Zahira's wagon at the festival was a testament to humanity's shared beliefs. Above her door hung protective talismans from a dozen cultures—the blue glass eye from Turkey, red and black beads from India, garlic braids from the Balkans, tiny mirrors from Persia, hamsa hands from North Africa. Her grandmother had collected them during a lifetime of travels, understanding that people everywhere shared the same fears, the same need for protection against malevolent gazes.

Born under a prophecy that promised spinsterhood, Zahira had grown up surrounded by a fortress of protective charms. "She will never know the joys of marriage," old Patrița had declared at her birth, reading her palm. Within hours, neighbors from every community had brought their shields against fate—each culture certain their method would best protect the infant. Turkish mothers pinned nazars to her blankets, Greek yiayias hung garlic over her cradle, Indian aunties marked her forehead with kohl, while Arab women slipped tiny hamsa amulets into her swaddling clothes.

Her childhood was spent learning the language of omens. While other Romani girls learned to cook and keep house, Zahira studied the coffee grounds patterns with a Turkish widow, astrology charts with a Persian scholar, and palm reading with an Indian mystic. Her grandmother, Luminița, encouraged these lessons, understanding that truth spoke through many tongues.

"The evil eye persists," Luminița would say, arranging her cards, "because it speaks to something true in human nature. Just as fortune-telling persists because it speaks to our need to know what lies ahead." She taught Zahira to read cards but insisted she learn other methods too. "Different paths to the same truth," she'd say, turning a coffee cup counterclockwise while consulting a birth chart.

Now at thirty-two, unmarried and traveling with her cards, Zahira understood why the evil eye was perhaps humanity's most universal fear. Envy, jealousy, and malice spoke all languages, crossed all borders. Her clients came from every background, but they all touched their protective charms before speaking of their good fortune, all grew quiet when discussing their fears.

There had been one man, years ago—Frans, a university professor with thoughtful eyes and steady hands. He had first come to her wagon during the autumn festival in Vienna, where she had established her winter quarters. Unlike her typical clients seeking love predictions or business fortunes, Frans arrived with a leather-bound notebook and scholarly questions about divination practices across cultures.

"I study comparative belief systems," he'd explained with a warmth that belied his academic demeanor. "But there's something missing from my research—the living tradition."

What began as research visits became weekly conversations. Frans would bring obscure texts about fortune-telling methods she'd never encountered, and she would demonstrate techniques passed down through generations. He took no notes during these later visits, just listened with growing fascination.

By midwinter, their meetings had evolved. Frans brought small, thoughtful gifts—unusual herbs for her teas, a silver letter opener shaped like a feather, books of poetry from lands she'd never visited. His touch lingered when their hands met over card spreads. His questions shifted from the academic to the personal.

"Do you truly believe your fate is sealed?" he asked one evening as snow fell softly outside her wagon. "That one prophecy can determine an entire life?"

Zahira had given him the same answer she'd given herself for decades. "Some words carry power beyond their speaking."

He shook his head, unconvinced. "You've shown me how prophecies can be interpreted a dozen ways. Why accept only the most limiting reading of your own?"

Spring came, and with it, Frans's confession. "I came seeking knowledge," he said, taking her hands across the small table where she normally laid her cards. "But I found something I wasn't looking for."

For three months, she allowed herself to imagine possibilities—morning conversations over coffee, evenings spent debating the boundaries between fate and choice, a life with someone who saw her gifts as extraordinary rather than mystical. Frans spoke of his home in Amsterdam, of university lectures and garden apartments, of a future where her talents might be respected in new contexts.

"We could find an honest balance," he insisted. "Your traditions need not be sacrificed to create something new." His rational mind had found a way to accommodate her world within his, or so he believed.

The night he formally proposed, presenting a ring of twisted silver and blue stone, Zahira dreamt of a bird trapped in a house. In the dream, the windows were open, but the bird flew repeatedly into closed doors, never seeing the clear paths to freedom. As the dream progressed, the bird's frantic attempts grew desperate—its wings leaving bloody smears on the glass, feathers scattered across the floor, its beautiful song transformed into pained cries. Zahira woke with a gasp, her heart racing, sheets damp with sweat. By morning, as the nightmare's grip slowly released her, she knew with certainty what the dream revealed—not just fear of change, but genuine foresight. Their paths, initially aligned, would ultimately confine her, leaving her broken like that desperate bird.

Frans argued passionately, bringing logical explanations and promises of a life unconstrained by old superstitions. "Dreams are just the mind processing fears," he insisted. "Not prophecies. The nightmare shows your anxiety about change, not your destiny."

Perhaps he was right. Perhaps the lifelong weight of Patrița's prophecy had shaped her fears so completely that she could no longer distinguish between genuine foresight and the terror of defying what she'd always believed inevitable. Was she protecting herself from fate, or simply too afraid to test whether the prophecy held any power at all?

"Some fears exist because they speak truth," she'd answered, returning his ring. "And some prophecies manifest in whispers rather than shouts."

"Or some prophecies come true only because we make them true," Frans had replied softly, his eyes full of sadness rather than judgment. "By believing, we create the very cage we fear."

He'd left her wagon that spring morning, his academic certainty shaken not by supernatural displays but by her quiet, unshakable conviction. Later, she heard he had married a museum curator, had two children, and had published his book on divination traditions without mentioning her by name—only "a practitioner whose insights proved invaluable." Sometimes she wondered if she had glimpsed true destiny in her dream or merely surrendered to the path of least resistance. The prophecy of her spinsterhood had held, but whether through genuine mystic truth or the power of belief, she could never be entirely certain.

Her own collection of amulets had grown over the years. Grateful clients had donated some of them as tokens of appreciation for successful predictions and avoided misfortunes. She also bought some herself, guided by her inner impulse and intuition. The pendants around her neck told more stories than she could remember; stories of lives touched, fates gentled, warnings heeded or ignored. Some said she had the strongest protection against the evil eye in all of Europe—though she wondered if any charm could shield her from her own prophecy.

As sunset colored the festival tents in shades of amber and rose, and shadows grew longer, she read fortunes in whatever method her clients preferred. Zahira possessed a rare gift—the ability to see beyond what clients told her, to discern the truths they themselves hadn't recognized. Her grandmother had called it "the clear sight." This was the most valuable lesson her grandmother had ever taught her: diving into people's eyes and discovering the pains of their souls. Decoding souls was her unique true gift. Each one of her readings was a balance between all that she saw and what she chose to reveal.

Her final visitor arrived as vendors began packing their stalls—a man whose presence made her pause in recognition. He carried an old coffee cup wrapped in silk, but what caught her eye was his bare lapel, conspicuously free of any protective pin or charm. His suit spoke of wealth, his stance of power, but his eyes held something she recognized—the weight of knowing too much about one's own future.

"My grandmother saw my death in this cup, twenty years ago, when I was just a boy," he said, unwrapping it with careful precision, a precious unwanted relic of his youth. The dried grounds still clung to the porcelain, preserved like ancient ominous warnings. "She came from a different culture than yours, but I'm told the signs are universal. Over the years, I've visited fortune tellers from every tradition, and they all refused to tell me what they see. Perhaps you're different. Does the curse still hold? I need to know. I feel that time is approaching."

Zahira felt the familiar tightness in her chest—the weight of unwanted knowledge. Her cards revealed patterns that spoke clearly to her trained eye, while the coffee grounds held messages as legible to her as written words. The amulets around her neck seemed to grow heavier with significance.

Her own unfulfilled prophecy hung in the air between them. She who had spent a lifetime avoiding marriage—and thus perhaps death—was now faced with another's destined end. Around them, the festival continued its swirl of languages and traditions, each person carrying their own methods of seeking knowledge while warding off misfortune.

The truth lay before her in cards and coffee grounds, in a destiny as clear as it was changeable. Zahira touched the layered amulets at her throat, feeling the combined certainty of centuries of human belief against her skin. Every culture had its ways of telling fortunes, its methods of deflecting fate's cruel eye. But which tradition held the key to changing what was written?

The man leaned forward, still charm-less, tempting fate with his bare lapels and questioning eyes. The coffee cup's grounds held the same message her cards revealed, the same truth her crystal ball showed when she gazed into its depths. Her fingers found her grandmother's oldest deck, while all the protective eyes of her wagon watched in silent witness. Outside, the festival lights began to flicker on, casting shadows that looked like omens themselves.

"Some truths," she began, her voice carrying the weight of every tradition she'd studied, "are written in all languages. But first, tell me why you've kept this cup for twenty years."

The man's fingers traced the rim of the porcelain cup. "My grandmother was Greek, but she married a Turkish merchant. She read fortunes for sultans and beggars alike. When she read my cup, she wept. Not for the death she saw—she said death was natural—but for the choice she saw coming. She said I would one day have to choose between knowing and changing."

Zahira's hands grew still over her cards. She recognized the pattern forming—the same one that had haunted her own life. Choice and destiny, knowledge and action, all wrapped in the question of whether knowing your fate meant accepting it. As she looked at him, she felt an understanding that went beyond words, a recognition of another soul caught between knowledge and freedom.

The festival sounds faded around them as she studied the cup's patterns. Years of dried coffee grounds had created landscapes of possibility. She saw what his grandmother had seen—the moment of choice that awaited him. But she saw something more, something that made her own collection of protective amulets seem suddenly significant.

"Your grandmother," Zahira said slowly, "she gave you no protection against the evil eye?"

"She said I wouldn't need it. That my choice would be protection enough." He smiled faintly. "I've spent twenty years trying to understand what she meant."

Zahira looked at her cards again, then at the cup, then at her wall of protective charms from around the world. Each culture's attempt to shield against fate's cruel gaze, each amulet a testament to humanity's belief that knowledge could be both poison and cure.

She thought of her own prophecy—how avoiding marriage had become both her protection and her prison. How sometimes the very act of avoiding fate became fate itself. Around her neck, generations of protective charms clinked softly, like tiny bells announcing a truth she'd always known but never voiced. For the first time since Frans, she felt her future open rather than predetermined.

The man waited, patient as only those marked by prophecy could be. Outside her wagon, the festival was winding down. Parents called their children home, vendors packed their wares, and a thousand protective amulets glinted in the dying light. Each one a small rebellion against destiny, each one a confession of human fear and hope.

Zahira gathered her cards, laid them beside the coffee cup, and began to speak words that would either save or condemn them both...