Raven stepped up to translate the sudden babble that had arisen. “The boy is a distant cousin of Alejandro. He hasn’t said a word since he witnessed the massacre of his parents and entire village two years ago.”
Heloise gasped, her eyes wide.
“He survived by playing dead while the French soldiers looted and raped.”
“Oh, my God,” she whispered.
“They think what you’ve done is a miracle.”
Heloise flushed. “Oh, well. I’m just glad I could help.”
An elderly woman pushed her way to the front of the crowd now surrounding them and pinched Raven’s arm. She studied Heloise critically for a few seconds, then said something to Raven and beckoned Heloise forward with a welcoming gesture. “Come. You come.”
Heloise frowned.
“Elvira’s offered to tell yourbaji,your fortune,” Raven said. “It’s a great honor. You’re an outsider.”
Heloise glanced at the old crone uncertainly but she looked so expectant it was impossible to refuse. “Oh, well then. Thank you.”
She followed the woman to a red-painted caravan and sat down on the front step as directed. The gypsy settled herself opposite her and drew a pack of worn pictorial cards from a pocket in her skirts. She handed them to Heloise and indicated that she should shuffle them, then held up four fingers. Heloise dutifully lay out four cards, facedown on the step.
“Past, present, future, outcome,” Elvira said in accented English.
Heloise started, surprised to hear her own language coming out of the woman’s mouth, but Elvira merely gave an enigmatic smile and tapped the back of each card, her gnarled knuckles like the twisted limbs of an olive tree.
Heloise nodded. She’d seen a tarot reader perform once before, at Lady Vane’s. The woman had been so vague in her pronouncements that the guests had interpreted them to mean whatever they wanted to believe. There was no magic in it, merely the power of suggestion, but Heloise had been intrigued. The tarot was, in effect, another code—one from which the reader could tease practically any desired translation.
She turned over the first card.
Chapter 32
“Six of swords.”
The card showed a boat carrying six upright swords and a woman and a child being ferried from rough water to smooth.
Elvira nodded. “This means a passage away from difficulties, recovery after trials.”
She’d recovered from the trial of her scar, Heloise thought. And accepting Tony’s death had been extremely difficult. Or maybe the card was more literal? She’d taken a trip across water in Raven’s boat. Ship. Whatever. But she’d passed from the still waters of home into treacherous seas, not the other way around.
“There is sadness for those you leave behind, but this trip will do you good.” Elvira tapped the second card. “The present.”
Heloise turned it over.
Elvira nodded again, as if the card confirmed what she’d been expecting.“La Luna.”
The image was a wolf, howling at the moon.
“The wolf is the wild, untamed aspect of our nature.”
Heloise swallowed. Raven had certainly broughtthatout in her. He seemed to spend his entire time encouraging her to set it free, the subversive devil.
“The moon appears when you do not know your destination, or even the path you are traveling, but you travel nonetheless.”
Well, that was certainly true. Heloise had no idea where they were headed, except that it was north.
“The moon is the card of our dreams. You have lost your way, and walk in the dark, guided only by your inner light.”
Heloise frowned. She wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly, but it sounded rather frightening. She turned over the third card. Future.