The Fortune Maker by Catherine Norton

Author:Catherine Norton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2023-06-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

The silence in the glass room was interrupted by Sullivan chirping, then taking off through a high window that had been left a few inches ajar.

‘What did you say?’ asked Maud.

‘Exactly what you think I said,’ answered Davinia.

‘But I —’ Maud faltered. ‘Why would you think I could do that?’

Davinia straightened up. ‘Well, can’t you? Let me see. I expect the swoons have begun, at least. The sudden mists. Fires behaving strangely?’

Maud felt sure her eyes had widened to the size of her head.

‘That’s how it starts. The visions will come soon. You’re the right age, or thereabouts.’ Davinia’s tone was gentle. ‘I guessed the minute I saw you.’

Maud didn’t know where to begin. How could she be a Seer? They were rich and glamorous, and she was just . . . well, nobody. A guttersnipe, an urchin: there were plenty of names for it. She was starting to feel unsettled by Davinia, and even more confused when the obvious occurred to her. ‘But even if I could,’ she asked, ‘how can you tell?’

Davinia sucked in a cheek, as if anxious, suddenly, about how to answer. ‘If I told you,’ she said at last, ‘you would be the only person in the world to know.’ She looked into Maud’s eyes. ‘But perhaps you already do.’

Locking eyes with Davinia gave Maud that same feeling of familiarity. But it wasn’t just that, Maud realised; her eyes were like the sky you could see some nights over the Thames when the moon fought its way through the clouds and smog. Glittering and dark and, just for a moment, boundless.

Maud breathed out the words before she even knew what she was saying. ‘Because you can do it too.’

Davinia nodded and the smile appeared at last. When Maud blinked it was as if she came out of a trance, back into the early winter light. She didn’t know how or why she had just thought what she’d thought, but there were a hundred reasons it didn’t make sense. ‘Why ain’t you rich and famous then, like Mr Mandalay?’ she asked.

‘Mr Mandalay enjoys the finer things in life, it’s true, but he lives in a gilded cage. Do you think he’s free to do as he pleases?’

Maud didn’t know. She had never thought of it like that. Despite the peculiar feeling that had formed in her belly, her head still wasn’t convinced. ‘The swoons, or whatever you call them. They come out of nowhere. But don’t you need . . . equipment to help you do it? Magical things? Tealeaves or something?’

‘Pure theatre. If you can See, all you really need is a bowl of water.’

‘Water?’ Maud thought of all the so-called Seers in the tunnel with their rats and cards and charts, their bones and smoke.

‘Anything the light plays on will do it — flames, mirrors, even glass. Though nothing so well as water.’

Maud remembered the strange effect on her of the light on Mrs Awford’s pearl earrings, the dizzying mist that had welled up from nowhere.

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