Wonder Show by Hannah Barnaby

Author:Hannah Barnaby [Barnaby, Hannah]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Young Adult, Romance, Fantasy, Historical, Childrens, Adventure
ISBN: 9780547599816
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2011-12-31T23:00:00+00:00

Fortunetelling

In Portia’s dream, she had sisters, and their parents were missionaries who took them to live in a warm place. There was a monastery nearby. It was a country made of hills.

There was a family who had sons, and it was decided somehow that the boy called Everett was intended for Portia’s older sister. But when he came, he didn’t want her. He wanted Portia.

She knew she would have to leave her family in order to make things right. It was the first dream Portia could remember in such a long time that she asked Doula about it.

Doula shrugged her left shoulder, which meant she had an idea but didn’t want to say. A right-shoulder shrug meant she really had nothing to tell. Portia knew the code only because Jackal got mad at Doula one day after he asked her for the winning horses and all she told him was to quit gambling. Like a child having a tantrum, he told Portia the only one of Doula’s secrets he knew. This was the first time it had proven useful.

“Doula,” Portia said. “Please.”

“Maybe . . .”

The world paused under her feet.

“Maybe you know is time for you to go.”

“But I don’t want to go,” Portia said unevenly. “I just got here.”

Doula tapped her glass, and Portia poured more vodka from the bottle on the table. “Why should you get to choose? The rest of us, we go where someone else tells us. We follow circus, circus follows route card, route card is made by some big man in New York City. We don’t choose.” She tossed her head, and her earrings sang. “You will learn if you stay here. You will see.”

“Can you tell me anything else? About my dream? What it means?”

Doula emptied her glass with one practiced flip of the hand, set it back on the table, and leaned back in her chair. “You think you are the first orphan to dream about family? It means you miss them. It means you are looking.”

“I’m not an orphan,” Portia said. (She hoped it was true.)

Doula shrugged both shoulders. Portia didn’t know what that meant.

“Do you . . .”

“What?”

“Do you think I’ll find them?”

Doula shrugged. “Sometimes, is a very big world. Sometimes, very small.”

It was the kind of answer that wasn’t an answer. But it was all Portia would get that day.

The bottle was empty.

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