Pennies for Portents

By Diana Benedict

After Francie Wolcott’s parents die in a carriage crash, leaving her and her genius younger brother, Rooney, penniless, she intends to tour the world with the fortunetelling automaton he built. But first she must bring Rooney to their uncle in San Francisco, where he will have a place to happily tinker and invent things.

With no traveling funds, Francie and Rooney join a traveling carnival heading west, using the automaton as an attraction to pay their way. All goes well at first—then she finds out big the world is and how complicated it really is.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lilac Moon Books
• Release date: Feb 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386280675

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Pennies for Portents

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Pennies for Portents

Copyright

Pennies for Portents

A Preview of Perils for Portents

About the Author

Other Works by Diana Benedict

Copyright

Pennies for Portents

© 2014 Diana Benedict

PUBLISHED BY:

Lilac Moon Books

Originally appeared in Alchemy and Steam, from Fiction River Anthology 13, 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. Please do not participate or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover by Brandon Swann

Copyright © 2017 Brandon Swann

Cover Image: BigStockPhoto.com

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Pennies for Portents

Francie Wolcott wiped oily steam away from the glass and peered in at the mechanical gypsy woman. Smoke trickled from her nose and out from under the red silk chemise, drifting through the thirty-two strings of cheap glass beads hanging around her neck. Her brown curly hair was frizzed on one side from the heat and her parti-colored scarf was scorched. One brown glass eye was wide open, the other clicking as it winked idiotically.

They were lucky the automaton's rubber face hadn't been damaged. She was Rooney's most clever creation. The eyes moved back and forth, the lids closed, and the mouth could open and close. She actually looked like she was speaking, if you didn't look too closely, and the lighting inside the ornate wooden cabinet to help the illusion along.

Rooney also lettered Madame LeGrue in careful script over the front glass and painted golden scrollwork along the front and sides of the cabinet hiding the apparatus. It was a truly beautiful work.

Francie stood back and looked around the canvas push-pole tent. Puddles of greasy water surrounded the cabinet and Rooney's trunks were open, parts and tools neatly laid out in perfect ranks on the cropped dead grass. The smell of kerosene from the lamps was overlaid with the smell of burnt rubber and machine oil. She