The Fortune Teller's Daughter Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  1. The Devil

  2. The Tower

  3. The Fool

  4. Page of Pentacles

  5. King of Pentacles

  6. Ten of Pentacles

  7. Queen of Cups

  8. Eight of Swords

  9. King of Cups

  10. Two of Cups

  11. The Hierophant

  12. The Empress

  13. Ten of Swords

  14. Ten of Wands

  15. Two of Pentacles

  16. The Hermit

  17. Five of Pentacles

  18. Ten of Cups

  19. Temperance

  20. Justice

  21. Queen of Cups

  22. The Devil

  23. Death

  24. Death

  25. Ace of Swords

  26. The Lovers

  27. The Sun

  28. Nine of Pentacles

  29. Nine of Wands

  30. Knight of Cups

  31. The High Priestess

  32. The Hanged Man

  33. The High Priestess

  34. Nine of Wands

  35. Page of Cups

  36. Page of Cups

  37. Five of Wands

  38. Six of Cups

  39. Five of Cups

  40. Six of Swords

  41. The Empress

  42. Knight of Swords

  43. Nine of Swords

  44. Five of Swords

  45. The Magician

  46. The Moon

  47. Four of Swords

  48. Five of Pentacles

  49. Five of Swords

  50. Justice

  51. Strength

  52. Ace of Swords

  53. Ten of Wands

  54. Seven of Swords

  55. Four of Cups

  56. Three of Cups

  57. The Hanged Man

  58. The Emperor

  59. The Wheel of Fortune

  60. Death

  61. Ace of Wands

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Lila Shaara

  Copyright

  For Michael, my father,

  and Helen, my mother

  Acknowledgments

  One summer many years ago, my friend Sara Sturdevant sent me a postcard from a paleontological dig in Wyoming. The message was pithy. Camped out among the rocks and stars, she’d come to realize two things. “Nature is big,” she wrote. “People are small.” That was one inspiration for this book, along with countless other bits of information and images that have floated across my vision over the years: my father’s interest in Nikola Tesla; my older son’s blue eyes; my younger son’s enormous heart; my husband’s considerable unsung genius; the frustration, heartache, and great beauty of my oldest friends. One of these, Celeste Rosenau, deserves a special thank-you because of her army of book buyers across the country, ready to rally on behalf of a local girl long after I moved north. I was also inspired by the true stories of two women: Sarah Hoffman and Hedy Lamarr, whose accomplishments in biology and engineering, respectively, may never be fully appreciated by the public.

  Dr. Martha Ann Terry of the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh gave me essential information on the ownership of graduate students’ research, and Bart Wise clued me in on a number of other pertinent intellectual property issues. Almost everything I know about bee allergies and epinephrine I owe to my longtime friend A. J. (Big Al) Caliendo. However, any mistakes made in this work about anything are mine.

  I’m grateful for the priceless support of some new friends as well; many thanks to Nancy Martin, Rebecca Drake, Kathleen George, Kathryn Miller Haines, and Heather Terrell (buy their books!), along with the proprietors of Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, and the members of the Mary Roberts Rinehart chapter of Sisters in Crime.

  There was a real Purple Lady once upon a time, although to my regret I never spoke to her; she was not a southerner and bears little resemblance to Miss Tokay. The shrine and temple are only vaguely based on structures she actually built, although they were destroyed long ago by a dull-witted heir, and the details of the religion surrounding them differ considerably from what’s presented here. I’ll always remain grateful to William “Hungry Bill” Pelger and Edward Boytim for first showing me the shrine and letting me in on a local legend.

  All Tarot interpretations are after Eden Gray, although I have taken a great deal of license with them.

  My husband and sons are the primary inspirations for my life in general, and I try to thank them for that every chance I get. (Here goes: Thanks, guys!) Also, I extend vast gratitude to the Magnetic Fields, Robyn Hitchcock, Low, and Brian Eno, all of whom made music that was essential to my finishing the darn thing.

  Prologue

  The sun was almost warm, so she stood outside the idling car. She passed the time by watching the way the clouds moved with the air currents high in the atmosphere, the way the light reflected off them and scraped the sky. That light had torn through the dark space between the giant boiling furnace of the sun and the little blue earth that circled it, the journey taking only eight minutes. She imagined the sun’s light bouncing off the clouds and careening back into space, out to the moon, to Mars and beyond. Years from now, she thought, some gelatinous creature on a rocky planet with a purple sky might see a tiny spark above the horizon that would be the very beam of light that was at this moment pinging off a cloud that looked like a white rose.

  When her husband had finished saying his good-byes to the people gathered on the lawn, he came to the car, walking gracefully, athletically, his jacket flung over his shoulder. He had been raised in the Northeast and so didn’t feel the chill the way she did. He wanted to make a few calls on the way home. She offered to drive, but the suggestion irritated him, and he shook his head at her as he threw his jacket over the seat to the back and got in. He was close to middle-aged but was well-tended and moved easily. She still felt a little flip in her chest at the way he moved.

  In spite of his resistance to the cold, Charlie flipped the switch for the heat and left the windows closed. He turned on the radio, a classical station that made no money from commercials; it was supported by the rich families that populated the beautiful valleys in houses as large as state monuments. Something by Mozart, something too fast and ornate for her liking. She would have preferred Dvoák or Bruch, or maybe Aaron Copland. Charlie said her taste in classical music was that of a teenager or a precocious child.

  They pulled out of the long driveway onto the narrow, well-paved road that girded the hills and led back to the town. Their house was not very far away, and while it was’t as grand as the one they’d just visited, it was grand enough, with five bedrooms, a full bathroom in each, and a wine cellar. She was always grateful that it was’t her job to clean it. The car moved quietly on the seamless pavement, and she looked out the window at the clouds and the sun. Charlie jarred her thoughts with a request that she get the phone from the pocket of his jacket on the backseat. She unfastened her seat belt and turned, lifted herself onto her knees and bent over, leaning between the seat backs to reach for the jacket. The angle made her stomach feel heavy. Through the rear windshield she could see a tractor trailer some distance behind them. It was gaining on them slowly, but she knew that as soon as Charlie caught sight of it growing larger in the mirror he would speed up. She suddenly felt vulnerable and light, imagining what it would be like to be hit by the semi or to enter free fall as the car flew off the embankment into the valley below.

  The road took a turn, and she had to grab the seat
back to keep from falling into the passenger door. She kept her left arm firmly around the headrest as she reached back again. Then she had the jacket by the arm; she tugged on it as it spread itself over the rear bench, and she had to pull and pull so that it came through the gap extended, as if she was doing a magic trick, the endless jacket. As the last of it popped through, she saw movement at the top of the exposed pocket, something golden and black. The wasp was silent. Later she was to think that that was not what you’d expect; you’d expect it to be buzzing with evil intent. But it simply walked up the face of the jacket, looking for sugar. She was calmer than she would have expected to be, even though they’d rehearsed what was to be done many times.

  “Where’s your EpiPen?” she said, keeping her voice low and serene.

  “What?” Charlie looked at her with a face that suggested that she was playing a stupid game. “Why?”

  “Where is it?” she said, knowing that if she said why she wanted it, there was a good chance he’d drive off the road in a panic.

  “In the pocket,” he said. “You know that.”

  She pulled the jacket toward her with great care and gentleness, trying not to disturb the wasp as it crept up the leather toward the collar. There was just enough room to reach into the pocket without touching the wasp. She eased her hand in and found a wad of fabric: a handkerchief wrapped around a chunk of something cold, the fabric slightly damp. She didn’t dare pull the handkerchief out, fearing the disturbance might propel the wasp to flight. So she worked her fingers around the handkerchief, hoping to feel the thin plastic tube entangled with the cool cloth. A burning little mouth bit her fingertip and she almost jerked her hand back, but concern for Charlie overrode everything, including the safety of her own fingers. She pulled her hand out with care, surprised at the thought that there must be another wasp in the pocket; she got no satisfaction from the idea that the one who’d stung her was probably dead. Wait, she thought, it was the honeybee that died when it stung you; wasps can sting again and again. Good thing I’m not allergic, too.

  Her fingertip was starting to burn, but she knew better than to react. She balanced herself carefully on her knees, twisted her body a little, and pushed her unstung hand under the jacket, trying to feel the lip of the pocket on the other side, trying to work her fingers into it without shifting the top. She found the pocket’s edge after a few seconds, and her fingers wriggled in tiny movements as she explored the interior. She felt the phone and made a scissor of two of her fingers, gliding it out of the pocket and then laying it on the seat by her knees. Charlie’s eyes darted to her hands every few seconds. When he saw that she’d produced the phone, he said, “Finally.” That was when he saw the wasp.

  He slowed the car, but there was nowhere to pull over. The semi behind them honked loudly, a huge sound that rattled her spine, and then Charlie gave the gas pedal a tap that caused the car to accelerate and decelerate so quickly that she was forced to grab the back of the seat again to keep her spine from crashing into the dashboard. After the ringing of the horn faded, she could hear Charlie’s breathing. “Slow down,” she said. “I’ll get the pen. Just drive. It’ll be all right.”

  The wasp miraculously hadn’t been disturbed by the lurching of the car. It had reached the collar and was walking along it, smelling, tasting, exploring. She worked her hand again into the pocket on the underside of the jacket, expecting the pen to be there, but she could feel nothing else, just unfinished leather and grainy lint. She thought, Where the hell is it? She said, “It must be in your pants pocket. It’s not in here.”

  “Yes it is,” he said, his lips dry and pale. “I remember when we left the house. Cell phone in one, EpiPen in the other. I always do it that way.”

  “It’s not there now. It must be in your pants.”

  “It’s not in my goddamned pants, Emily.” He used her name only when he was upset. Now his voice thinned as it got louder. “I never put it in my goddamned pants.”

  His eyes left the road again; he looked at the wasp as it lifted lazily off the leather and began its first loop up to the rearview mirror, then hovered for a moment by her face. She resisted the urge to bat it away. It landed on her shoulder, and she froze, still on her knees facing the backseat. Charlie stared at it, white-faced, and she said, “Just drive, Charlie. Look at the road. Maybe open the window.”

  He turned back, his lips slightly apart, and then the yellow and gold wasp lifted off her shoulder and circled again, perfect ellipses around her head, then around the dome light on the ceiling of the car, landing gently on Charlie’s forehead before his hand had a chance to move to the window button. “Charlie,” she said as he looked at her and the huge horn sounded again and they both knew that the world was about to explode. “I love you,” she said. She never knew if he didn’t say it back because he wouldn’t have or because he never got the chance.

  1

  THE DEVIL

  Depression; experience without understanding

  Harry Sterling knew he was driving too fast. The narrow road was so black that the white stripe down the center was startling in the dark, bending and straightening as if it was belly dancing in the headlights. Harry had the steering wheel in a sweaty grip, matching the curves turn for turn, but he couldn’t seem to get his right foot to lift up from the gas pedal. It seemed that no part of his body was responding to his wishes. His stomach threatened to eject its contents at any moment, which would be disastrous for both the interior of the car and his own survival. He was singing, loudly and atonally, “Carry On My Wayward Son,” and nothing he could tell himself would make the singing stop. He was drunk, stinking, deadly drunk, and was horrifically aware of it with a tiny, sober part of himself, deep in his brain. It was the part that was trying to get his foot to lighten up on the gas, the part that was so very grateful for the independent intelligence of his hands.

  Where am I going again? he asked that sober part for at least the third time. The sober part said, You’re going to a fucking fortune teller. She’s going to predict your future, you worthless, drunken bastard.

  He didn’t drink often, but when he did, terrible things happened. He couldn’t stop at one, or even two. It always turned into six or eight or ten, no matter how hard that internal voice screamed at him, no matter how many sympathetic, disapproving looks he got from his companions, no matter how great his mortification from the waitress’s rolling eyes or the contempt of other bar patrons. Most of the time he didn’t even want liquor; he hated wine, and beer rarely called to him at all. But once in a while, something happened, some memory knocked him over or someone put a cocktail in his unresisting hand, bought a round, something, and then there he was, drowning in the pit of his own lack of self-control.

  He had been to the Brew House only once before, at the beginning of the fall semester, his first at the university as a visiting professor. Most of the law students gathered there every Friday afternoon during the school year, along with a few of the younger professors. That Friday in September, he’d tried to keep it to one beer, but it turned into two, and then God knew how many. He’d managed to stagger out of the bar without doing anything too awful, although he’d woken up in his backyard wearing only his pants. He had felt as bad as it was possible to feel while still being alive, not only because of the hangover. The mosquitoes that lurked in the grass had feasted on him during the night. When he came to, his left eye refused to open, the numerous bites on his eyelid having caused it to swell to the size of a peach; the ones in his armpits prevented him from being able to fully lower his arms for two days.

  That experience had been enough to keep him away from anything alcoholic for six months, until today, another Friday. His best student, a twenty-something second-year named Dan Polti, was going through an acrimonious divorce and wanted a sympathetic and divorced adult to talk to. Dan knew that Harry didn’t usually drink, although he didn’t know why. They’d sat for a while by themselves, Dan’s head occasionally dropping into his hands as he tal
ked while Harry sat helpless, trying to feel more sympathy than he actually did. Most of the other students were sitting at a long wooden table under one of the speakers that hung like huge tumors from the wall. The number of students at the long table had grown until privacy was no longer possible, and Dan had left. Harry had tried to leave as well, but Judd Lippman, another youngish law professor, had corralled Harry into joining the merriment at the long table, and Harry hadn’t had sufficient energy to say no. Judd was one of those professors who preyed on the newest and most toothsome of the female students; he had his arm draped over one now, a slender twenty-four-year-old with the unfortunate name of Veronica Ho. Ronnie, as she was known, was shy and very pretty, a fact that Harry tried to find interesting but only succeeded in finding sad.

  He’d tried to say no to the mug of beer that someone poured for him from a giant, sweaty pitcher in the center of the table, but the mug had stayed stubbornly in front of him, only an inch or so from his right hand.

  “How’s the book coming, Harry?” Judd hollered. Judd’s hair was receding, and his forehead was shining under faux Tiffany lamps; these hung from what looked like fat, dark cables, but on closer inspection Harry could see they were in fact metal chains. The cobwebs coating them were so thick that they obscured the links. He took a drink. The beer tasted like soap.

  “Fine,” he said.

  “What’s fine?” said Judd. Judd was already drunk.

  “The book,” Harry said. “It’s going fine.”

  Julie Canfield, a second-year who Harry had been told had a crush on him, opened soft brown eyes wide and said, “What’s your book going to be about, Dr. Sterling?”

  He took another swallow of beer. It still tasted lousy, but he took a third anyway. There was silence at the table. Oh, Jesus Christ, he thought, is every goddamned person here looking at me? Shit, shit, shit. There is no book, his brain screamed. Harry took another slug of beer, which emptied the mug. “Law. Media. Intellectual property.” Sounds fascinating, he thought. Should have said it’s about drying piss. Even more compelling. “Dust in the Wind” was playing through the pendulous speakers at a moderate volume. They would be cranked up when the band started playing, hours from now. Harry hoped he’d be home by then, snug in his bed, propped up by many pillows with the only Robertson Davies book he hadn’t yet read, something cold and nonalcoholic on the nightstand.