Madeline, Teller of Fortunes

I paused in front of the sign: Madeline, Teller of Fortunes. She was an icon in the quaint little beach community of Soft Sands, where I passed by her every year while vacationing. Forty years the sign boasted. I smiled. It had said that for as long as I could remember. 

It was October 31^st, and the summer crowds had gone home. A few walkers dotted the sidewalk, some in costume. I wasn’t usually here this time of year. But something had drawn me back this Hallows’ Eve. I had spent nearly a lifetime avoiding my premonitions, but something told me to listen this time.

 The old chair where Madeline usually sat in flowing layers of colorful linen, adorned with collections of beads and bracelets, was currently empty. There was a chill in the October air, and I guessed she had retreated to her warm hole in the wall she called her parlor. I glanced in the window to see if she had found an unwitting customer to enchant. She sat stoically in a green velvet high-back chair. My eyes cast from her to a small round table with a red fringed covering that held a black glass globe, her crystal ball. I felt her looking at me before our eyes met. It was hard to estimate her age. Madeline had always looked old.

I glanced to the darkening sky. The brewing storm added an electrical element to the air. A shiver shook my body. I pushed my hand hard through what looked like an open space yet felt like a hardened force field around her door, trying to keep me from entering. . A pulse surged through my fingers as they met the doorknob. If only I had heeded the warning.

Margaret, I thought; the moving picture flashed briefly through my mind like my visions usually did. Her name was Margaret. I saw her like in a dream, young and beautiful. She ran away from her home in rural Missouri when she was fourteen. The circus had come to town, and when it left, so did Margaret. She became Madeline, Teller of Fortunes somewhere on the road between Oklahoma City and St. Louis. What was she running from? There was so much more to her story–I could feel it, but I didn’t want to see it. How she ended up in this seaside tourist destination on the coast of Maine was a good question, but not the question I had come to ask.

I pushed open the sturdy wooden door with determination just as I felt the first light drops of rain touch my face. The tarnished bells strung together by twisted twine that hung on the back of the doorknob jingled.

My father had never given credence to my visions. I would tell him at first, but his silence always confirmed his discomfort. I took to hiding the events from him and myself, only adding to my loneliness..

My mother had died when I was born, so it was just me and my father. “You have me, darling. That’s all you need,” he would say, lifting me up and spinning me around, leaving all the other questions unanswered. But he knew I needed more, some kind of consistency in my otherwise unpredictable existence.

We were basically nomads, following my father’s work from one city to another. He worked with a stage crew doing sound system setup. Wherever there was a concert or show, we were there. But in the summer, for two weeks every year, we were in Soft Sands. I never asked why he chose to travel to Soft Sands, Maine, every summer. Maybe he was drawn to a place where few lived but many called home. We didn’t have family there–b. But then, we didn’t have family anywhere.The beach, the lighthouse, and the shops became so familiar they were like family. And then there was Madeline.

As I grew, I made sure to pass by Madeline, Teller of Fortunes each summer of my youth in my two-week pursuit of candy and Slurpees. I never stopped; I hardly glanced her way. But an energy passed between us. We both felt it. She knew I had the power. 

My father barely acknowledged Madeline, either. He might give her a slight tip of his head like any stranger he met in passing. He never stopped to talk to her, but I always liked to imagine there was something that tied us all together. So, I pretended I saw something familiar about her. I suppose that was what brought me this night. 

My future was as mysterious to me as my past. Yet, I could clearly see the future of others. People who passed me by on the sidewalk and brushed against me: I knew what fate awaited them. Store owners that gave me change and touched my palm: I knew their secrets. Visions floated around in my brain, but I could never see my own future. Or maybe I didn’t want to.

When I was young, I didn’t care much about what my future held. I often saw the worst of other people’s bleak futures. I was content living my life day to day, reading and dreaming of imaginary places with interesting characters. Tomorrow was not a page in my life story that I needed to turn early.

As I grew into a teenager, we continued to come to Soft Sands for vacation. I would pause on the corner by the popcorn store and watch Madeline with fascination as she interacted with the crowd. She was a charmer of sorts. She would wave her arm and jingle her bracelets. Children were captivated by her just like I had been. She would let them touch her crinkled dresses and finger her shiny beads. I’d watch from afar and envied her confidence. She reveled in who she was. I wished I had her self-assurance. 

Each year when I walked the hot sticky sidewalk toward Madeline’s, my heart caught in my throat as I waited to see if she was still there. What if she was gone, and I never even stopped to talk to her? But there she would always be, looking no different. Her mere presence gave me solace and hope that I would live another day. She was always so alive. And the energy was still there, too, although it faded a little with time.

I stood in her doorway this Halloween night, and there was a magic in the air I’d never felt before. All Hallows Eve, historically, is known as the one night of the year that the spirits of the dead can return to earth. With that thought in mind, I solidly closed the door and faced her.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said in her most provocative voice with just a hint of Midwest accent.

I would have been put off if I didn’t already know she was the real deal. I’d known it since the first time I saw her while perched on my father’s shoulders, barely old enough to walk. I felt the energy, and I knew I was like her. I wasn’t the only one, and there she was, embracing it.. 

I heard the distant thunder rumble.

“Do you come seeking the truth?” she asked.

“I suppose I have.”

Her eyes accessed me. “It comes with a cost,” she said.

“I’m ready to pay.”

“Hmm,” she said and nodded her head down but not up again. “But you know not the price.” She closed her eyes, and I felt the rush.

Why had I never stopped until now? I didn’t have time to contemplate.

“Do you want to know your future, or do you want to talk to the dead?” she said to me like I was any customer off the street. But there was a recognition in her foggy eyes. So, I played the part.

“I want to talk to the dead.”

“You brought a lot of them with you.”

I laughed. “Yes. I know. But they don’t talk to me.”

I did have an entourage of ghosts from my past. They were not family, but sometimes they seemed that way since they had been with me so long. There was my babysitter from my youth, who had died in a car accident. She left the earth so young and suddenly I think her spirit was lost. Then there was my boyfriend, my first love. He joined the Army at eighteen and never came back. There were others I had met along the way, lost souls that traveled with me. With them, I carried the burden of guilt. Maybe I could have saved them if I had let myself look into their futures. Perhaps I could have changed the outcome. I hoped my mother was among them, although I never felt her. Now my father’s ghost walked beside me, silent and steady.

The skin on Madeline’s forehead creased in a timeworn pattern. “Maybe you don’t want to hear what they say.”

It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t bother to respond specifically.

“They are more bothersome of late.” I hesitated. “So, I think they have something important to tell me.” 

Clouds passed over the moon, and the sky darkened. She still has it, I thought.

“The past is not a good place to live.” Her eyes remained closed. “You sure you don’t want to know your future?”

“I try not to.”

“Ah, yes. You have spent your life trying to appear normal.” She shook her head. “Has it made you happy?”

I was initially taken aback by her observation, then stunned by her question. I took some time to answer. She waited. I wanted to say so many things. I wanted to say I was normal, but I knew it wasn’t so. I wanted to tell her what a wonderful childhood I had. But the truth hung heavy in the air, and I knew it was futile to lie to Madeline, Teller of Fortunes, of all people.

I finally answered her question with a question. “Is there happiness for people like us?” It felt good to acknowledge who I was, that I was like her. 

She opened her eyes and met mine. “Perhaps,” she said with a distant look in her eyes.

A strange feeling passed through me. Was it hope? Is that what I had come seeking?

A shadow of sadness crossed Madeline’s face. “First, you must meet your destiny,” she said. “Destiny will not be denied.”

“And what is my destiny?”

“You said you did not want to know the future,” she chided. “You are not ready yet. So why did you come?”

Lightning lit the sky outside the window, and the thunder crash soon followed.

My father had died the year before, suddenly, with no time for questions or revelations. I had him cremated, and the answers burned with him. I cast his ashes in the ocean waves that crash the shore with unrelenting urgency at Cape Neddick Lighthouse. He would have liked that. A traveling nomad cast to a sea of endless adventure. But what was to become of me? I had nowhere to call home, only this magical seaside village that had embraced me for two weeks each year.

“I want to talk to my parents.”

Madeline’s gaze fixated on the crystal ball on the table. “What questions do you have for the dead?”

I had thought about it for so long, but now I didn’t know what to ask. I mumbled incoherently.

“Your father was a good man,” Madeline said in a monotone voice that lowered to the familiar tone of my father. “I did what I thought was best for you.” Madeline swallowed hard and wiped her brow precisely like my father did when facing a tough conversation. The voice was barely a whisper. “I was wrong.” The words caught with emotion. “I should have told you more about your mother.” Madeline’s eyes were shut; her head drooped down, exhaling the last words like the dying. “I should not have denied your birthright.” Madeline was silent, and I wondered if my father had gone.

“What does my mother say?” I asked.

Madeline lifted her head and stared straight ahead. “She says she knew you before you were born and has watched over you all your life,” she said in her own voice. “She knows you better than anyone and…” She stopped. I waited. She set her jaw with determination. “And, if you open your heart, you will know her too.”

A warmth filled the tiny room. Visions mingled in my mind. All of them here in Soft Sands. It was my happy place. The sand between my toes, the Ferris wheel turning in the sky, the hot sidewalks, and Madeline sitting in her chair. The images flashed like snapshots behind my eyes. But the visions did not include my mother. Or did they?

“Who are you?” I asked with the feeling that I already knew the answer.

Her eyes closed. She didn’t acknowledge my question.

“You can not move forward until you learn to accept your destiny.”

“I suppose I have nothing else left.” Rain pattered on the thin roof. “So, give me destiny.”

“Are you sure you are ready?”

“I’m sure.”

A single tear rolled slowly down her wrinkled cheek, following the creases like a drop of rain in a drought-dried riverbed.

“There is a special place for people like us,” she said.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Don’t fear, my child.”

I smiled at this ageless woman calling me a child, and a tear squeezed out of the corner of my eye, falling to my mouth. I licked the salty drop across my lips. Then, as though a door had opened in my heart, I felt it—the truth. I let the vision take shape and embraced it. I saw young Madeline holding an infant. She kissed her head and handed her to a man. The man was my father.

Madeline looked out the window at two giddy young girls gawking. The clouds were heavy with moisture, and it rained down with increasing volume. Their painted faces began to streak, the witch hats they wore bent over with the weight of the humidity. Madeline, in grand form, waved her arm in a flourish while her foot touched the switch on the floor with barely any movement. The crystal ball on the table glowed, and an eerie flash of light lit the room, followed by a puff of smoke. She peered into the crystal ball for further effect. The girls, eyes wide with awe, hands over their mouths, stood transfixed.

“Pity the ones like them,” Madeline said. “I give them what they expect, but they never see the truth.” She continued to speak into the crystal ball, but her words spoke to me. “You and I know the veil is thin. We see the other side.”

A fog rolled across the floor, wrapping around my legs like cool Egyptian cloth. Its origin was not the switch on the floor. I knew it came from a more authentic source. Madeline stared into my eyes. Horror gripped me as I watched the lines in her face methodically smooth, her hair magically turn auburn as if painted with an invisible brush. I looked away, trying to break the spell. Glancing down, I saw my hands wrinkled, my fingers bent like broken sticks, long fingernails pointed and discolored. In the reflection of the crystal ball, the face of Madeline stared back at me, but it was on my body. I tried to scream. Nothing came out. The transition was quick and painless; I barely had time to absorb the consequences.

Madeline stood limber and straight. I sat hunched over and weary. The tarnished bells on the back of the door jingled. A group of teenagers burst in, the torrential rain spurring their courage to enter. They stopped short when they saw the younger-looking woman standing.

“Are we interrupting a reading?” One of them asked innocently.

“Not at all,” the other Madeline said with a confident smile. “I’m all done here.”

She looked at me and nodded. “Thank you. You have given me the answers I have awaited. I hope I have given you just compensation in return.” She turned toward the door.

I raised my arm to stop her. The bracelets on my wrist tinkled with a magical tune, and I felt an energy enter my body. The crystal ball on the table glowed, and the young people jumped back with astonishment. Visions of their future danced behind my foggy eyes, and I felt the thrill of telling them their stories.

“Please sit,” I gestured to them, my robes flowing in an unseen breeze. “I have much to tell you.”

The former Madeline stopped at the door.

“Best of luck to you, Madeline, Teller of Fortunes,” she said to me, her smile gleaming white and her eyes sparkled. And so, I acquired my fate.

“And you as well.” My voice cracked. “Will I see you again?”

She paused. “On the other side.” She looked over her shoulder at me. Her voice was warm with emotion. “I will be waiting for you when you fulfill your calling.” She turned toward the door. “Look for your replacement on All Hallows’ Eve—in forty years.” The bells on the door jingled as she left.

The following summer, I sat in the old rickety chair in flowing layers of colorful linen adorned with collections of beads and bracelets in front of the sign Madeline, Teller of Fortunes. Every year after that, for the next forty years, I reveled in my life as the famous seer of Soft Sands. It was my destiny, after all.