The Fortune Teller Page 11

  Mathai led the animals through the villa’s archway into a courtyard. Countless sculptures littered the yard, and towering columns circled the fountain like a temple. Mathai had never seen a more extravagant, or cluttered, garden.

  A house servant came out to greet them. Mathai tried to communicate with the man, but had no luck. The servant signaled for them to wait and disappeared inside.

  Not a good start. Mathai rubbed his hands together, trying to figure out how to gain entry to the home. The family who lived here surely had a house physician. Mathai only dealt with injuries to the skin. Bringing a baby into the world required select skills he did not possess. The physicians of wealthy families delivered all their patrons’ children. This house would be Elisa’s best chance.

  Soon a large man who looked to be in his fifties emerged. He was yelling in Pahlavi with the booming countenance of a much younger man. Mathai couldn’t understand his words but thought he must be asking, “Why are you at my house?”

  “Sir,” Mathai interrupted as politely as possible. “Do you speak Syriac?”

  “Of course I speak Syriac!” The man switched to Syriac immediately. “I speak Greek too. Do not come to my doorstep to insult me!”

  “Forgive me…,” he said. Elisa let out a shrill moan from the litter. Mathai hurried on. “I’ve been told you have a physician.”

  “If I let every stray and straggler into my home, then the whole city would be at my door. Be gone!” The old man turned to head inside.

  “Please,” Mathai called to him. “I have many treasures I will give you in return. My family’s medical journals.” The journals were among his most prized possessions and he needed them for his work, but now was not the time to worry over such things.

  The old man turned around. “Show me.”

  Mathai rushed to the donkey and opened the bundle. “They are the finest copies—Galen, Hippocrates, Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica, which is a collection—”

  “I know what De Materia Medica is, boy! Every doctor is toting the same.”

  In desperation, Mathai riffled through another bundle and pulled out a thick codex. “No one has this.” He held out the manuscript. “From my wife’s family. Very old.”

  The man opened the binding to examine the first parchment leaf and squinted. “Greek?”

  Mathai nodded. He could not read Greek and knew very little about the manuscript. Elisa’s grandmother would often read parts to her and translate the words into Syriac. “It was taken from the Great Library of Alexandria before the fire.” Mathai wasn’t sure if that was exactly true, but whoever had written the work had seen the fire. That much he knew.

  He almost offered the unusual divinity symbols that went with the manuscript, but the old man would not be interested in such a collection. Plus his wife seemed quite attached to them.

  Mathai looked toward Elisa with relief. Her eyes were closed and she seemed oblivious to the exchange. He didn’t think she would be angry if giving away the codex would save her life and the child’s. The manuscript looked to be in perfect condition and would be a prize in any man’s library.

  “Done,” the old man agreed, and suddenly a cluster of servants appeared in the courtyard to assist the newcomers. Mathai and Elisa were now guests.

  * * *

  The servants showed Mathai to their quarters and carried Elisa to the bed. The house physician appeared within moments and quickly began his examination. Mathai was relieved the man spoke Syriac. He had been told many physicians in Gundeshapur did.

  “The baby will come soon. The birth will be difficult,” the man said.

  Mathai met his gaze and saw the worry, the hesitation in his eyes. The words he had left unspoken struck fear in Mathai’s heart. The doctor wasn’t certain if Elisa or the child would survive.

  “Until the time comes, she must rest,” he ordered, and then assigned two female servants to attend to her.

  Mathai found their things had already been unloaded from the donkey and brought to their rooms. He unfolded a fresh robe for Elisa, which he gave to the servants. Then he located a clean tunic and pants for himself.

  The house had the luxury of a private bath, and Mathai took great pleasure in washing away their journey. While soaking in the water he closed his eyes and prayed again for Elisa’s safety. He could not find a place to put the fear inside of him.

  After his bath, he passed the dining room where the old man sat alone at a long table covered with platters of food. The savory scent of lamb made Mathai light-headed and he realized how long he had gone without a meal.

  “Come!” his host ordered with his mouth full. “You must be hungry after such a journey.”

  Mathai hesitated. “My wife…”

  “… needs her rest. I insist. Share my wine.”

  The feast looked more suited for a wedding banquet than an everyday meal, with so many dishes to choose from: eggplant with onion and mint, sun-dried yogurt, stuffed grape leaves, barberry rice, and a savory stew topped with grated walnuts. Mathai couldn’t believe such a meal had been prepared for one person, but he had yet to see another member of the household.

  “Will your family be joining us?” Mathai asked.

  The old man kept eating, ignoring the question. Instead he wanted to know about Antioch; he said he had visited years ago. Mathai learned the old man’s name was Admentos and that he had been one of the first Greek scholars to make his way to Gundeshapur.

  Mathai listened and did his best to answer Admentos’ questions. During the lulls in their conversation he could hear Elisa screaming. The labor had begun, but Admentos would not let him leave.

  After dinner he insisted on showing off his personal library. Mathai found the library as crowded as the courtyard. So many manuscripts and scrolls burdened the shelves that some hung precariously off ledges and others had fallen to the floor. Piles of codices were stacked in the corners of the room, too many to count. The man was a hoarder. Mathai wondered if he had even read half his works.

  When Mathai saw Elisa’s manuscript shoved between five others on one of the reading tables, he was astonished. What had been a prized possession for them was merely another token in Admentos’ library.

  For Mathai, standing there in that room, his life suddenly felt like it belonged to a stranger. Just as the manuscript had ended up in a place it did not belong, so had he.

  He should be at the academy right now, meeting with the director and discussing his future. Someone should be unloading their things and placing them in one of the small quarters reserved for the staff. Elisa should be resting in their new bed and preparing for the birth. Instead Mathai had to suffer the company of a greedy old man who cared little that his wife was fighting for her life.

  Elisa’s screams grew louder. When she called out his name, Mathai backed toward the door. “Excuse me,” he interrupted. He no longer cared if he offended the man. Elisa needed him.

  * * *

  The next hours were the bleakest of his life. He had heard gruesome tales of childbirth, that it demanded every bit of a woman’s spirit. He watched Elisa fight and knew his mother had been wrong about her. Elisa’s body might be frail, but she would not give up until the baby was born.

  He knelt beside her and held her hand.

  Elisa tried to speak to him. “Promise me, Mathai…” she said, but she could not continue. She screamed and her body contorted with pain.

  His eyes grew wet and he choked back a sob. “Elisa?” She couldn’t hear him.

  When her pain subsided again, he tried to bring her back.

  For a moment, clarity returned to her eyes. “Give our child my mother’s symbols.” She gripped his hand hard.

  Mathai thought back to the trade he had made with Admentos and thanked the heavens he had not also offered the divinity symbols. “I will. I promise.”

  “And the story. Tell her the story.”

  Mathai did not know the story, but he couldn’t break his wife’s heart by confessing what he ha
d done. Before he could answer, Elisa screamed again and did not stop until the baby’s cries joined hers. Then she fell back on the pillows and closed her eyes.

  It was evening now and soft moonlight fell on Elisa, calling to her from the window. She looked over to the light. She saw that in time, Mathai would settle in Gundeshapur and rise in prominence to a degree that would have made even her father proud, just as she had promised him. Mathai would remarry and have several more children; though his first daughter would always remain his favorite. His new wife wanted to resent her but couldn’t, and she ended up loving the child as her own.

  Mathai kept his promise to Elisa. He gave their daughter the divinity symbols when she was old enough to understand. He explained that they were a family heirloom from her birth mother and had come from the Great Library of Alexandria. Mathai only asked that she not look at them in front of him; he did not want to be reminded of his beloved first wife.

  On occasion the girl would take them out in private before she went to sleep. She would study the mysterious images and imagine what her mother had been like. The girl would stare at the moon, not knowing that its light connected them beyond the years.

  * * *

  Elisa was my last descendent to know my story, now lost in a stranger’s library in Gundeshapur. That you are seeing my words is testament to the seams of time.

  You must look up now, Semele, and stop reading. Someone is watching you.

  Strength

  Semele almost fell out of her chair.

  Several people nearby shot her annoyed looks. She was sitting in the Rose Room in the New York Public Library and had been completely absorbed by Ionna’s story when she stumbled upon her name again.

  Her gaze shot up and landed on a man three rows ahead. Their eyes met and he quickly glanced back at his book. Semele scanned the other seats around her, searching for anyone who seemed conspicuous.

  This was the second time Ionna had called her out by name. It just wasn’t possible that she was communicating with her. Ionna had to have known some other person named Semele. Maybe Semele was even the name of her daughter.

  The name is Greek, Semele grimly reminded herself, trying to calm down.

  But then how was it possible that Ionna knew about Gundeshapur, a city founded several hundred years after her time? Unless this manuscript was a fake and had been written years later. She needed to talk to Cabe and find out what the DNA test revealed about the manuscript’s date of origin.

  If, in fact, this manuscript was written during the time Ionna lived, or said she lived, Semele had a real problem: a woman living in the time of Cleopatra had foreseen the rise of the Sassanid Empire, and this alone would make the manuscript priceless.

  Semele glanced around the room again and saw the man who had just caught her eye. Why did he look so familiar?

  Her computer beeped—her battery was running low. She took it as a sign. She had been sitting there all day translating Ionna’s manuscript, and seeing her name again had completely unnerved her. She needed to get out of there.

  She bent down to put her things away in the bag by her feet, when it came to her.

  The man had been on her plane. He was the man who’d been staring at her from the next row on her flight from Switzerland.

  A surge of adrenaline hit her, but she tried to remain calm as she gathered her things.

  She looked at the man again discreetly, trying to remember every detail about him: forties, knit sweater and thin metal glasses, short hair, clean-shaven. Possibly German or Swiss, if she had to guess. There was nothing sinister about him. He had a preoccupied look, the kind that made people forgettable. If she hadn’t caught him staring at her, she never would have noticed him.

  Without turning around again, she grabbed her things and hurried to the exit. But right as she was leaving, she couldn’t resist the urge to look one more time.

  The man’s seat was empty.

  Eight of Swords

  Semele hit the street running, besieged by questions.

  Had he been following her since Switzerland? Did he know where she lived? And how the hell had Ionna known?

  Semele felt more than a little crazy, but Ionna had warned her. There was no way she could deny it.

  Glancing over her shoulder, she scanned the street. She saw no evidence of the man. But still, she was afraid to go home. She fished her phone out and hit the second name at the top of her favorites. Calling Bren was out of the question.

  Cabe answered on the last ring before the call went to voice mail. “Hey, stranger.”

  “Hey. Can I come over now?”

  “Sure. Everything okay?” he asked.

  Semele took a breath and tried to keep the tremor from her voice. “Stressful day.” That was putting it mildly. “I’ll explain later.”

  “I’ve got my award-winning pasta going. Come on over.”

  “Great, see you in a bit.” She hung up.

  Cabe lived about a fifteen-minute walk from her place in Brooklyn. She would go to his apartment and then figure out what to do. They’d been planning to catch up since she’d gotten back, and they would have already set a dinner date if she hadn’t been so preoccupied with Ionna’s manuscript.

  * * *

  Semele rang the bell to Cabe’s building, out of breath from her demented-looking power walk down the street. She glanced up and down the block again, clutching the bottle of cabernet she had bought at the liquor store around the corner like a weapon. Cabe buzzed her in and she ducked inside, relieved to be behind a locked door. She made her way to his apartment at the end of the hall, where the smell of garlic greeted her.

  Cabe swung his door open and she held out the bottle of wine. “For the chef.”

  “Graci! Buongiorno, buongiorno…,” he said in a flurry and disappeared into the kitchen. “Step into my house,” he called out with a bad Italian accent.

  Semele took off her shoes in the tiny entryway and squeezed past Cabe’s ten-speed. The chain on the bike scratched her leg as she brushed past. She looked at the run in her stockings and grimaced.

  “I hate your bike.” She padded the five steps into the closet-sized kitchen. “Smells amazing.”

  Cabe poured her a glass from the bottle he had already opened. “Cheers.” They clinked glasses and he continued stirring the bubbling Bolognese.

  “Ooh, this one’s nice,” she said, tasting it again. “Oliver?” His brother, Oliver, was a sommelier in the Hamptons and always sent Cabe a case of his current favorite for his birthday. Semele took another sip and nibbled on a piece of aged Gouda he had put out on a board.

  Slowly, the trauma of the past hour began to loosen its grip. For now she was safe. She could worry about the man later—right now, she wanted to pretend her life was normal. She was hungry and the wine and cheese tasted delicious. She took another sip, moving the velvety red across her tongue. Cabe had made one of her favorite salads, an arugula, candied-walnut confection with feta and aged balsamic.

  “Were you already cooking all this before I called?” She asked. He had quite the gourmet spread going.

  Cabe shot her a pointed look. “Raina may stop by.”

  Semele’s jaw dropped in horror. Raina was coming here? “Tonight? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “What, you can’t eat together?”

  “I’d prefer not to!”

  Cabe stopped cooking. “You know, I’ve been trying to be cool about this little aversion you’ve got toward her, but really, what has she done to deserve your judgment? You barely know her. It’s so unlike you.”

  Semele hesitated. In all honesty, she couldn’t answer that. She knew her reaction to Raina wasn’t rational. She struggled to come up with an answer. “Have you seen her handwriting?”

  The first time she got an expense report with Raina’s comments, Semele had been absolutely perplexed. Raina’s handwriting was flat-out ugly and bore all the marks of an introvert with serious emotional baggage. Her letters were unbalanced and sprouting
all over the place, like a yard with too many weeds.

  “So what, Miss Quantico, it’s a little messy. Ever analyze your own handwriting?”

  He had said it half-jokingly, but it still stung. Of course she had analyzed her own handwriting. Every day she saw what her pen revealed naked on the page. The large inner loops on the right-hand side of her circle letters all but announced the secrets she was hiding; the figure eights lacing her writing showed an abnormally strong fluidity of thought; and her backward crossed T-bars highlighted the critical nature she had toward herself. Only an expert graphologist would be able to tell.

  She tried to dial her emotions down. Cabe did too and softened his tone. “Just give her a chance. Please, for me. She really is different when you get to know her.”

  Semele doubted that but held her tongue. She’d had Raina pegged by the end of her first week at Kairos—fake. Over a year later, her opinion hadn’t changed. Raina would tear Cabe to shreds. That he couldn’t see it was mind-boggling.

  “What about you and Bren the Pen?” Cabe asked, changing tack. “He called me, you know.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Cabe’s eyebrows shot up. He was close with Bren too, so Semele didn’t feel she could be totally honest, but she tried. “Let’s just say, I’m starting to have doubts. It’s complicated,” she said.

  Bren had left her several messages and she had yet to return them. She was being absolutely horrible, the kind of horrible that could not be forgiven. Deep down she knew that was the point. Cabe was right. She was sabotaging herself.

  She tried to change the subject. “How’s Oliver?” she asked, pouring herself more wine and studying the label. It was a 2011 Barbaresco from a boutique winery, incredibly smooth. She really should e-mail him a hello. She’d become friendly with Oliver after she had tagged along with Cabe to the Hamptons once.

  “He’s fine. And don’t change the subject.” Cabe pointed his finger at her. “Bren is the best damn thing that’s ever happened to you.” The pasta bowls clanked together as he set them down on the table.