Sorry this is a day late, yesterday was crazy, but here it is, the exciting conclusion to “Gypsy Woman,” & my 100th Post!!! Enjoy!
I had held my head high and looked them in the eye while they turned away and laughed. They had asked all the predictable questions; I had answered in unpredictable ways and they turned away in disbelief and amusement. I had been denounced as a witch, demon, possessed and lost. I had received death threats. I had been beaten twice and put in the hospital three times. The professionals all concurred that I was imbalanced, insane, had a pathological need for attention and was a manipulator. I had held my head high and looked them in the eye.
And then the furor died down.
5 years later and I am now yesterday’s news.
I lost my house and my faith. I lost my job and my joy. I lost.
I spend my days working for a traveling carnival as their resident “Gypsy Fortune Teller” now. Melody disappeared soon after she betrayed me, rumor had it that she was in India. But I couldn’t See her. I can’t See much of anything these days. I tell people what they want to hear: “You are going to be rich,” “You will marry a beautiful, rich person,” “You will be extremely successful” and on and on.
Today was no different.
I was just finishing with a young couple (“You will have wonderful kids; three of them”), they were giddy and left a nice tip. I yawned and began to straighten up as the carnie owner came in.
“How’s it going Rayne?” He asked as he sat down. He was a lanky man; tall but not overly thin. He had finely chiseled features, his cheeks always looked slightly sunk in and he wore black makeup around his eyes giving him a bit of a haunted look. He had luscious, long eyelashes and deep, dark brown eyes that women swooned over. He always wore black leather pants and a black silk shirt with studded cuffs on his wrists; it gave him a mysteriously elegant air.
“Well. Everyone loves me Chess.”
“I’m sure they do,” he leaned back and folded his hands over his abdomen and half-closed his eyes, “I hate to ask you this Ray, but my dancer fell ill and you are the only one who knows the routine…”
“You want me to fill in for Melanie.”
“Yes, if you would be so kind?”
“I’m not kind Chess. I’ll fill in. See you at rehearsal in a few hours, now, if you don’t mind I have someone waiting to get their fortune told by The Mysterious Lady Dark.”
“Where…” he trailed off as the door opened and a young woman poked her head in.
“How…” he broke off again and went into his ringmaster/magician persona, “Greetings mistress,” he grabbed her hand and planted a kiss on the back, “The Lady Dark was just advising me on a matter of the heart.” The girl blushed as he lowered his generous lashes over his eyes and slowly smiled at her, “May the Lady smile upon you, farewell!” he bowed with a flourish and left.
“Come in my dear and I will tell you the secrets of the heart,” I said as the girl looked after Chess, she started and then walked in.
After an hour I closed the trailer up and went over to the Tattooed Lady to get my henna touched up.
“Hey Rayne, I heard that you were dancing tonight,” Cassi greeted me. She was a striking woman, petite, with long, long blonde hair in dreadlocks. And just about every inch of her was covered in the bright, swirling colors of her tattoos – even her makeup was tatted on. For her performances she would don a bikini and then would either go through a series of acrobatics or would strike a pose and hold it for hours, like a statue. Off duty, she wore a tank top and skater shorts all the time. Whenever anyone at her performances claimed that her tats had changed or moved she would joke that it was because she was related to Bradbury’s fictional Illustrated Man – a good distraction tactic that kept people from realizing the truth of the person’s statement.
“Chess said Melanie was sick,” I said as I sat down and held out my arms for Cassi.
“It’s worse than that; we found out that Miss Melanie was faking it and took off with Mr. Strongman. Chess has spent the last few hours on the phone trying to find replacements for them…we didn’t want to disturb you.”
I should’ve known that.
“That’s what I get for being all cooped up in that little trailer telling silly fortunes all day.”
“Rayne you know it’s safer for you to be in the trailer.”
“I know.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence and then Cassi continued touching up my henna for the evening and we passed the next few hours in companionable silence.
I came into the ring dressed in the Gypsy dancer costume; which consisted of a peasant skirt in gold and dark red satin, a satin tank top shell embroidered in gold, anklets with little bells on them that tinkled every time you moved and large gold earrings; wrist cuffs of dark red and a gold necklace of coins pinned on my head. My hair was pulled back into a tight bun, my eyes were heavily lined in kohl and my lips were painted a dark red. Any part of my body that was exposed, other than my face and chest, had henna tattoos painted on.
Cassi had walked over with me and was currently sitting ringside leaning over the partition and talking to Chess. He looked tense. Cassi spotted me and waved. Chess looked over and grimaced. He loped over to me and began to explain.
“I know what happened, Chess,” I forestalled his explanation – he got a funny look on his face and I continued, “Cassi told me. Have you had any luck finding replacements?”
“Oh. No, not yet,” he seemed disproportionately disappointed.
“Well I can fill in until you find someone and we can probably get the Krasols to cover Mr. Strongman’s spot.”
“Yeah already talked to them, I just have to change the billing. ‘See the Twin Midgets perform their Daring High-Wire Act and See Them Tame the Tigers, All in One Night!” Chess’s voice boomed across the ring and Cassi grinned. I allowed a small smile to dance across my lips.
“Shall we rehearse now masseur ringmaster?”
“Indeed Gypsy Trickster!”
I laughed evilly and we launched into the routine. It was elaborately staged and very intricate and beautiful but its main objective was to disguise the fact that Chess was using real magic. I danced around him using a style that was part-ballerina and part-belly dancing while he made scarves dance around me and then threw knives at me. The story-line was that I was a Gypsy woman who seduced Chess who was an out-of-work magician. I abandoned him during All Hallows Eve after I had called up some evil spirits. But I didn’t know that he was a magician so he was able to track me down and fight with me. It was all very dramatic and ended in my death and Chess’s victory. People loved it. And Chess loved fooling people by using real magic right under their noses.
We finished rehearsal about two hours before show-time and went to work setting everything up for the night. Chess finished the new playbills and I helped the other acts rehearse. There were the Krasols’ tigers who ran through their routine quickly – another little bit of fakery, the Krasols were never in any real danger from their tigers because they could talk to them and kept up quite a rowdy banter during their show, their high-wire act was real though, they were just very good at it. There were the Clownies, doing their slapstick act full of acrobatics and fabulous masks that they were constantly swapping around during the act. There was the secretly married woman couple who juggled while clinging to large swaths of cloth that hung from the ceiling. There was the young boy who danced on Clydesdale horses while they jumped and reared around the ring. And then there was our act which was the big finale of the show. It was all very elaborate and a lot of fun to watch.
I much preferred it when I took Melanie’s place – occasionally I would fill in for one of the other acts as The Mysterious Lady Dark and tell fortunes and read palms and such, I didn’t like it. But I had nowhere else to go. Chess knew my background, he believed my powers were real and he accepted it as matter of fact that they weren’t working anymore. He didn’t seem to care and no one else ever mentioned it so I was content to be a spectacle if it meant I didn’t have to be a part of the real world anymore and people didn’t ask me those silly predictable questions anymore. No one here openly mocked my powers so I put up with telling people what they want to hear if it meant I could be accepted.
A few hours later and the show was on! The tent was packed full and the performers were in rare form; even with two of us gone everyone was in top form. The Krasols’ dual showings went off beautifully, the tigers were properly menacing and the high-wire stunts were properly breathtaking. The Clownies were unusually funny and rambunctious, bouncing all over the ring and into the crowd. Tweek and Tunie juggled higher than they ever had before and Jordan and his horses thundered and cavorted around grandly.
Then it was our turn.
Chess and I stepped out and I understood why everyone else had done so amazingly in their performances; there was an unusual fever pitch to the crowd. We were swept up into the feeling. My feet barely touched the ground and Chess was unusually grim as we approached our finale. Suddenly something felt wrong.
I stopped in the middle of a complicated sequence of steps as the lights washed everything out in a burst of brightness.
I Saw a man stand up right as Chess threw the final knife at me. I Saw him draw a gun and point it at me. I Saw him pull the trigger and I Saw Chess dive in front of me and knock me down. I Saw the man point the gun at Chess and pull the trigger. I Saw Chess get hit and fall down. I Saw the man turn the gun on himself and pull the trigger. I Saw myself holding Chess and trying to stop the blood. I Saw Chess die.
“Ray! Rayne!” a voice hissed at me. I blinked and looked around. Chess was staring at me and gesturing for me to continue. I still had my hands raised above my head. I dropped them and looked into the crowd. The man was just standing up and reaching into his jacket. I saw the flash of metal and screamed:
“GUN!!!”
I leaped and drug Chess to the ground with me as the man pulled the trigger. The gunshot resounded through the tent. People were screaming and running. Chess was struggling to get out from under me. I heard some scuffling and a man yelled. Things felt right again and I let Chess up.
“Ray, are you ok?” Chess asked as he turned to me in panic.
I laughed and started to say that I was ok when I felt a strange sensation on my shoulder; like someone had spilled warm liquid on it. I looked over in disbelief, “he shot me.”
“Who is he?” Chess asked as he stood up and lifted me up in his arms.
I looked over ringside where the man had been subdued. Cassi was holding his gun and Jordan was sitting on him while the Krasols held his arms.
“We’ve called the cops,” Cassi said and turned to Chess and me, “From what we gathered or rather what Jordan took from his mind while he was screaming at us he is Melody’s husband. Melody is dead Rayne; she died a year ago from cancer. He blames you. So he came here tonight to kill you. Are you OK?” Cassi’s voice rose several octaves as she realized that I was bleeding.
“She’s fine Cassi; Madame Mull will take care of her,” Chess answered.
“No, we can’t…”
“No arguments Rayne,” Chess walked out of the tent with me before the cops could arrive, “Take care of everything here Cassi.”
A few minutes later Madame Mull sat down next to me and began to carefully examine my gunshot wound.
“Is it alright if I talk to her while you work Madame?” Chess asked.
“Yes. Fine. Don’t talk to me while I work. Talk to her. Fine,” Madame answered in a thick Spanish accent while she poked at my gunshot wound. I winced.
“Thank you Madame,” Chess turned to me, “Rayne I think you need to tell me what happened out there.”
“I Saw Chess and what I Saw was that you got killed.”
“You Saw?”
“Yes Chess and I had to stop him from killing you.”
“You Saw?”
“Yes how many times do I…” I trailed off as the enormity of what had happened hit me, “Chess, I Saw! I can See again!”
Chess smiled enigmatically, “I have an idea…I know of a few women who are more than happy to play fortune teller and you are the best ‘Gypsy Trickster’ I’ve ever had.”
“You want me to take over permanently and get someone else to be The Mysterious Lady Dark?”
“You were never suited for that role anyway,” Chess smiled wider.
“Let me think about it…” I smiled as Madame Mull pushed away, looked at me and thought You better take the offer le Corazon you know that it is what you need to do.
I nodded and said, “I’d love to Chess.”
