“Do you remember anything about this Wizard of Oz?”
Rook takes his last bite from the peach. “I seem to know him like I know childhood fairy tales.” He tosses the refuse from the fruit into a nearby trash can.
“More myth than man?”
“Precisely.”
We turn left down the next street, heading south on Olligan Lane, as instructed.
There are several shops and restaurants here and the street is busy. Was Glimming Hollow always this full of energy, or did the witch’s presence make them more subdued and only now do they feel free to roam and revel?
“Are you nervous at all?” I ask Rook as the sign for Henrietta’s Looking Glass comes into view.
“Not particularly. Should I be?”
“I don’t know. Maybe? What if you find out you’re a bad guy?”
His laughter bounces off the buildings surrounding us. “Do I seem like a bad guy, Kansas?”
“No. But then again, I haven’t known you long.” I look up at him, feeling small beside him even though he’s close to the same height and size of Edward.
“We have that in common. I haven’t known me long either.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. And my laughter seems to amuse him.
We stop at the door to Henrietta’s shop. A hand-painted sign swings on an iron hook above us, the metal creaking.
“Ready?”
“Yes.” Rook grabs the brass door handle and twists.
The front of the shop is small and partitioned off from the back with a gauzy purple curtain that shimmers as it moves. Our footsteps are silent on the thick handwoven rug. Music plays through an old gramophone on a banquet table to our left. Above it is hand-painted art that saysHENRIETTA’S LOOKING GLASSin decorative letter work that reminds me of a circus.
Rook spots a brass bell on the banquet table and taps it with his index finger.
The bell chimes out.
“Coming!” a voice says from the back.
A few seconds later, the curtain pulls open and a woman appears. She’s wearing denim overalls over a ruffled burgundy blouse. Two long braids hang over each shoulder. Her hair is the color of summer corn with subtle streaks of gray.
Edward and I once visited a fortune teller at the harvest festival a few years back. I didn’t really believe in it and neither did Edward, but it was fun to entertain the idea that someone might shed light on our future when all of it felt so impossibly open.
I can’t remember the woman’s name, but she wore a billowy shawl embroidered with crystal balls. Giant topaz earrings hung from her ears, and she wore three gold necklaces layered one on top of another.
She was much older with crow’s-feet wrinkles and hands that were spotted with sun damage.
She told Edward he was meant to be a successful businessman and me that I was meant to have five children.
It didn’t escape me that Edward got a career and I got a domestic role, as if any woman’s highest aspiration was to be a mother.
I had plenty of friends who did want that, and I didn’t fault them for it. But deep down, I doubted that path was right for me. And the thought of admitting to anyone that I didn’t want children made me feel guilty and maybe even ashamed. As if being childless was somehow a betrayal.
Edward had been the true skeptic when we walked into that tent, but he was a believer when we walked out. Of course he was, he was getting everything he wanted.
I chose not to believe that fortune teller.
Will I believe this one?
