Darren Craske - The equivoque principle

After a brisk five-minute walk through Hyde Park, Destine was able to see the site where the circus was in the final stages of construction. The huge yellow-and-red-striped Big Top tent, positioned proudly as soon as they reached the top of The Meadow's hill, immediately stole her attention. Five smaller tents were scattered like tiny islands around the main tent, all decorated with the same bright colours, and Destine took in the full magnificence of what the circus folk had achieved so far. She could just imagine the circus in the midst of its prime time come the following day, with hundreds of people milling about from stall to stall and tent to tent laughing, cheering and cooing with delight. Butter pointed out Cornelius Quaint, standing in the distance next to a small canvas tent, his hands on his hips, beaming widely.

He was wearing a short-cut, dark-purple velvet coat, reaching down just past his buttocks, over a thick, wide-collared shirt and a neat black waistcoat. A short, black silk scarf was wrapped around his broad, muscular neck, tucked into the velvet coat. Immaculate he may be, thought Destine, but this week had taken its toll upon him as much as her. In truth, this fact gave her little comfort.

Above Quaint, a lavishly painted sign reading 'The Mystical Madame Destine: Fortunes Foretold, Futures Revealed' was hung above the opening entrance to the canvas tent, and Destine knew she was home.

'Good day, Madame, come on inside,' said Quaint, motioning Destine inside the tent with a peck on her cheek. 'I trust you are well rested?'

'I am feeling much better, Cornelius, thank you.' As Destine got closer she inspected the man and his wounds more closely. She saw the same dappled bruises about Quaint's face that Butter shared, with a gash to his cheek and a nasty purple-black hue under the rim of his right eye. She silently reprimanded him with a stern glare, and his eyes looked to the floor.

'Don't look like that, Madame,' protested Quaint. 'It was hardly my fault.'

'Some people are a magnet for trouble, like a wasp to jam, remember?' said Madame Destine, as she pushed past a dark curtain decorated with silver stars and glittering sequins. She stopped suddenly as she noticed the voluminous form of Prometheus, standing waiting for her with his arms wide open. Her eyes sparkled as she lifted her lace veil; and she skipped across the tent to embrace him affectionately, literally throwing herself into him.

'Oh, do come closer, my great big bear, I am so, so pleased to see you,' she beamed. 'I thought we would never set eyes upon you again. You have my condolences for Twinkle's loss. Our little star will forever shine in the heavens above, Prometheus, you can be certain of that. She will be missed greatly by us all.'

'I miss her so much already, Madame,' Prometheus replied.

Madame Destine's jaw dropped and she spun around to Cornelius.

'Sacre bleu! You can speak? What is this trickery?' she demanded. 'Cornelius-did you know he can speak?'

'Yes, Madame,' confirmed Quaint. 'It's getting him to shut up that's difficult.'

'Madame, c'mere yerself! Aye, an' it's good t'see ye again!' Prometheus said warmly, as he bent down and nuzzled his bristly beard into Destine's neck.

The Frenchwoman batted him off playfully. 'Mon dieu, Prometheus, you smell like a dustbin! You need a bath.'

'I can't argue with that, Madame,' agreed Prometheus.

Destine stepped up onto her tip-toes and ran her hand along his cheek. 'Since when have you been able to speak, monsieur?' she asked. 'You simply must tell me.'

Prometheus laughed. 'I thought you knew everything, Madame Fortune-Teller?'

'No, you are confusing me with Cornelius,' Destine said with a wink towards Quaint. 'Oh, it is so good to have you home and safe, Prometheus.' Destine closed her eyes, and buried her head into the Irishman's expansive chest.

As emotional as she was at seeing him, his words served to bite at her even more. Her faith in her ability to see into the future had been a nagging worry that had plagued her mind non-stop since she had seen the face in the mist. With Prometheus back amongst those who loved him, surely things would start to get back to normal soon, she thought.

Soon, Madame Destine was up to speed with all current events, and Quaint had requested that she try her hardest to foresee which direction was the best one for them to take, one that would yield the best results in discovering just what was afoot in Crawditch. Quaint had often put his life into suspended animation until Destine had assisted him in finding the right road to follow. As his 'compass', he knew that if she pointed him in a direction, it would always ring true. But now, sitting in her tent, with Cornelius Quaint and Prometheus's faces appealing for her counsel, Destine was fighting an inner turmoil of her own.

She recalled her question to Butter from the previous night: 'Would you betray the trust of someone you loved if you knew it was the only way to keep them alive?' and those words stung at her conscience. She thanked the stars above that it was she and not Quaint who was able to perceive the emotions of others, for her fear was hidden just beneath the surface, almost on parade for all to see.

'Well, Destine?' asked Quaint. 'What should we do? We have a number of possibilities presented to us, but one thing I don't want to do is deliver Prometheus back into Oliver Dray's hands! I think it better that I visit Crawditch, if only to find out who wanted me dead-well…frozen first, but then dead-and we also need to poke around at Blackstaff prison to find out more about how this Hawkspear chap escaped. We know he's involved in this business up to his neck, but we don't know who's pulling his strings.'

'Hawkspear's as close t'the Devil as ye can get, Cornelius, bar the pitchfork and pointy tail, but he don't have the brains for subterfuge. I'm surprised he's hidin' an' not out in th'middle of the street dancin', braggin' about his crimes. He wanted me t'know it was him that killed Twinkle…he knows it's tearin' me up…an' I'll bet he's just lovin' the fact that everyone in Crawditch thinks of me as a killer,' said Prometheus grimly, teasing his beard with his fingers. 'Don't forget I'm still a wanted man right now, Cornelius, so I am. I need t'clear me name, man.'

'Prometheus, I understand how important it is for you, of course I do. We need to listen to the Madame here, and await her advice,' said Quaint. 'Destine, if you wouldn't mind…what are our options?'

Destine's voice was tempered, and each syllable floated from her lips like the gentle caress of a butterfly's wings. 'Cornelius…I will try my best to aid you, but you must agree to take heed of what I say.'

'Don't I always?' Quaint asked, looking the picture of innocence.

Destine shot him a look that said 'Are you joking?' and smiled. 'You have an uncanny knack of prospecting my advice, Cornelius. You sift out the words that you do not like, and turn a deaf ear to them. What I am to reveal-if anything at all-will only give you the bare bones of what your options are. It will not spell out what to do, step by step, word for word. The future is not like that. If I get the feeling that a particular avenue is your best road to travel, I'll need your assurance that you'll listen to me.'

'I'll listen, of course,' Quaint said.

Madame Destine nodded. 'But can you promise that you will hear me?' she asked with a knowing flicker of her eyelids.

Prometheus nudged at Quaint's elbow.

'What? Oh, yes, yes, Destine…I promise,' said Quaint begrudgingly. 'I will take heed if you say anything bad. Now come on…don't keep us all in suspense.'

'Very well, I shall begin.' Destine rested her fingertips on her temples and closed her eyes. She was thankful that no one in the tent realised just how nervous she was at that moment, or she would have been even more so. The vision of the man in the mist was a heartbeat away, and this was her first attempt at a connection to the future since then. Carefully opening her mind's eye just a fraction, like the aperture of a camera, Destine allowed the sensations to flow in, a maelstrom of emotions to anyone without her lifetime of training. She allowed herself to float above the cacophony, filtering the white noise to make sense of it all. Sometimes she was flooded with images, sometimes a spoken word, or a snatch of a conversation, and sometimes it was only a vague feeling, like a barely forgotten memory. It was not her ability to see the future that made Madame Destine so special-it was her ability to make sense of and translate what she saw.