The Reluctant Fortune-Teller by Keziah Frost

Author:Keziah Frost
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Park Row Books
Published: 2017-12-22T18:03:40+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Four Jacks:

You will attend a strange gathering and experience amazement.

Carlotta’s sedan coasted smoothly down Highway Four toward the Center for Deeper Understanding. Her passengers—Margaret, Birdie and Norbert—were appreciating the beauty of Gibbons Corner in the fall. The leaves had begun to change color. As the sunlight filtered through them, their town was even more charming than in summer. The whole world all around was gold and red, and there was a faint aroma of wood burning in fireplaces in nearby homes and cottages.

As they rolled along, Carlotta said, “How about a round of literary quotes?”

“Sure!” the group agreed.

“I’ll begin, shall I?” said Carlotta. Without waiting for assent, she began:

Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying” she said; “one can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Norbert was impressed that Carlotta could recite such a long prose quotation. He thought that he could never manage it. But then, she’d been practicing for years.

“Oh, Carlotta,” said Margaret. “I think you picked that quote on purpose to ruin our fun. You just enjoy being cynical.”

Showing off, Carlotta took another turn. “‘A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.’—Oscar Wilde.”

Margaret, looking at the woods on both sides of the highway, quoted, “‘I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree.’—that World War I soldier. What was his name? I forget.”

There was a pause as everyone tried to remember. He died on a battlefield in Europe, they did remember that. No, the name didn’t come.

“I’ll remember it later when I’m not trying, I know I will,” muttered Margaret.

“Or when we can look on the internet, we’ll Google it,” said Carlotta, proud of her technological savvy.

Birdie, going on with the game, contributed, “‘There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’—Shakespeare, in Hamlet.”

Norbert, who had been troubled about finding a literary quote somewhere in his brain, brightened up. “I know a Shakespeare quote: ‘Lord what fools these dreamers be.’—Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Carlotta clicked her tongue. “Oh, Norbert, I’m afraid you’ve got it wrong. It’s not ‘dreamers.’ It’s ‘mortals.’ ‘Lord what fools these mortals be.’”

The Club usually didn’t challenge misquotes. But then, Norbert was not a member of the Club.

“Oh,” said Norbert, disappointed. “But the quote is about those people all sleeping in the woods. I thought it was ‘dreamers.’”

“Nope,” said Carlotta, with special emphasis on the ‘p.’ “Mortals.”

Norbert understood Carlotta’s mood. He saw from his first mention of Edith that there was an old rivalry between the two women. He also knew that Carlotta, from the beginning, had intended to control him and his fortune-telling work, and had been disappointed when he didn’t let her. He could almost read her mind today: If I don’t get to run Norbert, I’m certainly not going to allow Edith Butler to do it.

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