eerieindiana | Eerie, Indiana fanfiction: Prestidigitation (Reply)

The smoke from the incense was making her eyes sting, but Syndi Teller didn't dare rub them. Quite apart from the danger of spoiling the heavy theatrical makeup gloriously smeared across her eyelids, she wasn't entirely sure she could lift her arms. A dozen rings, each of them glittering with huge paste jewels, adorned each hand, and from her wrists almost to her elbows not an inch of skin showed beneath hundreds of clinking, jingling bracelets. She didn't need to peer into it's swirling multi-coloured depths to know it had started life as someone's paperweight. If the tiny glass flowers at the centre didn't give it away, the plinth it rested on and the unevenly-lettered legend "I love you Daddy", certainly did.

Outside, the wheeze and hoot of an accordion mingled with the low hum of a dozen generators, the sizzle and pop of mystery meat frying under canvas awnings, and the ebb and flow of a hundred different conversations. Syndi sighed, blowing a stray strand of hair that had come loose from under her jewelled headpiece, and focused on the crushed-velvet curtain in front of her. It was red. Was red a particularly psychic colour? She wasn't sure. She'd have preferred purple, but the woman from the Ladies Society for the Beautification of Eerie had gone very pale when she suggested it, muttered something about Miss Eerie's parade float, and made a pretty transparent effort to change the subject. Syndi had let it drop.

The shiny polyester underside of the curtain twitched, and pale winter daylight flooded her tent. Syndi sat straighter in the tinsel-encrusted folding chair and tried to look suitably mysterious under the greasepaint and the plastic tiara.

"Come in," she said, motioning to the other, more comfortable chair with a sweeping gesture Vanna White would have been proud of. Backlit by the glare from the entrance, her first petitioner was a dark silhouette against the cold, clear afternoon sky. They shuffled further into the dark interior, the cloth falling back into place behind them, and in the dim light of the fairy lights twinkling overhead, Syndi recognised the old man who had given her parents a cow last year. She took a moment to wonder what had happened to that cow, then returned to the task at hand.

Mister Chaney took a seat across from the small circular table with it's cloth of midnight blue, spangled with hastily-appliqued golden stars. Syndi smiled.

"You've come to have your future told?" she asked, pitching her voice low and deep. "Will you have your palm read, or gaze into the crystal ball to scry the-"

"Cards," said Mister Chaney, and Syndi squealed internally. The slick and shiny pack of Tarot cards had been brand new the previous day, a last-minute gift from her Mom before her big debut at the Eerie Dairy Butter Bonanza. Marilyn had spotted them sitting on a dusty shelf at the World o' Stuff while she shopped for groceries. The cardboard packaging was faded and crumpled, but the plastic-wrapped cards inside had been pristine, the colours vibrant, the surface smooth. Syndi had spent last night and most of this morning reading and re-reading the small instructional booklet it had come with.

She pushed the heavy deck across the tabletop with one hand, surreptitiously reaching into the pocket of her voluminous skirt with the other. As Mister Chaney struggled to shuffle the thick, broad cards, she pulled out the how-to guide and set it open on her lap. Glancing down, her lips moved slightly as she ran over the various types of spread.

"Five," she thought. "I can manage five."

"Thank you," she said, taking the newly-cut deck back. His hands were rough against hers, the pads of his fingers calloused and cracked. Farmer's hands, presumably. She laid the cards face-down, making a horseshoe shape against the glue-sticky tablecloth. Her eyes flicked down to the neatly-typed page balanced on her knee, and she took a deep breath before flipping the first card.

"The Moon," she said. "Fear, illusion, imagination, bewilderment."

Mister Chaney said nothing, but his jaw tightened. Syndi cleared her throat and turned the second card.

"Uh," she said, staring at a second, identical Moon card. She flipped the remaining three in quick succession. Five wolves, five dogs, five lobsters crawling from a river beneath a frowning lunar face.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "The deck's brand new, I guess there was a mix-up at the card factory." She scooped the cards with their matching illustrations up, returning them to the larger pile and setting them aside. "Would you like to try the crystal? Or, I have those throwing sticks-"

"No," said Mister Chaney, standing. "Thank you. That won't be necessary."

"Oh," said Syndi. "Okay." She groped blindly beneath her own chair, pulling out a roll of "Admit One" tickets and pulling off a length of five or six, which she held out to him. He hesitated, then took them. Tipping his hat to her, he ducked through the curtained entrance.

"Stupid cards," she said, once the fabric had swung back into place behind him. She scooped them up and stuffed them haphazardly into the black velvet bag they had come with before crossing to the corner where she'd left her backpack and her regular clothes.

Beyond the rippling red walls of her tent, something barked. Daylight seeped in through a chink where the hanging cloth had failed to settle properly, and she tugged at it, trying to pull it flush with the doorway. Beyond the fold-out table where an elderly volunteer collected tickets in exchange for an audience with the mysterious and mystical Claire Voyence, Mister Chaney was deep in conversation with a huge Alaskan huskie. Syndi shook her head. Poor old guy, nobody to come to the fair with but his pet.

She tossed the faulty tarot deck in the direction of her coat and jeans and returned to her hard, wobbly, tinsel-wrapped chair. The air in the tent smelled faintly of wet dog and she wrinkled her nose at the odour. Small wonder, though; when she'd peeked at the aging farmer and his canine companion, she was pretty sure she'd heard him mention Lake Eerie in the moments before she ducked back inside.

"Gross," she said out loud. There was no way an animal Fluffy's size didn't reek after a romp in the water.

Teller Family History

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