The Key of Astrea

The Wedding

Jenny had five minutes to get ready to meet her fortune-telling client, Rebecca. No fencing practice, Jenny thought, no fun, just work, work, work. I guess that's my life, so I better get used to it. No time for this now, either. Jenny moved the silver VRGo puzzle to the floor. Its shiny surface was impossibly smooth, almost slippery, and warm, and when she touched it, twelve strange blue symbols lit up around the needle-equipped depression. Using her foot, she pushed the puzzle all the way under the desk.

"Computer," Jenny said out loud. "Play music." Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" played from a pair of speakers on her desk. The buzzing in her head persisted. She opened a drawer and took out her prescription bottles. She twisted each cap off, shook out the proper dosage, and chased the pills with a swig of water. This buzzing in her head was familiar. It reminded her of a night six years ago. Jenny looked at Sally. It was the same night you came to me.

Jenny walked to her bookshelf, where books of paranormal fiction, H. P. Lovecraft, Dante's Inferno, Edgar Allan Poe, and Tolkien lined the shelves. The Rubik's Cube she solved when she was nine years old sat next to an assortment of iron puzzles. She'd been obsessed with puzzles for most of her life. On top of her bookshelf was her most prized possession—a handmade, mechanical diorama of the Mad Hatter's tea party.

Jenny turned the toy over and wound it with a metal key. She flicked a tiny switch and set it down on her shelf. Teapot lids bobbed up and down to the tune of "The Unbirthday Song" while Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the March Hare hopped from one eccentric chair to another. It was the same night I received this diorama, and the last time I went by the name "Djangini."

* * *

Eleven-year-old Djangini Tripper played spaceplane out the window of her mom's hatchback by moving her hand up and down in the wind. "It's so beautiful out here!" she shouted at her mom over the road noise. "Where are we going?"

"All I know is that it's a wedding." Ruby Tripper was a pleasantly plump woman with a perpetual smile in her eyes. Her long black hair had a hint of red in the sun that Djangini always found so beautiful. It framed her round face and prominent rosy cheeks. "We're supposed to follow the caravan."

The caravan had led them north, out of the Gypsy Fair in Invercargill. Djangini smoothed her new skirt, with fractal patterns in blue, yellow, and green, across her legs. She played the fiddler's music in her mind and pictured the men wearing silk shirts twirling women in skirts of every color. Djangini couldn't wait to twirl her new dress.

The sun dropped behind the snow capped mountains that zigzagged across the horizon. The caravan skirted Te Anau, taking a road that ran south and bordered Lake Te Anau. The lake's glassy surface glittered from countless stars and the sliver of a moon.

The hatchback skidded on the dirt road. Headlights and taillights jumped and swayed, leaving tracers in Djangini's vision. The road became little more than a rutted trail, and Ruby's knuckles turned white from gripping the wheel. Their front tire hit a deep pothole, making Djangini's teeth chomp.

The caravan turned off the bumpy road and onto a grassy meadow bordered by evergreens. People bustled around an enormous tent held aloft by tension rods and thick poles. Ruby gave Djangini's hand a squeeze. The vibration of the road still echoed through Djangini's nerves, and she let out a bubbling laugh.

They were finally here, wherever here was. Djangini flung the car door open and jumped out. She rubbed her arms for warmth against the chilly April night and looked around. A waxing moon backlit the treetops, and stars appeared like tiny holes in a black satin sheet.

Whimsical designs and bright colors adorned the house trucks. The gypsies had built houses atop trucks of all shapes and sizes. Some were merely pickups, while others were converted school buses and lorries.