Fearful Fortunes and Terrible Tarot: Wonky Inn Book 4 Read online

  “That’s useful.” Very useful. “Does it belong to The Hay Loft?” It was a shot in the dark.

  “No, no. It’s on Piddlecombe Farm. Not far from here.”

  “Oh,” I said. I had a vague inkling I might have heard of the farm although I couldn’t figure out why. In any case, it was useful information to have.

  “Is that where you farm your meat?” I asked, inspecting the feast in front of me with big Alf eyes in a Fenella face. It was a shame Fabulous Fenella had such a dainty mouth.

  “No, they don’t have much in the way of livestock up there. The fields are mainly let to other farmers from neighbouring properties. There’s some wheat and rape. A small dairy herd.”

  “But you do source locally?” The van said he did. Surely it was against the Trade Descriptions Act to say something that wasn’t true. False pretences and all that.

  “Oh yes. There’s a couple of farms Honiton way, plus one or two on Dartmoor. I get some from North Devon too. There some great stock up that way.”

  “You must have to know a lot about the quality of meat?” I licked at the ketchup and received a blast of mustard for my trouble too. My tongue tingled.

  “I used to be a butcher, so I know exactly what I’m looking for. Enjoy!” he said and turned to the person behind me who stood patiently waiting to order.

  I took a big bite of sausage. It exploded in my mouth and the juices dribbled down my chin. It was a complete taste sensation: succulent, peppery, with a hint of fresh spices.

  Slender Fenella was going to become Chubby Fenella quite quickly.

  Fabulous.

  Loitering around the Fayre didn’t produce any tangible results, although I did get to know a few more of the stallholders, psychics and seers. Nonetheless, the following day I decided I couldn’t put it off any longer. It was time to open my own booth and set to work with my orb.

  Essentially my booth consisted of a small garden shed with a stable door, that had been painted in midnight blue to match my new robes. Inside, Wizard Shadowmender had arranged for some refurbishment to make it look a little more the part. How he had achieved this from a distance I had no idea. But the man was a wonderful wizard, you had to give him that.

  The bare wooden walls of the booth had been covered with thick navy gossamer curtains, threaded with sparkles and beads. Fairy lights decorated the window and the ceiling, and a couple of cheap imitation art deco style lamps had been placed on side tables to add mood lighting. A circular rug had been arranged on the floor beneath a round plastic garden table. This in turn had been thoughtfully covered with a navy-blue cloth, and three garden chairs were arranged around it. There really wasn’t much room for anything else.

  Moon and stars bunting fluttered in the wind, hanging around the outside of the shed, and three smart wooden signs, neatly hand painted, had been tacked to the wood. One of these grandly announced me as ‘Fabulous Fenella the Farsighted’ in large letters, and the other broadcast the legend: ‘Seer of extraordinary things. Step inside for an insight into your future.’ The final sign outlined my prices. I would be charging £15 for a twenty-minute reading apparently.

  Fair enough.

  I pulled the orb from my bag and set it on a square of velvet, then gave it a good polish. It caught the light and sparkled excitedly. Meanwhile my heart fluttered in my chest. What if I couldn’t find anything in the orb to share with my clients? What if all I saw was doom and gloom? There was no way I would feel able to share bad news.

  Or what if the orb was nothing more than a glorified snow globe and the only thing I saw was snow and the cabin in the woods where the Good Witch Mara resided?

  Someone at the front of the field shook an old hand bell. This sound had become the signal to announce the opening and closing of the Fayre each day. I watched as scores of people tumbled into the field and quickly dispersed among the stalls, booths and food wagons, or headed for the fun fair.

  I settled into my chair. It wasn’t particularly comfy. Fenella didn’t have a great deal of padding of her own, to be fair. Not to worry. Perhaps nobody would be interested in what I had to offer, and I’d have the opportunity to head back to the caravan for a cushion, or maybe go in search of a late breakfast instead.

  But no.

  “Oh, it’s open today,” said a familiar voice. “That’s great.” The booth darkened as the owner of the voice peered in through the door. “Hi there?” she exclaimed brightly.

  Rhona from the village shop.

  Noooooooooo!

  Of all the people I had to see first. This could be the end of a very sweet friendship.

  “Hello,” I responded, faking a smile. “Would you like a reading?” I hoped desperately she would be put off by the price, or maybe just change her mind, but she nodded with enthusiasm.

  “Yes please. I’ve always wanted my fortune read by crystal ball.”

  Reluctantly I opened the bottom half of the door to allow Rhona in. She practically skipped across the threshold. I closed the bottom door and then pushed the upper section to, leaving a small gap so that people could see I had someone with me. Then I noticed a sign on the back. ‘Reading in progress’ it announced, ‘Please be patient’. I slipped the sign on to a hook on the front of the door and indicated that Rhona should take a seat.

  I took my place opposite her, my breath ragged in my tight throat. I coughed, and Rhona looked me over with concern. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to recognise me at all. My cosmetic alchemy was obviously working well among non-psychics.

  “Sorry,” I said, “I’m a little bit wheezy from all the camp fires.” I dropped my shoulders and took a deep breath, closing my eyes for a moment and centring myself. When I opened them again, focusing on the orb, smoke began to swirl in its depths. My stomach lurched.

  I leaned over the table, gazing intently into the glass. Rhona did the same. We were quiet, and I briefly wondered whether the silence was going on too long. For now though, I had nothing to say because the orb wasn’t showing me anything.

  Nothing at all.

  “It’s a lot of mist, isn’t it?” I laughed, nerves jangling. Rhona giggled in response also sounding a little worried, and that helped me focus. As far as my clients were concerned, they would assume I knew what I was doing. In that sense, I had the position of power. It was my responsibility to help Rhona relax.

  I knew Rhona well. It would be easy for me to spiel out a load of things I knew and make it sound freaky and mysterious, but precisely because I knew her, I decided not to do that. I owed it to her to be a better person than that.

  Finally the mist began to clear, and I watched, almost as entranced as Rhona. I saw her little shop and marvelled at its miniature perfection, almost forgetting to tell her.

  “Do you see anything?” Rhona asked breathily, studying my face.

  “Your shop,” I blurted. “I see it, fully stocked.” I watched as people flooded towards it. The roof of the little building shimmered with gold. “Lots of customers.” I decided I probably needed to do a little lateral translation of what I was seeing. “I don’t know if you’ve had some worries about finance, but this seems to suggest that you will do better.”

  Either that or you need a new roof. Why was it glowing with gold unless the symbolism referred directly to money?

  “That’s good news,” said Rhona pleased.

  The image in the orb changed. Became purple. A deep, rich reddy-purple which Rhona could see too. “What’s that?” she asked, glancing around, perhaps to see if something could be causing the orb to change colour in this way.

  At first I couldn’t make out what I was seeing, but then almost as if we were looking at a film and the camera operator had changed the depth of vision, the camera pulled away and I was looking at aubergines. Dozens and dozens and dozens of what our US cousins call eggplants.

  “Aubergines,” I said in wonder.

  “Aubergines?”

  I waited to see if the orb would tell me more. I saw the front of the shop again, where Stan and Rhona kept a display of their vegetables. The orb kept pulling me back to the basket containing the aubergines, and then switching to strings of garlic before finally settling on lemons, and coming back to aubergines, where it lingered interminably.

  “Aubergines, garlic, lemons.”

  The roof of the shop glowed gold again and I decided to risk my interpretation. “I think you need to buy lots.”

  “Well I usually have some of each in stock…”

  “I mean really lots.” I peered into the orb again but there wasn’t anything else to see. Why would it be telling us about aubergines? “In fact… fill up your stock room.”

  Rhona laughed, her head shaking with disbelief. “You know, aubergines tend to get soft quite quickly if they’re not kept correctly?”

  “I know,” I said. “You’re just going to have to put your faith in me with this.”

  “Okay.” Rhona smiled. She was such a genuine, trusting person. I hoped with all my heart I was offering the correct advice here.

  The orb cleared and sparkled with a silvery light as though it were waiting for more instructions. It didn’t have anything else to show me though. I worried that I might have short changed Rhona. What had she received in return for her tenner? I picked up the glass ball and held it out to her.

  “You can ask it a question,” I said. “Just hold it up and look into it and ask it one question. It will show me the answer.”

  Rhona reached out tentatively and took the orb from me. She looked surprised. “It’s much heavier than I imagined it would be.”

  “Try and keep your mind clear so you’re only asking one question and look deep into the ball,” I instructed. “You don’t need to ask out loud. I’ll tell you what I see.”

  She nodded. I watched her face turn serious, then she almost glared into the ball for a few seconds, blinked and handed it back to me.

  The mist in the orb shimmied and spun, becoming increasingly grey and gloomy. Then as though the sun had come out, it began to clear. I saw lots of green. I looked up at Rhona. “I see … leaves. Trees. The forest?” Rhona looked perplexed, and no wonder. Whittlecombe was a village surrounded by thick forest. I tried again, waiting for the orb to show me more. “Water.” I watched as the water flowed gently down a hill, among the trees. This had to be the forest surrounding Whittlecombe. “A spring? No. A small river.” I paused. The water pooled. A puddle, then something wider and deeper. And now I recognised the spot where people from the village liked to swim. Three hundred or so metres beyond Whittle Folly. The local kids loved it there in the summer. A calm place to cool off.

  Then the image changed abruptly, and I saw Stan in bed. A hospital bed. He didn’t look well. I frowned. This was exactly what I had been afraid of. I didn’t want to offer doom-laden fortunes to people paying me money.

  “Rhona,” I began, and she looked startled. She hadn’t offered me her name. “The crystal ball has given me a warning.” I tried to be gentle but that’s difficult when you are trying to avoid giving somebody bad news.

  “You should tell Sta—I mean, your husband—to stay away from the rock pool behind Whittle Folly.”

  Rhona gasped, her eyes wide with horror. “Why?” she demanded.

  “I don’t rightly know.” A miserable sinking sensation pulled on my insides. “It’s just what I’m seeing.”

  Rhona took a deep breath. “I see.” She reached for her purse and for a moment I considered refusing her money, but then I remembered I was undercover and therefore I needed to act the part I was here to play.

  “Thank you,” I said as she lay her notes on the table. She offered me a tight smile, her face pale, and turned to go.

  “It was just a warning,” I said gently. “Make sure he takes care.”

  “I will.” She tried to laugh, but it sounded a little forced. “And I’ll stock up on aubergines.”

  “Lots of them,” I repeated. With my stomach lined in lead, I watched her as she walked away.

  Fortunately for me, following Rhona the next few readings were with people I didn’t know and were entirely more straightforward. I offered advice to one older lady about her cat—to have it checked for diabetes—and then helped a gentleman find his wife’s wedding band—lodged between their mattress and the headboard.

  I had started to consider lunch options when my next client tapped on the door. I recognised her immediately. Sally McNab-Martin was a friend of Millicent’s. Sally was an active member of the local WI and referred to by some of the locals as ‘a bit of a toff’. What they meant was that Sally was well-to-do. She owned one of the large houses set back off Whittle Lane—sat prettily in its own vast grounds, spoke with a plummy accent, and drove a little silver sports car too fast around the lanes. At one stage I had fancied her as a potential member of The Mori, or at least someone who was in league with them, but now I was not so sure.

  Sally, immaculately turned out as always, was nervy. She perched on the edge of the seat, with her handbag tightly squeezed to her chest, her knuckles turning white where she gripped it. Beneath the foundation and blusher covering her face, I could see how taut her jaw was. When I regarded her more closely, I noted the frayed collar of the pale blue sweater she was wearing.

  Appearances can be deceptive. I studied Sally with new eyes. This woman was crying out for help, but it remained to be seen whether I was the one who could offer it.

  In between us, the orb pulsed with a new energy. I could see many colours, a full spectrum of bruised purples, blues and black. They swirled in confusion.

  I smiled in an attempt to put her at ease and handed her a silk cloth. “It helps if you touch the crystal ball,” I said. This wasn’t strictly true, but I wanted her to release her tight grip on her bag and relax a little. “Would you mind cleaning it with this?”

  She reached for the ball, fumbling with it so much I was afraid she would drop it. As our fingers briefly touched, I could feel how icy hers were, as though blood no longer flowed in her veins to warm her through.

  She wrapped the cloth around the orb and wiped it free of residual dust, returning it to its place on the table between us when I indicated she should do so. I waved my hands over the top of the orb, purely for theatrical purposes, and then peered deep into the glass. The swirling colours had slowed, and I could make out a figure.

  “I see a man,” I began, watching as his face twisted unpleasantly. “He’s angry about something.”

  Sally jumped as though I had slapped her. I stopped, but she shook her head. “Go on,” she urged, and pinched her lips together.

  I could see this man and Sally in a house. Their house I could only assume. A big house. Lots of room. Just the two of them. He gesticulated wildly, and his mouth moved—he appeared to be shouting at her—not that we could hear the sound of course. I observed Sally cower away from him, then she took to her heels, running into a bedroom, slamming the door, and collapsing on to a bed, her face streaked with tears.

  “You’re incredibly unhappy,” I said, moved to tears myself. I could feel her unhappiness, a deep well of emotion bubbling up from the orb. It punched me in the guts, making my heart heavy. Sadness, fear, pain, uncertainty.

  He burst into the bedroom, the wooden door silently splintering near the lock. I jumped away from the orb, startled. Could this really be her husband? Whomever, he was a tyrant. “You have to get out!” The words erupted from me before I could think.

  I stared across at Sally, horrified for her. “Sorry,” I said. “It’s not really any of my business, but it’s what I’m seeing. What the orb is telling me.” The mist swirled in the ball, drawing my attention. I looked again, watching as Sally packed a suitcase. Good.

  “You want to,” I said softly. “You want to leave.” Then the mist rolled across the glass once more. When I looked up this time, I spotted a single tear run down Sally’s cheek. She sat upright, proud and otherwise contained. She wiped the tear away with a thin, pale finger.

  I picked up the orb and handed it to her once more. “You can ask the ball one question, and I will interpret what I see there in reply.”

  She took the ball from me once more, looking uncertain. She twisted the orb this way and that, staring into its depths as though trying to scrutinise what she saw there herself.

  “Clear your mind. Make sure you’re only thinking of the one question otherwise you can get a mixed response.”

  Sally shook her hair back over her shoulders, and then gazed into the ball once more, without blinking. I could almost hear her mind working. When she had asked what she needed to, she handed the orb back to me and I looked down. Unmistakeably I picked out numbers. Tiny numbers on silver circles. They started off as miniatures, then grew in size until they filled my view, before popping. The same numbers repeated over and over again.

  “5000, 5000, 5000, 5000.”

  She looked at me blankly.

  “That’s what I see,” I explained. “Those same numbers.”

  “What can that mean?” she asked.

  I stared at the threadbare neckline of her sweater, remembered the battered suitcase I had seen her packing just moments before. What if the reason she remained with a man who frightened her so, was that—in spite of appearances, in spite of the jazzy silver sports car and the big house, the well-to-do accent and the expensive clothes—this poor woman simply had no income of her own. Perhaps she had no financial means to start a new life from scratch.

  “I think it means you should go and buy a lottery ticket,” I said.

  After an emotionally fraught day in which I’d seen fourteen clients, I was about ready to put my feet up. I wondered whether I’d be able to track down George and maybe we could treat ourselves to some more of Parker’s Porky Perfect bangers and share a bottle of wine.

  Ah the high life.

  Outside, the sun had begun to drop in the sky and the evening was cooling. I dusted the orb of fingerprints and smudges, wrapped it in a cloth and snuggled it into its box. Then I stood and stretched, my neck and shoulders clicking. With the notable exceptions of Sally and Rhona, the actual fortune telling had gone reasonably well. I’d become more adept at being mysterious, and had mastered the art of keeping a straight face and an impermeable expression.