Fate Undone: A Novella

Chapter VII - Part I

VII.

"Use it—throw it upon the ground and you may relive any one moment in time. To buy such a power, however, is to also buy the curse that comes with it. Are you even listening, girl?"

The woman before Anna was ancient. One eyelid was nearly closed shut, the other revealed a clouded eye that wasn't even set straight. Wispy strands of white hair poked out from under her heavy hood, though the dark liver spots of her scalp had crept out on her temple enough to be seen regardless. The crow's feet at the edges of her eyes were deeper than even Mother Dimitra's, and the lines running down from the corners of this woman's mouth made her chin look more suitable for a puppet's face than her own. Of her teeth that Anna could see, there were maybe only six, all yellow except for one that was black.

"Girl!" the woman croaked. She tilted her head and furrowed her brow. "This is a business, not a sideshow. Are you listening or not?"

"Yes," said Anna. She realized she was wearing her ivory gown. In her hands was a small cow-hide purse with the weight of five coins inside. "Sorry...I was...just..." Slowly, she scanned the booth between her and the old woman. A thin red and gold drape hung over them both, held up by poles made from crooked tree branches, stripped of their bark and etched with odd glyphs. The table that the woman sat behind was covered in a cloth of various colors all woven together in a garish way. Spread on top were a variety of bizarre items: a painted cat skull with wide, empty eye sockets, a braid of purple and green hair, a hazy jar filled with brown water and a stunted stillborn, various roots knotted with beads and cut into the shapes of men, and—on the end, right where the sun was shining through the drape—a mirror that reflected the light back up.

The woman's withered hand was holding the stone that had been sitting there on a little wire stand. Anna looked at it now. It wasn't as green as it was when the sun hit it, but it still reminded her of her mother's old ring. She had taken it outside to play when she was young, feeling like a princess with it on her hand...

"You were just what, girl?" croaked the woman. "Just off somewhere else in your mind? Hmm?"

"Something like that." Anna forced a weak smile, but the woman was not amused. All around them, people were walking by and talking and laughing. A spotted dog ran past, chased by three children and a hoop. At the other booths and carts, merchants and their customers haggled loudly over fresh carrots, apples, potatoes, linens, and woven baskets while others freely exchanged their coins for whatever prices had been set.

But it was all here. It was Pasithia again.

"This is important, you know," said the old woman, holding up the dark stone in her fingers. She let it dip into the sunlight and it flickered bright green. "This is very powerful. It can alter the course of our own history and many others. But I will not waste my breath on gawkers whittling the day away at the expense of others. This might just be a table of oddities to you, girl, but to me it's my business, so you either buy something or move along."

"What do you mean by 'many others?'" asked Anna. The words just came out—her old words, spoken in a similar conversation that seemed to be ages ago. It was only now that she seemed to remember them. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that the abilities of this relic are not to be taken lightly, girl. You may see things—things that haven't happened to you but could; things that happened to another you but not the you that you know." Her grey eye twitched. "You buy this"—she held up her hand—"and you get plenty of other...happenings, free of charge." She laughed lightly. "Depending on how you use it, that is. But I don't want it to scare you. No, no. In time, reality always rights itself. It's not natural to prod at what-ifs and could-have-beens, so time always snaps back into place to straighten the kinks."

Anna rubbed the side of her small coin purse. Instead of thinking of her mother's lost ring, she was thinking of what-ifs and could-have-beens. She was thinking of the first time she traded her five coins to this same woman, and how she went home to show her father, her brother, and her sister what she had discovered at a bizarre little booth in the market. Go buy something interesting, her father told her. And to Anna, she certainly had. She kept the green-black trinket in her purse, changed her clothes, and tied it around her belt for luck.

But the night that followed was far from lucky. The night that followed was...

"I don't believe in curses," Anna felt herself say.

"No?" The woman inclined her head and smiled, showing all six teeth. "Then what do you have to lose, girl? Hmm?" Her grey eye twitched and she held out the stone. "I'll give you a fair price. Oh, I will. Open that purse of yours and let's see how much you have."

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