The Fortune Teller's Daughter Read Online Free

didn’t think I could stand this accursed city a day longer,
the dwarf would never have found me. The invitation would never have come to
me.
    I had to
believe it was supposed to be mine. My lifeline. Which was also the reason I
believed that even though I did not know where to find Alistair Rook’s
carnival, I would find it.
    At the
bottom of my stairs, in front of the mailboxes, I found my first clue.
    “Oh,
Serafine!”
    Ms. Elma
Totenheim stood sentry beside the front doors, watching the people outside move
along with their lives while minding the rest of us on the inside. She was
almost a shut in except that she was too nosy to actually stay in her
apartment. Elma made it as far as the mailboxes every day, collecting the
ephemera of our lives with her hawk eyes and herculean patience. She knew all
our arguments, sexual partners, and bad behaviors. She collected junk mail
dropped on the ground or in the trash and ferreted it away when she didn’t
think we were watching. She was an odd duck, but no more so than the rest of
us.
    My hand was
on the door knob, half turned, so close to getting away without being sucked
into a conversation I didn’t have time for. I turned towards her with a
strained smile.
    “Ms.
Totenheim. Is today a good day?”
    “It is a
very good day.” She cleared her throat again and thrust her chest towards me.
Her eyes darted to her left breast pocket.
    I don’t know
how I missed it when I ran past her, but pinned to her shirt was a blue orchid.
    “Where did
you get that?” I breathed. I knew the answer, of course. The petals seemed so
unbelievably blue, galaxy blue, like star dust. An overwhelming need to run my
fingers across their velvet tips had me gripping the handle of the door with
all my strength.
    Elma preened
as if it were a diamond ring and not just a flower.
    “A little
man gave it to me. He was dressed so nice, like a real gentleman he was.
Foreign, too. Nobility I think.”
    “That was
very kind of him. I’ve never seen anything like it. Did he say where it came
from?”
    “Oh, no. He
did say he’d never seen a lady with prettier eyes than me when he insisted on
giving me his flower.” She swayed her shoulders back and forth, unable to take
her eyes away from her gift. “Sweet man. I was a catch once up on a time, a
real beauty they used to say about me. When I was your age.”
    “Did he say
anything else? Anything at all?”
    She thought
about it. “No. He seemed to be in a hurry. Had a bunch of flyers to hang up.”
    Flyers.
    “Here? Did
he hang one up here? Elma, think please. Did you grab it perhaps?”
    “I am no
thief!”
    “No, you’re
right.” I took a step towards her. She took a step back. “I didn’t mean that
you were. I just thought, perhaps he gave you one special.”
    Elma’s eyes
stayed narrowed on me for a long time, as if perhaps I intended to steal her
flower. Her hand fluttered along its edges, fully prepared to crush it in her
fist before letting me make off with it.
    Her vanity
overpowered her suspicion. “Well, I suppose maybe he gave me one special. Stay
here. You can’t come in.”
    She
disappeared back to her apartment and was gone for only a few minutes before
returning with a postcard sized flyer clutched in her hands.
    “This is it.
Don’t know if it’ll do you any good.”
    The postcard
was a blue so dark it was almost black, the paper soft to the touch, like
moleskin. Stars dotted the background, raining down around the imprint at the
center - a silver crescent moon with a raven perched inside the bottom curve.
    I turned it
over and recognized the strong, cursive handwriting in silver this time. Alistair
Rook’s Carnival Imaginaire . At the edge of the city, along the horizon,
within your dreams. No children allowed after dark.
    “Riddle
nonsense,” I grumbled and handed the card back to her. She snatched it, worry
furrowing her old, narrow face, clearly worried the devil girl from upstairs
would steal her object. “That