February Thaw

by Tanya Huff

Two angry verses later, nothing had happened.

  Jack threw everything he had at the lead in to the chorus. Knew the guys were doing the same. He watched Lyra draw in a deep breath – worth watching regardless.

  Last verse.

  The tower began to shimmer.

  The gold colouring in the glass began to pick up an oil slick on a puddle kind of iridescence. It began at the edge of the broken window and worked its way out. It shimmered and moved faster, growing brighter, chasing itself from floor to floor until it finally caught itself and…

  Jack had been on stage at the community centre once when they were testing the lights. This was a thousand times brighter. This wasn't community centre lighting or bar lighting – this was stadium lighting!

  Although they couldn't see, they played on to the end of the song, Lyra's final note hanging in the air until it became the distant sound of a police siren over on Harris Street. Clutching his guitar, blinking away after images, Jack shuffled to the edge of the roof; pretty much exactly as far as his cord would let him go before he tipped over his amp.

  He wasn't surprised to see that the tower was gone.

  The grocery store with the bins of fresh fruit out front, that surprised him a bit.

  As Lyra joined him, an old grey haired guy with a guitar hanging down his back stopped in front of the apples, picked up a granny smith, and tossed a coin to someone just out of Jack's line of sight.

  "Thang you, thang you very much."

  The old man didn't look up; he just shoved the apple in his pocket and walked on.

  Except that Jack was ninety percent certain it wasn't an apple by the time it reached the pocket. He was ninety percent certain it had become a handful of bright green picks.

  He was ten percent certain he'd suffered irreparable brain damage at some point over the last couple of days.

  "Dude?"

  He turned to face the band. Maitland was scratching his ass but Gustav seemed to have a few questions. One question, actually.

  "What the hell just happened?"

  Lyra slipped her hand into his and Jack smiled. "We just made music."

  Continuing to make music, they all lived happily ever after.

  "Dude! I said no red M&Ms! What kind of a dumbass stage manager are you? Man, this show's been a total crap fest since Carson Daly left!"

  More or less.

  This is another title I really like. I think it's funny, and subtle, and not really subtle at all. This story contains my favourite line ever about...um... German sandals and may, quite possibly, be the strangest thing I've ever written. The story may, not just the line.

  The fair is based on our local county fair, although we've never had a fortune teller and the cow-in-the-dress doorstop was actually at the summer craft show. Cynthia's reaction to Ferris wheels? My reaction to Ferris wheels.

  I'm not one hundred percent positive, but I'm pretty sure that this is my first story where the characters use a cell phone. Kids, ask your parents what a tape deck is.

  Symbols are a Percussion Instrument

  Her cell phone rang just as they were passing through the gates. As the imperious trill rose over the noise of the fair and people turned to look, David Franklin put one hand over his eyes and sighed. "Cyn, why didn't you leave it in the car?"

  "Are you nuts? Do you know how much this thing cost me?"

  "Then why not leave it at home?"

  "Because I feel naked without it."

  "Naked might do you good."

  "Don't start," she warned him as they made their way out of the stream of pedestrian traffic to the relative quiet by the chain-link fence. "This'll only take a minute."

  David watched her flick the phone open and muttered, "Beam me up, Scotty," under his breath.

  "Augustine Textiles, Cynthia Augustine speaking."

  Turning to watch a group of shrieking children race toward the merry-go-round, David grinned as their mother – Babysitter? Teacher? – yelled that Stuart was to keep hold of his little brother. The little brother in question was about four, wearing the remains of a candy apple, and swinging from the reins of a turquoise stallion. Stuart, his own Power Rangers t-shirt none too clean, solved the problem by simply sitting on the smaller child and ignoring all protests.

  "Cute kids."

  "Where?" Cynthia glanced toward the merry-go-round and frowned. "I wonder who does those banners. We could prob..." The phone rang again before she finished. "Augustine Textiles, Cynthia Augustine speaking."

  Not even remotely surprised that she'd seen the banners and not the kids, David waited until she disconnected then held out his hand.

  "Aha." Triumphant, she passed the cell phone over. "You complain until you suddenly need to make a call and.... what are you doing!?"

  He stuffed the battery into one of the outside pockets on his black leather knapsack and handed back the rest. "This is our day off. And that means we don't work."

  Her eyes narrowed. "This is a recession. If the company goes under, that means you don't work."

  "You have so little faith in your business that you can't leave it for a few hours?"

  "Faith has nothing to do with business." She looked down at the useless plastic in her hand then up at the man who was not only the company's entire design department but also her best friend. "All right. For you. Two hours, then you give me back my battery."

  David checked his watch. "Three, and I'll drive home so you can talk."

  "Deal."

  *

  The fair mixed traditional agriculture and current trends. Ten feet from the ring where yearling beef cattle stood placidly beside their young handlers, a sign proclaimed that for a small fee attendees could have their picture and comments added to the fair's web page.

  Farmers in co-op baseball hats watched the circulating crowds of wide-eyed city tourists with amusement or disdain, depending on their natures. The tourists, in turn, considered the farmers part of the ambiance and, when they weren't taking pictures of them, ignored them.

  "Ridiculous leash laws in this part of the country," Cynthia murmured as the cattle left the ring, each dragging a child dressed head to toe in white.

  "I think it's wonderful these kids have a chance to be part of the whole farming experience."

  "Oh yeah, great experience. Today a beloved pet wins a ribbon, tomorrow it's in the freezer, wrapped in brown paper and labelled hamburger."

  David winced. "Do you have to?"

  "I call 'em like I see 'em." She tucked her hand in his elbow and propelled him toward the open doors of the hockey arena. "Come on, this was your idea, let's go see the rest of it."

  The arena had been equally divided between tables of produce brought in to be judged and commercial booths. With the fair only a two hour drive from Toronto, most vendors were pushing variations on the country chic theme.

  Throwing himself into the experience, David examined every fruit, vegetable, and flower, comparing those that wore ribbons with those that didn't, asking questions of anyone who seemed like they might have an answer. By the time he reached five tomatoes on a plate, he'd charmed an honour guard of little old ladies.

  Cynthia lost interest by two ripe cucumbers over nine inches, and followed blindly, wondering if she could get her phone back in time to call one of their eastern suppliers. Her wandering attention returned with a snap as David stopped in front of a commercial booth selling decorative door stops.

  "David, put that down."

  "Don't you like it?"

  "No."

  "I think it's cute."

  "For chrissakes, David, it's a cow in a dress!"

  He grinned impishly at her. "Drew wouldn't let me have it in the house, but I could always use it at the office."

  "Over my dead body."

  Tucking it back in with the rest of the sartorial herd, he pulled her back outside. "Come on, let's try the midway."

  A few moments later, Cynthia stared up at the double Ferris wheel and then down at David. "I was kidding abo

ut that over my dead body thing."

  "It's perfectly safe. Look, people are letting their kids ride."

  "These people have kids to spare. I'm not getting on that death trap."

  *

  From the top of the Ferris wheel, it was possible to see not only the entire fairground but a good piece of the surrounding town as well.

  "They've got a scrambler!" The basket rocked as David leaned forward and pointed. "It's been years since I've been on one!"

  Cynthia tried to work out the tensile strength of the pair of steel pins that seemed to be all that were holding the basket to the ride. "I wonder how often they check for stress fractures," she muttered as they circled around again.

  "Hey! There's a fortune teller!"

  "David, if you don't stop rocking this thing, I'm going to do something violent."

  "I think the sign says she's a card reader."

  "Great, maybe we can find a fourth for bridge, now sit still!"

  *

  Under normal circumstances, Cynthia wouldn't have gone within a hundred feet of a fortune teller, but with a ride on the scrambler – something she clearly remembered as being nauseating and mildly painful – as the immediate alternative, having her cards read – whatever that meant in the real world – became the lesser of two evils.

  "So, what do you get when you cross a travel agent with an ophthalmologist?" she asked as they approached the tent. Pointing at the sign, she answered her own question. "Let Madame Zora Help You See the World Through New Eyes. David, you know I don't deal well with this New Age, crystal wearing crap."

  "Then you're in luck because tarot cards aren't new age. They're derived from the oldest book in the world; the Egyptian Book of Thoth by Hermes Trismegistus, councillor of Osiris, King of Egypt."

  She turned to stare at him in amazement. "I don't believe you know all that stuff."

  "I don't, it's in the small print on the sign. Nevertheless, I consider myself open to extreme possibilities."

  "I get it." Cynthia's voice rose in exaggerated outrage. "This is an X-File." She began to turn. "I'm out of here."

  David blocked the path. "Oh no you're not. You agreed to have your cards read and a promise is a promise."

  "Don't," Cynthia snarled, "quote Disney at me."

  The tent was army surplus. An unsuccessful attempt had been made to dress up the drab canvas by stringing lines of plastic pennants along the guy wires.

  Her hands stuffed in the front pockets of her jeans, Cynthia glanced down at the crushed grass path leading under the flap then around at the fair. They stood in a pocket of quiet, the music from the midway seemed muffled and the crowds parted well in advance of the tent. "Now what? Do we wait to be seated?"

  "You enter."

  The speaker was non-apparent. The tent flap folded back as they watched.

  "Here goes nothing," Cynthia murmured, adding to David's back as he hurried past her, "And I mean that literally, by the way."

  Inside, plastic yard lights pushed into the ground between the patterned carpets and the billowing walls created alternating bands of light and shadow. It would have been a more successful effect had the burning incense been able to overcome the musty smell of canvas stored too long in a damp basement.

  A rectangular table with three high backed chairs lined up behind it stood under the centre peak of the tent. The figure in the middle chair had a familiar, if not clichéd silhouette.

  "Come closer, seekers."

  As they stepped forward, a pair of hanging lights came on over the table, banishing shadows and throwing Madame Zora into hard-edged relief.

  David made a small noise of appreciation.

  Hundred watt floods, Cynthia thought as the fortune teller lifted a be-ringed hand and beckoned them closer still.

  "Have you a question for Madame Zora?" Somewhere past forty, she looked exactly how a fortune teller should look, from the shawls to the jewellery to the heavily kohled eyes.

  David gave her his best smile. "Only those questions that every seeker has," he said, matching her dramatics.

  Madame Zora responded to the smile and nodded toward the chair to her right. "Then come, sit."

  "Wait a minute." Cynthia grabbed David's arm as he started to move away. "I have a question. Do you actually believe that pieces of cardboard can tell the future?"

  Dark eyes lifted and met hers. "No. That's not what they're for. The value of the tarot is to make people think, to weigh the pros and cons of a situation." Her voice picked up a new cadence. "The true tarot is symbolism. It speaks no other language and presents no other signs. A. E. Waite."

  Cynthia's lip curled. "What you see is what you get. Yakko Warner."

  "Symbols are the picture forms of hidden thought, the door leading to the hidden chambers of the mind."

  "Give me a break; what hidden chambers?"

  "If you want..." Madame Zora indicated the chair on her left. "...I'll let the cards answer your question when I'm finished with your friend."

  "I don't believe in fortune telling."

  "You don't have to. Your belief or disbelief makes as little difference to the cards as it would to the weather."

  "My friend doesn't believe either."

  Grabbing her arm, David hauled her around the corner of the table. "Just sit," he hissed. "You're embarrassing me."

  As he pushed her into her chair and went to take his own, Cynthia locked the rest of her opinions behind her teeth. The whole old-as-new-spirituality, Mother Goddess, tofu, wheat germ, candle burning sort of thing she saw as a last refuge for those who couldn't cut it in the real world, but if her apparent compliance in this charade made David happy, then she supposed it wouldn't hurt her to play a...

  Which was when she became aware of the denomination of the bill changing hands. "Twenty bucks?"

  The money disappeared into a definitively real world cash box. "I have a sliding scale," Madame Zora explained, snapping the lid closed.

  "Sliding from where? What makes you think he can afford twenty bucks to have his fortune told?"

  "His two hundred and fifty dollar, leather backpack."

  Behind the curve of Madame's broad back, David shot her a look that clearly said, Any other objections?

  She glanced from him to the pack now on the floor behind his chair, sighed, and shook her head.

  "First, we will remove your significator card." Madame Zora flipped the deck and deftly fanned it. "I would say, the Knight of Cups; a young man with light brown hair and hazel eyes, emotional, imaginative, and skilled in the arts. If you will shuffle the deck..."

  Leaning to her right, as though she wanted a better view of the pattern being laid out on the table, Cynthia slowly stretched her arm behind Madame Zora's chair and hooked one finger through a leather loop. If she could just get her hands on her battery...

  "You have a high proportion of cups showing, that indicates good news. Here, in the first position..."

  The pack slid noiselessly over the short nap of the carpet. Surreptitiously patting each outside pocket, she finally felt a familiar lump.

  "...and the happy conclusion of a task. The six of wands, in the fifth position symbolizes what will happen – victory will be achieved and success will be obtained through labour. These two cards obviously support each..."

  It wasn't easy opening the buckle one handed, but Cynthia eventually worked the battery free. Dropping it into her lap, she returned the pack to its original position.

  "...symbolizing your own hopes and ideals on the matter. It's interesting that this is your only pentacle..."

  Under the cover of the table, the battery slid into her phone with gratifying ease. She sagged back against her chair, feeling the tension leave her shoulders.

  When David's reading ended, Madame Zora pulled out a second deck of cards. "To allow the others to clear," she explained. "I never use the same deck twice in a row.

  "Normally," she continued, fanning the cards, "the significator for a blonde woman with grey eyes would be the Queen of Wands but in this instance I think the Devil might be more suitable."

  Cynthia frowned down at the card lying alone on the table. "I don't think I like that."

  "It has nothing to do with the devil as you perceive him, nothing to do with the evil of the Christian religion. The card symbolizes the domination of matter over spirit. Apt enough, I think? Shuffle, please."

  Amazed she was actually going through with it, actually giving implied approval to occult psychology, Cynthia shuffled and split the deck as instructed.

  Madame Zora laid out cards with firm, no nonsense movements of her hands, the rings flashing in the light. "Oh my. Four of the Major Arcana. There are powerful outside forces at work here. Look at the pattern please and tell me what you see."

  "Words," Cynthia muttered. "Words. Words. Words."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Polonius asked Hamlet what he was reading and Hamlet answered, Words." She waved a hand over the cards. "In this instance, however, pictures, might be more appropriate."

  Cocking her head slightly, Madame Zora kept her gaze on the cards. "That's all that you see?" she asked, her tone so explicitly neutral it lifted David's brows. "Pictures?"

  Cynthia studied the pattern for a moment before she answered. "There isn't anything else," she said at last. "Pretty pictures that don't symbolize anything but a way for you to make a living which, I assure you, I'm not against, but I believe in what I can see and..."

  The phone cut her off.

  "Cynthia!" David could've managed more outrage if he hadn't been so relieved to have the impending rant cut short.

  "Augustine Textiles, Cynthia Augustine speaking. What's that? I'm sorry, could you hang on a moment until I get outside?" Scrabbling to her feet she headed for the tent flap. "I'm sorry, but I've got to take this call."

  David closed his eyes in embarrassment. When he opened them again, Madame Zora was watching him, her expression unreadable.

  "I'm so sorry," he began but she cut him off.

  "No need. I am sorry for your friend." Her gesture bracketed the pattern. "I see transformation in these cards."

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