NNtG: Ghosts of Fear Street #06: Eye of the Fortune Teller

Well our last few books for the blog have been about luck and about wishes, so let's add some fate to the mix. And given it's another trip into kid friendly Shadyside, I'm at least optimistic. Oh, how I wish I could see into the future. Let's look into the Eye of the Fortune Teller.

COVER STORY

Okay, elephant in the room out of the way first. This book's got Romani mystic stereotypes in it. Kind of hard to avoid, especially in the 90s. I'll at least hold to using the G word as best I can here. But otherwise, this cover's actually pretty sick. Our fortune teller's got a lot going on from her flashy clothing to the intense stare she gives to the reading. Like, and Steadman went one step beyond. Even her nails have symbols on it, showing that she may be evil, but her nails game is top tier. In fact, she may be too intriguing as you might all but forget about the crystal ball and the reptilian eye inside. The actual eye of the fortune teller and not her intense gaze. Is it stereotyped to hell and back? Oh yeah. But is it also neat? Yeah, it is.

STORY

Kelsey Moore and her cousin Drew look alike, are the same age, but are very different in mentalities. Kelsey is usually more brave, while Drew is easily scared. Case in point after riding "The Sea Serpent" roller coaster. Drew found it scary, Kelsey found it dull. Despite that disparity, both cousins usually get along well. Their parents share a summer house and every year they end up being together for a little while over the summer. Kelsey lives on, where else, Fear Street. Drew finds it creepy as he's heard all the stories about supernatural events on Fear Street, which Kelsey claims are true. I mean, it's more often than not murders there, but kids book.

But Kelsey isn't scared of living on Fear Street. In fact, it seems as if nothing scares her. She's also a bit more of a realist than Drew. Case in point when they stop by one of the carnival games and see a video game Drew wants, but the game is one of those wheel games where you'd never have a chance in hell of winning. You'd have an easier chance of winning a Winnebago on Peggy Hill's "Spin the Choice" game. As they head home, they see a strange old shack for "The Amazing Zandra". Inside is a skeleton and a bunch of stuffed animals. And no, I don't mean of the plush variety. Drew is freaked out, but when a voice beckons them to come inside, they do so. 

The woman inside is a fortune teller by the name of Madame Valda. No clue what happened to Zandra, which even the kids are a bit curious about. But somehow she knows their names. Valda then tells Drew that he shouldn't be a follower, especially to Kelsey. Drew seems to be buying it, but not Kelsey, thinking this is all a sham. Turns out that maybe calling a fortune teller fake is a bit verboten as Valda says that Kelsey will soon live the rest of her life in fear. For Valda is the most powerful fortune teller alive and she'll prove it to Kelsey. First by laying down a card with a joker on it. Thankfully it's not screaming. But it is the Fool card. She says that Kelsey will be the fool and live in fear before promptly kicking the kids out.

But as the two leave, they soon see Valda right behind them, reminding Kelsey that she will live in fear. You know, in case that wasn't established. She throws the Fool card up, then vanishes. Kelsey is a bit freaked out by the ordeal, but Drew thinks that she needn't worry. Maybe Valda's just a phony fortune teller and it was all for show. But he also mentions that he didn't badmouth a fortune teller so he's at least safe. The kids take a shortcut home, but everywhere Kelsey leads Drew seems to be a dead end. Made no better when a vicious dog shows up and chases after them. Drew takes the lead and suddenly the two are back on track and make it back home. So, the whole "Drew needs to be the leader" thing at least carries some water to it.

The two finally make it back to the house, but as they head to the steps, the Fool card floats in front of them and lands at their feet. But despite being put into some sort of literal reality bending maze earlier, Kelsey isn't going to just let Madame Valda win. And definitely isn't going to live in fear. So she rips up the card and thinks that maybe it was all just a bad day. Maybe the next day will go smoother. She heads to bed and feels a strange tickling sensation. She soon sees that she's covered in sand crabs. She panics, but when she gets up, she doesn't see any sand crabs. However, turns out it's not a nightmare either as there is still one on the floor. I mean, you live in a beach house this is bound to happen sooner or later. 

The next day, after the crab incident, Kelsey soon finds the Fool card is once again intact. Drew is skeptical still, despite, you know, literally everything since the Valda incident. So, despite what happened the last time she tore up the card, Kelsey tears it up again and throws the remains into the ocean. She goes swimming, but then gets attacked by a jellyfish. She tries to swim to shore but finds herself being pulled further in. And also now being attacked by even more jellyfish. Tiny jellyfish cover her body, stinging her all over. But when Drew reaches her, he says that there aren't any Jellyfish on her. But they do find the Fool card intact. So yep, we got ourselves a good old fashioned curse.

Drew says that maybe there's a way to end the curse and suggests apologizing to Valda for the whole "you're full of crap" stuff earlier. They head to the shack again, but this time they get The Amazing Zandra instead. This is also the fortune teller on the cover of the book as the description matches. Zandra is confused as there shouldn't be any other fortune teller in this vicinity, but tells Kelsey that she can remove the curse for ten dollars. With no alternative to possibly being scammed, Kelsey gives Zandra the ten dollars. Zandra says the curse should be lifted as long as she wears a special amulet that she has to keep wearing for three days. 

The next two days seem to go well. Kelsey has no more creatures attacking her, and even wins the video game for Drew. It all seems to be going smoothly. Well, until they make a sandcastle and a horsefly starts buzzing at Kelsey. When she tries to get rid of it, more show up and we get yet another attack. She panics and ends up crushing other sand castles in her frantic rush to get to the water, but soon sees that yet again there are no actual swarms of horseflies. And as if on cue, there's another Fool card with a red X over the face. So, Kelsey has clearly pissed off one fortune teller and we're seeing the results. So, what's the logical thing to do? Why, go to Zandra and call her a fake too. What could possibly go wrong?

The two go to Zandra to get answers as to why they have another Fool card. Zandra's confused, especially when her tarot cards are missing and replaced with a picture of Kelsey with a red X over her face. When Kelsey mentions the fortune teller that cursed her was a Madame Valda however, Zandra gets worried. Valda is the most powerful fortune teller in the world. And the one fortune teller you certainly don't want to call a fake. Also, given that Valda's been dead for over a hundred years, Kelsey didn't just badmouth any fortune teller, but the ghost of the most powerful fortune teller. Never has the term S.O.L been more apropos.

Zandra gets her uncle, another fortune teller named Gregor, to elaborate further on the Valda issue. Valda was indeed the most powerful fortune teller ever. She was also pure evil, quite proficient in powerful curses. So the other fortune tellers, kind of tired of her crap, all conspired to kill her. They got a boy and a girl to poison her wine. Which, given she's the most powerful fortune teller it's surprised she didn't see that coming. When Valda succumbed to the poison, her body was thrown into the ocean. But therein lies a bend to the path. Instead of going to the afterlife, her spirit still hung around and, as is the case with Kelsey, is still just as powerful and just as evil again.

Back to getting this super curse fixed, Gregor tells Kelsey that she must face her fears. Make a map of the beach house and bring with her a living version of the three creatures that vexed her by midnight. Oh and twenty dollars of course. I mean, removing powerful curses don't come cheap. And I think I might know where we're going here. She manages to get the creatures, though when she gets in the ocean for the jellyfish, she gets caught in the current and almost smashed into the jetty. But with Drew's help she survives and gets the jellyfish. The cousins find the fortune teller camp and give Gregor all the items. He says that now she must swallow her fears, as in eat a fly, a sand crab and a jellyfish. Reader beware, you're in for poisoning.

So, with no alternative, Kelsey eats all three items. But even after eating them, she's still cursed. She has to throw something from Madame Valda's into the fire. Luckily for her she still has the Fool card, which she throws into the flames. However, the fire soon turns into the visage of Valda who reveals what we kind of figured about Gregor, that he's a fake. Valda sends the card flying into the ocean, but Kelsey grabs it in time and pushes into the flaming fortune teller, destroying her once and for all.

TWIST ENDING

The two are at the carnival, trying to get into the Haunted House ride when they spot a fortune telling machine. They think it's broken, but then hear it calling them a fool. The twist is a bit disjointed, so I don't know if this is immediately after, or we just got Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge'd. Either way, it's at least a twist.

CONCLUSION

Eye of the Fortune Teller is actually not that bad, save for the twist which might be the weakest part. Other than that, I think everything worked well. There's some decent horror, just enough of a gross out feel and far less wheel spinning than you'd usually get with these types of stories. Ghostwriter this time is the duo of A.G. Cascone, who we previously talked about with their own horror book series, Deadtime Stories. So there's definitely that feel of understanding how to make these books work. Granted, there's also that similar feel that Invasion of the Appleheads had. Relatives working together to fight an evil witch/fortune teller. Though I feel it works better here with far less padding. 

Again, the biggest factor holding this back is the clear stereotypes involving fortune tellers, and particularly the concept of it all being a scam, with Zandra and Gregor both extorting Kelsey for a curse they couldn't control. Kind of gives me a Sardo from Are You Afraid of the Dark vibe, which is at least a plus. Kelsey's an okay protagonist, not much really to her, same with Drew. But both work fine as our leads to follow through the plot. And Valda is a cool enough villain in concept. An all powerful entity who curses kids from beyond the grave. With her body being thrown into the ocean and her returning from her watery grave, she might be the literal example of "you can't drown your demons, they know how to swim." 

The twist ending is a bit confusing. I think it's supposed to be a misdirect like the beginning of the book. Meaning it all never really happened. There's never any mention of the whole ordeal and it seems like the kids' encounter with the fortune teller machine is their only actual encounter with a fortune teller. So if that's the case, then it's a pretty flat twist. Or, and this is also possible, the whole timeline reset after defeating Valda, which doesn't make the twist as bad as most of these types of end twists that either try way too hard to get you, or just end up redundant. Still a middling twist, though not one that completely kneecaps the book. Probably the most disjointed, could have used better narrative, twist we've had in quite a while. But if that's the only non-questionably racist issue I have with the book, then I can at least say this one is another win for the Ghosts of Fear Street books. How fortunate. Eye of the Fortune Teller gets an A-.