“It has been some time since I experienced this place,” Lester said. Boo knew better than to trust his detection of shame in her voice. The witch seldom regretted anything. “A ringmaster should keep a closer eye on her performers, but then again, what good will it do, trying to direct a seer into the right direction?”
“Ezra always kept my best interests at heart,” Boo said.
Lester’s head turned to catch the jester’s eyes. It still surprised her when he spoke. She tried to observe those moments like falling comets. But like any stargazer, the memory tainted the ephemeral performance even before it was over.
“She’s good like that, isn’t she?”
They were standing outside a tent at the heart of the carnival. Bodies from the crowds excused themselves and pushed through one another to get inside the popular attraction. Without strings, wires, nails, or any other conceivable aid, an embroidered banner hung. It waved in suspension above the entrance. Cut out of the fabric were the words, The Gallery of Fates. It smouldered like the bright burning edges of paper, stuck in a perpetual cycle of mending and singeing. Instead of light, tarot cards burned in lanterns on either side.
Boo touched his hand to the crow’s foot sticking out of a cane before the tent flaps. Its talons curled, then opened again. Another card appeared above it, though this one had no image. It simply read At capacity. One moment. It is in your cards to be patient. After a group of guests left, the talon flexed again. The card disappeared, and the gallery beckoned.
Their eyes adjusted to the darkness. Dozens of guests were inside. Against cobalt light, the edges of their faces were visible. Smiles, confusion, surprise, and even terror.
They were walking through the seventy-two tarot cards suspended in the air.
Boo came upon one of the blazing images. The Hanged Man leered with blood coursing down his expression. As his eyes fixated on object, images of a tree flashed through his mind. Lightning, hail, screams and an outstretched hand covered in blood. His—or someone else’s.
Another card, The Lovers, showed Hazel sitting alone in her library, crying. Only, the scenery outside matched that very evening. That very moment. Boo stepped away from the card, grabbing onto a nearby structure to support him.
It was a statue. There were twenty two of them throughout the tent. All of the major arcana. Only, these statues weren’t quite normal.
“I see you’ve found my face,” the gargoyle grunted through Boo’s hand.
Boo yelped and tumbled backwards. His body displaced several cards. They flipped through the air before drifting back to their rightful places.
Boo locked eyes with a carving of The Fool, who twirled a stoney flower and set down his rucksack. “Well, this is awkward, isn’t it?” the statue asked, seeing his hat. “Just be glad you hadn’t done that to my friend The Lion.
“Oh, you’re the boy who doesn’t talk. Right. Hold on, let me pretend to be you.” The Fool’s face became stoney. He pursed his marble lips and glared at Boo, who met the stare defiantly.
This went on for some time.
“Terribly boring, isn’t it?”
Lester took up one of the cards in her hand, rebelling against the vision it enforced on her mind. She inspected Ezra’s handiwork, though she could sense Estrid’s signature as well.
Boo wandered out of the witch’s sight. He found a corner of the tent that was unpopular to most of the guests. A statue of Satan snored quietly. The elegant depiction of the Lord of Deceit rendered him as a youthful fallen angel, his wings still attached, though decaying. Above him, his own card rotated.
Death was labeled on the pedestal beside him, though there was no figurine.
Boo looked around. He expected Ezra to appear from nowhere to explain the missing piece, or for it to come running from a group of guests back to its rightful post. It never did. Instead, he found his eyes wandering to the card above it.
The light pulsed against his cheeks. It felt cool against his eyes. Tranquility poured through him. On the card, a skeletal knight on a rotting horse held a flag. The details smouldered in the ghostly card face. Voices whispered out of it the longer he stared. Their grew in intensity.
“You’ll damn us all!” somebody shouted.
“This … isn’t for you to decide.”
“Don’t!”
When Boo heard his own name in the vision, he reached out blindly for the card. He grasped it as if he could push himself through the reality and help whoever was on the other side.
Lester watched the second hand on her wrist take three true seconds for every tick. Clouds parted above. Beaming and brushing the horizon with its distended form, the full moon cast a brilliant grey over the carnival.
At last, Boo appeared outside the exit of the tent.
“There you were,” Lester said, “I thought for a moment I couldn’t keep track of even you. Boo … Boo are you all right?”
His skin matched the chalk of his performing face paint. Even his lips had lost their pinkish hue. Though Boo never said much, his silence felt natural. Coaxed by whatever vision lingered in the darkness of his eyes.
“You won’t do it, will you?” he asked Lester.
“Do what?”
A tear slipped out from his eyes. It caught on his trembling lip.
