Oh that. It’s just to set the mood.

an excerpt from my novel

This excerpt is from my published paperback novel By The Light Of The Carnival, a ghost story that takes place in a country field in 1977.

Lady Fortuna quickly waved at him. “No, wait. Here comes somebody. A customer! Hurry! Get in here! Sit back there, behind the wall, and listen!”

“Isn’t that bad manners?”

“Pretend you’re listening to a radio show. I’d love an audience as if I was on the air. Hurry!”

Joe went into the rear and sat on a wooden stool under a rod with a few wire hangers on it. On the back wall was a shelf with a hot plate, aluminum saucepan, a tin breadbox full of gadgets, and on top of the breadbox were four cans of assorted condensed soup. He leaned forward so he wouldn’t bump into any of it.

She said over her shoulder to Joe, “I’d make a great radio show if they had somebody like me on.” She turned to the front door and said with a slight Greek Accent. “Come in. Welcome to Lady Fortuna’s House of Wisdom and Light and Good Fortune. And sometimes a downright miracle. What a kind man. But you look troubled. You look like you are seeking answers. You look like you want to ask me questions.”

“I’m Mr. P. Floyd, a reporter for the local paper, the Clayburg Herald Whig, and I’d love to interview the fortune-telling lady. I’ve always had such a fascination with the occult. I’m sure my readers do too. I write all sorts of neat articles. The other day a calf was born without any blood and I made it a story. Ain’t that odd?”

“The press! How marvelous! And wait! Put that camera down. It’s only fair that if you take my photo you give me a moment to touch up my face.”

The reporter asked, “May I take a photo of you touching up your face?”

Lady Fortuna became excited. “Yes. Original. Everybody else who’s interviewed me has wanted me to look like I’m mysteriously seeing into a crystal ball, as if this stupid prop could ever look like anything other than a stupid prop.” She took out a compact mirror and her black pencil. She added more wax to her eyes, not making them any darker than they were. They were already so dark. “Is that enough? More photos.”

“I got plenty.”

“Good. Good. I hope you overexpose them a tad so you don’t see all these stupid tiny little wrinkles. I don’t know where they came from. They weren’t there a while ago. But they seem to want to stay. I haven’t been getting enough dew.”

“I’ll try and over expose it a bit in the darkroom, if I can.”

Lady Fortuna grew serious and asked, “What would you like to talk about for your article? It’s free for you now. All free. I’ll do back-flips for the press. I’ll jump through fire hoops for the press. I want press.”

Mr. P. Floyd chuckled. “I just want to know how all this fortune-telling stuff works. Do you really believe in it? Do you really believe that prop will tell you the future?”

Lady Fortuna scoffed at her plastic plug-in crystal ball. “Oh that. It’s just to set the mood.” From a basket, she took a small black cloth bag. From that she slid out her deck of tarot cards, plopped them down and smeared them around on the thallo-green tablecloth. “Now these have more power. I don’t have to believe. Some days I don’t believe in anything at all. Some days I hate God so much I could spit in his eye. He’s such a slumlord. I bet there’s prisons in Siberia run better than God runs this planet. Some days I get tired of being mad at God and so I’m a complete atheist, to clear the air. But what does that have to do with the cards? It’s like your camera or your car. Do you have to believe in it, or even like it, for it to work? No. As it is with these cards, they just do what they do. They tell their story… they have pictures to tell me the stories.”

“How does it work?”