The Lincoln Penny

by Barbara Best

  “Huh? Oh, twenty-four.”

  “And zee hour of your birth?

  “I’m pretty sure just after noon . . . twelve-twenty.” Jane hopes there won’t be any more questions.

  Madame Néve hands the cards to Jane, “Shuffle zee cards.”

  Jane does as she is told, hands the cards back and Madame lays three cards face down on the table. Her movements are practiced and with purpose.

  “Past. Present. Or Future. Hmmm. Zee cards will help us focus. Zee cards will be our guide,” Madame Néve looks up at the ceiling. “Put your hands on zee table, Miss Peterson. Your full name, please?”

  “Jane . . . Fiona . . . Peterson.” Jane winces at the middle name she’s never been crazy about. What was my mother thinking!

  Madame Néve turns both Jane’s hands over, palms up. “Relax and breathe deeply.” She waits. “Good. Good.” She looks down at the cards. There is another long pause. “Now! You and I are on a journey of discovery. And you will see . . . there ees much to tell.”

  “Ah! Zee first card!” Madame begins with much excitement. “Why, it ees our High Priestess. Zee Mythic Tarot. Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter . . . zee goddess of harvest. You are seeking contact with your inner self. You are interested in zee mysteries of life. Zee world of dreams and fantasy. I see a birth of sumzing in your unconscious self. No. No.” Madame corrects as if feeling her way. “Conscious! It ees your conscious self,” she says with certainty.

  Madame looks up into Jane’s eyes, “You know this!” She mildly accuses. “Perhaps you should find a new understanding of your situation. In myth, Persephone was kidnapped from earth by a God of zee Underworld and had to live with him in his dark realm for a time. Ziss card tells us your sorrow ees in being separated from zee world you know.”

  “Damn!” Jane whispers hoarsely. “I mean wow, that’s pretty incredible.”

  “Do not speak.”

  Madame Néve is used to reactions from her customers, but is taken aback by this unfitting expletive from such a well-bred lady. So out of place. The shock of it almost makes her laugh. She is also pleased she has hit the mark and focuses in intensely on her work, continuing to the next card. “As spring emerges from winter . . . hope has a new birth. I see a new engagement with life. Zee second card. Ah! Zee Magician!”

  “Hmmm.” Madame continues, “Ziss symbolizes a major obstacle that you face. See here? It ees Hermes, zee Messenger of the Gods, known for his cleverness . . . and for his deception,” she looks up pointedly, all knowing. “He ees zee trickster, who can help, OR! Who can harm. Zee Magician can stand for zee man in your life. Perhaps vanishing in a puff of smoke to leave you with sumzing very different. He works to trick zee mind, he creates deliberate chaos.”

  There is anticipation as Madame reads the card. “Ha! I have it! Love. Yet it somehow eludes you. I sense impatience. Could it be you are unlucky in love? Deep in your heart, you are waiting for zat someone special. Or perhaps it is zee return of your long-lost soul mate.”

  Jane squirms in her chair and clears her throat. She’s about to say something.

  “Do not speak.” One corner of Madame’s mouth turns up and she wags her heavily ringed finger before she bends down to study the third and final card with great care.

  After a poignant pause, Madame reaches across the table and presses her fingers into the center of Jane’s upturned palms, causing her fingers to curl. Then, she takes Jane’s hands into hers. There is a marvelous tension and charged current between the two of them.

  Finally, with careful diction and much drama, “Eight of Wands.”

  Madame closes her eyes tight and raises her brow as if searching for meaning. “It ees zee Voyager, who puts right his struggles. Completing his mighty quest. He finds zee Golden Fleece, a great and legendary treasure. Ha! What treasure might ziss be?” Madame waits for Jane to focus her attention on her, noticing the girl is uncomfortable and struggling with truth. “Only you can know ziss. Only you can seek ziss.”

  The oracle hums a few notes of an unfamiliar tune and looks up to the ceiling again and smiles. Her head tilts slightly at an unnatural angle as she looks back at Jane’s final card.

  Jane feels the hair on the back of her neck stand. This woman is totally cool and could make a believer out of anyone.

  Madame Néve continues, “Now. Ziss card symbolizes a sailing. Ah! It could mean a journey of some kind. A long journey, perhaps? It ees a place only you can go . . . yet,” Madame frowns and looks closer at the cards, “I see an obstacle. Sumzing dark and mysterious blocks your path. You must be cautious in your search! You must accept your destiny.”

  Madame’s tone becomes more urgent. “When you are ready, seek to put yourself where opportunity will be more likely to manifest. But! Ziss might come as the result of . . . of a trek. One in which you . . . oh, I see! One you and another must make. Your fates are intertwined. Use zee treasure you have gained in your struggles. Use zee treasure from zee Voyager. It ees zee key! It ees zee way to sail home.”

  Jane watches, her mouth agape. Did she just say key? Maybe there’s more to this. She wants to find out, ask questions, although it is clear she is not supposed to say anything. Well, maybe afterwards.

  Abruptly Madame releases her hands. Jane naturally flexes her fingers forming fists and thinking it freaky to be holding hands with the lady in the first place.

  The space between the two women is charged with energy. Their single candle is no longer flickering. The color of the flame burns a steady blue and red. Jane is at first puzzled by this, then overcome by a strange sensation. Her range of vision becomes all smudgy around the edges. Increasingly, it narrows to a tiny pinpoint of clarity, where she can only see a brilliant white dot in space. How long Jane stares at the single orb in her dissociated state is anyone’s guess.

  The haze of Miss Peterson’s rich aura radiates outward in waves. It is the strongest the oracle has ever seen. Indigo . . . violet . . . mysterious, secretive, highly spiritual, and intuitive. The words of her trade pass through Madame Néve’s mind. Quick and brief beyond the edges, the place where purple meets white to create a lovely shade of lavender, is a great darkness. She looks for truth, what is and only catches it for a second. And it is gone. Perhaps she did not see it. Perhaps it is not there. Madame’s eyes are open, yet she is not seeing the physical, the material things around her. She is in a murky place where her senses sharpen and become clear. The sensation sends her forward to what she must comprehend. What must be. It streaks through her, strong, overpowering, lightening fast.

  Hey, snap out of it! Jane blinks a couple of times really hard, trying to refocus, drawing her eyes away. The next few minutes seem like forever. She is suddenly uncomfortable, dispirited. Her inner voice warns sharply, something’s not right. It’s time to be done with this. Madame Néve doesn’t look any better, appearing listless, spent. Her deep and raspy trance-like panting is getting on Jane’s last nerve. Jane isn’t sure what to do next and clears her throat again. God, I hope she’s finished. Why is everything so weird for me! If the lady doesn’t do something soon, I’m out of here!

  In the stillness of the room and without a word or gesture, Madame Néve suddenly rises and quietly slips out through a hidden door on the back wall. Jane hears the bell ring again. The drapes open, lighting the room and entrance where she came in. Angel steps in and motions Jane to come with her.

  Mary is stunned by Jane’s appearance and any excitement she had about finding out what happened fades abruptly. Her friend looks pale and quite shaken. She hopes this hasn’t been a mistake. Mary Marshall, you can be about as dumb as a bucket of rocks sometimes, she chides with an expression her husband used in rare situations. “Come here child.”

  “Where did she go?” Jane looks back and feels like she wants to thump the side of her head to clear the fog. She wants to be upset. She wants to be sick. Why is this getting to her? Come on Jane don’t be so serious. It’s a fortune-teller for Christ’s sake. And a good one
at that.

  “Madame Néve, she ‘spect me ta see you and Miz Marshall out. Please. Your carriage be waitin’.” Angel makes to herd the two ladies in the direction of the front door.

  “So, that’s it?” Jane hates being jerked around. She has a few questions she would like to ask.

  “Yes, dear, it’s her way.” Mary disregards Angel’s rush to have them removed from the house. Their business is done and she has already left compensation in the wooden box on the mantel as required. But there is a turn in Jane’s expression that catches her attention. “Perhaps you should rest a minute.” She frowns at Angel, daring her to interfere. Where are my smelling salts! Mary is suddenly afraid Jane will pass out on the very spot she is standing. “Bless your heart!” She takes her friend’s arm in alarm. “Please, I need help with her. Jane, do sit down . . . before you fall down!”

  “No. I don’t want to sit. Let’s get out of here, okay? Don’t I need to pay or something?” Jane says weakly.

  “Gracious me, no. This is my idea, Jane.” And a bad one, she scolds again. “We should leave then, this way dear.”

  “Yes. Let’s go.” Jane walks with Mary out of the house and to their awaiting carriage. Mary’s driver opens the door and helps both Mary and Jane into their seats.

  It is good the carriage is fully covered since the weather has been rainy, however, it makes it hard for Jane to get her big hoop skirt through the door and into her appointed space without it springing up and flipping all over the place. “Miss Coordination,” Jane chuckles mildly, becoming more herself again.

  Mary is relieved to see her friend’s good humor returning. She can’t help but laugh too at Jane’s awkward twists and turns in trying to get settled. By now, it should be child’s play to manage skirts like theirs. But not to her Jane! She always acts like she is off balance in her clothing. As if it were her very first time in a hoop and petticoat.

  Right before they pull away, “Wait! Miz Marshall.” Angel calls out, “Miz Marshall . . . oh, please wait!” she cries.

  “What on earth.” Mary is all too ready to be off and away from this place. She has had enough excitement for one afternoon. She is getting too old for this sort of thing. “Hold.” She instructs the driver, tapping the gold head of her cane on the front panel of their compartment.

  Jane leans back in her seat, trying to sort through the words that were spoken to her. She would like to brush it all off as coincidence, although that’s not been the way of things for her since that night with Sophie at Fort Pulaski. Since the day Reason and Logic were both tossed out on their heads.

  “Miz Marshall, my mistress wants me to give dis here to Miss Peterson.” Angel pants out of breath from exertion and excitement.

  Mary’s driver climbs down and opens the door again as Mary peers at the item Angel is holding out to her. “I do declare, didn’t my compensation for Madame’s services suffice?” She is annoyed this girl would be sent to collect more. Why the very nerve!

  Jane leans forward to see what all the commotion is about as Angel quickly shoves past the driver, into the doorway of the carriage, and unceremoniously plops a wooden box with delicately painted inlays into the middle of Jane’s lap. The smell of it reaches Jane’s senses before its appearance in the shadows registers. She blinks in disbelief and swallows her stomach, before spots disrupt her field of vision. And everything goes black.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  Shot up to a penetrating sharpness that stings her sinuses and the back of her eyes. Jane gasps and snorts to clear her nose and lungs of the wicked intruder.

  “I am so very sorry. This is all my doing. There-there now.” Mary coos gently as Jane snatches the skirt of her dress up to her face.

  “Jesus Christ, Mary, have you lost your mind!” Jane scowls over the edge of the fabric. She’s awake! And it only feels like she’s just been stabbed in the nose.

  “It is the salts. You gave us quite a scare, child. You simply would not come to. There now, you will be yourself in no time. Here, have a sip of this.”

  Jane looks down to see her dress has been unbuttoned, her corset loosened, all without her knowing it. Wow, I must have been out cold. She takes the glass and gulps down the amber liquid causing a fit of coughing as the fire burns its way down. “Shit!” Jane rasps, pushing the goblet away. More spasms.

  “Brandy. I said a sip, dear.” Mary sniggers at Jane’s expletive, but is satisfied her young friend is fully alert now. “I have sent word to Anna that you are suddenly not well and would like to rest here.” Mary calmly pours Jane a glass of water instead.

  “Where am I? How long have I been out?”

  “One question at a time.” Mary patiently waits for Jane to drink. “You are in my room, dear. My coachman carried you up. And you have been unconscious for about three quarters of an hour. I was on the verge of calling for your Doctor Arnold when you finally revived.”

  Jane’s mind travels from one snapshot of their day to the next until it arrives at its final destination, THE BOX! My box. Jane can only pray she had remembered wrong, that it is a figment of her imagination. It just can’t be. And why! How are the vines of time so cruelly intertwined with one another in such a devastating chokehold on her life — wrecking her future, destroying her beliefs, derailing her sense of security, striping her of everything that is important.

  It’s all very wrong! What the hell is my jewelry box doing here? And what the hell does Madame Néve have to do with it? The box wasn’t with Jane when she and Sophie were walking that night. It was in the Colonel’s Quarters with all the other things she brought for their weekend event. Jane’s mind races on frantically in a heated frenzy, searching for some hidden rationale in a world out of kilter. Another mystery, unexplained, sickening, deranged. There are no answers, only questions and more questions.

  “What does it all mean?” Mary beats Jane to the punch, but then, she would.

  “I don’t know . . . something’s not right. What happened when I passed out?”

  “Do you think you are up to all this? I am quite concerned for you.”

  Jane gives Mary the look.

  “Well . . . if you insist.” Mary fluffs up the pillows to make Jane more comfy and with the pace of a snail rustles over to drag a lightweight stool with a tapestry cushion across the carpet to Jane’s bedside. The stool disappears under her full skirt as she settles onto it. She balances her cane against the bed before she folds her hands in her lap and begins, “That little wisp of a girl, Angel, said it was a gift from Madame. She as much as shoved me over to drop it into your lap! And in that instant you fainted. A gift, she said, and without another word, the girl spun round, scurried back up the walk and into the house. Without an explanation or so much as a by your leave.”

  Mary takes the glass from Jane. “At first I thought perchance Madame had dispatched the girl with the box to question my gratuity, which was most generous, I will have you know. Believe me, I was just shy of giving her a piece of my mind,” she fusses in good humor. Mary tilts her chin up and gives Jane a long, hard look. “But then, we were unable to revive you, so we brought you home directly. And here you are. Gracious me child! I have been most frantic and filled with remorse. This was all my doing. I could just kick myself for taking you to that frightful place!”

  “It’s okay, Mary. Not a big deal. Really. Where I come from people don’t think anything of going to see a psychic or fortune-teller.” Jane’s inner voice adds, they do the whole talk show circuit and even have their own websites. “Some people believe in it. Most go out of curiosity or just for fun.”

  Jane pauses to catch her breath, “There’s no way I can explain the passing out part. I’m really sorry about that, Mary, and for worrying you.” If Jane were home, she would have already called for an appointment at the clinic to get a thorough check up since this sort of thing is so out of character. Maybe a brain scan is in order for all the craziness in her life right now. “This is only the second time I’ve blacked out complete
ly in my life.” The first only being when I was sucked back one hundred and fifty years through time. Imagine that! Jane inhales more oxygen, “I’m okay now.” I think. “Tell me, where is this box that caused all the commotion?”

  “On this matter I must concede it is in my possession until I fully ascertain you are recovered. It’s safe I assure you.”

  “Look, I’m fine.” Jane scoots past Mary as if to get up, but before she can even dangle her legs over the side of the bed, the blood drains from her head giving her a fuzzy numb sensation. She pushes back, all wobbly, and presses against the pillows to try and steady herself. A deep shiver travels up her spine to her shoulders and neck. Where did that come from? “Did I bump my head or something? I feel weird.”

  Mary shakes her head ‘no’ and with a frown, leans over to press the back of her hand to Jane’s forehead and cheeks. “Land’s sake, child, you are burning up.”

  “I can’t be!” With souped-up antibodies recruited by a state-of-the-art immune system with one hundred and fifty years of advancements in modern medicine, Jane had so far been trouble free. “I’m sure it will pass. Just too much excitement for one day is all. Please Mary, I can’t wait. I have to see the box now. Seriously.”

  Mary gives Jane a motherly look of disapproval, thumps her cane and stands erect to her full height of all five feet, “Very well then. But you must stay calm. I am worried about you.”

  Jane watches Mary go over to her very grand and finely crafted mahogany armoire to return with the object and source of turmoil. The one, the only one! A gift from her dad . . . her antique jewelry box. There couldn’t be two of them. “Oh . . . migod. I can’t believe it! I just can’t believe it!”

  Mary gently places the box in Jane’s lap where it had been not an hour before. “It is just a silly ole box. Don’t carry on so,” she snorts, trying to make light.

  Jane gingerly runs her index finger along the detailed inlay, so familiar, so cherished. It doesn’t look much different. You might think it would look newer. She lifts the lid and peeks inside.