Once in a fair i made an acquaintance. Long, black haired women, with eyes wider than the moon. She glanced at my face and politely asked for my hand. I refused. She laughed as she admitted, she would’ve been disappointed if i granted it to her. How curious?, i believed. Yet i wondered. Why. Why me?
I prowled as i filled my wits with courage, missing the sounds of the surroundings. I approached to an empty bar with a burgundy tablecloth, down a Ferris wheel. The lights suddenly dimmed, and the women appeared with her hands on her chest, as her breath became the wind’s beats. With a peer she invited me to sit right in front of the bar. She took out a curious deck of cards. So queer i believed, they were pretty normal to me, “I thought gypsies used different ones”. She notice my uncertainty; Once again she laughed. She put the cards face-down in a rainbow form arraignment. And before i could asked what was i supposed to do, she said, “You’ve been missing the details, Anastasia”. What’s she referring to? was the first thing that pop-out in my head, then in a blink of an eye, I realized she knew my name. I did not said anything. Somehow I was more concerned with the other interrogate. “You’ve missed indeed what the noises have been trying to tell you, because you’ve been more curious on why i asked for your hand”. At that moment I knew, she was never meant to read my hand, although something else had to happen. Our meeting. She told me I had to choose one card and i could not turn it up. Just one. And so i did. She took the card and wrote my name with a crimson lipstick she took out of her bag. “I’ll keep that one for myself as the fee”. Then she asked me to respond a question: How many? “Excuse me? How many what?” I responded. “How many?”. I started seeing all the cards moving toward my eyes, and i wondered why I had such a hard time to pick one, instead of thinking about the interrogate. I pulled one card out of the deck, then she asked me to put it in front of my eyes, where I was the only one capable of seeing, then she told me to remember what my eyes have seen, because it was going to be the last time. Then she lit a cloth from her robes and burned the card in a consuming and gentle fire. I freaked out. Grabbed my purse and left. “One is not enough”, I heard from a voice down the Ferris wheel. I leaned back as my face turned and my body was still. There was the bar, lacking the gypsy.
7 of hearts. That was my card. The one she burned. The one I had to remember, because it represented the answer to “How many?”.
This is a passage i told my grandmother. And she responded to me that if i was looking for answers, i should know something about those missing gypsies. They were called the Three Lies Gypsies.
Their secret was within their name. They lied about three things. Love. Divination. Coincidence.
I looked up and i still could not connect all the new information i had.
It has been almost 4 months since my encounter with the one who hold a card with my name, written in crimson lipstick.
That night i dreamed about the day I met her. As i remember the first few details. “I’ve been missing the sounds of the surroundings” “One is not enough”. I realized that my ticket number for the fair was 032007. I was the seventh person to win the hot prize at the Gun’n’Shot game. The place was playing the song by Jon English, Hollywood Seven. That day was July 7.
The next morning, the sun was warmer and the sea was louder, as i opened my eyes, i remembered that all my life i have always said that “LiFe is too short, to just dedicated to one thing”. How many? was the question. How many lives are enough for me to live?
I got up and looked myself on the mirror, a mirror i have never seen nor the reflection in it. I woke up and i was not myself.
Prologue from Seven Hearts Chance
