The Fortune Teller's Daughter by Jordan Bell Page B

everyone. Don’t fucking stand there. Run .”
    The lizard
slid in the dewy wet grass and scampered off into the darkness between tents,
caterwauling loud enough to wake the long dead.
    Usually dawn
at Imaginiere was Eli’s favorite time, after the crowds had gone and
there was only the faint scent of popcorn and pink cotton candy on the air. He
could walk the paths between tents and spend hours hiding on the top tier of
the harlequin carousel working through the physics of a new trick. Alone. It
was the thing he missed most when the carnival went dark and they scattered.
More than his stage. More than the applause.
    The smell of
the Carnival. The way it breathed as if alive. Only when it was quiet could you
hear the memory of all the performances that had come before. All the applause
and the tears of wonder.
    Now he could
only think of the girl bleeding in his arms who’d pushed his brother from a
moving train without hesitating. She’d done it without it even occurring to her
to hesitate. There had been danger and if Eli couldn’t protect her, she’d damn
well protected herself.
    This was
what he was starting to realize - Serafine Moreau did not look like much until
she proved you wrong.
    Georgianne, Imaginaire’s doctor, rounded the corner when he reached his wagon. She was a big woman,
twice as big as most of the men and ten times as scary. Mama George to
most of the crew and she looked every bit the affectionate title they’d given
her. Fuzzy brown hair haloed her head, flattened on one side, still in her
outrageous flowered bathrobe and slippers. She carried her black medical bag.
    “What is
this?” she demanded in a loud whisper. “Elijah, what is going on?”
    “Inside,
Georgianne, quickly.”
    He took Sera
to his bed. She settled into his pillow, still creased where he’d slept the
night before, her copper hair fanned across the white linen. While Georgianne
turned on the bare light at his dressing table, he worked to get her coat off.
She was of little help in that endeavor, whimpering whenever he jostled her too
hard.
    As he
settled her back down his hand grazed her side and she cried out, rolling
instinctively into a ball. He immediately yanked his hands away.
    Her shirt
was soaked in drying blood. The knife. His knife. He’d thought Castel
had missed when he’d thrown it at Sera, but of course he hadn’t. Castel never
missed.
    Together
they lifted her to sit and pulled her ripped shirt over her head. Georgianne
didn’t ask what happened, and for that he was grateful. He’d have to face Rook
and that would be bad enough.
    The knife
hadn’t cut deep, the graze long from belly button to hip bone, but it had bled
plenty and it was not pretty. She’d scar.
    Another scar
to add to all the things he’d never be able to make up for. 
    Serafine
shivered and clutched her arms across her stomach, too out of it to be
embarrassed wearing only a black bra and pants. He would have to have been
blind not to notice the delicate lace material stretched around her heavy
breasts, clinging to her shoulders where fireworks of freckles colored her pale
skin. His hand lingered on her arm where they tapered off.
    It must have
been his lack of sleep or his exhaustion, but the ridiculous desire to count
every last one of them overwhelmed him.
    “Avert your
eyes,” Georgianne admonished as she tossed the destroyed shirt to the floor.
    “I…sorry.”
He shook his head.
    “Well don’t
look. For heaven’s sake. Get her something to wear.”
    Numbly he
got one of his shirts from his dresser and Georgianne dressed her. Sera seemed
to wake from her trance enough to try and help, but it was clear her vision was
off when she couldn’t quite find the arm holes.
    There were
few things in this world he could not do, wonderful, terrible, impossible
things. With this girl, bleeding and bruised, he came up with nothing. There
was no way to help her. No way to touch her.
    Though he
very much wanted to try, which made being