more speed than usual, and the chain of cars flashed around the
looping, rising, falling track so fast that Amy was terrified it was
going to fly off the rails. What should have been a thrilling ride
became a knuckle-whitening, stomachclenching ordeal, a sweat-popping
torture that seemed like it would never end. Incredibly, even under
those conditions, when the automatic canvas cover closed over the
fast-moving train, Buzz took advantage of the darkness to take
advantage of Amy, his hands were all over her.
This whole night is like the Slithering Snake, Amy thought. It’s out
of control.
After they rode the Octopus again, after they gleefully bashed each
other around in the bumper cars once more, they returned to the
cul-de-sac behind the carnival trucks, at the perimeter of the
fairgrounds, and Liz stoked up another of her specially spiced
joints.
Darkness had come to the fairgrounds now, and they weren’t able to see
each other clearly as they passed the reefer around. They made jokes
about some stranger stepping out of the darkness and taking a toke
without anyone being the wiser, and they kidded each other about seeing
freaks hiding under the trucks around them.
Amy tried to fake it when the joint came to her. She took a drag on
it, but she didn’t inhale. She held the smoke in her mouth for a
moment, then blew it out.
Even in the darkness, with only the glowing tip of the cigarette and
the sound of indrawn breath to judge by, Liz realized that Amy hadn’t
really taken a good pull on the weed. “Don’t hold back on us, kid,”
she said sharply. “Don’t be a party pooper.” “I don’t know what you
mean,” Amy said.
aLike hell you don’t. Take another hit on that joint. When I’m wasted
I like a lot of company in the same condition.” Rather than irritate
Liz, Amy took another drag on the joint and sucked the smoke deep this
time. She hated herself for her lack of willpower.
But I don’t want to lose Liz, she thought. I need Liz. Who else do I
have?
When they walked back onto the midway, they nearly collided with an
albino.
His thin, cottony white hair streamed behind him in the warm June
breeze. He turned transparent eyes on them, eyes like cold smoke, and
he said, “Free tickets to Madame Zena’s. Free tickets to get your
fortunes told.
One for each lady, compliments of the carnival management. Tell all
your friends that Big American is the friendly carnival.” Surprised,
Amy and Liz accepted the tickets from the worm-white hands that offered
them.
The albino vanished in the crowd.
THE FOUR OF them crowded into the fortuneteller’s small tent. Liz and
Amy sat in the two available chairs, at the table where the crystal
ball was filled with lambent light. Richie and Buzz stood behind the
chairs.
Amy didn’t think that Madame Zena looked much like the Gypsy she was
supposed to be, even dressed up in all the colored scarves and pleated
skirts and gaudy jewelry. But the woman was very pretty, and she was
suitably mysterious.
Liz got her fortune told first. Madame Zena f: asked her all sorts of
questions about herself and her family, information that she needed (so
she said) in order to focus her psychic perceptions. When she had no
more questions to ask, she peered into the crystal ball, she leaned so
close to it that the eerie light and the shadows it cast made her
features look different, hawklike.
In four glass chimneys, in the four corners of the tent, four candles
guttered.
In its large cage to the right of the table, the raven shifted on its
perch and made a cooing sound in the back of its throat.
Liz glanced at Amy and rolled her eyes.
Amy giggled, giddier than ever from the dope.
Madame Zena stared into the crystal ball with a theatrical scowl, as if
she were struggling to pierce the veils that concealed the world of
tomorrow. But then the expression on her face changed and became a
look of genuine puzzlement. She blinked, shook her head, and leaned
even closer to the glowing sphere on the table.