Page 40 of The Lady on Esplanade
Madame Zoe sat back in her chair, her earrings reflecting the sun.“The same thing she would tell you if you would stop being so stubborn and listen.”
His leg tensed as if he were preparing to stand, so I squeezed, eliciting a scowl in my direction, but he remained seated.
“And what would that be?”I asked, because Beau remained silent.
Madame Zoe focused her unsettling gaze on me, making me want to bolt.But I remained seated, rooted by the warmth of Beau’s leg beneath my hand.“I need you each to place a palm on the crystal ball, and don’t move it.The small fingers on your hands should touch.”
“Do we really—” Beau began, but I cut him off with another sharp squeeze of his leg, this time using what little fingernails I had to get his attention.
I did as the fortune teller asked, and after a pointed look at Beau, he did the same, but with a heavy sigh.I stretched my pinkie close to his, and after a brief hesitation Beau touched mine with his.
Ignoring Beau, Madame Zoe placed both her hands on top of the ball and closed her eyes.She took two deep breaths, then opened her eyes again and stared into the crystal ball.Odd streaks like contrails began to form inside it.Or like apparitions flitting past a doorway.“She talks about a girl named Emmaline.She wants Beau and Emmaline together, because Emmaline makes Beau stronger in all ways that matter—and not just his ability to see that which others cannot.”Madame Zoe frowned.“But Beau is afraid to be stronger.He’s afraid that he won’t be able to control his gift if it becomes bigger than he is.”
I pulled my hand from Beau’s knee and placed it in my lap.“Are you sure she didn’t say ‘Samantha,’ or ‘Sam’?”I wanted to ignore Madame Zoe’s theatrics and dismiss her lucky guess as thorough research.With the increase of my presence on social media, due to the success of Jolene’s YouTube channel, anyone with access to a computer could find out that Emmaline was my given name.“It’s just that those who’ve been able to…speak with Adele say she is hard to understand.Like she’s speaking through water.”
Black streaks swirled inside the ball, like droplets of ink added to water.As I watched, the stain spread, obscuring the inside of the glass and turning it opaque.
“How well did you know my parents?”Beau asked, a slight belligerence to his tone.I didn’t fault him for it.He’d gone through so much since his parents’ disappearance.It was almost absurd that he might finally find them through a fortune teller named Madame Zoe in Jackson Square.
“Your mother was a regular.She only brought your father once, and he was as skeptical as you are.He didn’t return.Your mother came to me often before the storm.And then once afterward, for helpfinding her little girl.”Her face wrinkled in concentration.“Sunshine, I think.The little girl’s name was something like Sunshine.”
“Sunny,” Beau said, his tone dismissive.“A lot of good that did.”
“I can only tell you what I see.As I explained to your mother, how you choose to interpret that information and what you do with it is completely up to you.”She tapped her long fingernails against the globe.“Adele didn’t come to me after that.Not alive, anyway.”Her face softened as she lifted her eyes from the ball and looked at Beau.“I’m telling you things that you already know.Things you know in your heart.”
“Things I know in my heart,” Beau repeated, his mouth turned down as if he’d just eaten something rotten.“Even though—”
“Even though others tell you differently.Some people will think they are being truthful because they cannot face the truth.And others…” She stopped and frowned at the ball, which now resembled my little brother’s Magic 8 Ball, its obsidian surface missing only the small window and the triangle-faceted die with raised white lettering spelling out rote, noncommittal responses.
“Reply hazy.Try again,” Beau said, quoting one of the twenty responses available from the iconic toy.Despite his flippancy, he didn’t remove his hand from the crystal ball.
“And others because they don’t want to face the truth,” Madame Zoe continued, as if she hadn’t been interrupted.
“The truth?”Beau said.“I’ve accepted that my mother is dead.If you can tell me where her remains are, so my family can lay her to rest, then this visit won’t be a total waste.Or tell me where my father is.Because I’d like to stop this hocus-pocus right now and get on with it.”
“It doesn’t work that way.Spirit only shows me a part of the message.The rest is up to you.Buddy is alive.But you already know that.He’s just…” She squinted at the globe, as if trying to discern a picture in the churning blackness inside.Madame Zoe shook her head.“He’s lost.He…” She peered into the crystal.“You need to find him.There are those who mean him harm if you do not.”
“Right.Did you get that from the Magic Eight Ball?You had a fifty-fifty chance of guessing about my dad.Now tell me something that you couldn’t easily guess or find out, and then maybe I’ll listen to what else you have to say.”Beau tensed, preparing to pull away from the table.
Her gaze turned to me.“Your sister.I saw her before.She has a strong gift, yes?”
I nodded, not surprised that she would remember Sarah from when we visited Jackson Square the previous month.
“Adele speaks to her, too.She’s told you about the newspaper.It’s important.”
I focused my attention on Beau for corroboration, but his attention was locked on the fortune teller, whose gold earrings seemed to wink at us as if the universe and all things unexplainable were including us in a joke we didn’t understand.
She sat back, and I watched in fascination as the blackness inside the globe disintegrated into a smudge of swirling smoke before evaporating completely.Her shoulders dropped and she closed her eyes with exhaustion.
“What else?”Beau demanded.“Can you ask Adele where to find my dad?”
Madame Zoe looked at him through weary eyes.“No.”She blinked slowly.“But you can.”
Beau jerked back in his seat.“No.There has to be more”—he pointed his chin in the direction of the now-clear crystal ball—“in there.”
With a tired voice, the woman said, “You have a gift, Beau.Use it.”She reached for the hem of the sparkly tablecloth and draped it over the ball.
“So that’s it?”Beau said.“That’s all you’ve got?That and a dollarwill get me absolutely nothing.”I hoped that Madame Zoe would hear the desperation beneath the belligerence in Beau’s voice.
