The Fate of Us by Rachel Bowdler

Author:Rachel Bowdler [Bowdler, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-10-27T13:00:00+00:00

Drew hadn’t meant to return to Mabel’s tent. She had been wandering off the second strange dream she’d had in a row, mind racing with all of the reasons none of this made any sense at all, and had just happened across it. Perhaps it was all in her head, or perhaps she was going mad — but nobody else could help her.

Mabel was not inside. Instead she was folding up a sign by the curtain, the tent already half collapsed behind her. The rest of the bazaar was packing up too, the festival coming to an end as everyone returned to their normal lives. Would Drew be able to do the same?

It didn’t feel that way.

Mabel’s head snapped up as Drew came to a stop in front of her, still shifting from foot to foot undecidedly. Yet Mabel’s green eyes locked her in place, and Drew knew she needed to stay.

“You’re too late,” she said coldly before tucking the sign under her arm, her silk robes whispering across the cobblestones as she moved. She wore none of the heavy makeup she had yesterday, and she looked the older for it — the wiser, too. Her red hair was swept back from her shoulders in thick, wiry tresses. Were it not for her clothes, she might have looked completely normal. “We’re closed.”

“I was hoping you might make an exception,” Drew replied, worrying at her lip. “We never did finish my reading.”

“No, we didn’t — and while I offered for you to return, I recall that you did not believe in my sight.”

“Maybe I was wrong,” Drew muttered quietly, eyes flitting around the bazaar as though afraid anyone else might hear her. Her bandmates were still hungover at Ethan’s, though, and she was not meeting Amber until this afternoon. She had already attempted to look for the woman who had sold the pocket watch to her, but the stall was gone and Drew had a feeling the seller would not have been willing to help even if she had been there.

Mabel sighed, her lined face softening in defeat.

“Do you know anything about dreams?” Drew continued.

“What sort of dreams?” The way she asked it implied that she already knew the answer and was simply humoring Drew after the scene yesterday.

Drew shrugged, squinting though the day was overcast. She hadn’t slept well, having left Amber at Ethan’s late last night and then being awakened by the dream not much later. Her eyes ached with the tiredness, and she badly needed a shower to wash away the grime of the last two days — grime and other things that clung to her and made her feel as though she were no longer herself. “Dreams about other people in other times.”

Mabel’s long nails tugged at her earlobe, her lips pursing almost sympathetically. “Dreams are part of our subconscious. They sometimes reflect feelings we are too afraid to feel.”

Drew already knew that, and waved the words away. “But the people in them. What about them?”

“Do you know them?”

It was a simple question, and yet Drew couldn’t answer it.

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