The Teller of Small Fortunes

by Julie Leong

“People think they want true fortunes, but they don’t really. What they want are lies. Small lies, big lies, entertaining lies, comforting lies. “They want to sigh over handsome strangers that they’ll never meet. They want to imagine themselves long-lost royalty. They want to hear a harmless fantasy from a charlatan and then go home and carry on feeding the goats the next day. “What they don’t want is a stranger—an outsider—to see the full truth of them. The first small fortune that proves true? It’s just an amusement; maybe it’s even useful in some way. “But they tell their friends, and they come back to my tent, and ask for another fortune. And that one comes true, too, and now they’re quite impressed, but also a little wary, for they start to think, ‘What else has she seen in the lines of my palm? What does this strange Shinn woman know of my secrets? Which of my unworthiest thoughts or innermost fears has she read, and how might she expose them or hold them over me? What right has someone like her to know and to judge me?’ “And the suspicion turns to fear, and the fear, as it always does, turns to anger.”