by Susan Wilson
Ruby sets up her tent, careful to respect the silky patch she’s hot glued to the split in the side. She’s got the same location she started with back in the early days of the summer. It still seems impossible that she’s lingered here in Harmony Farms for as long as she has. Except for the years she needed to spend the winter in one place so that Sabine could attend school, Ruby has limited her roosting to a few weeks at most, and only as long as the work was profitable. Lingering too long eventually means that the stream of clients is tapped out. This time, though, there seems to be an endless supply of clients, her favorite kind: the four-legged variety. Even as she sets up her mise-en-scène—the table, the chairs, the sandwich board, placing the thrift store teapot on a plinth—she’s been approached by early birds with their doggies, all asking if she’ll be doing animal communication. In the back of her mind, Ruby thinks that she’ll squirrel away all the animal reading fees toward pulling up stakes here. And in the next moment she realizes that she’s looking forward to that high school football game Doug wants to take her to next weekend. Homecoming.
Clients are thick on the ground on this beautiful Saturday of a three-day holiday weekend. Leaf peepers abound, and most of them are incapable of resisting a craft fair. Ruby highlights the animal communication line item on her sandwich board and sets a fishbowl of dog treats on her table beside the box of tarot cards. For her part, the Hitchhiker speaks nicely to each visitor and then leaves Ruby to do her job after receiving one of those treats as a reward for good behavior.
About lunchtime, Doug shows up and offers to fetch whatever Ruby wants from one of the six food trucks arrayed around the perimeter of the park. The breeze has come up, her shabby pennant snaps with a new vigor. Ruby closes her tent flaps and they retire to her van to pop up the table and enjoy their falafel wraps in comfort.
Having Doug in it makes her van seem a lot smaller than usual. The Hitchhiker moves to the front seat in protest of being squeezed off the bench seat. Ruby has long since removed the two jump seats that would allow face-to-face dining over the table, as it has been years since she was face-to-face with anyone in her mobile tiny house. So, it is side by side that Doug Cross and Ruby Heartwood have lunch. With the slider open, it’s a bit like sitting on a porch. The Westfalia attracts a lot of attention from passersby and from acquaintances. Bull sticks his head in to say hi, and then Polly, who looks pleased with this couple-like scene. Ruby would like to shut the slider, but that seems wrong.
As they finish their lunch, passing a container of wet wipes back and forth, Cynthia Mann strolls by. At first it looks like she’s going to pretend that she doesn’t recognize the utterly recognizable van but then pauses. Raises a hand in greeting, a slight smile breaking free of her lip filler. Keeps moving.
“I think you may have tamed her.”
“It’s an improvement, for sure.”
Sunday isn’t quite as pleasant as Saturday, but still a lovely fall day, if overcast. The shabby pennant on the top of Ruby’s tent is limp, the fresh breeze from yesterday gone. The crowd is thin at first but then builds as the day progresses. All in all, not a bad day. The cigar box is respectably full. Ruby thinks that she’ll make an ATM run after the Faire closes and put that cash in her account. Doug, being Doug, thinks that her security system, or lack thereof, is a problem. Part of her thinks that’s kind of sweet, but a larger part of her screams that this is why being unattached is preferable. No one to criticize a lifelong habit. In all the years she’s traveled alone, she’s managed to stay safe. Well, mostly.
The air is so still that Ruby decides it’s safe to leave her tent up. Tomorrow is the last day of the event and it would be nice not to have to spend time setting up again, just get down to business. As she ties the tent flaps closed, Ruby’s phone chirps with an incoming call. Sarah Grace.
“How was the trip?”
Sarah Grace effuses the glories of Alaska and insists that Ruby find a way to take a cruise. Ruby doesn’t mention that doing so is hardly in her budget and gives Sarah a solid “maybe someday” response. Ruby and the Hitchhiker listen to Sarah Grace as they walk back to the van, climb in, and shut the door. She’s going to have to guide Sarah back to the actual reason for her call. “So, have you had time since your return to do a little family exploration?”
“A bit. I’ve gotten emails from two of the second cousins from your branch. Nothing particularly revealing, but I’ll send them on to you.”
“That would be great. When you say my branch, what do you mean?”
“My great-grandmother’s sister’s daughters’ daughters.”
Ruby feels her mind close down. “Any names to go with those?”
“Smith, Green, Watson, Felton, Barr. Common names. It’s all on the maternal line, so each name pops up only once or twice.”
“It’s a jumping-off place.” But to where, Ruby can’t imagine. “Send me the emails, if you will. Talk soon.”
It has been a long day of reading and Ruby feels the tiredness descend. It seems less important to have this sketchy information now than it did even a few weeks ago. What does it all mean? she thinks. A random suggestion that someone who resembled her once worked this town? The idea that she shares blood with people who are strangers and thus might trace herself backward has become a quixotic desire. The list of names are so common as to feel familiar; indeed she can probably come up with people she already knows by those names. Green, Barr, Smith. A client, a teacher, the dentist she went to last year. For goodness sake, her own daughter’s married name is Smith. Felton. And yet, there is something niggling at the back of her mind, some pestering idea that won’t come clear.
The weather on Monday has turned nasty; rain threatens, and the sweet coolness of fall feels a whole lot more like the rawness of early winter. Ruby zips a fleece vest underneath her caftan and pulls on her Uggs. She doesn’t hold out much hope for a good day and promises herself that she only needs to stick it out till noon. The wind, which was dormant yesterday, has picked up and the first thing Ruby notices when she arrives at her tent is that her poor bedraggled pennant has finally given up the ghost and sheared off its pole. She finds it trampled in the grass. She tucks it into the deep pocket of her caftan.
The Hitchhiker ducks into the tent and right into her little bed. This is not her kind of weather, she says. She will selfishly spend the hours Ruby insists on working not being of any help. If there was a bully stick to chew on, that might improve things. Ruby fishes one of the natural chews out of her bag and gives the Hitchhiker a pat on the head. “Stay in bed; it’s what an intelligent being would do.” If an intelligent human was capable of forfeiting a potential payday just because the weather is sour. Looking around the grounds, Ruby can see that a number of the regulars have indeed forfeited their paydays. She’s alone in her assigned row, the lavender lady and the hat seller have literally folded up their tents and booked it.
Even with the fleece vest and Uggs, Ruby is quickly chilled despite sitting inside the conical tent. She pulls out her long-neglected knitting, mostly for the warmth afforded by the wool. The sandwich sign keeps blowing over. Despite all that, there are people strolling, stalwarts in search of the last of the growing season’s fresh vegetables, flowers, pies. Fall flowers in bunches, decorative cornstalks and cattails clutched against the wind.
Ruby closes her eyes and lets a curious sensation trickle through her. It is as if the wind itself is speaking through her. It is a sensation similar to that when she speaks to the dogs. Not words so much as images, visions, tastes. She wonders if she’s dozed off. She glances down at the sleeping spaniel. There is no other dog in sight. Felton. Why is that word—name—buzzing through her mind? It’s slipping in like a musical phrase, over and over, without resolution. Felton.
A gust of wind tears through Ruby’s tent, splitting the mended side, tossing the little tent over, spilling the contents out of it. The table, the other chair, and the sandwich sign are all knocked over. The wooden box of tarot cards hits the
ground and bursts open. Cards fly off in every direction as if stirred by a mighty hand. The dog leaps up and bolts. Ruby loses her grip on her knitting needles and pushes out of her chair to try to grasp the tent before it flies away. The chair flies away. Feltonfeltonfelton.
As violent as the gust was, it passes and there is a sudden lull. The only thing left standing where the tent had been is the plinth with the little thrift store teapot sitting exactly as she had placed it an hour ago.
Annie Felton. That’s who took Ruby’s spot at the Renaissance Faire. The sudden recollection of where she’d heard the name, why that word has been teasing at her memory, jolts Ruby. Felton in her ancestry. Felton in Plymouth. Ruby scrambles to gather her tent and belongings as quickly as she can. If the weather here is awful, what’s to say that the Renaissance Faire hasn’t already broken camp? It’s the last day of their run. She’s got to get there as fast as she can. She’s got to get to Annie Felton before she disappears.
“Whoa, Ruby, let me help.” Doug gathers the remnants of Ruby’s tent into his arms, grabs the folding chairs. “What happened?”
“I have to go. Now. Will you go find the dog? She ran off.”
Doug throws everything into the van while Ruby picks up what she can. The cards are a loss. She doesn’t care. The knitting is a mess. She doesn’t care. She carefully puts the unbroken, unscathed teapot back in the Bubble Wrap and carries it like a holy relic to the van. Doug has the Hitchhiker and all three jump into the van and Ruby slams the gearshift into reverse. “Buckle up.”
As they lurch toward the highway, Doug reaches over and pats Ruby’s hand on the stick shift. “Will you tell me what’s going on? Where are we going?”
“To find my mother.”
41
Holiday traffic clogs the highway making progress south a stop-and-go transaction until they cross over the Mass Pike and break free. They also drive right out from under the storm they left behind in Harmony Farms. The squeezing in her chest begins to soften as Ruby sees open road in front of her. If it’s clear ahead, both the road and the weather, then maybe she no longer needs to push the Westfalia quite so hard. It likes a maximum of sixty-two, and she’s got it wound up to almost seventy. As she backs off the pedal, she can’t help but notice Doug visibly relax. He lets go of the door handle, settles his seat belt more comfortably across his chest. Shifts the dog on his lap to a more comfortable position. Ruby reaches over and takes his hand. Smiles. He rubs her knuckles with his thumb. Smiles back.
“You feel as though all the pieces are coming together.”
“I do. I have an absolute certainty that this is the moment I have been waiting for.”
“What does that feel like? Absolute certainty?”
“I’m not sure I can describe it. I just know that this fairly recent need to solve my deepest mystery is about to be fulfilled.”
Doug says nothing. Ruby knows that he’s worried she’ll be disappointed, or worse, devastated if this woman isn’t who she hopes she is. It really is so little to go on: a coincidence of name, a shared profession. But Doug isn’t blessed with second sight. He doesn’t know the rapture of seeing that which isn’t yet. But will be. She supposes the closest thing to it is faith in God. Unseen. Real. The mighty wind that blew through her tent, smashing her props, all except the doughty teapot, surrounded Ruby with an enfolding message. Go. Seek. Find.
The parking lot at the Renaissance Faire is beginning to empty out; a long line of cars snake through the rows heading toward the exits. It is late in the afternoon and the event itself is winding down. Ruby skips the main parking lot, heads directly to the back of the grounds to the employee parking area. As she expects, it is full of RVs and equipment trailers, the temporary stables for the horses who act in the main event of the faire, the faux joust. Two are all tacked up, all the trappings of an American vision of Medieval sport hanging from bridles and covering saddles. The third act of the play will commence in a few minutes, the final “joust” between the chosen champions of Lady This and Lady That. The other two acts would have involved the challenges: spiking hoops on a lance, trick riding, dramatic tumbles off accommodating horses. This one will end in clanging swordplay. Ruby glances at the combatants, sharing a bottle of beer, and puts her money on Lord Redcoat. The guy in black never wins.
“This way.” Ruby leads Doug and the dog through the employee entrance. Either because it’s so late in the day security can’t be bothered, or because being dressed in her gold-embroidered caftan suggests she’s part of the cast, no one challenges Ruby and her escorts. She gathers the fabric of her caftan in her fingers, keeping it off the dusty path, the wood chips long since dissolved with hard use. Her trajectory takes her around the perimeter of the jousting field, between the blacksmith’s forge and the Bard’s Corner, right to a small building tucked in between the mud pit comics and the ax throwing game.
The shed is perhaps twelve by ten; a single window sports a solid shutter, now propped open. The door is narrow, a wrought iron latch and curlicue straps give it an authentic antique air. A banner hangs from the eaves: Mystic Marianna: Fortunes Told ~ Crystal Ball ~ Palms.
Ruby thinks that she’s going to be sick. Doug puts one large hand on her shoulder. “You can do this. I’ll be at the picnic tables.”
“Thank you. I’ll meet you there in a minute.”
“Ruby. Certainty.”
As Doug makes his way through costumed faire-goers, looking like a modern man cast suddenly back in time, a present-day Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Ruby is filled with a certainty she hadn’t looked for. She is certain that she loves him.
“Here goes nothing.” Ruby drops the hem of her caftan, shakes out her hair. She can hear the thundering of hooves as the joust begins. The clunk of fake lance against shield. The roar of the crowd cheering on the actors. Her breath is coming faster, as if she is also galloping across a wide field. She remembers the dreamscape of the hillside, the ethereal woman either coming or going. Her palms are clammy with nerves.
Ruby feels a slight pressure below; the Hitchhiker, nose working the air toward the open booth door, presses her forepaws against Ruby’s foot. “I am with you.”
* * *
This is interesting. Although I haven’t laid eyes on her yet, the scent of the woman sitting in this tiny house fills my mind with images of Ruby. It isn’t quite that they have the same odors, it’s that they have the same markers. That is, similar tastes in food and soap. I know that if I am allowed a deeper investigation, I will be able to find many other markers, ones more deeply buried than what appears on the skin. In the way that I immediately recognized Sabine and her playful children as blood to Ruby, I am getting a similar flavor, even as apart as these two women are. I nudge Ruby to go in. I’m anxious to confirm my suspicions.
* * *
“Don’t be afraid. Come in. Come in.” The voice is moderate, a slight accent, much like the type Ruby had used for years. Who would trust a psychic with a solidly New England twang or Southern accent, after all? “Mystic Marianna will help you to get the answers you seek.”
“I hope so.” This under her breath. Ruby steps inside only as far as the doorframe. A sudden break in the clouds and she is illuminated from behind. The gold in her caftan glitters. The woman sitting in the booth chuckles. “I see we have the same taste in caftans. Broadway Costuming, Toledo, Ohio, I presume?”
Marianna the Mystic cannot be Ruby’s mother. She is younger than Ruby. She looks more Sabine’s age. She looks like Sabine.
As Ruby lingers in the doorway, the sun goes behind a cloud, she is no longer backlit.
“Oh, my God.” There is nothing of the foreign accent in that remark. Mystic Marianna jumps to her feet. The two women, both in golden caftans, of an equal height, stare at each other with gold-flecked hazel eyes. Frozen in tableau. “I never thought that I’d lay eyes on you.” Marianna takes one step forward. It is a tiny space, and as Ruby steps forward, they are within touching distance. “We’ve been loo
king for you.”
The dog looks at one, then the other. She sniffs. Her tail wags. Satisfied that she knows what’s going on, the Hitchhiker takes an olfactory survey of the small space, finds a dropped French fry.
Ruby’s mouth is dry and she longs for a drink of water. She doesn’t know whether to ask questions or give answers. “My name, what I call myself, is Ruby Heartwood. I was given the name Mary Jones when I was left behind.”
“And I believe that you are my lost sister.”
At that, Ruby’s legs give out and her sister helps her to sit down, put her head between her knees. She also pulls the shutter in and flips the CLOSED sign on the door. For a long silent moment Marianna rubs Ruby’s back until Ruby feels able to sit up. Mystic Marianna takes her seat opposite Ruby, the tiny round table with a little white teapot centered on it between them. Ruby feels like a client. She’s never sat on the south side of the table before. “I have been searching for my mother—who abandoned me as an infant.”
Maybe it’s habit, maybe its professional, but Marianna puts out her hands and takes Ruby’s. “Which she has regretted every day of her life since.”
“I assume that you are her second daughter.”
“Yes. Annie.”
“I’ve been in touch with a genetic cousin of ours. She says that we come from a long line of second daughters. Who have the gift.” This last is an interpretation of Sarah Grace’s more vague remarks.
“We do. Mostly.” Annie looks at Ruby. “You’re a first daughter.”
This isn’t the line of conversation Ruby is most interested in, not by a long shot. “And our mother? I suppose I should know, but I truly don’t. Even Sabine, my … your niece, whose gifts are of a medium, has never been able to tell me if…”
