Carnival Charlatan

by Skeeter Enright

  “I’d be no good as a Kooch girl.” I made a circle of my fingers and a stroking gesture in front of my open mouth. “I gag when I brush my teeth.”

  Myra’s chair teetered precariously. She laughed so hard, she nearly fell. Her eyes streaming, she said, “I still bet Big Mike would like you in a bikini.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You are delusional, girl.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “He never offered to check my stakes…” She waggled one pierced eyebrow suggestively. “…and he’s more than welcome to hammer my stakes any time.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh, Myra’s bawdy good humor never failed to cheer me up.

  “It’s too bad you’re too cheap to keep a fan running.” She took another slurp.

  “You know I have a bad history with machinery. Machines hate me. Grammy always said technology was at war with real magic, and I definitely have the magic gene.” I bought five or six fans every season. “It’s a good thing I can put a protective spell around the engine of my motor home. If I didn’t, I’d end up on the side of the road and couldn’t even borrow a cell phone to call for help.”

  “You know, I usually don’t mind not using a fan too much,” I told her, trying to get to a benign subject. “Not being able to use technology used to bother me when I was a kid. I remember spending one whole summer trying to build a spell to allow me to use a cell phone or a radio, but I never worked it out.”

  “I can’t imagine being a teenager without a phone or my tunes,” she said with genuine empathy.

  “Eh.” I shrugged. “There is always music playing on the midway, and who needs a phone anyway? All my friends are within shouting distance. I don’t feel too deprived. I’m just glad waterproof mascara still works for me.”

  “Amen, sister.” She held up an arm in the solidarity salute. I mirrored her gesture.

  “Break’s over.” Myra bounced out of the chair. “I got to skate, marks to fleece, money to make, yada, yada.” She disappeared as quickly as she had turned up. I heard the bong of the trash barrel beside my joint as the lemonade cup hit.

  Myra’s jubilant voice shouted, “Two points, and the crowd goes wild,” followed by an off-key da-da-da of the Rocky theme song fading into the distance. Eventually, it was lost in the cacophony of the midway.

  The rest of the afternoon was anticlimactic. No additional customers, crazy or otherwise, darkened my door. The day continued heating up. I could only hear a few of the big rides running. Around five, with a rush of wings, Zach the crow flew in and landed on the edge of the table. He strutted up to me and cocked his head as if he owned the place. Zach has been around since I could remember. He’s not a pet. He is more of a fellow traveler. He hangs out mostly around my joint and rides in my wagon between shows, but he’s his own bird—a Carney through and through.

  Zach closed his eyes and stretched as I stroked his neck. I started musing about my life…not always a healthy thing to do. How did I come to be sitting in a tent near Cleveland, Ohio, worrying about making my rent for the winter? People like me, with strong talents, were from old families with a propensity for magic. Most people with talents like mine were established. They had homes, pets, and children. I trained hard to control my gifts, but it hadn’t done me any good. All I had was a twenty-year old motor home and a crow that followed me around and pooped on my tent. Let’s throw a pity party for poor me.

  I mentally slapped myself. People have sought my family’s council for generations. I’m not the most sterling example of my clan, but I’m far from the worst. The Lands had more than our share of seers and magical practitioners. I reached out with my senses and touched the power of the ley-line that ran across the North end of the fair grounds. I let it curl around my mind and gathered it into a ribbon of mental flame. I didn’t do anything with that vast power. My cheeks rounded with a smile. It was comforting to know the power was there if I wanted it. I let the energy slip back into the ley-line’s invisible energy river.

  I could control forces of Earth, and that ain’t chopped liver.

  Just because I don’t choose to do magic, doesn’t mean I can’t. After the way my mom and grandma died, who could blame me for avoiding the preternatural?

  Chapter Two

  After visiting the carnival, Evan Parris’s afternoon sermon to the faithful had gone well. His right hand strayed absently to rub the drooping mole next to his nose. The true devotion in the crowd who called him to preach made him feel powerful. The word of the Lord always prepared him for his sacred duty.

  Back in his motel room, he knelt in front of the wooden cross—the only adornment he allowed. Black cloths covered the pernicious paintings and silvered windows of vanity. With his left hand, he held his Bible to his chest. He rocked back and forth on his knees while contemplating his Holy duty.

  He spoke to God in a voice dripping with passion. “You know me, Lord. When I was young, my life was empty, my youth wasted. It wasn’t until you showed me my illustrious forbearer that I found my way to you. You showed me my vocation.” A bit of spittle formed at the corners of his mouth. “The first Reverend Parris condemned the witches of Salem. I follow in his footsteps for you, Lord.”

  His rocking became frenetic. “My forefather hung the Carnival Witch’s depraved ancestress, Martha Carrier. Ariel Land was hard to find, but I did not fail you. I will continue the exalted task entrusted to my family. Your word from the Holy Book guides me. ‘Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live’. I promise, Lord, the descendent of Martha Carrier will die tomorrow night. She will be the twelfth cleansed. Glory be to God.” He ended his mantra with the Lord’s Prayer.

  As he lay down for the night, he was content. He knew this witch needed to die, and he would kill her. The magic stunk on her. He felt it, like worms on his skin. She had a devil crow as an evil familiar and wantonly practiced her depravity. She was the worst so far. His only decision was whether he should burn her, press her, or hang her. He’d hung the last two. They had repented at the end. Ariel Land was so vile. He could see no hint of repentance in her. Her suffering should be great. Pressing would be best. It would force the evil from her. Within days, she’d be cleansed from the earth. He sighed contentedly as he drifted off to sleep. God’s will be done.

  Chapter Three

  I shook myself out of my funk. I needed to get to work, drum up some business. I put the crystal ball on its twig tripod in the center of my table and threw a silk cloth over it. Wrapping an apron around my damp skirt, I marched out of my tent to look for potential customers.

  I didn’t have far to walk. The lot for my joint is small—a five-foot center. It cost me fifty a day to have it up and running. I needed another customer to make that today, and then I could start thinking about groceries. My tent only had space for a table and a couple of chairs. A corner held shelves for the powders and potions I sold as a sideline.

  A couple of little kids were playing at my Mug board outside. The plywood poster in the shape of a gaudily dressed Gypsy man and woman had holes instead of faces. It was usually a good draw. People stopped to take silly pictures of each other and stayed to get a “real” Gypsy experience. The little kids at the board weren’t going to get their cards read.

  “Hey, kids. Where are your parents?”

  The kids gave me wide-eyed looks and bolted like rabbits. My makeup must be working.

  Bally cloths decorated the rest of my tent’s exterior—the painted canvases that advertised my show. My cloths were rife with mystic symbols and gaudy depictions of a dark-eyed woman surrounded by spirits. On one, she was levitating a prone man. Another had her communing with a translucent spirit. My mother had painted them before I was born. Other than a little junk jewelry, those cloths were all I had left of her. She died fighting demons when I was eight, leaving me for my Grammy to raise. She was twenty-four when she died, only a year older than I was right now.

  Above the door, a similarly decorated banner declared Madam Magda—that’s me—the World’s greatest psych
ic reader. The difference between the banner and the bally cloths is the arrangement of the mystic symbols on the banner set a mild compulsion hex. I used a little energy to activate the spell, and it encouraged people who studied the sign to take it seriously. No mind control or anything magically illegal—just a little charmed attention-getter. It only worked if I kept energy in the spell. Usually, the idea of a psychic reading was enough to bring me business, but on a slow night like tonight, I figured I needed to energize the spell, and get out and do a little talking to drum up business.

  A couple in their twenties walked by, not quite holding hands. Noticing both wore shiny new wedding bands, I figured they were worth a try.

  “Would you like to learn of your future?” Their stiff stance drew my attention. This reading might turn into a cheap marriage counseling session. I continued, “Perhaps, Madam Magda can help solve your problem. She has insights from realms beyond this world.” I used my mild Bela Lugosi imitation.

  The woman stared at me, her eyes widening. The man glared angrily. “We don’t have any problems,” he said in a gruff voice. He took his wife’s hand and practically dragged her away. As much as they obviously needed it, this couple wasn’t buying. Oh well. It was worth a try.

  The fake Gypsy Fortune Teller thing is a living, more or less. I tell people my readings were a little addition to the joy of the world. No joy tonight.

  A small group of townie teenagers listlessly wandered the lot, wearing shorts and flip-flops like a uniform. They hung on each other in mindless adolescent inattentiveness. None of them even looked toward my joint. I did not make an effort to draw them in. Lot lice like these didn’t spend money to get their fortunes read. The odeur de barnyard, which filtered in after the gaggle of teens passed by, told me they probably came from the livestock exhibits at the other end of the fair.

  The heat was oppressive, but there was usually a crowd by now. It seemed odd, but county fairs like these have a lot of ebb and flow. Different exhibitions draw the customers off the midway. I heard the roar of engines over by the bandstand. I think tonight is a tractor pull or maybe a hell-driver stunt show. Most of the townies were probably there, or at the horse competitions in the covered arena. There would probably be more play on the midway once the Fair’s activities end.

  I’d started walking toward the midway when I spotted a guy with potential. He was a slender, rat-faced man, an inch or two over my five foot four. He’d just turned the corner at the end of my tent’s row. His narrow-leg black jeans had silver chains hanging from the pockets. I turned back to my joint. As he came closer, I noticed his mop of black hair was at least ten shades darker than his auburn eyebrows. I don’t know why people forget to do their eyebrows when they dye their hair. Back in my blonde phase, I certainly made sure all my hair—literally all—was properly dyed.

  Mister Bad Dye Job wore a Black Sabbath T-shirt, tight enough to show that the multiple piercings in his ears and face were not the only ones he was sporting…Ooh, ick. I’m not opposed to people decorating themselves, but with so much metal, this guy wasn’t decorating…he was self-mutilating. I wouldn’t want to stand near him in a thunderstorm.

  Close up, his tight jeans showed he dressed left. I don’t usually notice which side a guy wears his penis. I surely can tell you this freak of a guy was never going to be on my lust list, but it had been a while. What can I say? My libido has a mind of its own. So sue me. I noticed.

  As he looked toward me, I started my pitch. “Hello Mysterious Man in Black. Madam Magda can see you have strong forces surrounding you.” I dropped my tone an octave below my normal speaking voice. The low vibrato draws attention in contrast to the carnival sounds full of loud tinny, artificial-recorded music. I also threw in the tiniest bit of an Eastern European accent, just to live up to the stereotype.

  He stopped and turned toward my tent. I took a step back into the relative shadows under my sign. “Allow Madam Magda to explore the mysteries of your past, present, and future.”

  “What if I don’t have a future,” he said.

  “Ah, a fatalist.” I’d heard that line before. “Perhaps knowledge gained from the great beyond will change your fortunes and allow you to explore unimagined possibilities.” Marks love melodramatic delivery.

  He looked at my overhead sign with its symbols, glanced at the small painted board that held my list of fees, shrugged his narrow shoulders, and said, “Why the hell not?”

  Once we were in close proximity, the buzz behind my eyes made me realize my second customer of the day was not a person I should take lightly. He pinged my psychic senses. Courtesy of my genetics, I do get occasional psychic flashes and muddled clairvoyant images; however, my unconscious mental gymnastics, or ability with spells, seldom gets used. Most of my mystical revelations come straight out of psychology texts. I don’t want regular people to think I’m amazing. I just want them to pay me and leave happy. It was an odd coincidence that two customers in a row had powers of their own.

  “Would you like a palm reading, or do you wish to see what the cards foretell?” I asked.

  He decided on a tarot reading, thank goodness. I didn’t want to read his palm, mainly because I didn’t want to hold his hand. In close quarters, he gave off a creepy vibe, which came from something more than his penchant for self-mutilation.

  Today was my day for weird customers. I wasn’t turning this one away. I needed the cash. As I led him into my tent, I pulled my pepper spray to the edge of my skirt pocket and surreptitiously put it in my lap after we sat down.

  I looked at the mark carefully. I am very good at pretending to look into people’s eyes. I focus on the bridge of their nose. They never know the difference. Most true magical practitioners were careful not to look directly into a person’s eyes. Gazing too deeply can give you a view into another person’s ego—their soul if you will. You can see things about the person. Things you might not really want to know. Conversely, they get to see inside you—all the inarticulate things not meant for public viewing.

  I had only looked into one other person in my life. It was when I was sixteen, during my first—to put it politely—romantic interlude. I found out the true intentions of my twenty-year old paramour, and it broke my adolescent heart. In any case, I was not going to risk looking into a kid who seemed to have fallen face first into a pincushion.

  I could sense Pincushion Guy had a gift. Unlike the man this morning, I didn’t have to open my senses to feel his innate magical ability. It was like a tiny vibration deep in my skull. More than intuition, he projected enough magic to mess up his life.

  I collected my fee, which I placed deep into my cleavage—a little flourish I automatically did for all my male customers. At least this guy had the courtesy to watch.

  While he shuffled the cards and cut them into three piles, I reached out and gently brushed him with my sixth sense. I felt pressure in the middle of my forehead, like all the pictures of the third eye seen in mystic paintings. I imagine it feels the same for anyone who has the ability.

  My mental touch was light. I was ready to draw back immediately. By the bell and the book, this guy had a significant, untrained gift. His mind was a jumble of surging energies. He had enough juice to considerably mess up his head if he didn’t learn how to control it.

  Untrained witches make me wary. All kinds of bad things can go wrong around them. People with this guy’s energy make the average person uncomfortable. I could imagine the isolation he lived with. People with no magical ability unconsciously know something is not right about a person with a strong, untrained gift and avoid them. This guy would be living like a pariah and had no way of knowing why.

  I pressed a bit more psychically, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He didn’t look at me or show he was conscious of what I was doing. The poor kid. He didn’t know what he had, and it was driving him goofy.

  I laid out the cards in a standard past present future cross. In my Magda voice, I said, “Magda needs your age to properly
visualize your past.”

  “You’re the psychic. Why don’t you know my age?” he challenged. Goofy and angry, with some power. Whoo daddy! I needed to be careful with this one.

  “Magda sees beyond this world. She wouldn’t want to delve back to a former life,” I droned without hesitation. I loved referring to myself in the third person. It was so Jungian.

  “I’m twenty,” he replied just as quickly.

  Given his size and build, I bet he was a late bloomer. I turned over the first card.

  “Your early life means little to the man you are now,” I said, watching his eyes flick up, indicating I was on the right track.

  I flipped another card. “The course of your life has changed a great deal in the past two…maybe three years.” Again, the eye flick, and he edged a tiny bit forward in his seat.

  Another card flipped. “Now, you are a seeker, looking for enlightenment.” He settled back a bit, and his eyes dropped.

  “No,” I backtracked quickly. I closed my eyes and waved my palms over the cards. “You are confused. You’ve been ridiculed, ostracized.” No psychic talent needed to guess that one, given the way he looked. His eye flick and deep intake of breath said I’d hit a nerve.

  I flipped the final card—the hooded skeleton of the Death card…and they say coincidences never happen. “This is a card of change. You have a gift that you don’t understand.” I said, raising my gaze to the spot between his eyes. I visualized a quick spell and used the slightest effort of my will and a complex hand gesture under the table. The spell effectively shut off exterior sounds to make him focus on what I was saying. “You must change, learn to use this gift for good, or the consequences will be calamitous.” Making my voice the only sound he heard really got his attention. He shivered involuntarily, going pale.

  “What do you mean? Will I die?” he asked timorously. He leaned forward now, and a small bead of sweat hung off the tip of one of the six dumbbell-shaped studs that pierced his left eyebrow. His finger nearly touched the final card.