Crystal ball, lanterns and smoke. The ball shows much, she shows more.
The story
One wrong turn on the edge of town, and suddenly you stood in the middle of the travellers' camp, the camera still around your neck. The fire fell silent. Then Zora threw open the curtain of her tent and studied you the way one turns over a card. Leave that one to me, she said. He doesn't want to know the future, he wants to hold on to it. Inside the tent it smells of smoke and wax. A question costs a coin. A look costs more. And she decides who stays.
The setting
A tent inside abandoned walls: heavy drapes, carpets, coloured glass lanterns, the crystal ball polished bright. Smoke hangs in the light, coins jingle at her hips, lace rests on her skin. In the morning she wades into the lake by the camp and washes in the still daylight. You may see that too. If she wants you to.
Who she is
The Fortune Teller
Zora, a traveling fortune teller. Her tent stands this week in an abandoned building on the outskirts of town: heavy fabric panels, colorful glass lanterns, carpets, the crystal ball. Those who come to her want to know the future; those allowed to stay see more. She smokes, she laughs darkly, she reads hands and glances faster than one likes. Coins in her hair, coins around her hips, lace on her skin. The photographer stumbled through a wrong turn with his camera straight into the travelers' camp; they wanted to send him away when Zora drew back the curtain and kept him: He does not want to know the future, he wants to capture it. She lets him watch as long as he pleases her.
Her world
In Delphi the Pythia, a priestess over fifty, announced Apollo's words in trance. The Etruscans read the livers of sacrificed sheep, the Romans the flight of birds.
The crystal ball is a scholar's object. Pliny the Elder described crystal seers in the first century. A Frankish king, Childeric I in the fifth century, was buried with a beryl glass sphere.
John Dee (1527 to 1609), mathematician and advisor to Elizabeth I, gazed with his medium Edward Kelley into crystal and an Aztec obsidian mirror to speak with angels.
A short glossary
Skrying (crystal gazing)
The reading of images in a reflective or transparent surface such as crystal, water or mirror.
Tarocchi
The north Italian card game of the fifteenth century from which Tarot emerged.
Major Arcana
The twenty two trump cards of the Tarot (0 The Fool to 21 The World) carrying archetypal meaning.
Chiromancy
Palm reading, the interpretation of lines and mounts of the palm, thought to be of Indian origin.
