Fortunately, Artemis took care of the demon, and Quentin became a very good friend.
“Hey, you,” I signed to him before pulling him into a big hug. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“I invited him. I wanted him to meet Osh.” She spoke and signed at the same time, ever aware of the rules of Deaf culture. And she was getting really good. I loved it.
“Oh, he’s outside patrolling,” I said, doing the same.
“Okay, Mom, do you want to be first?” she asked.
Quentin smiled shyly to Cook and accepted a hug from her. Then, in an act that rather surprised me, Quentin held out his hand to Reyes.
Reyes took it and offered an approving smile.
It was a big step. Quentin had been afraid of him for the longest time. He could see the departed almost as clearly as I could, but he could also see Reyes’s darkness. I’d seen it only a couple of times, but had I not known him, the darkness would have scared me, too. So Quentin accepting Reyes as one of the good guys was a very big deal in my book.
“Or you can, Aunt Charley,” Amber said.
“Fantastic,” I said, having no idea what I’d just agreed to.
Cookie pointed to a sign on the floor painted in bright blues and yellows.
MADAM AMBER: A TELLER OF FORTUNES
“You’re a madam?” I asked, taken aback. “Do you think that’s appropriate at a middle school carnival?” They weren’t kidding when they said kids grow up fast.
“Not that kind of madam,” Cookie said.
“Or you, Uncle Reyes,” she said, twisting on her toes shyly.
Reyes glanced at her in surprise.
“I don’t have to call you that. I just thought since I’m losing Uncle Bob.”
“You’re losing Ubie?” I asked her. “Is he dying again? You know he just says that to gain sympathy.”
“Well, no, you know, since he and Mom hooked up, the term uncle seems a little weird. So I thought since you’re marrying Aunt Charley, maybe —”
Reyes took her hand into his and bowed over it, sweeping a light kiss on her knuckles. “I’m honored.”
She beamed at him and threw her arms around his neck before planting a kiss on his cheek, leaving a heart-shaped imprint of ruby lipstick. Apparently, fortune-tellers and ladies of the night had a lot in common, including their choices of color palette.
“I totally have to go first,” I said. I never had the patience to wait in line. “I have a lot of questions about my future. Be prepared.”
Amber skipped in excitement and clapped her hands as she held open her tent, which looked alarming like Cookie’s bedspread.
“Wish me luck,” I said to Quentin.
“She’s good,” he promised.
I gave him a thumbs-up, winked at Reyes, then sat at the short table she’d set up. The curtain fell and Amber sat across from me, becoming Madam Amber, a teller of fortunes. She started laying out tarot cards, flipping one at a time to reveal my sordid future. Or sordid past. Either way. I took a closer look and picked up one of the cards.
“Amber, these are gorgeous.”
“Thank you. I made them in art.”
“You made these?” I asked, astonished. They were lovely, with flowing colors and soft angles. “Wait, they let you make tarot cards in art?”
“Yeah, our teacher is very New Agey.”
“Ah. Well, I’m completely impressed.”
She squirmed in delight, but I thought now might be a good time to broach a subject that needed to be broached. Perhaps with a nice cameo.
“Hon, are you okay with Uncle Bob dating your mom?”
“Are you kidding? I love Ubie. He’s like a hero and one of those crazy uncles rolled into one.”
“He is that.”
“And he makes awesome spaghetti.”
What a great kid. I hoped Beep would be as wonderful. As outgoing and accepting of her circumstances. No theater productions. No drama.
“Oh, my god, I totally lost a press-on.” She held her hand up to the glowing crystal ball and snapped a shot of it to post on one of the gazillion social networks she belonged to.
I had to remind myself, I did the same thing once when I’d slipped in the bathroom on my Clorox ToiletWand and broken my toe.
“Okay, are you ready?”
“Dang straight. Hit me, O wise one.”
She giggled, then slid a hand over the cards, letting it hover before touching one.
“Death,” she said, and I wondered how I knew she’d go there. Tarot readers went straight to the Death card every time I’d had my fortune read. Which, including this one, was twice.
“A new beginning,” she added. She touched the card with one hand, her lids drifting shut as she took my other hand into hers. Then she flattened our palms together until my hand was resting on hers. After a moment of concentration where I felt a ripple of electricity course between us, she began. “Twelve have been summoned and twelve have been sent.”
At first her knowledge of the Twelve surprised me, but I remembered she heard a lot across the hall. She was a smart one. Still, she nailed the look. Her back was straight and her lids closed as the trance seemingly overtook her.
“Their eyes are unseen yet everywhere. They are blind yet they miss nothing. Twelve beasts lurk in the shadows. Twelve more lurk in the hearts of men. They wait. They watch for the uprising, when the daughter of the ghost god will stand alone on the rock and await the thirteenth’s decision. With her. Against her. It does not matter, for she was made for this day. A day of death and a day of glory. With or without him, she will taste the victory of her enemy’s blood on her tongue.”