The Horse You Came in On Read Online Free PDF Page B

Zostra, teller of dubious fortunes, lately taken to reading palms when she got bored with the tarot, was in her Pre-Raphaelite phase. The harem days of bare midriffs, gauze trousers, chiffon veils, and tinkling ankle bells had given way to the Spanish influence of mantillas and bejeweled combs; that in turn was dropped in favor of the Arthurian phase and the Guinevere look.
    But now it was Rossetti and Burne-Jones stuff: long, floating gowns, shapeless except for the shape that Carole-anne lent them, which was plenty. After gazing at a few pictures of long-haired ladies reclining on fainting couches and chaise longues—doped up, Jury imagined, with laudanum—she again had changed her look. She had even invested in “scrunching” at Vidal Sassoon (something that she’d also put poor Mrs. Wassermann through, until Jury put a stop to it: he didn’t care for Mrs. Wassermann scrunched). Now she wore her red-gold hair in a waterfall of crinkly waves. No fancy combs, no coronets, thank goodness.
    â€œSo, Super, what’re you doing here?” Her mouth was full of cake, shreds of coconut dusting the air when she spoke. It was a wonder, with the stuff she ate, she kept her figure, but keep it she did.
    â€œTo have my fortune told, of course.”
    â€œI told it once.”
    In Carole-anne’s galaxy, Jury’s stars seldom shone and never moved. Despite all evidence to the contrary, she saw no relationships with women (except herself and Mrs. Wassermann), no moves or promotions, no trips, no travails. Whenever Jury did venture beyond the limits of Greater London, she told him he was tempting the Fates. And all of the lines in Jury’s hand appeared to be parallel ones, never meeting, never converging, just going back and forth uneventfully, like underground tracks.
    â€œThings change,” said Jury.
    Casually, she lifted his left hand, dropped it, and said, “Not for you.” She mashed the prongs of her fork down on cake crumbs.
    â€œThat’s my left hand. You said the left was just ‘what you came in with.’ I believe that was your way of putting it.” He held out his right hand.
    She barely tossed the hand a glance. “What you came in with is what you go out with.”
    â€œI thought maybe this time you might see the trip before I return from it.”
    She frowned. “What trip? You just got back from Yorkshire.”
    By now Wiggins appeared to be next in line for the HorrorScope. Probably shown the kids his warrant card, thought Jury. As Vaughn Monroe’s smooth rendition of “Racing with the Moon” was being scratched to death by a needle in need of changing, Carole-anne grumpily invited Jury into the tent where there were a small table and two big cushions. On one of these sat a huge stuffed Wild Thing animal that Jury had brought back from Long Piddleton. It was understood (at least by Carole-anne) that trips meant presents.
    She moved the stuffed animal and set the cake plate near her crystal ball, used more for checking makeup than calling up her familiar. “How long you going to be gone this time?”
    He smiled. “Can’t you tell?”
    She drew his right hand towards her (having already given the left the cursory glance his birthright deserved) and said, “Well, trips don’t show up in hands, really. Where’re you going?”
    â€œNorthants. Long Piddleton.”
    â€œOh, there .” She dropped his hand, obviously relieved. Northamptonshire, by virtue of being the home of Jury’s faithful old friend Melrose Plant, did not qualify as a trip at all. Since there was obviously nothing (given all the times he’d been there in the past) in Long Piddleton to inflame Jury’s mind, there was consequently nothing to disturb Carole-anne’s.
    Stratford-upon-Avon, now, he’d best keep quiet about. This was uncharted territory in the Carole-anne galaxy.
    Jenny Kennington lived in