought, panic suddenly lancing through him.How can I convince her this has just been some terrible misunderstanding?!
Luna looked up at him, her eyes wide. She seemed to search his face for a moment, and then she shook her head.
“It’s okay, Henry – I believe you,” she said a moment later. “I don’t know how or why, but I think I’d know if you weren’t telling me the truth. I mean, I don’t understand even a little bit what’sactuallygoing on, but I don’t believe you broke anyone’s heart – well, not intentionally, anyway. But I think –”
“You have some nerve showing up here now, after everything you did,” Madame Fortuna broke in, her face still blotched with red and tears still clinging to her eyelashes, but her voice furious once more. “Come to apologize and beg for me to come back, have you? Well, I won’t have it! You made your bed, now you can lie in it!”
Okay,Henry thought, as he stared at Madame Fortuna.Enough is enough.
“Look, I’m sorry for what’s happened to you,” he said firmly, hoping that by being sensible he might be able to break through to her. “But I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. We have never met before. And I definitely didn’t break your heart.”
“Ofcoursewe never met!” Madame Fortuna raged at him. “Because youghostedme for our date! Aftermonthsof chatting me up, flirting with me, telling me you thought we had a real connection… and then you just never showed up!”
Henry stared at her. He couldn’t help but feel that far from coming under control, the situation was just getting more and more out of hand. But what could he say? What could he do? He had literally no idea where Madame Fortuna had gottenanyof this from.
He glanced over his shoulder. Passers-by had stopped to stare at them, some of them with food still half-raised to their mouths, their eyes wide.
The last thing Henry wanted was for this to become a spectator sport. They had to get Madame Fortuna somewhere where they could talk this out in private. Because clearly, something had goneverywrong here.
“Look, lady, just calm down for a moment.”
Henry’s attention was snapped back to Luna as he heard her voice, firm and no-nonsense, cutting through everything else.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Luna said, her voice still low and firm. “All I know is for some reason Henry has a curse he doesn’t deserve on him, and I think you put it there. I don’t know where you got the idea he broke your heart, but you better forget that idea right now, because I don’t believe it’s true. What Idoknow is true is that you stole my photo and you’ve been going around saying it’s you. So if anyone here is in the wrong, it’s you. And I want an explanation for all of it. Right now.”
Henry felt mildly in awe of Luna. She wasn’t flustered, she wasn’t angry. She was just calmly and quietly laying out the situation for Madame Fortuna, with an edge to her voice that made it clear she wasn’t messing around.
And perhaps it was because of that that Madame Fortuna abruptly stopped sobbing and actuallynoticedher, and let out a shocked gasp.
