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They’re standing dead in the middle of the midway, hands heavy with questionable fair food and ears ringing with a dozen tinny songs from a dozen attractions all declaring war on each other, when Hop tugs hard at Gloria’s sweater sleeve and yells, “Oooh, Glory! Let’s do this one!”
He gestures wildly at his chosen fair ride with a half-eaten toffee apple (the third of the evening): a long swinging arm with cheerful pink and green lights and attached spinning carriages she is mostly sure were scientifically engineered to murder its occupants.
She likes fairs, really. Wedgehurst's isn't so bad, as far as places that combine fried food and farm smells goes. She just likes them more with her feet on the ground.
“No. No. Absolutely no. Hop, you know me, an’ you know I will boak.”
"Coward." He grins through a mouthful of apple. "I thought you hated cowardice."
“It’s no’ cowardice, it’s wisdom. Food stays inside.”
“Well I’m gonna go. You can go…” He bends at an awkward angle around her to get a better look down the midway, squinting. “Get your palm read. I know how much you love getting compliments.”
She follows his gaze to a purple-painted caravan settled near the end of the lane, draped in twinkling, white fairy lights and a bright sign that confidently claims Psychic Readings • Palmistry • Tarot. “Aye, true. Would absolutely pay for some compliments right the now.”
“Watch my stuff,” he says, and starts handing her his bag, his drink, and the used toffee apple stick that Gloria immediately tosses into a bin. “And please, please be gentle with them, I don’t want to hear anything about you making the carnival folk cry. This is the only cool thing we get all year, Glory.”
“Hop, I am honestly flattered you think I could make a whole fun fair fuck off with just ma sparklin’ personality.”
"You know there's no one on earth who has more faith in you than me," he says with his mock Charming Leon Smile, which only makes her laugh and check him with her hip. He answers with a teasing shove in return. “Meet you back here at half six? Please don't get into trouble, I mean it.”
"You're such a worrier. I'm always on ma best behavior."
"Your best behavior is historically terrible."
"Oh, away with you. Go ride your flyin' vomitorium an' leave me in peace!" she yells, waving over her shoulder, and Hop's laughter follows her down the midway.
Hopeless. She is hopeless.
She should be looking at the sign with all the prices -- this is important information -- but it’s very hard to concentrate on numbers when there is an almost agitatingly pretty boy her age leaning against the wagon beside it, both him and his gothita eyeing her with a half-lidded, vulpine look of sheer boredom.
Chart readings: 2500 pokédollars. Tall, taller than her by a head, long-limbed and thin. Pale and underfed. White-gold hair in a mess of curls framing lofty, regal cheekbones; an alarming intrication of piercings, silver and crystal, glinting along the shell of his ear; 10-card tarot reading: 1500; eyes like home, the thin winter violet of dawn in the mountains.
She must’ve taken too long or stared too much because the boy smooths out his simple purple waistcoat, adjusts the sleeves of his bridally white dress shirt, and says in a delicate, annoyed tenor: “I’ve heard this area has issues with literacy rates. Let me know if you need help reading the sign.”
Gloria pauses for a moment, caught off-guard, before her mouth splits slowly into a delighted, full-bore grin.
Who is this shitty, clever, beautiful boy who comes out of the gate swinging?
“Naw, I got ma letters mostly sorted.” She absently pulls out a purple goomy wallet from her sweater pocket, thumbing through her spending money in the unzipped compartment. “Y’know, this is big pokés considerin’ you’re set up at the Wedgehurst County Show an’ Funfair of aw places. No’ good enough for the Wyndon circuit?”
“Wyndon would be lucky to have me.” He tilts his chin up and looks down at her like she’s something unpleasant on the sole of his shoe. “Frankly the rates are an affront to my time and skill, but I go where I’m told and I have to make money off you rubes somehow until the proper carnival season starts.”
“You insult all your clientele?”
“Just the ones who look like they don’t have the faculties to insult me back.”
She whips her head back to laugh then, loud and sudden like a cloudburst. He lifts an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth twitches into the shade of a smirk.
“Awright then, gies a palm readin’. If I pay extra will you put on a better personality?”
He eases himself up from leaning and slides the caravan door open in one fluid motion, ushering her inside. “You’ll get what you get. No haggling, no bartering, and no refunds.”
It’s a tiny space. Gloria’s not sure what she’s expecting considering the size of it from the outside, except maybe something that pulls a little less at her heart: it’s dark woods and dark cloth, plums and bordeaux, and it’s so empty of personality it feels like she’s sitting in a vacuum. Does he live here? A heavy curtain separates the sitting area from the rest of the caravan. She wonders if she’s paid him to enter his home, if his whole life could really be packed up into a few square meters.
She wonders if she will ever stop overcomplicating things.
His curls just brush against the tallest point of the sloped ceiling; he has to bow his head to light incense in a little antique silver censer.
“Alright. Palms out,” he orders like a nun brandishing a ruler, sitting down on the bench opposite her.
She complies, unfurling her hands on the small table between them, knuckles flat to the cool black walnut and palms exposed. He takes a cobalt spray bottle and spritzes something lavender and alcohol on them, placing a neatly-folded hand towel in reach.
“Whit’s this for?” she asks, rubbing her hands dry on the legs of her jeans instead.
“Normally I would tell a client it’s a cleansing ritual to provide a blank canvas devoid of outside energies.” He begins slipping on a thin pair of black gloves, wiggling his fingers until the fit is snug. “It’s hand sanitizer. I don’t want you ruining my furniture with toffee apple residue like a toddler.”
She considers for a second, then nods. “Aye, harsh but fair. Now why the gloves?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“Is tha’ part of the readin’?”
“Just an observation. Dominant hand, please.”
She offers up her right hand and he cradles it in both of his like a baby bird. The touch of the gloves tickles, strangely intimate; it’s not as though she regularly gets anyone running fingers along her skin, tender for all her farm-raised calluses, as though inspecting her for something visibly valuable. It’s the kind of thing, she thinks, best saved for real closeness.
For him, it’s probably routine. He hums softly, the tip of his index finger ghosting along the ridges of her palm.
“Impulsive, but energetic and practical. You’re from sturdy stock and you value hard work and simple solutions.”
“Oh, you are gaspin’ to call me a peasant. I can see it.”
“This line,” he forges onward, pointedly ignoring her, “indicates intelligence without an academic bent. Cleverness. You’re intuitive and competitive. You love a challenge and you do best with them when you apply your instincts.”
“You sound like you’re readin’ the back of a crisp packet.” She wiggles her fingers and he looks up at her, loosing a single huff of irritation.
“You’re about as interesting as one. Aren’t you paying me to compliment you, anyway? I’m not sure what more you want from this arrangement.”
Gloria slides forward on the bench, barely meeting the qualifications of sitting, her knees bumping against the coffee table between them. She waves her free hand dismissively and cocks a grin at him like a dare. “What good are compliments fae an arrogant bastard? I jus’ think if I’m payin’ the big Wedgehurst Fun Fair dollars for a psychic, I oughty get somethin’ psychic. Gies the experience. ”
He doesn’t miss a beat, mirroring the grin with a small, smug thing of his own. “You don’t want an experience, you just want to think you’ve beaten me. You want to think you’re so clever and disarming you can cross swords with a stranger and make them stop acting, even when acting is what keeps them fed. You think I’m arrogant? Imagine how you must look to me.”
His best feature is his eyes, she thinks. They fix on her; there is a little jolt of something that wasn’t there a moment ago, a glow like an ember getting started. He hasn’t let go of her hand. The grip gets tighter, his thumb pressing neatly into the soft meat of her palm.
He’s enjoying this.
Her grin is relentless. “So you admit it, then? You’re stuck in the sticks ‘cos you’re no’ even a real psychic, jus’ actin’?”
“How dare you. I’m stuck in the sticks because--”
And then he clamps his mouth shut like a fortress gate with a click of teeth, drawing his shoulders back and his spine into practiced posture, chin tilted like a sneering royal. He discards her hand like a spent cigarette.
“It hardly matters. You’ll never meet a more genuine article, especially out in this backwater. I don’t need to prove myself to you.”
“Sounds like what someone who’s no’ a psychic would say,” she says, leaning back against the bench, arms crossed.
He considers her for a moment with a face still enough to crack stone, a moment that goes on long enough she’s fairly sure he’s about to kick her out.
Then he starts peeling off the gloves.
“Don’t think this is because you’ve won; I just can’t afford to have you spreading lies about me. I know how quickly you village idiots pass gossip around.” He leans forward and Gloria matches the movement. “Give me your hands.”
She does. His fingers are cold, but the rest of him is warm enough and close enough she can feel the air change with his heat. His thumbs rest like little ice cubes on the pulse points on her wrists; she’s surprised at the small shiver that vibrates up her arms. A quick hiss of a breath races into her lungs, heavy with the spice of laurel incense.
“Look me in the eyes, and don’t let your mind wander too far. I’m not that interested in what little you’ve got rattling around in there.”
“Oh, tha’ is unfair,” she says, and she’s not sure which part it applies to: that his eyes are sharp like a boning knife and the longer she looks the more it feels like something between the two of them is being cut away; or that her mind is already wandering, and has been since she saw him standing in repose against the wagon.
“Focus,” he chides. “Now what would you like to know about yourself in the next ten minutes...Gloria?”
She finds herself particularly fascinated by the sound of her name in his mouth, as though he’s slowly pulling out a string of pearls he didn’t know was there.
“Why no’ some easy ones first? Where am I fae?”
“A small village in the Crown about as large as the one you live in now, up in the mountains. Your family raises livestock and trains mudsdales.”
“Tha’ is some pure brilliant cold readin’.”
He quirks an eyebrow, lips unfolding into a small, devious smile. “An aunt taught you how to sing; she’d put on waulking displays for tourists and have you sit in. You hated being watched like an exhibit. She didn’t ask you again after you went after a Kalosian woman with the bucket of fulling liquor.”
“Oh,” is all she says, eyes wide. Oh. His smile is broad now, silky and smug, and she can...feel it, thoughts that aren’t hers drifting like minnows, flitting and gone before she can touch them . “Alright, so you’re the real deal. You do futures?”
“Ask.”
She thinks -- she wonders if she should ask about inheriting the farm, or if it’ll go to one of her brothers; she wonders if she’ll go to university; she wonders if language studies are as useless as they say, if she’ll write, if she’ll make music --
“None of those. You’ll stumble into it,” he says without prompting. “You’ll be so busy chasing after your friend that you won’t even notice it happen. You don’t even plan to see it through; you’re just carried by the momentum. It’ll make you famous, but it comes at a cost of things that you love.”
“Now you’re just showin’ aff.” It's hard to focus on bad news, on the little gnawing pit in her gut, when he's looking at her like the purrloin who’s got the cream. It’s a good look for him, she thinks, and she doesn’t miss the brief, shy flick of his eyes to the side. “Now, if you're already speakin' ae love, mind handin' over some better news on tha' front?”
"Oh, don't bore me," he scoffs. “Here I thought you were close to being the first interesting person I’ve met in this wheatfield, but you types always make me play matchmaker.”
“Thought I already bored you, nae danger if I bore you a wee bit more." She grins. "Take about 20% off that sass an' just gies the readin', Sabrina.”
“If you insist.” He rolls his eyes so hard it's almost audible, his thumbs absently tracing circles on her wrists like polishing a coin, before launching into a routine so practiced with just the right glint of theatrical she’s sure he must deliver it with every client, every session, though probably not as openly deadpan: “The caveat being that the only thing more fickle than the future is the heart, so even if you were to find this person, there's no guarantee that--”
He crashes mid-sentence like a boat caught on rocks, sucking in a surprised breath, looking at her -- a thousand miles through her -- with poorly-disguised confusion like she’s something utterly alien sitting across from him, something he hadn’t prepared a script for. Is that good? Bad? Should psychics get surprised? Is he panicking? Should she start panicking?
A soft pink blush creeps up his neck like climbing flowers and she realizes with a dawning horror that he must've seen something he didn't want to see. Was it embarrassing? Oh no. Oh no.
He clears his throat. "I don't know how," he says quietly, "but if this is your idea of a joke--"
And then the caravan door slams open.
They both startle in sync.
There is a woman in the doorway: tall and severe and something that strikes Gloria as inhuman, maybe in the mechanical way her eyes lock on her before moving to more interesting targets, or maybe in her steel-spined posture, or maybe in the way she pulls all of the air out of the room with nothing more than her existence. Her face is expressionless, bordering on annoyed; her blonde hair and her Kalosian-manicured nails immaculate. “Bede,” she says, voice evenly modulated. “The owner wishes to see you.”
“Ms. Oleana, I’m in the middle--”
“Immediately. You know you shouldn’t keep him waiting.”
Before the woman leaves -- before the boy, Bede, stands up, shoulders hunched and head low to keep from hitting the ceiling, and before the small electrical string of something between the two of them snaps like sewing thread -- Gloria would swear on a holy book that she could feel a stab of pure, frozen-over terror that is definitely not hers.
And then it's gone.
He assembles his composure quickly, something she finds as admirable as it is worrying. His face folds into a look of chilly neutrality, breathing level, as void of personality as the room he practices in, and he says: "We're done here."
“Awright?” she ventures, guided into standing by his grip on her hands. “You in trouble?”
“What is it with you and questions? It’s none of your business. The session is over.”
He tries to shepherd her out of the caravan quickly; she only plants herself in the doorway, arms braced against the frame. “Oh, is it fuck. If I can see it, it’s ma business. What’s goin’ on? Why’s she go' you scared?”
“What are you going to do? Barricade me in my own home until I give into your demands? Good luck. You're half my size, and I have no hang-ups about fighting a girl.”
"Nae bother, I've leathered tougher brutes than you," she counters, jaw set defiantly. “Besides, I didn't get ma money’s worth. We’ve go’ two minutes left and I'm no' leavin'.”
“One last prediction, then.” He is close now, leaning down next to her face with an unreadable expression, his hands lightly brushing her sweater below her ribs, near the descent of her hips. “You're a troublemaker. You will upset the wrong kind of people, and it will end badly for you.”
“You're a dead shite psychic if you think that's gonna stop me.”
“Don’t come back here again,” he says, pitched low like a warning growl, as he slides the caravan door open behind her and she tumbles back onto the grass before she even understands what’s happening.
From her view on the ground, after the white sparks in her vision have faded and she can filter out the riot of lights draped from post to post on the midway, Gloria watches Bede’s back disappear into the crowd like rain into a river -- but not before he slips something into his waistcoat that looks suspiciously like her purple goomy wallet.
The one that is no longer in her sweater pocket, she realizes, as she pats them both flat against her hipbones. The one with her license, her travel card, and all the money she’d earned in the last three months.
What a magnificent bastard, she thinks.
She hauls herself up, slapping dirt off her jeans, staring daggers at the point where he vanished. Her mouth slowly lifts into a sharp, drakish smile as she lances into the crowd.
He was right. She does love a challenge.