The Spirit of Cattail County Read online

  As Sparrow searched for the periwinkle van with the teardrop camper, she wove through the array of stalls that had little rhyme or reason to the goods hawked. Old bicycle parts were on display next to outdated clothing. Mismatched silver was offered next to vinyl records. One booth even sold faux fur coats in vivid colors. Just looking at them made Sparrow hot.

  Sparrow finally spotted the vintage van and the camper on the far side of the field. She hurried in its direction.

  On one side of the van, a booth had been set up with a sign that read RARE ANTIQUITIES, and though filled to the brim with all kinds of items for sale, it was unmanned. On the other side of the van, a silk party tent had been erected. Two of the sides were tied back to make a door. Above the makeshift door, a sign written in a kid’s hand dangled precariously. It read THE GREAT MADAME ELENA.

  A girl about Sparrow’s age sat at a table under the purple silk.

  The young fortune-teller wore a floor-length sundress, layers upon layers of jewelry, and glamorous movie star sunglasses. Her chestnut-colored hair hung in long, loose waves that made Sparrow wish she had run a brush through her tangles.

  Simply spotting the fortune-teller made Sparrow’s excitement surge. She had been to the flea market every year of her life and never had there been a psychic before. Her arrival, when Sparrow needed help, felt like fate. More than that, it felt like divine intervention by Mama. As if Mama sent the fortune-teller to help Sparrow find the way across the divide that separated them.

  Miss Ruby Long, the owner of Long’s Drugs, sat across from Madame Elena and listened intently as she spoke.

  Sparrow did her best to wait her turn at a polite distance, but found herself inching closer and closer to get a better view of the young Madame Elena at work.

  Madame Elena spoke to Miss Ruby with a lively energy, using her hands to help convey her meaning. With each movement, her bracelets jangled and her rings sparkled. She pointed at a tarot card and said, “You’ve had a long, interesting life.”

  Miss Ruby laughed. “Truer words have never been spoken.”

  Madame Elena smiled at Miss Ruby and then darted a look at Sparrow.

  Sparrow hadn’t realized how close she’d gotten to the purple tent. She now stood only a few paces away. She quickly turned her head and started whistling a nameless tune as if she had no interest whatsoever in the conversation taking place under the tent. She whistled several bars of her made-up song and then casually swiveled back around.

  Both Madame Elena and Miss Ruby watched Sparrow.

  Sparrow’s whistle petered out like a broken horn. She hadn’t fooled anyone with her pretend nonchalance.

  Miss Ruby winked at Sparrow.

  Madame Elena gave her an exasperated look and got up. “Readings are private.” She released the ties holding open the door, and the purple cloth rippled closed, cutting off Sparrow’s view.

  Sparrow tried to wait patiently, but the longer it took, the more anxious she became about making it back to Long’s before Auntie Geraldine. Sparrow had gone AWOL and Auntie Geraldine did not have a forgiving nature. Sparrow’s mind swirled with the punishments Auntie Geraldine might devise for her—polishing silverware during a lightning storm, endless meals of stone-cold grits, raking up moss filled with chiggers, and unknown consequences that Sparrow knew were possible but couldn’t foresee.

  This last category made Sparrow’s stomach twist.

  She paced anxiously while Madame Elena and Miss Ruby talked in the privacy of the purple tent.

  Finally, Miss Ruby emerged.

  “Good morning,” Sparrow said, as Miss Ruby walked her way. Sparrow adored Miss Ruby. Like a lot of Beulah kids, Sparrow often found herself sitting at Ruby’s lunch counter riveted to the spot by her stories. Miss Ruby wove a masterful tale. Her ancestors had survived slavery and she’d marched on Washington to fight segregation, so she had a lot to share. Miss Ruby once told Sparrow her experiences shaped her view on things, and Sparrow knew this to be true. Miss Ruby treated kids like they had the same rights as grown-ups, and spoke to them as if they could make up their own minds about things. Even Beulah’s youngest citizens valued that kind of treatment.

  “Sorry about eavesdropping,” Sparrow said. Miss Ruby was always direct, which made Sparrow want to act like her.

  “Never mind about that. It’s good to see you. You’ve been on my mind. You holding up okay?” Miss Ruby patted Sparrow on the shoulder. Sparrow appreciated that Miss Ruby didn’t draw away from her like most folks. If Miss Ruby felt uncomfortable around Sparrow, she never let it show.

  Sparrow nodded. “I guess. You didn’t come out to the house after the funeral.”

  “No,” Miss Ruby answered, and then paused. “Your folks and my folks. You know how it is.”

  Sparrow did. By folks, Miss Ruby meant black and white. It wasn’t that Beulah didn’t mix. They lived side by side in a small town. It was that they didn’t mix in every way. Sparrow knew Miss Ruby went to her own church and her own social events. Life in Beulah was like the rings of a tree. There were so many circles within circles, it made Sparrow’s head spin. “I missed having you there.”

  “I’ll miss your mama. She was a sweet soul.”

  “Thanks.” Sparrow wanted to say something more to show how much Miss Ruby’s words meant to her, but she had to bite her lip to keep from crying, so she couldn’t speak for a moment.

  Miss Ruby seemed to understand and moved the conversation toward something easier to talk about. “Are you here to have your fortune told? You’re in for a treat if you are. That girl has a gift.”

  As if on cue, Madame Elena tied back the doors to her tent and began to tidy her space. She rearranged the unlit candles on her table and snapped a red cloth theatrically before letting it float down over her tarot cards. “Don’t forget to tell ALL your friends,” she called to Miss Ruby.

  An amused smile pulled at Miss Ruby’s lips. “You’ll only get rave reviews from me, dear.”

  Madame Elena beamed with pleasure at Miss Ruby’s compliment, and then sat down at her little table. She clasped her hands in front of her as if she expected Miss Ruby’s friends to arrive immediately.

  “That good?” Sparrow whispered, her expectations soaring.

  Miss Ruby leaned in conspiratorially. “One of the best, I suspect. Comes from a long line of fortune-tellers.”

  Sparrow nodded knowingly, even more impressed.

  “Don’t forget to tell me how it turns out.” Miss Ruby patted Sparrow on the shoulder again and left.

  Sparrow slid into the empty chair across from Madame Elena. “I’m here for a consultation.”

  Madame Elena took off her movie star sunglasses and arched a nut-brown eyebrow. “Hmm … That’s interesting because it seemed like you were here to spy on me.”

  Sparrow cringed. She felt scolded, which was odd since she was sure Madame Elena was the same age as her. “No. That was accidental. Sorry.”

  Madame Elena leaned forward and looked into Sparrow’s eyes, holding her gaze as if searching for signs of deceit. Sparrow wondered if Madame Elena could read minds. After several uncomfortable seconds, Madame Elena sat back and grandly announced, “Forgiven.”

  “Thank you,” Sparrow stammered before she realized she had thanked another kid for forgiving her for spying. Every kid Sparrow knew spied. It was the only way they learned anything.

  “You’re welcome.” Madame Elena smiled like a pardoning angel.

  Sparrow felt a tick of ire at Madame Elena’s benevolence and refused to utter the second “thank-you” that threatened to escape from her lips. Instead, she asked, “Does everyone call you Madame Elena?”

  “Just Elena. The Madame part is homage to my grandmother. She was the original Madame Elena. But it also looks good on the flyer, don’t you think?” She pulled a yellow flyer off a stack next to her and slid it across the table.

  The bold black letters spelling out THE GREAT MADAME ELENA did look good against the yellow flyer, but Sparrow didn�
��t think Elena was actually asking her opinion.

  “What do people call you?” Elena asked.

  “Sparrow.”

  Elena lit a candle. “Well, Sparrow. I can see that you have many questions that need answers.” She spoke quickly and assuredly, a stark contrast to the soft, slow way Beulah folks talked.

  “I do,” Sparrow agreed, impressed Elena could tell she had a lot of questions just by looking at her.

  Elena nodded sagely and her dangly earrings swung. “You’ve come to the right place. Twenty dollars, please.”

  Sparrow hesitated. She had forgotten all about the money. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the bills Auntie Geraldine had given her. “I only brought four dollars with me. Anything I can get for that?”

  Elena looked at the crumpled bills skeptically. “That’s not much.”

  Sparrow crossed her fingers and willed Elena to agree to something. Sparrow’s need to see Mama grew more intense by the hour. In the days since Mama’s funeral, some details had already slipped away. Sparrow could no longer recall the exact tone of Mama’s voice or the precise way Mama’s hand felt in hers. Each second that ticked by made Sparrow feel like she was losing Mama bit by bit, like sand slipping through an hourglass.

  Elena considered her. Sparrow wondered if she looked as desperate as she felt. Elena sighed. “I sometimes do one-card readings.”

  Sparrow didn’t hesitate. “I’ll take it.”

  Elena tossed her enviable hair over her shoulder with a sophistication that made Sparrow feel the tug of her small-town roots. “You don’t even know what it is. How do you know you want it?”

  “Okay, what’s a one-card reading?” Sparrow asked without much care. She felt grateful to be getting something. She didn’t have the money to haggle and she knew whatever the fortune-teller said would be important.

  “You think of a question while you pick a tarot card. The card you pick will be the answer to your question.”

  “Deal.” It was perfect.

  Elena held out her hand.

  Sparrow put the crumpled-up dollars in Elena’s palm and her faith in the tarot cards.

  Elena deftly shuffled her cards. Her hands moved swiftly and skillfully as she manipulated the deck. The cards were lovely. Cream colored with black filigree that twisted and coiled along the edges, they had the nimble pliability of well-worn paper. These cards had been loved with an affection Sparrow recognized. She felt the same way about her cypress porch swing.

  “I like your cards,” Sparrow said.

  Elena paused her shuffling to look at the deck. “Thanks. My grandmother gave them to me. They were hers when she was a girl.”

  “Miss Ruby mentioned you come from a long line of fortune-tellers.”

  “I do,” Elena said proudly. “My grandmother learned from her grandmother, and her grandmother learned from her grandmother, and … well, you get the idea.” Elena held her cards in one hand and used the other to accentuate her story. “It goes on and on for generations.” With each movement her bracelets clanged together.

  Sparrow liked the way Elena’s bracelets jangled when she moved. Sparrow had never worn jewelry. She didn’t even own any. “Is your mother a fortune-teller too?”

  Elena scoffed. “Not even close. She’s a professor back home in New York City. In my family, fortune-telling skips a generation. My grandmother didn’t even try to teach my mom. She said she could tell the moment she looked into her forthright, guileless eyes that she didn’t have the spirit of a mystic.”

  Sparrow wondered if she had inherited her ability to see spirits from family. If she had, she didn’t have a clue who it came from. It wasn’t Mama. “Does your mom wish she was a mystic like you?”

  Elena smiled dolefully. “No. She thinks it’s ridiculous.”

  “Does she mind that you tell fortunes?”

  Elena pondered the question. “She wishes I was more interested in science, but my mom is a feminist. She says girls face enough obstacles as it is without people telling them what they can and can’t do.” As Elena talked, she shuffled her cards with an absentminded precision that indicated hours of practice. “Besides, as my grandmother always told her, card reading is a gift from the women in our family … a skill they picked up to survive when women had few options for making money and being independent.” Despite her quick cadence, Elena spoke about her heritage in a very Beulah-like way.

  “Did your mom bring you to Beulah?”

  “No. My uncle. The antiquities booth over there is his.” Elena motioned toward the booth on the other side of the periwinkle van. She finished shuffling her tarot cards and set them on the table. Then she leaned toward Sparrow and inhaled. “Are you wearing perfume?”

  “No.” Sparrow brought her hand to her nose. She didn’t smell anything.

  “I’m catching a whiff of something that smells like roses, only not quite. It’s not bad or anything, just a little sad. Can a smell be sad?” Elena shrugged. “Anyway, are you ready?”

  Sparrow nodded.

  “Think of the question you want answered,” Elena directed.

  “Is there a trick to picking the right question? You know, like in stories when a character is granted three wishes by a genie? They always ask for the wrong things.”

  “I know! Why do they do that?” Elena’s face brightened and for a moment, she seemed like a normal kid. More like Sparrow’s age than someone older and wiser. Then Elena’s demeanor shifted. She became earnest and commanding as she slipped back into her fortune-teller role. “This is kind of like that. The better the question, the better the answer. Try to be specific.”

  There were so many questions Sparrow wanted answered, but all of them boiled down to the same basic one—how to make Mama become like the Boy.

  “Got it?” Elena asked.

  “I think so.”

  Elena knocked on the deck of cards three times and then spread them on the table in a long row. She waved her hand over the cards like a magician. “Spirits near, spirits far, spirits old, spirits new, come now and guide the seeker’s hand.” She focused on Sparrow. “Now let your intuition guide you as you pick a card.”

  Sparrow waited for a moment to see if any spirits arrived. This seemed like just the thing the Boy would love, and Elena had given a direct invitation. When Sparrow felt positive that no spirits had answered the call, she studied the cards, trying to decide which one to pick.

  Sparrow took her time. She didn’t want to make a bad choice. Then one card appeared to flutter a little bit. The wiggle was so slight, Sparrow didn’t even know if she actually saw it move or imagined it. No, she decided. The card had moved.

  “That one.”

  Elena removed the card from the row and scooped up the rest of the deck, setting it aside. She flipped the chosen card over and put it between them.

  “You drew the Page.”

  Sparrow examined the threadbare card. The faded picture depicted a young boy in medieval clothing.

  “In the olden days, a page worked for a knight. They did many jobs, but one of the page’s most important tasks was carrying messages. Often when a page shows up in a reading, it means you’ll soon be receiving a message or that someone is trying to tell you something,” Elena explained with an air of authority.

  A feather of excitement tickled Sparrow’s stomach.

  “Do these words have meaning for you?” Elena asked.

  Sparrow pulled the card closer to her and examined the picture. It wasn’t an exact answer to her question. It didn’t tell Sparrow how to make Mama like the Boy, but it was the promise of a connection. The page was a messenger, and that meant Mama was trying to contact her. Would contact her. Sparrow’s heart picked up speed. “They do!”

  Elena smiled triumphantly. “Tell your friends that Madame Elena knows all.”

  “You got it,” Sparrow promised, forgetting she didn’t have any friends to tell.

  Elena pushed back her chair.

  “Wait! Can you tell me what th
e message is?”

  “Not without a more in-depth reading, and that costs twenty dollars. I’m not running a free advice booth.” Elena stood.

  Sparrow got the hint. She had gotten her four dollars’ worth. If she wanted more information, she needed more money. Not the easiest thing to come by, but Sparrow would figure out a way to get it. She had to. “I’ll be back.”

  “I’ll be here.” Elena moved to the tent door and folded her hands in front of her, waiting for Sparrow to leave. She looked like a church usher.

  Sparrow wanted to say something that would encourage Elena to tell her more, but despite Elena’s friendly smile, it was clear Sparrow was being dismissed.

  Reluctantly, Sparrow said her goodbyes and started walking toward Long’s.

  She practically floated through the flea market, admiring the items for sale as she went. For the first time in days, she felt truly hopeful and less lonely. The Page card made it clear that Mama was trying to make contact. Now she just needed to figure out what Mama wanted to tell her.

  Sparrow stopped at a jewelry booth manned by a portly vendor with a sunburned nose. She picked up a gold-plated pocket watch and looked at the face. Both hands pointed at the number twelve. Sparrow showed the watch to the vendor. “Does this have the correct time?”

  “It does. Even a broken watch is right twice a day.” He chuckled at his own bad joke and pointed at the watch Sparrow held. “That one is correct at midnight and noon.”

  Sparrow looked up at the sky. The sun was directly overhead. “It’s noon already?” The vendor looked at the watch he wore on his wrist. It was a modern digital version that apparently functioned perfectly all day long. “On the nose.” Her thoughts from earlier came rushing back and Sparrow’s mind whirled with all the punishments Auntie Geraldine might inflict on her. Like before, it was the unknown consequences that scared Sparrow the most and made her stomach twist. Sparrow shoved the broken pocket watch at the vendor and took off running.

  She was late.

  Sparrow sprinted the entire way to Long’s even though the noonday sun throbbed with heat and the humidity hung in the air so thick it had weight. At times, Beulah’s humidity took on an oppressive nature, hovering over the little town with a relentless stickiness that clung to everything.