And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
—PROSPERO, THE TEMPEST, ACT IV, SCENE 1
It is late, so there is no line for the fortune-teller.
While outside the cool night air is scented with caramel and smoke, this tent is warm and smells of incense and roses and beeswax.
You do not wait long in the antechamber before passing through the beaded curtain.
It makes a sound like rain as the beads collide. The room beyond is lined with candles.
You sit down at the table in the center of the room. Your chair is surprisingly comfortable.
The fortune-teller’s face is hidden behind a fine black veil, but the light catches her eyes as she smiles.
She has no crystal ball. No deck of cards.
Only a handful of sparkling silver stars that she scatters across the velvet-covered table, reading them like runes.
She refers to things she could not know with uncanny specificity.
She tells you facts you already knew. Information you might have guessed. Possibilities you cannot fathom.
The stars on the table almost seem to move in the undulating candlelight. Shifting and changing before your eyes.
Before you leave, the fortune-teller reminds you that the future is never set in stone.
Blueprints
LONDON, DECEMBER 1902
Poppet Murray stands on the front steps of la maison Lefèvre, a leather briefcase in hand and a large satchel sitting by her feet. She rings the doorbell a dozen times, alternating with a series of loud knocks, though she can hear the bell echoing within the house.
When the door finally swings open, Chandresh himself stands behind it, his violet shirt untucked and a crumpled piece of paper in his hand.
“You were smaller last time I saw you,” he says, looking Poppet over from her boots to her upswept red hair. “And there were two of you.”
“My brother is in France,” Poppet says, picking up the satchel and following Chandresh inside.
The golden elephant-headed statue in the hall is in need of polishing. The house is in a state of disarray, or as much disarray as a house crammed from floor to ceiling with antiques and books and objets d’art can be in its inherent cozy, cluttered way. It does not shine as brightly as it had when she ran through the halls with Widget what seems like more than a few years ago, chasing marmalade kittens through a rainbow of guests.
“What happened to your staff?” she asks as they ascend the stairs.
“I dismissed the lot of them,” Chandresh says. “They were useless, could not keep a single thing in order. I retained only the cooks. Haven’t had a dinner in quite some time, but at least they know what they’re doing.”
Poppet follows him down the column-lined hall to his study. She has never been in this particular room before, but she doubts it was always so covered with blueprints and sketches and empty brandy bottles.
Chandresh wanders across the room, adding the crumpled piece of paper in his hand to a stack on a chair, and staring idly at a set of blueprints hanging over the windows.
Poppet clears a space on the desk to put the briefcase down, moving books and antlers and carved jade turtles. She leaves the satchel on the floor nearby.
“Why are you here?” Chandresh says, turning and looking at Poppet as though he has only just noticed her presence.