Page 5 of Her Highland Prophecy
The gypsy seemed reluctant to speak.
“Tell me,” Diana urged, the fear gripping her belly growing the longer the gypsy refused to speak.
Hesitantly, Esmeralda picked up her chair, sat in front of Diana and motioned wordlessly for her hand. Again, the gypsy traced the lines in her hand with a wide-eyed look of astonishment. After several minutes of silence, Diana no longer knew what to think.
The icy ball of fear in her stomach had eased somewhat when nothing horrible immediately happened, but Diana could not stop the sense of foreboding from slowly swallowing her.
What could possibly be so horrible? When Esmeralda finally spoke, her voice was trembling.
“I have only see a hand like yers once before and it is not a happy tale, lass. Look here.” She pointed to the middle of her palm. “Ye will travel far, but not at all. Many years ye will wander, and yet ye will be trapped.”
The older woman hesitated and looked Diana in the eye.
“I see many people in yer future. Here, ye will find a man unlike any ye have met before and many new friends in yer travels.”
That doesn’t sound too bad.
Traveling and meeting new people was one of her favorite things to do. Somehow, she didn’t think that the fortuneteller would stop at that happy thought.
“I see danger in yer palm. Ye must learn to appreciate yer man. He will be yer greatest support, but only if ye allow yerself to see beyond what blinds ye. If ye do not, ye will both be in grave peril from those ye call friend.”
“Grave peril?” Diana managed to squeak. “What do you mean?”
The gypsy’s eyes now fixed on Diana’s, seemingly looking at her and through her simultaneously, reaching inside her and reading her soul. Diana was conscious of her hands trembling.
When she finally responded, the gypsy’s eyes were serious.
“It means that someone will try to kill ye both, lass.”
Diana stood so quickly that her chair fell over, breathing hard, the same ominous feeling now in the forefront of her mind.
“You’re a liar. I don’t believe a word you’re telling me!” she yelled at the gypsy. The older woman seemed to be coming out of a trance as she stared at Diana.
“This I have seen, child. Ye cannae change the future to suit ye.”
Diana scoffed, although inside, her stomach was in knots.
“What a load of crock. Do you try to sell this sort of things to all the people you tell their fortune to?” Diana’s heart was pounding. It wasn’t true; she was lying to make money. That had to be it. It wasn’t true.
“Watch yer tongue, lass. Ye will not like the results if ye dinnae stop talking,” the old woman warned in a severe voice.
“You can’t do anything. You’re a fraud and I refuse to have anything to do with your lies,” Diana said and turned to leave. She needed to find her sister and return to the hotel as soon as possible.
“Have ye forgotten something, lass?” the gypsy asked from behind her in a frosty tone. Diana turned her head to look at her. “My payment?”
“Payment? For what? Lies? I have no reason to reward you for that.”
Esmeralda stiffened at her tone.
For one timeless moment, neither woman moved. Diana stood an arm’s length away from the entrance of the tent with her head turned to look at the gypsy who was staring at her with an unreadable look.
As Diana looked at her, she seemed to loom large in the confined space. The gypsy muttered a string of incomprehensible words that Diana thought might be Gaelic.
“Thig an àm ri teachd agad gu buil gus leasan a theagasg dhut, agus bidh mi ann airson breithneachadh.”
She could not make out the meaning of the words, and yet it was obvious that to her that it was a sentence — albeit one that she could not understand. A gust of cold wind passed around the tent, seeping through the flaps the moment she stopped speaking. An ominous rush of sound echoed all around them, and somewhere in the distance, a bell tolled.
Diana stood frozen at the chilling sound. What had just happened?
