Author's Note: I've discovered that I adore writing Esmeralda and Clopin. Especially Clopin, but that's no surprise. I've also decided he's a bit ADD-big surprise there.

Musicial Selection: "Cursum Perficio" by Enya. A heavy, ominous tune that builds to a chilling climax. I loved this song as a young child, even though it sounds a bit scary. Scroll to the bottom for Latin lyrics and translation.

Margaret wondered whether it was night or day in the world outside. In the dark caravan, the bright colors were now a single shade of gold that flickered in the light of a lone candle. The gypsies had boarded up the windows, but the voices outside the caravan echoed, as though they were still indoors. She almost wished one of those gypsies would come and speak to her, even if only to repeat the same threats-that they would send her back to Frollo in pieces if she made a sound, that if she ever told anything of what she saw they would make sure that her next sleep was the longest she ever had. The big, bearded men were the worst, with their smell of garlic and strong spices. The young sprightly one who stole her horse wasn't as terrible. He talked like the others did, but he grinned and pranced as if it were all a performance. Not that she didn't believe he wouldn't carry out his threats. He would just be less offensive about it.

Her one consolation was that no longer had to worry about Collette. To think, all along the men who had chased them were working for Frollo, and were no doubt trying to protect them, perhaps escort them to Paris. And like a fool she had run from them, straight into the clutches of heathen highwaymen. She had been so close to safety; if only she hadn't let Collette talk her into running.

Now she was a damsel in distress, like Lady Lionors in King Arthur. The reality was proving less pleasant than the fantasy. It was the difference between wandering outside in a rainstorm and lying snug in a warm bedroom beneath soft covers, listening to the patter of raindrops on the glass pane. At the same time, if she survived, she might enjoy reliving the memories from the safety of home-with her parents or, perhaps, in the Palace of Justice with her new husband.

"Oh yes," she would say to a wondering, sympathetic Frollo, "it was simply dreadful. I never knew I could withstand such conditions. But one rises to the occasion, doesn't one?"

A metallic, rattling sound interrupted her reverie. The door of the caravan opened a crack, and the head of a tiny goat popped into the room. It was followed by the girl they called Esmeralda, the one who had accused Frollo of sending the horsemen after them. She grinned and looked over her shoulder as she slipped inside.

"Can I hide here, too?" Esmeralda asked.

"If you want to, I don't suppose there's anything I can do about it," Margaret said.

Esmeralda retied the pink scarf that held back her mane of curls. Margaret had to admit, she had never seen a child so beautiful, despite her dark gypsy looks. Margaret found most children perfect, but this girl surpassed perfection with a fascinating strangeness. Her mouth shifted in constant smiles, as if she harbored some delicious secret, and her green eyes were as vivid as cloth died in verdigris. "Djali wanted to meet you," she said.

"How convenient," came a familiar voice from the doorway. Clopin waved his purple hat until the bright yellow plume seemed ready to fly out of the brim. "I don't suppose your little pet would have anything to say about this, would he?" He presented the hat. Its brim was missing a large, jagged chunk.

Esmeralda giggled and bundled the goat up in her arms. "I'm sorry, Clopin, but it's your fault for leaving it lying around."

"It most certainly was not lying around! It was just where it should be, on top of my head. I lay down for a few moments of shuteye, and the next thing I know, that bottomless pit has attacked my headwear."

"Well, you'll just have to be more careful then." Esmeralda turned her back to Clopin and addressed Margaret. "You look kind of sad. I bet it's pretty boring sitting here all by yourself. Want me to tell your fortune? I've been practicing."

Clopin huffed in an unconvincing display of pique. "I should say so. There's not a gypsy in the whole Court who hasn't had his fortune told five times over, and a different story every time."

"You're the one who said I needed to practice!"

Margaret tried to interject. "You can practice on me, if you like. Ah, but, I don't really believe in superstitions. They're a bit heathen."

At the word "heathen," Esmeralda's green eyes narrowed, but she said nothing as she took a pack of cards from the pouch at her waist. She handed them to Margaret. "OK, think about a question that's important to you, then shuffle the deck."

"Pardon?"

"Shuffle it. You know. Mix it up."

Margaret felt herself blush. She placed the deck on the table, then spread the individual cards all over its surface. One of the cards hung poised on the edge. Djali the goat crept up, glanced at the humans, and took the card furtively in his teeth, then crept away to enjoy his snack in privacy.

Esmeralda laughed at Margaret. "What are you doing?"

"I was just trying to mix them up."

Clopin joined the merriment, his head thrown so far back that his long nose pointed straight at the ceiling.

"Not like that!" Esmeralda gathered up the cards, put her hands on Margaret's, and demonstrated a proper shuffle. "There. Don't forget to focus on your question. What do you want to know?"

"Can't you just tell my future?" Margaret didn't like the prospect of mentioning Frollo, let alone the charges against her family.

"It needs to be more specific. I can't tell your whole life. I'm not that good yet."

Clopin chuckled and plopped down on one of the beds. He sat with his long legs drawn up and his arms draped over his knees

Margaret stammered under the pressure of the gypsies' mocking smiles. "I suppose. . . . Can you tell me if I'll ever . . . ever . . . be wed?"

Esmeralda smirked and tossed her black curls. "Of course. That's a popular question. Now, cut the deck into six parts and put them on the table." Margaret looked around for a knife to do the cutting, until Esmeralda took her hands again and helped her divide the deck. Esmeralda took the top card from the first pile and placed it face up on the table. "Ooh, the Six of Scepters. That's a good one. It means hope. I bet you hope you'll get out of here, don't you?"

Clopin squinted at the cards in the candlelight, then jumped to his feet. "Ah! But look, cherie. The card is reversed." Esmeralda gasped at her mistake and hesitated.

"What does that mean?" Margaret asked, reluctantly.

Clopin elegantly waved his gloved hand over the table. "The card reversed means the opposite of that which it symbolizes. The Six of Scepters reversed means hope thwarted or unjustified. To be precise, it means treachery."

Margaret looked away. "That's not my future. That's in my past. Or so they say."

Esmeralda hummed to herself. "I'm pretty sure these cards are only your future. But if you know what's coming, I guess you can be more careful, right?"

Clopin grinned. "At least no one here is going to betray you-you know exactly how we feel about you."

Esmeralda jabbed him with her elbow. "Let's move on, shall we? Ooh, the Lovers!"

Margaret felt a prickling of the blood in her cheeks.

Clopin chuckled. "But this does not always mean l'amour, oui, ma cherie?"

"Right," Esmeralda said. "Sometimes the cards say just what they seem to, and sometimes you have to look deeper. For you, I think the Lovers just means a choice. Or finding someone who makes you complete."

Margaret hoped they wouldn't bring up her fiance, about whom no one here seemed capable of saying anything pleasant. "I'm not sure I know anyone who's very much like me."

"Not yet you don't." Esmeralda smiled impishly, one eyebrow raised, and turned over the next card. "I think this is him!"

"The Page of Cups," Clopin announced.

"He's my favorite. He's a young person with a big imagination, who likes to make things. He might be a little moody, too. He's usually an artist-I'm sure this one's an artist."

Margaret tried to imagine Frollo as an artist. He could perhaps write gloomy and austere religious poems. Esmeralda turned over the next card, and all three stopped smiling. The image was of a man hanging on a cross by his feet, upside-down.

"I don't want to do this anymore," Margaret said. "I told you I don't believe in these heathen superstitions."

For the first time, Clopin's smile seemed less manic, more gentle. "No need to fear. The Hanged Man can mean many things. Tell us what he means today, Esmeralda."

Esmeralda's wild green eyes met Margaret's own mild, dark gaze. "I think it means sacrifice. And looking at things a different way. Because the Hanged Man is upside-down, see? It's not a very comfortable place to be, but sometimes you have to give up a way of looking at things, to grow and change." Margaret looked away. She was already a woman. She didn't need a child telling her to grow up.

The next card drew an even worse reaction. "What's that supposed to be?" Margaret exclaimed. "It looks like a devil!"

Esmeralda rubbed the back of her neck. "Well, it is, but. . . ."

"Put those horrible things away at once!" Margaret shrank from the table as if the Devil himself might leap out from the card and devour her.

"But it isn't the real Devil." Esmeralda's sing-song, fortune-telling tone changed to defensive frustration. "It's just a symbol."

"Of what? The horrors that await anyone who dabbles in this wretched sorcery, I suppose."

"It's just a warning," Esmeralda said. "It means getting trapped by something you want. If you know about it, you might be able to escape it. But not if you're stupid and pigheaded."

"I shall escape it this moment if you put those awful cards away."

"But we're almost at the end. Just one more. You'll see, it'll get better, I promise. Don't you want to see the last one?"

Margaret grasped her hair and stroked it like a child with a blanket. "Oh, if you want to look, I suppose you can do as you like."

The final card revealed the image of a skeleton astride a gaunt horse. The white bone hands wielded a scythe that shone silver against a white full moon. The image dominated the room, swallowing every attempt at explanation or comment. Even the little goat crept further into the shadows.

Clopin rocked nonchalantly on his feet. "Well, I must say, she's got an awful lot of the Major Arcana.* Are you sure you shuffled the deck properly?"

A knock at the door startled the two girls, but Clopin remained blase, as if he had known all along that the sound was coming. He opened the door for a bent, wiry man with patchy hair that stood out in every direction.

"His Majesty's called the council," he said. "Frollo's going to bargain for the girl."

Esmeralda stroked Margaret's hand. "See? Everything's going to be fine. I'm sure there's nothing in the cards. It wasn't a very good shuffle, like Clopin said."

Clopin flourished his hat and bowed. "Don't take the cards too much to heart, Mademoiselle. Remember, our petite Esmeralda still has a lot of practicing to do."

"Hey!"

Ragenard had been King of the Gypsies since before Clopin was born. He didn't look the part, at least to Clopin, who thought a gypsy king was entitled to present himself with a bit more dramatic flair. Instead, Ragenard was stolid as a guild master, with his heavy-lidded eyes and wide jowls beginning to fall slack with age. When he called the council meetings, he sat in a rickety chair that looked like a mockery of a throne. He seemed unaware of the ironic effect, seated as he was on the scaffold the gypsies used to execute spies.

Clopin loved the explosion of colors that the gypsy crew formed whenever they gathered for the council. Orange flashed against blue, and yellow against purple, his favorite combination. He fell to studying the contrasts so intensely, he almost missed the substance of the debate.

"Frollo has agreed to meet us at the cathedral," Ragenard said, "so we have nothing to fear of any double-dealing. Whatever tricks he may try, not even he would dare attack us on the steps of Notre Dame herself."

Clopin shook himself from his artistic reverie. "You're not seriously thinking of meeting with him?" he shouted. He hadn't meant to confront the King, but the shock lifted his high, clear voice over the murmur of the crowd.

Ragenard surveyed his audience in search of the speaker. "Ah, it's you, Clopin. Ah, yes." He shifted in his throne like a boy caught in ignorance by his schoolmaster. "Well, I believe it's all we can do. After all, we took the girl for the purpose-"

"Pardonnez-moi, Your Majesty," Clopin interrupted, "but we took the girl first and foremost in self-defense. If Frollo never sees his little mademoiselle again, I'll be satisfied. Besides, he wouldn't uphold any bargains with us. The man's a judge, a lawyer. Whatever deal he strikes with us, he'll find some loophole."

Esmeralda looked up at Clopin's face, searching for a sign of tenderness behind the frown that he always wore during council meetings. She didn't care much for Margaret and her talk of witchcraft, but she hated the executions, as much as Clopin seemed to relish them. It was the only point of contention between them. She wasn't sure what he was contemplating, but she knew which way the scales tipped.

"I understand your concerns," Ragenard said, "and believe me, it is a possibility I have considered with great care." Even as he spoke, he seemed to fall into contemplation. His brow sunk over his small eyes, until they seemed to disappear. "But on the whole, I think it is a chance we must take. Our lot as a people could turn on this one chance."

Clopin crossed his arms and sulked. "Mark my words, ma cherie," he muttered to Esmeralda, "It will come to a bad end."

*The Major Arcana are like the suits of the Tarot deck. They're rarer than the other groups and reflect the deeper forces behind everyday affairs.

*"Cursum Perficio"

Verbum sapienti:

quo plus habent,

eo plus cupiunt.

Post nubila, Phoebus

Iternum

Translation

I finish the course.

A word to the wise:

the more people have,

the more they want.

After the clouds, Phoebus.

My journey ends here.