“I’m not interested, old woman,” she snapped this time, then folded her hands over her chest. She was about to continue with a lecture on why fortune tellers could never be real when Ada said in an excited voice, “I’d like to have mine read.”
Ada was grinning and giggling with excitement when the woman nodded softly, then took Ada’s hands and said, “Come with me, child.”
Isla huffed. Ada had a soft heart, and that made her naïve and easily fooled. Her brilliant smile came out, and Isla could already tell that she would believe whatever rubbish this woman told her.
Isla shook her head and released an exasperated sigh as she watched Ada enter the tent with the woman.
“What you two fancy that stuff too?” she asked Penny and Katherine when she noticed them whispering to each other. Penny shrugged, Katherine didn’t say anything, but Isla could tell that they were interested. “Fine,” Isla continued. “Just don’t give her any money. You will be foolish to believe whatever she says anyway.”
She pouted and folded her arms over her chest after that.Unbelievable!
In a few minutes her friends took turns going into the tent, and when it was over the red-haired woman came out with them again.
“You should try it, Isla,” Penny tried to convince her. “I was told I would live a long life… Ada will marry a prince, too. Who knows what yours might tell?”
Isla rolled her eyes. She wasn’t the least bit interested in any of this, but she was sure her friends, Penny especially, wouldn’t let her hear the end of it.
“Fine,” she muttered then marched toward the tent where the old woman stood at. Was it just in her head or did she see a smirk on the woman’s lips? It was the kind that sent a cold shiver through her spine and made Isla tremble regardless of how disinterested she was.
* * *
Inside the tent, Isla sat on the ground in front of the woman’s table and crossed her legs in front of her. She couldn’t shake off the dizziness that suddenly overcame her when a strong wind blew against the tent. Her stomach started to churn, she felt the screaming urge to leave this place, but as she tried to fight it off, her eyes landed on a green stone on the table.
The entire place smelled like sage and incense. She wriggled her nose and looked around the tent. The fire in a corner burned bright, and a strange feeling crept over her, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand.
The woman sitting opposite her noticed what she was looking at and said, “Yer palms, child. I can only tell what yer fortune is like if I look at them.”
Isla swallowed hard, then stretched out her hand reluctantly.
Another jolt of electricity raced through her when the woman grabbed her hand and stared at it for a long time. The lines on the woman’s forehead suddenly creased together before she spoke. “I see darkness… lots of darkness. Friends will betray ye, men will try to kill ye, and ye shall lose everything.”
Isla’s eyes met the woman’s cold green ones, and she was tranced for a second before she snatched her hand away.
“I warn ye, child… the man ye meet when ye’re about to die shall be yer everything and yer demise from the world ye’ve known all yer life. It is yer fate… a horrible one.”
“You’re lying!” Isla yelled suddenly, feeling a burst of anger that her time was wasted like this. She jumped to her feet and jabbed a finger in the woman’s direction. “You do this a lot don’t you? Deceive and lie to innocent girls?”
“I only speak what I see in their stars.”
“Nonsense,” Isla trembled again, then shook her head. Her muscles tensed, and quivered. The heat flushing through her was one of anger, and it made her veins pulsate with blood rushing through her. “This was a waste of my time,” she exploded, then tried to control her already labored breathing by sucking in deep breaths to calm her riled nerves.
She turned to storm out of the tent when the woman called her name, shocking her. Isla froze to the spot, unable to move for the next few seconds that passed.
How does she know that? How does she know my name?
“Take this medallion,” the woman said, and Isla finally turned to see her standing right behind her. “Ye need to find the remaining ruins of the cave near the village’s dried-up loch. In the cave, ye’ll find the key to this medallion, and when ye use it, the world around ye will return to its proper place. Ye might even find something ye’ve always wanted… love.”
All right, now she’s proven she is insane,Isla thought as she frowned. “Love is the last thing I hope to find,” she defended herself and was about to refuse the medallion when the woman continued, “Take it… it’s a gift. A family heirloom I have inherited from me maither and her maither before her. It has existed for over six centuries.”
Isla still hesitated, but as she stared at the green stone in the woman’s hand, she was suddenly enticed.Where have I seen it before?
A strange sensation crept through her. Isla couldn’t shake off the feeling closing in on her and squeezing her lungs until it felt like she couldn’t breathe.
She snapped herself back to reality and took the medallion from the woman. “Thank ye,” she muttered as she grabbed it.
That smirk Isla saw earlier returned and it sent another shiver right through her.
“Thig an t-uisge agus tillidh sibh gu am far a bheil so dhanachd gad thoirt gu agus bidh sibh beo na laithean an sin a stri ri bhith beo gus an ionnsiach sibh gradh agus maitheanas,” the woman rasped.