The Secret of the Emerald Sea by Heather Matthews Page A

building attracted everyone and everything. News traveled fast through the local pub as the cheap liquor loosened everyone’s tongues.
    Children were not permitted in the Crown of Thorns, but somehow, youngsters ended up there every day, hugging their mothers and singing along with boisterous drinking songs and mournful dirges. This made it easy for Jane and her little companion to blend in. In fact, sometimes, the older children would sneakily drink the dregs outs of wineglasses and ale mugs, then crawl into their mother’s laps and fall asleep. They would be carried home to bed when the pub finally, finally closed. But the Cupid never took a single sip.
    The pub was their first introduction to the village, and it was also Jane’s first try at fortune telling. From the Cupid, she had learned about the various clever ways she could answer questions to deflect any difficult lines of inquiry, and so successful was this teaching that they were soon made welcome by the locals who gave them a place to stay—for free— that evening in exchange for their fortunes.
    Jane saw the fortunes as a silly trick, but the Cupid’s uncanny grasp of human nature allowed their reputation to build quickly, and this created increased demand for their services. The Cupid would stare into the eyes of the person who sat across from them, seeming to read their mind. He would then whisper things to Jane that allowed her to make generalizations and give advice that could be interpreted any number of ways. He would feed Jane murmured sentences and show her how to use astrology and palm reading as tools to further bilk the townspeople out of their money.
    As always, he told her wisely, magic had a hold on the common folk, who really didn’t know any better. Though they were all religious, they could not resist the easy lure of those who promised to reveal the future, and though there were other clairvoyants, or those who claimed to be clairvoyant, Jane and the Cupid were a mystery and an unknown quantity, and their value shot higher as the advice they gave seemed accurate more often than not.
    Once they’d made a little name for themselves, Jane was given a pack of Tarot cards in the pub, the first pack she had ever seen. It was kept behind the bar, wrapped in cheap velvet, and its cards were filled with all manner of grinning Devils and spinning Wheels of Fortune and icy Empresses. She learned to spread the cards out as a tool to extract information, and sometimes, when her mind was quiet and focused, the readings seemed eerily accurate.
    Jane knew some other forces were at play, giving her readings more truth and gravity, but she was frightened by this magic. She resisted the urge to tell her own fortune and that of the Cupid’s. Sometimes her fingers burned or tingled fiercely as she touched the deck, as though the cards themselves held some sort of dark power. She knew that, eventually, she would give in and tell her own fortune, and she feared for what she might find.
    Her own cynicism withered and died as she saw the faces of those whose futures she foretold and whose pasts she touched upon. Their eyes showed the truth. After all that had happened, it was not difficult to believe that such magic might exist. She did not know that this magic lived within her own body and soul, and that her abilities were the result of her strange parentage.

Chapter Twelve
     
    Jane and her little companion settled into life in the village, and soon it was full winter. Two days after their arrival, they had been offered the rental of a tiny, shabby farmhouse, and they had accepted gratefully. It was private and secluded, which was important to them. Though rough and a little chilly, the farmhouse felt like a palace to them. They had shelter, food, and some income from fortune telling. Jane was comfortable, and mostly warm.
    A great festival to celebrate Christmas was being planned in the village, and this was exciting for her, although it also made her quite