~ CHAPTER XVII: A QUINTESSENTIAL EXPERIENCE ~

The funnel cake was delicious and just as Will remembered it: straight out of the deep fryer and hot enough to burn his fingertips, blanketed in powdered sugar, and filled with a warm, sugary sweet raspberry jam. It was perfect.

Hannibal's face as Will dug into the funnel cake was perfect, too. Will had grabbed plenty of napkins so that he could eat it properly with his hands, but Hannibal had insisted on asking the bored cashier for a plastic fork and even more napkins. Now they stood off to the side of the food stands, Will pulling the fresh funnel cake apart with his fingers while Hannibal looked at a loss for what to do.

"Come on," Will said as soon as he had swallowed another mouthful. He held out the funnel cake. "One bite won't kill you. You were a kid once, right? You weren't born a middle-aged man in a three-piece suit?"

The corner of Hannibal's mouth twitched as if he were trying not to show his amusement. Will triumphed inwardly; he knew he had won as soon as he saw his lips twitch. He nodded to Hannibal's ridiculous plastic fork and moved the funnel cake closer to him. "Just pretend you're a kid who's dying to eat something unhealthy and have a bite."

When Hannibal continued to look at it without moving a muscle, Will rolled his eyes and added, "Part of the 'quintessential American carnival experience,' remember?"

Hannibal did smile then, a barely there thing, but Will counted it as a victory. Reluctantly, Hannibal moved closer and held the stuffed dog well out of the way of the copious amounts of powdered sugar and sticky red jam. Then he speared a piece of funnel cake on his fork and tasted it. Usually Hannibal was the one who watched people eat, but now it was Will's turn. It felt weird. Almost too intimate, somehow. Will looked away, back at his funnel cake. Hannibal dabbed at his mouth with a napkin.

"So?" Will asked, when Hannibal stayed quiet. "What do you think?"

Hannibal folded up the napkin far too neatly. "It's been a long time since I put that much grease in my mouth."

Will couldn't help it. He laughed. "You don't indulge yourself much, huh?"

"On the contrary. I find the occasional indulgence quite pleasurable."

"'Occasional' does not equal 'much.' And that clearly does not include greasy food."

"We all have our unique forms of indulgence. Yours happens to include funnel cake. Mine..." Hannibal eyed the final pieces of fried dough on Will's plate. "...does not."

Will snorted. "Your loss."

Even though he tried to wheedle Hannibal into taking another bite, Will ended up finishing the funnel cake by himself. He didn't actually mind; he hadn't had funnel cake in ages, and one bite was more than he had expected from Hannibal, anyway. Even just buying it was worth the look on the doctor's face.

After Will finished the funnel cake, wiped his fingers, and threw away the mess, the men resumed their slow, appreciative sweep of the carnival. Time had passed more quickly than Will had initially realized. It was late afternoon now, nearly evening, and though the sky would be light for a couple hours more, it had deepened into a bruised ripe blue color, the bellies of the clouds painted in shadow. The carnival was much fuller than it had been when Will and Hannibal had first arrived. That was both a blessing and a curse: a larger crowd meant that the killer was statistically more likely to be counted among the masses, but paradoxically, it also meant that he would be harder to find.

At this point, Will highly doubted that he and Hannibal would find anything to point them towards their killer. They didn't have enough information about who they were looking for to be able to do anything truly useful. Still, something held Will back from suggesting that they give up and head back to the hotel. This was the most relaxed he had felt in a very long time, and Hannibal seemed to be enjoying himself, not to mention that Hannibal had never been to a carnival before. If they were walking around New Orleans on the FBI's dime, they might as well take their time.

They stopped briefly at the petting zoo next. Will couldn't stop himself from laughing when a particularly tenacious goat tried to eat Hannibal's suit pants as he stood near the fence to pat another goat on the head. The incident was enough for Hannibal to suggest they move on, so they did. They walked closer to each other than before to avoid getting separated by the crowd, which jostled them on all sides. Will was about to suggest that they turn back towards the arts and crafts fair section of the carnival, where it was less crowded, when Hannibal stopped and put his hand on Will's shoulder to get his attention.

"What about that one?" Hannibal said in his ear.

"Which one?"

Keeping one hand on Will's shoulder, Hannibal pointed with his other hand to a dark, almost blood-red tent wedged between a weight-guessing booth and a Skee-Ball game with obnoxious flashing lights. The tent's open doorway was veiled by a thin faux crystal beaded curtain, and the large wooden sign above the door read in huge red letters, AUTHENTIC FORTUNE TELLING! Then, in smaller letters underneath it, Famous French Fortune Teller Madame Chrystelle Ball Tells All! Peek Into Your Future And Discover What Secrets Await You!

Will wrinkled his nose. "You mean the fortune telling tent?"

"Yes."

"Why that one?"

Hannibal shrugged. "It seems interesting. I have never had my fortune told before."

Will scoffed. "Trust me, they have fortune tellers like these all over the South, and they're all hogwash. Especially the ones that show up at carnivals. You'll just be paying money for someone to make up stuff that's as vague as possible so that hopefully some of it will apply to you. It's a huge rip-off."

"If I recall correctly, just this afternoon, you said that being 'ripped off' is a quintessential part of —"

"— the American carnival experience, yes," Will said, more than a little exasperated. Of course Hannibal would use his own words against him now. When Will glanced over at him and saw that he had merely raised an amused eyebrow in response, he knew immediately that he would be fighting a losing battle if he tried to talk Hannibal out of this. Damnit. Maybe he should've called it a day sooner. Will sighed heavily through his nose and waved a hand in the tent's direction. "Look, if you really want to, we can, but just remember when we get ripped off that I warned you."

"Forewarned is forearmed, as they say," Hannibal said, amusement lacing his tone, before finally letting his hand drop from Will's shoulder.

Reluctantly, at least on Will's part, they approached the fortune telling tent. It only had one person outside of it, a white woman sitting on a painted wooden crate and wearing some kind of dark-colored shawl around her that had to be stifling in the humidity. As they approached, the young woman smiled up at them and said, in an airy, put-on voice, "Are you here to have your fortunes read by Madame?"

Will aggressively avoided eye contact with her while Hannibal responded in the affirmative.

The woman stood and bowed with just her head and neck, a quick, perfunctory movement. "Let me check with Madame. Wait here, s'il vous plaît."

The woman ducked through the beaded crystal curtain and disappeared into the darkness beyond. As they waited, Will leaned close to Hannibal and said quietly, "That woman is probably her assistant. She observes all potential clients and gives the fortune teller a quick read on them before they even enter the tent. Then the fortune teller mentally compares her assistant's observations with her own when she meets the clients and goes from there. It's nothing but a game of observation and a competition for who can come up with the most convincing bullshit that people'll actually pay for."

Hannibal's eyes crinkled around the edges. "It could be argued that life is the same way."

Hannibal was right, but Will didn't have the energy to deal with any debate or philosophical discussion that he might unravel from whatever response he gave, so he didn't give one at all. He was too on edge. He might snap at Hannibal, and he really wasn't in the mood to deal with conflict at the moment.

Of course, Will had told Hannibal the truth when he'd said that fortune tellers were a waste of money, but that wasn't his only or even his main reason for wanting to avoid stepping into the tent in front of them. If it'd had been only about the wasted money, Will wouldn't have encouraged Hannibal to try almost any of the carnival's other attractions. No, what got under his skin was how too many fortune tellers used their intuition and knowledge of the human condition to manipulate vulnerable people, lying about how they could see the future or talk to the dead when in reality all they could do was make educated guesses based on someone's face, body language, mannerisms, and any volunteered information. It hit a little too close to home. Will was no mind reader, psychic attuned to the hidden supernatural, or whatever else people imagined of him. To see other people claiming those imagined attributes proudly, just to scam people of their money, pissed him off.

There was also another reason, but it was a stupid one, so Will resolutely shoved it down. After all, there was no easy or non-crazy way to explain to Hannibal that seeing the tent brought back nagging leftover impressions from the nightmare he'd had the night before.

Soon, the beaded curtain was pulled back and the woman reemerged. "Madame will see you now."

Will and Hannibal made brief eye contact before Hannibal took a step forward and took the curtain from the assistant, holding it open for Will. Will swallowed his apprehension, steeled himself for the next few minutes, and entered the tent.

It was dark inside, lit up by electric lanterns hanging on the tent walls and electric candles sitting on the fortune telling table. Will's first thought was that the interior décor was unexpected. While the tent had some of the typical markers of a fortune teller's, like the big crystal ball on the red-cloth-draped table, it avoided many of the pitfalls of its brethren. The tent walls were decorated with prints of France and traditional French instruments, rather than stereotypical Romani imagery, draperies, or instruments. There was no incense burning, no pan-witchcraft imagery, and no signs of the "exotic other." Nor was the fortune teller wearing a cheap imitation of traditional Romani clothing. Instead, she wore a simple dark blue wrap dress with a gold bracelet on each of her wrists and a pair of mother-of-pearls dangling from her ears, her dark brown hair left loose and flowy around her shoulders. Will was begrudgingly impressed by the lack of blatant cultural appropriation and stereotypes, though he supposed they could still rear their ugly heads at any moment. Next to him, Hannibal was looking around, as well. Will glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, but it was impossible to guess what he was thinking.

As they stepped further inside, the fortune teller stood up to greet them. "Welcome," she said with a faint but still noticeable French accent, and then she smiled knowingly. "I've been expecting you."