Janet looked at him with envy and delight. He seemed so free and uncontrollable as he demonstrated another trick. And she suddenly felt as if she were in a cage. She couldnt do anything out of the ordinary, and some kid could do it all.
«Do you think hes magic?» Janet asked Nyssa quietly.
«He is not a wizard.» Her friend almost laughed. Hes just a juggler.»
«Youve seen jugglers in Rhodolit before?» Janet wondered, for her friend had been out on the town before, not cooped up in her castle. But shed never said anything about tricksters in the square who could do such astounding things. Nor did the other girls who visited the city for fun bring such gossip to the county.
«Of course Ive seen them,» Nyssa confirmed.
«And they could all do all the same things as Quentin did.»
«Well, not all of them.»
«It turns out hes the only one.»
«Hes just a little more talented,» Nyssa commented after a moments thought. «He is a gifted kid and a pretty one. You could persuade your father to invite him to the castle to give us all a performance. I bet hes the kind of man whos willing to work for a mere dinner.»
Quentins clothes were bright. But was it expensive? Janet didnt know the price of fabric. Nor did she know prices in general. As the daughter of an earl, she never bought anything herself. Nyssa, on the other hand, was more experienced.
«I think hes a bit of a wizard,» Janet whispered to her as fireworks exploded in the square theyd just left. A couple of sparks flew right under Janets feet. They danced on the cobblestone sidewalk like flaming stars.
«Is it magic?» Nyssa cautiously lifted her hem, stepping over the sparks. «More like scattered beads and some kind of illusion created by a skilled magician. There was nothing magical about it. Yeah, and who needs magic nowadays, unless youre talking about fortune-telling.»
«Id like to be a magician,» Janet said out loud, not knowing why. The words rolled off her tongue and echoed through the empty alley. She felt as if someone had heard her words.
Janet turned around and saw someone wearing a mask of gold leaves, hastily hiding around the corner. She had seen such a mask somewhere before, looking like the face of a woodland elf.
On the way, the girl turned back a few more times. The feeling that someone in an elf mask was watching her did not go away, although she did not see anyone else behind her.
The fortuneteller had a lovely house with beautiful oval balconies and pictures of the moon on the curtains and carpets. The moon with a womans face was evidently the emblem of the mistress of the house, for its design was repeated everywhere. No wonder! Such a symbol created an atmosphere of mystery and witchcraft.
The queue in the hall for the fortune-telling was bigger than anyone had expected. Even the small bribe Nyssa had given to the fortunetellers acolyte did not get her through.
«Well have to wait,» Nyssa settled into a vacant chair, which also bore the symbol of a smiling moon. For some reason Janet didnt want to sit down and went out onto the balcony. The wrought iron balustrade curled in the shape of iron roses. They reminded the girl of the white and scarlet roses in the castle. The moon was just rising in the sky above Rhodolit. It glowed, illuminating the road below. Janet noticed a strange carriage rushing through town. It looked as if it were in a hurry to merge with the path of moonlight on the sidewalk, and it was going incredibly fast. The people it passed suddenly fell asleep and fell right into the road.
Janet even wanted to pinch herself. Wasnt she imagining it all? The magnificent carriage was gilded so heavily that it seemed to be made of pure gold, against which the purple curtains of the windows stood out sharply. The roof was surmounted by a peculiar ornament in the form of gold snakes that curled in a crown.
It was as if the carriage was spreading a sleepy spell around it. The city was silent as a tomb. Was everyone asleep? Janet caught sight of a strange, lanky creature in a coachmans outfit on the bunk of an approaching carriage. It looked like a harpy. The groomsmen at the back of the carriage resembled two toads in coats.
Some couple in love, who had been rushing to knock at the fortune-tellers house, fell asleep just under the threshold as the carriage approached them. Only Janet, standing on the balcony, felt no sleepy spells. And in the windows of the neighboring houses, people were falling asleep, falling right onto the carpet or floor. What was wrong with this carriage? Why did the coachman and groomsmen look more like fairy tale animals? And why do all the people fall asleep where the gilded carriage rushed past them? Could it all just be a dream?
Janet felt a sudden pain in her hand. She pricked her finger on the iron roses that made up the balustrade. No, not the iron ones anymore! Living stems with thorns twisted along the bars. Red and white roses bloomed right on the balustrade. The roses werent alive a minute ago, or she would have noticed. The buds were blooming quickly, as if in a dream. A drop of blood from Janets finger fell on the white rose, and the girl heard something like a whisper:
«Release him!»
Was that really what the roses were saying? They had no feminine faces, like the images of the moon in the fortunetellers house, but the whispers came from the petals. And there was a deathly coldness about them, as if the roses were covered with snow and ice. Janet hurried away from the balustrade and noticed how quickly the roses wilted and withered and suddenly turned into iron bars on the balustrade.
In the fortunetellers house, too, everyone was asleep. Janet tried to rouse Nyssa, who had dropped her head on the armrest of her chair. No one was roused. Even the fortunetellers servant had fallen asleep on the threshold of the room where shed been receiving clients.
The whole town seemed to have fallen asleep. Would they sleep for all eternity now? Janet was frightened that she was the only person in the whole town who hadnt fallen asleep and was now doomed to spend the rest of her life wandering alone. Soon, however, she noticed someone stunted moving down the hall. At first she mistook him for a child dressed in a grooms outfit. The bottle-colored coat and triangle almost merged with the greenish skin of his puffy face and extra-large hands. Could it be that his fingers were webbed? Janet could hardly believe what she was seeing when the stunted creature suddenly clung to her. It barely reached her waist and looked like a fat toad in a coat.
«Dont go, madam,» it warned her in a gruff voice, nodding toward the door behind which the fortuneteller had hidden. «Theyll fill your pretty head with nonsense.»
«I thank you for the advice!» Janet tried to snatch her hand from the toad, but couldnt. The green creatures grip was too tenacious. Apparently it was one of the groomsmen from the carriage that had just passed under the windows, dispelling the sleepy spell. But then the carriage itself must have stopped somewhere nearby. She wonder why the groom had gone into this particular house. Was it for fortune-telling?
«Ill tell you a secret,» he beckoned Janet with a thin green finger so that the girl leaned toward him. «This fortune teller is a real swindler. She lies without blushing! All she wants is your money, and lying through her teeth is her only skill.»
He whispered it in Janets ear as she leaned toward him, overcome with disgust. His breath reeked of a swampy stench, as if a toad was really talking to her.
«Ill tell you a secret,» he beckoned Janet with a thin green finger so that the girl leaned toward him. «This fortune teller is a real swindler. She lies without blushing! All she wants is your money, and lying through her teeth is her only skill.»
He whispered it in Janets ear as she leaned toward him, overcome with disgust. His breath reeked of a swampy stench, as if a toad was really talking to her.
«That liar has lied so much to my lady!»
«And who is your mistress?»
The creature instantly covered the toads mouth, as if hed realized hed said too much.
«Well, Ive got to go!» It hissed as it swept away with its thin green toad-legged feet.
Janet stared after it in bewilderment. What did it want with her? A shimmering light poured from behind the fortunetellers door, as if the moon had settled there. Janet decided to peek in and see if the landlady herself was asleep. If she was a sorceress, and not a rogue, she must have known how to resist sleep spells.
Janet had to step over the servant to get to the door. Her train slid over the sleeping body, but the servant didnt wake up, didnt even flinch in his sleep. Everyone was sleeping, straight asleep. Janet was even frightened that they were already dead and about to start decomposing right before her eyes, but from behind the door a melodious voice suddenly called to her.
«Come in, my dear! You should know your fate!»
The voice was pleasant, but somehow not particularly trusting. Still, Janet stepped into the half-darkened room. At first it seemed to her as large as a vast palace, but in reality it was no more than a small room filled with strange objects. Here was a gilded spinning wheel, the shining thread from which stretched itself, and gold moths flying over a candle, and a cage with a sleeping firebird, and, of course, a crystal ball on the table, covered with a tablecloth, woven with stars.
«Come in! Dont be frightened!» The woman, whose face was concealed beneath a dark veil, invited her to the table. Her dress, also woven with stars, seemed like a slice of the night sky, and a black cap over the veil, as if to indicate belonging to fairies. Under the thin veil you could see that her hair was white and her features were strikingly beautiful. Only the face itself was somehow inhuman. Her features looked as if they had been painted on top of a shell that remained motionless. No sign of facial expression. The fortuneteller spoke, but her lips never moved.
Her voice was commanding. It was what made Janet obey. She obediently lowered herself into a chair on the other side of the table from the fortuneteller. The girl didnt even know if she wanted to know her destiny from this striking woman, who herself somehow resembled a black-clad moon. Coming here was Nyssas initiative, but she was asleep now. Besides, for her, discovering her fate was just a curious game. And Janet felt that the woman on the other side of the table liked to give only meaningful predictions and only to those who really needed them.
«You must be warned against danger,» she said, with a mere glance into the crystal ball, «but not the kind of danger that awaits you in Rhodolit. A deadly danger awaits you in a faraway land, hidden in forbidden forests. There awaits a cunning woman of great power, and she has long possessed what is really yours alone.
«What do you say?» Janet became involuntarily interested.
«I say about this!» The fortuneteller touched the crystal ball, closed her black-gloved hand into a fist, and when she opened it, there was a living heart in her palm, wrapped in a white rose. Blood dripped, staining the rose petals scarlet. «It is his heart! It is so very different from the heart of your mother, Countess Amaranta. It does not want to be captured by fairies.»
The illusion lasted only a moment. The bloody heart disappeared somewhere, but Janet could still smell the scent of roses. The narrow black-gloved hand slid back onto the crystal ball, and it vibrated beneath it like a living thing.
«I see that, without going on a long journey, you will bypass the dangers and live a long carefree life, but your life will not be happy, because your fate awaits you in the forest.»
«Thank you, Ill remember,» Janet was no longer sure how to end this unpleasant visit with some plausible excuse. She began to shiver, her skin freezing as if from a severe frost. Her head was spinning. The fortuneteller looked at her through her dark veil with eyes like two green crystals, and smiled as she bared a row of teeth like round pearls. The comparison was not at all poetic. It really felt like her mouth was filled with pearls, not teeth. And the lips themselves were bloodless, like the body of an oyster.
Would it be rude if she got up right now, said goodbye, and left here? The fortuneteller looked at her so intently, as if she didnt want to let her go at all.
«There are people with uninteresting destinies,» she admitted. «I dont like working with them, but you If you hold fast to your purpose and set out on your perilous journey, then my crystal will have an interesting story to tell. And I and my sweet pet will probably get our revenge at someone elses hands.»
«Where is your pet?» Janet didnt know at first who she was talking about. Except for the pearl barrette shaped like a sea serpent, which shed only now noticed in the fortune tellers hair. It was so white that she couldnt see it, though the color of the hairpin seemed faintly similar to her own. The pearl snake seemed to crawl up and down her strands.
But by pet she probably didnt mean it. The crystal ball vibrated under her hands, taking the shape of a watery snake with blue scales and a large pearl in its forehead. It clung to her arms, but hissed angrily at Janet.
«Do not be afraid, on the road to the country of the elves you will meet much more dangerous creatures than a sea dragon!»
The fortune teller wanted to comfort the girl, but instead frightened her out of her wits. Janet jumped up and ran for the door. A long train tangled beneath her feet, which only increased her fear. Janet felt as if someone was grabbing at her feet, keeping her from a strange house full of strange creatures and charms.
Forgetting about Nyssa, who was asleep in the chair, Janet ran out of the house. The town was still asleep. None of the people who had fallen asleep on the road moved. Janet carefully avoided them. She looked around, trying to determine where her carriage and guards remained. She and Nyssa had left the carriage in the square, so that was where they should return.
Janet had to wander for a long time before she found her way back. She had only been to Rhodolit a few times and couldnt remember which roads led where. The stars in the sky above the city reminded her of the fortune tellers dress. They seemed to line the sky in a track, lighting the girls way. It was moments like that, when you thought you just needed to hold out your palms and the stars would fall into your lap.
«Why dont you hold out your hand and see?» Someone suddenly whispered to her, hiding behind her. Janet looked around, hoping to see the stranger in the mask of golden leaves again. But he was gone. Only some thin silhouette was as a shadow on the sidewalk. Strange, the shadow was visible, but the master was not. The shadow was moving, in strange broken movements.
From somewhere came the sounds of a song, like a magical counting rhyme. It seemed as if the stars themselves were singing it.
«Put your palm down,
And well fall
The queen must
Not to be with him alone
And let him go back
To his human house!»
Janet put up her palm and felt small golden sparks land on it, really like stars. They shone, but they were not warm. The starbursts seemed purely illusory, because the little stars immediately dissolved into the skin of her palm. The lines of fate on her palm left glittering traces.