Rob Thurman: All Seeing Eye

I let my eyes drop and swallowed against the strangling heat in my throat. God, I missed them. “No.” I cleared my throat, and the next words came out a little more smoothly. “It’s hair. All over my palm, just like Granny said would happen.”

She scowled, pale eyebrows pulling into a confused V. “Huh?”

“Never mind.” I picked up the card and tried to straighten it out. “I just like gloves, okay?”

A pink shoe and gloves. One led to the other.

The shoe had been the first time. I’d picked it up and known… just like that. I’d seen Tessie’s strawberry blond hair floating in a cloud, her blue eyes wide and empty, her mouth open just wide enough to show a flash of tiny white teeth. Tess was dead. Tossed into the old well as if she were garbage. Everything in her that made Tess Tess was gone. The fits of giggles, the smell of ninety-nine-cent honeysuckle shampoo, the absolute loathing of Brussels sprouts, and the forever love for her shiny pink shoes. All of it, gone forever. There was no more Tess, and it didn’t take any big jump of logic to know who was responsible for that. Chicken pox, Boyd playing babysitter, Boyd who would get bored easily, Boyd who drank until it was coming out of his pores, Boyd who’d thought Mom was a little too old when he married her at seventeen… so many thoughts in such a short moment of time as her shoe had tumbled from my hand.

So very many.

It had slowly gotten worse since that first time. In the beginning, I could touch something and see only a flash, a current slice of time. Hand me someone’s keys, and I could tell you where they were right then, but that was all. That changed. Little by little, I would see more of the past, until eventually I saw it all. I’d never much cared for history in school, and here I was condemned to relive it constantly. Wasn’t that a bitch? The past was all I saw, though, and I was glad of it. The future… who would want to see that? Unless you could change it, and it was safe to say with the way things worked, that wasn’t possible. Forget physics and math and all that geek crap, that wasn’t what would stop you. It was the universe, uncaring and oblivious, that was holding the cards on this one. It wasn’t about to let you change the shit coming your way.

“I want a pair of gloves,” the girl said imperiously. Quite the princess, this one was. She held out her hands in front of her, palms down, and looked them over seriously. “White, I think. With diamonds. Real ones,” she emphasized. “To match my costume.”

I gave a snort. “Sorry, kid. I’m all out of diamonds.” Picking up the stray card, I shuffled it back into the pack.

She gave an exaggerated sigh and flopped down opposite me, skinny legs folded beneath her. “That’s okay. They’d be too hot, anyway. My name’s Abigail.” Sticking out her nonexistent chest, she fluffed her long hair and preened. The horn wobbled so strenuously I was surprised she hadn’t put an eye out yet. “Abigail the Amazing Unicorn Girl.” The capitals were as clear as if they’d been letters of fire.

“Is that so?” I tried hard to stop the quirk of my lips. She was just a bored girl, bugging me for no good reason. She wasn’t Glory, and she wasn’t Tess. She was just a girl.

“Yep.” She touched a curious finger to the midnight-blue curve of my “crystal” ball. “First I was the One and Only. Then I was Unique. Like the Unique Unicorn Girl. But Daddy decided Amazing was better. ’Cause that’s what I am.” Actually, she was probably all three, and I was glad she had a daddy who knew it. “What are you?” she went on, eyes bright and curious.

“What am I?” I laid out a row of solitaire. Business tended to be slow this part of the day.

She shifted, pulling her knees up and resting her chin on them. “You know. Are you Stupendous or Super or Marvelous? You’re doing the whole psychic thing, you need something.” Hastily, she cautioned, “But Amazing is mine.”

My lips twitched again uncontrollably, and I agreed, “Amazing is yours.” Maybe she was right. Maybe I did need an Amazing of my own. Jack the Psychic didn’t quite get it for flash and flair.

“So?” she demanded impatiently. “What are you?”

I stared at the cards blankly for a moment, and then it came to me. “All Seeing.” Jackson Lee Eye, the All Seeing Eye. That was who I was. Blind as a bat in the past but all seeing now. Talk about your too little, too late… no one was better at that than me.

“All Seeing.” She didn’t seem too impressed, sighing and shaking her head. “Well, okay, but there’s no pizzazz.” The hands she threw out gave the word its own special effects. “That’s what Daddy says you need in an act, pizzazz.” She lingered lovingly over the word, emphasizing the z in a sizzle sound.

“I’m sure he’s right.” Giving my own sigh, I put the cards away and began to fold up the velvet. My stomach was growling loudly enough to scare any potential clients away. It was time to invest in a hot dog. “It was nice meeting you, Amazing Abigail. I’m going to grab some lunch. See you later.” Actually, I wasn’t quite sure that I wanted to see her again, but in the small confines of the carnival, there was probably no avoiding it. Not that she wasn’t a nice kid, but she reminded me of things I’d rather not be reminded of. Life was a helluva lot easier to bear when you could forget.

“Lunch?” She bounced up, surrounded by a cloud of hair. “You can have lunch with us. My mom loves company, and Daddy can help you think of a better name.”

I was happy with the name I’d come up with, but somehow I ended up being pulled in her wake. Not caring could work against you sometimes. When you didn’t care, it was hard to muster up the energy to stand in the face of Hurricane Abby. Not giving a shit: as philosophies went, it had its flaws. Two years later, I was still going to lunches and dinners at Abby’s trailer.

I stuck with the name, though.

Then I was eighteen and had a small tent that was my home. I didn’t buy a trailer. I was saving my money for bigger and better things. Abby’s parents had smoothed over things with Mr. Toadvine, the carnival’s owner, and I’d been allowed to eke out a little corner of the place for myself. When I wanted to shower or clean up, I went to Lilly and Johan’s place and locked the door. Abby had dumped enough cold water over the shower curtain to do a good imitation of Niagara Falls. Following me like a puppy, she’d adopted me wholeheartedly as her older brother. Every time I had that thought, my chest ached fiercely. Two years with Abby was still four years without Glory and Tess. That truth was inescapable.

But now I would be leaving soon, and that led to another inescapable truth. I’d be losing another sister, no matter how hard I’d tried to make sure she didn’t creep her way into my heart. She was fourteen now, the same age I was when it had happened. When it had all happened. I buried the thought and carefully covered the table in imitation silk. The velvet had long since raveled away. Abby… I’d been thinking about Abby, fourteen and thought she was all grown up, although she was still stuck in a training bra to her mortification. A sound of the tent flap being raised had my head coming up. Speak of the devil… if the devil were a flat-chested teenage girl in sequins. “Hey, Amazing, what brings you around?” I drawled as I polished the tried-and-true bowling ball of the future.

“I’m bored.” She flounced into a folding chair, then grimaced and pulled her tail from beneath her. Johan had decided the horn wasn’t enough and had added a full fall of white polyester hair in a cascading tail. Abby had swished it with enthusiasm for a day or two before getting tired of it. Twisting the end of one blond strand, she said with a hesitancy that was completely un-Abigail-like, “Somebody said you were leaving.”