The Fool's Fortune

She’s never quite sure how she ended up next to the river that day, but it didn’t seem to matter in the grand scheme of things. Grandma saw to that. She wasn’t really anyone’s grandma, but everyone in the village called her that. As old women went, she was pretty strange. Old as she was, her hair was black as night, and in the sun it was blue and shiny and iridescent, like a raven’s wing. She’d been around for much longer than the 80 years she’d claimed, but that was one of the things you weren’t allowed to discuss about her. If questioned, all anyone would say is that she was waiting for something.
 
There were plenty of things you weren’t allowed to discuss about Grandma, but the one main thing that everyone in the village agreed upon was that you never, ever, played cards with her. Sinead knew this, but no one had ever explained why. The adults muttered sometimes around the fire about a young girl twenty years ago who had lost her fortune playing cards with the Raven, but if Sinead asked, they just gave her ‘The Look’.
 
She’d also learnt very early on that when adults gave her ‘The Look’ it was time to go. Even now, when she was almost an adult, almost one of them, they would turn it on her when she tried to join in. The children wouldn’t play with her anymore, and all the others around her age were too busy playing with each other in private places where she couldn’t follow.
 
Sinead was used to being alone, but that had never made the loneliness easier to bear. So when Grandma offered to tell her a story, she jumped at the chance. Especially when Grandma said she could ask for any story. Grandma knew such delicious stories. Rich and juicy, with bits that fell out the sides and bits that gave you a shock when you bit into them, with bits that warmed the heart, and bits that warned of the dangers of life outside the village.
 
There was one story she desperately wanted to know, and hadn’t dared to ask Grandma before. But Grandma had offered any story, and she was almost old enough to know anyway. So she marshalled her courage and her wits and asked Grandma to tell her the story about the girl who lost her fortune playing cards. Grandma stared at her for so long that she started to regret her choice. Finally Grandma sighed and shook her head. There was a price to that story, one that Sinead couldn’t pay. But Sinead refused to pick another story, and eventually Grandma told her that the price of the story was a game of cards.
 
Sinead was horrified. How could she understand the decision without knowing the story? Now Sinead, was not considered the brightest of girls, but she had instincts that had never steered her wrong. She thought and thought, turning over various ideas until she was satisfied. Grandma had waited patiently for her decision, and she could see now that the girl had something up her sleeve.
 
The bargain they struck was this. Grandma would tell her the story about the girl who lost her fortune, they would play a game, and then Grandma would tell her another story of Sinead’s choosing. Sinead made sure that Grandma swore that the second story could be anything, no further price, no chance to back out. Grandma was not convinced, but the chance to play, so long denied her, dangling within her grasp, was enough to make her careless. Besides, how dangerous could Sinead be? Everyone knew she was too simple to be a threat.
 
Grandma settled in to tell her the story of the girl who had dared to play cards with her. The situation was much the same as this one. The girl wanted to know something, and had bet that she could beat an old woman at a game of cards. She had almost nothing to her name, so she had accepted Grandma’s terms without thinking. She thought her fortune was her worldly assets, and she thought she had nothing to lose, so she was reckless. Her fortune for a story. And of course she lost. She never stood a chance.
 
What Grandma won was a lot more precious than a few measly possessions. The girl had given up her fortune, what some of us would call her fate or her destiny. She never had a chance to miss it. Grandma had warned her that her fortune would be collected at some time in the future, and advised her not to worry about it until it was time. The girl settled down with one of the village boys and made a decent life for herself. Over the next nine months, she thought to herself how well she’d done for herself, and scorned the idea that she’d wanted Grandma to tell her a story about how to obtain riches and wealth. She died in childbirth, giving the last of her life to a girlchild.
 
From the day the child was born, they knew she was different. The girl made not a sound in the early years of her life, but as she grew up, the little one asked complicated questions that scared the adults who didn’t know how to answer her. She was odd in ways that the other children did not question, but would not accept. She was who she was, for better or worse, and it was nothing that they were interested in knowing. Grandma finished the story by winking and saying “You who were born and named for that mistake, should have known better than to bargain with me.”
 
As Grandma started to set up the game of cards, Sinead smiled. The young girl stood tall in front of the old woman and asked her to repeat what she had agreed to. Grandma was incensed, thinking she was trying to back out of the deal now that she knew what was at risk. But Sinead stood calm until Grandma realised how she had been tricked. Not once had the game in question been specified. In her hurry to play cards, they had only agreed that they would play a game. Grandma knew that she could still win most of the games known in the village, so she gave in with feigned ill-humour, secretly pleased at the girl’s temerity.
 
Sinead surprised her again by giving her the choice. Any game, within reason, that Sinead had a fair chance of winning. Grandma was stumped, and now it was Sinead’s turn to sit and wait for the decision while Grandma tried to figure out the catch. Finally a game was chosen and agreed upon. As expected, Sinead lost, though it was much more of a challenge than the old woman had expected.
 
Crowing her victory, Grandma tried to collect her winnings, only to realise that once again, in her eagerness, she had forgotten a crucial detail. No wager had been made on the game. Nothing won, nothing lost. Furious now, she turned on Sinead, who sat calmly and asked her if she was unsatisfied. At the expected reply, she proposed one last bargain. Thinking she knew what Sinead’s plan was, Grandma accepted the deal, after examining every word for the hidden catch she suspected.
 
After the story, there would be one further game played, of Grandma’s choice, which would wager Sinead’s fortune against a future story. She bargained high and low to have the game before the story, but on this Sinead would not budge. Confident that Sinead planned to ask for a story on how to beat her in the game, she relaxed, sure that this time nothing could go wrong.
 
Sinead took her time in preparing herself for this story, settling in as if for a long while. Finally, she was ready. “Grandma, tell me a story. Tell me about…” Here her eyes met and held those of the old woman steadily. The sleepiness had dropped from her eyes, the slowness gone as if it had never existed. Two identical sets of eyes bore into each other. “Tell me a story of the Raven.”
 
The two women, young and old, talked long into the night, and well into the next day. Once they had finished, they stood and bowed to each other before turning into ravens and flying off together into the woods. This tale is still told around the fire by those approaching adulthood. The children don’t understand and the adults refuse to speak about it. But sometimes, if you sit next to the river and ask your questions, two ravens will come to sit with you and tell you a story.


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Originally published in Volume 4 , issue 3 of The Australia Times Fiction eMagazine.
Note: This was written in response to the following prompt: A lonely 20 year-old woman and a cheerful 80 year-old woman, and it begins by a river. Someone loses a fortune at cards, but it's a story about forgiveness and the main character has some questions to answer. Sinead commonly means God is gracious, or God forgave.