Mark Dunn - We Five

“And what did these new readings reveal?” asked Jemma, cringing in anticipation of the answer.

“The same as was revealed for you, dear girl. The same, no doubt, as we should see if I were to lay out the cards for your young cousin. Which is why I will not do it, for this would make five, and what is already a certainty will only be a superfluity.”

Jemma thought this over, whilst Molly sate quiet and confused and not wishing to intrude, for the look on the warty face of the old gipsy was frighteningly wretched, and she knew not what she could say to contribute aught of value to the interview. Finally, Jemma spoke: “Yet, perhaps, Madame Louisa, there is still the glimmer of a chance that if you will but deal the cards for Molly, they may speak only to her own circumstances and not to the fate of the town at large. Could that not be possible?”

Madame Louisa considered the prospect as she drew a slice of apple from a plate set before her and popped it into her mouth. “Apple slice?” she said, proffering the plate to the two cousins.

As the gipsy looked too much like the crone in the fairy story who offered the poison apple to Snow White, Molly declined with a shake of the head, though Jemma took a slice and bit into it appreciatively. Molly noted that Jemma was quite carefree and casual in her society with the gispy. Perhaps, thought Molly, the woman served as a preferential surrogate for Jemma’s mother, as Molly’s aunt was severe and uncommunicative and demonstrative of so little affection for her oldest daughter. And Jemma’s father was not very different in this respect from his wife. It was a home with little love within — or at least the kind of love with which Molly was most familiar: one which dwelt in sweet union betwixt her father and herself. In that moment, Molly felt a little sorry for Jemma. And who could not also feel sorry for the miserable Madame Louisa who wore pain upon her face in every corner and wrinkle?

Subsequently, Molly was compelled to say, “Whether the reading should apply to me alone or to the town of Tulleford, I should like to know what the future holds. Perhaps we will be lucky and the spell will be broken and all will come out well in the end.”

Madame Louisa turned to Jemma, her lips compressed with censorious displeasure. “What is this fool girl saying?”

“She’s saying that she’d very much like to have her fortune told.”

“Very well, then. We will all rue it. Yet I will do it.”

The fortune was told through the laying down of the gnarled, colour-faded, dog-eared cards upon the rickety-legged deal table.

And it was not good. Not good at all.

But there was a small compensation. “Ah, this is most interesting,” said the gipsy, as she closely examined the cards she’d put down before her in the configuration of a cross. “At least we know now roughly when the tragedy will occur: in two weeks’ time. Or sometime thereabout.”

“A tragedy? What manner of tragedy?” asked Molly, leaning forward in her chair.

Madame Louisa did not lift her eyes from the cards. “We do not know the nature of that dire thing which is in store for the townspeople of Tulleford. We know only that it will occur. Many will be touched by it. Some — perhaps many — will die. This is the death card, you see — this centre card. Its propinquity to the cards above and below magnifies the portent. You will note that this aspect of the cards’ configuration has not changed in each of the five readings. It is the calendrical cards, which now appear — it is these which give us a fixed time frame for supposition.”

Jemma shook her head with regret. “I should never have pushed you to read for Molly. You knew what to expect and I didn’t believe you.”

Madame Louisa reached out first to stroke Jemma’s hand and then to give her another apple slice in consolation. “It is good that we’ve given the cards leave to speak once more, for as it turns out, they did have something else to say.”

“Perhaps,” said Molly, wishing to be helpful, “if we were to read the cards yet again, further intelligence pertaining to the forthcoming tragedy — as you have put it — may be gleaned, and this would help us to better prepare for it.”

The gipsy woman shook her head dismissively. “The cards have said all they intend to say. With the passage of a fortnight something most dreadful will befall the town of Tulleford and everyone who lives herein. I advise the both of you to leave this place — go abroad for a period — to save yourselves from it. This I intend to do myself at my earliest convenience. That will be six pence, Jemma, and I should also like one of those stalks of celery from your basket, if you are willing.”

It took not five minutes for Molly to change her thinking about what she had just heard and observed, and to change it in a most drastic fashion.

“A fine thing,” bolted out Molly, as her cousin Jemma walked along with her to the dress shop, “having a laugh at my expense!”

“What do you mean? Did you see either of us laughing?”

“I detected a smirk on that old hag’s face as we left.”

Jemma shook her head. “It was no smirk. She has a mouth tic. It cannot be helped.”

“Stuff and nonsense! The two of you set all of this up to make the fool of me. I’m fortunate to have come to my senses as quickly as I did.”

“It is no one’s good fortune that you have changed your mind about it,” said Jemma with a fretful look. “The thing was neither a joke nor a lark, for I should never be so heartless. You did at one point believe it; I saw it in your face. What I find difficult to contemplate, dear cousin, is the fact that you now do not.”

“I will own she was good. Quite good — the both of you. Then when I stepped out into the bright light of day, I came straightaway to see through your comical scheme, as if I were waking from a terrible dream.”

Jemma grew quiet as the two cousins walked along. Finally, she said, “Oh, Molly, I don’t think I should be able to bear it alone, knowing there isn’t a single person here in Tulleford — once Madame Louisa has fled — who knows what I know and dreads what I dread. The next two weeks will be so frightfully lonely and so frightfully frightening. ”

Molly stopped upon the spot. She put her hands together and applauded her cousin for what she perceived to be a fine performance. “Brava! Brava! But I cannot commend the little play entirely, cousin Jemma, for you have left out an important point of plot. Just what is supposed to happen? On this point the cards fall conveniently silent. At any rate, the curtain has come down, you’ve had your bit of fun for the morning, and there’s the end to it. Run along now, Jemma, and leave me to my terrible fate. You may go, if you wish, and climb once more to the roof of your family cottage and become a flying chicken. Mind you don’t forget to send me a letter upon your aerial arrival in London.”

With that, Molly Osborne resumed her march, quickened her step, and left Jemma standing silent and quite unhappy on the side of the road.

Molly was determined to think no more of all the nonsense that had delayed her return to the dress shop.

Except that she could not help herself. After the curtains had been drawn, the candles snuffed out, and the darkness of the night had settled upon her bedchambers, she thought of it so much, in fact, that she did not sleep a wink. She pondered over what it might be — that most horrible thing from which she, like Madame Louisa, should flee in wild-eyed panic. And if she fled, what would become of her circle-sisters? What would be their fate?