by R. E. Rose
I ran.
Never more happy to reach the store’s little alcove, I quickly ducked in and out of the path of the wind and rain. Normally, on a bad weather day like today I’d stay home and workout in my condo, or go to the gym, especially if I knew a gorgeous guy or two might be there, but today I was too creeped out to concentrate on working out.
At first, I’d planned to stomp right into the shop and let Maisie know what I thought of her sorcery tactics, sending a demon creature to frighten me--Trying to scare me back into her fold. How dare she? But it hadn’t worked! Now that I’d breathed some fresh, damp oxygen, another plan came to mind.
I decided that if I went in angry and upset, I’d be off balance. Instead, I’d enter in a more becalmed state and be sweet as key lime pie to Maisie, maybe let her know I wanted to buy a special gift for my best friend, Glendie, a birthday present. I liked that. I felt more in control of myself with that thought. I plucked up my courage and grabbed the door handle, pulled hard and it resisted. I tried again, and this time I noticed the sign on the door.
“Gone on holiday. Back in two weeks.”
I kicked the door.
I heard the chimes on the other side tinkle from the vibe of my solid kick. My Dayton’s weren’t scuffed, thank goodness. I gave the toe of my boot a little wipe with a tissue from my purse; then I noticed a shadow moved inside the shop. I pressed my face to the window, but the display of twinkling, blue and green hand-blown glass balls, and wind chimes, and metal sculpture, crystals of all shapes created thick foliage of paraphernalia that blocked my view.
Down at my feet, I noticed that a pile of wet, soggy, local newspapers lay in the door-well, as did an old paper cup and straw. Some lazy salesperson left a small sample of unopened laundry soap under the papers and other small things like; a bobby pin, a few paper clips and old pennies filled the mucky corners. The wind had changed direction and began to stir up the soggy mess at my feet.
My OCD wouldn’t allow me to leave these items untouched; the disorganized and haphazard conglomerate of stuff had to be dealt with. I didn’t even try to resist the urge that bubbled up in me like a piece of gooey lava from a lamp; I couldn’t wait one more moment before I pulled that doorstep mess up and apart and began to organize it.
I intended to take the crap I found there and throw all that junk away, but instead, I lovingly organized them into a pattern so that they no longer lay in a heap on the ground. I created a design. I sorted, rearranging these items until a picture began to present itself. It appeared to be a star. The soggy newspapers made it difficult to finesse any details into the image, but someone had rolled the papers. They made good logs to frame things by, and it turned out they were excellent for creating the arms of the star.
This organizing OCD behaviour of mine always threw me into a weird frame of mind, so that I often did things really quickly. I worked at an impossibly fast rate, as if someone snapped me into fast forward—like a scene I’d seen in a movie or a TV show, where the character seems to work at some breakneck, superhuman speed and then back again to normal time and feeling not one bit exhausted.
By the time I got finished, the familiar vibration of my OCD magic took hold – my whole body stuttered and gurgled as if the magic power digested in my gut before it built and bubbled like carbonation.
The key to releasing my magic involved chewing at my bottom lip. I waited a bit before I worked at gently biting my bottom lip. I’d learned that if I waited, the magical force that powered around inside me became stronger, and when I finally felt the nasally urge to sneeze; I knew I couldn’t hold back the magic any longer. I’d bite my bottom lip, and then aaaa—aphoo--the blast blew the bobby pin into the street where it fell between the bars of a sewer grate.
The front door to Maisie’s shop swung wide open!
I smiled deeply, very pleased with myself. I folded up my umbrella and stood outside for a few minutes, taking in the shop’s interior. My magic still worked.
A delicious waft of vanilla candle hit my nose – mmmm. Even though daylight lit the outside, the inside of the shop looked like a midnight séance about to be unleashed. Candles burned and twinkled, beaded curtains undulated gently in the breeze let in by the open front door. Crystals and everything that could sparkle did sparkle. I hesitated. I didn’t want to go in, but now I’d done it. I’d unlocked the place and worst of all I’d unlocked it with magic.
I had to go in.
Did my magic light all these candles? I strolled in, blowing each and every candle out as I went. After all, they posed a fire hazard. I still had no idea of my magic capabilities, and as part of my personal new age cleansing, I’d decided to abandon the little bits of enchantment I’d previously discovered about myself.
Yet, once again I threw around magic I didn’t really understand, like some high roller at a Vegas table. I really wanted to turn a new page in my life, especially after running into Maisie and her sidekick demi-demon, Devon; yet, even though I’d decided magic didn’t suit me, I seemed unable to stop myself.
As usual, no one manned the shop. The Curio looked empty, but I’d learned that appearances in this proprietorship might be only an illusion. There were many curious as well as regular things in this place, the shelves overcrowded with lovely things, like smelly soaps in the shape of mermaids, or hand painted silk scarves in rich colours. These lay beside monkey heads carved from coconuts with red eyes and white painted teeth. They were candle holders of sorts.
In spite of all these distractions, I headed directly to a spot behind the cash counter. I knew what I wanted. A quick look back there revealed the usual mess, still, I managed to spy the corner of the Knowitall Journal tucked under a pile of sales receipts. The red journal belonged to Devon, which meant Maisie had released him, once again from the tarot deck! That meant the cards had been freed from the safety deposit box I’d locked them in..How was that possible?
Seeing Devon’s journal annoyed me. I wanted to read it to see what he’d been up to, but I resisted that urge. I stayed focused. Most times the shelves under the front counter looked neat and tidy, and the stuff under there was easily recognized, but this time apparently a whirlwind of activity left the area a disorganized mess.
And a mess was always bad for me.
I didn’t dare tidy even though the urge to do so ran through my hands like an itch and an ache. Organizing anything inside this shop could cost me something significant, like my freedom. Who knew what I might release, or what crazy kind of binding spell might latch me permanently to this place.
I needed to find that cursed tarot deck and this time really get outta Dodge and throw the cards into the bottom of a lake.
2.
Find him, find her
If the cards weren’t at the front counter, then they’d be in the back. The cursed tarot deck generally lived at the front of the shop behind the counter where Maisie kept them while she attended to her customers and shop duties; but when she did her tarot readings, she took the deck to the back, a heavily magicked place that I didn’t ever want to enter.
Magical weirdness in the shop was up. I sensed it in the ethers, and that never made me feel good.
I kept a constant, if peripheral eye, on the back room. But from this vantage, it was impossible to tell if the area back there was occupied.
“Hello!” I called out, in case anyone worked in the back. I didn’t want to scare them.
Or me.
I desperately needed to flip through the tarot deck’s major arcana cards to check that every one of those major characters remained safely locked inside the deck. But I had a very strong feeling of disappointment. I suspected that Devon was out of the box and on the prowl.
That worry made me want to puke.
Then I noticed Maisie’s automated gypsy tarot machine, which usually sat, covered with a tarp at the threshold to the rear entry, was missing; Maisie often used her magic to make it appear at Koldwell Bank where she and Devon sent the mechanical gypsy when they
wanted to trick or befuddle me in some way.
I searched the shop a little harder for the gypsytron and found her, still under her tarp and not looking any worse for wear. They’d moved her just inside the main area and hid her behind a shelf.
Her eerie stare held me.
Even though the mechanical gypsy gave me the willies, I did try to make her work, after all, in the past she’d spit money out at me, and lots of it. But I always paid a price for the extra cash from the gypsy. That price often took the form of Devon robbing me, molesting me, or spooking me.
She always wanted a nickel, so I searched my purse for one, and luckily I found a coin. I placed it in the slot and waited. Along with money, she’d also given me a small, cryptic, fortune penned on a business type card.
I waited a minute for the gypsy’s response. My money issues made me an easy target for Maisie and Devon, that dynamic tarot-deck duo. When Devon knew I’d be looking for cash (which was all the time), and when I’d had a little too much to drink, well, that’s when I’d find the gypsy contraption waiting for me in a sphere of fog at Koldwell Bank. This time, however, the automation buzzed and clanked and the dummy sitting inside vibrated and turned her head left and right, the lights around the top of the box’s banner flashed and the next thing I knew, I had a fortune sitting, untouched, in her dispenser. I knew I shouldn’t pick it up and look at it, but I did.
In the past Maisie used me to spy for her on the tarot cronies, she’d occasionally release. Generally, they remained inside of their magic tarot cards as prisoners, unless she decided to free them for awhile so that they could earn away some of the financial debt they owed to her. They were all under a financial and moral obligation to Maisie. She’d had me follow them around town, or she’d have me investigate potential future card candidates, like Vince Cabria, owner of the White Swan Public House, for placement inside her tarot deck. But with my new determination to build a strong relationship with William, I decided I’d no longer be her victim and do her bidding, even if she did pay well.
The fortune card faced the wrong way as it slid out. I turned it over—it read, “Where’s William?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” I said to the gypsy fortune reader sitting behind the glass. She spit a second card at me: “Find him, find your fairytale.”
I stared at those words. I read them aloud. I kept the card this time, carefully locking it into my purse. I got a very good vibe from that fortune.
Then I remembered where I was and what I was really doing here.
I’d look for William later.
I didn’t want to become anymore addicted to magic and that’s what happened when I practiced magic on a regular basis. An addiction to the nearly irresistible forces.
Besides, what was the point of practicing magic, I asked myself, when Maisie remained the only one around who could teach me about my abilities, and make them emerge? I didn’t like her teaching style. So, I decided that after this little visit to her shop, there’d be no more magic for me. Meanwhile, I’d have to use what little magic I’d learned to get through this situation.
I still wasn’t quite ready to enter the back room.
I covered up the gypsy automation and returned to the front counter, circling the front area one more time. I noticed the jewelry display case under the glass top counter and, for some unexplained reason, the lockets drew my attention. I really wanted to pull these out and examine the lockets closely, but I knew I’d better not. I’d already tempted fateful magic by reading the gypsy’s Fortune card.
Then I again noticed the Knowitall journal protruding from the bottom shelf. The same one had noticed earlier. But I hadn’t noticed the note stuck to the top of it.
Jane, I’m free. Come, see me. I forgive you, Janey, for putting me in da deck, what the heck! But that was naughty, and you need to be punished...
Your sweetheart, Devon.
My heart galloped. Devon was out! I took the time to read through the red journal. It was red so I knew it was his.
Maisie made all her ensnared factotums keep an accounting of their whereabouts and goings-on in coloured journals. According to the Knowitall, Devon Raker had run unchecked all around Meadowvale for days while Maisie was away on her vacation. Who knew what kind of havoc and nonsense he’d caused. I hadn’t noticed him in town, so that worried me a lot.
Also, according to the journal, Devon was meeting on a regular basis with Mr. Whitman, my principal! The two of them, along with a few others had formed part of a committee that Meadowvale recently struck.
Apparently, a circus was coming to town – a carnival to be more correct. They’d created a circus committee. I read their names: Devon Raker, Christian Whitman, Maisie Price, Vince Cabria and William Tell! It made sense that William’s name was there. He was on the board of directors at Koldwell Bank. I’ll bet he financed the event.
When I blew out the last lit candle at the front of the shop, a shadowy form scurried through the entrance to the backroom entry.
“Meeeeroow!”
OMG. That sounded so much like Sia. Sia? Here at the shop? Impossible. I took out my cell to phone Glendie, to check on my cat. I took several giant steps toward the back area.
“Meeerroooow!”
That sound stopped me dead, and I gingerly put my phone back in my bag.
My hair stood on end. Whoever, or whatever made that cry wanted me, and wanted me right now—and this time I could tell it was not Sia.
“Meeeroooow, Meeeerooow!”
I had to go back there, but I didn’t want to go back there, but I had to. “Hey, who’s there?” I called out. “I’m coming,” I shouted.
But I wasn’t, really.
With hands over my ears because I could no longer stand the sorrowful sound of the animal in trouble, I finally found the guts to venture to the back of the shop.
The first thing I noticed in the backroom was the card table. The very same one that snapped and fell to the floor when Maisie nearly caught Devon and me as we attempted the two-backed beast six months earlier.
I can’t believe I ever touched that half-demon.
The card table sat all set up, as it had the very first time I’d entered this shop; it held a lit votive and the deck of cards – waiting to be used in a reading. Why I didn’t grab those cards right then and there and run with them, I will never know, but I didn’t.
I resisted taking the cards. I needed to explore the back area to find out more about that black shadowy thing that ran past the entry. If I didn’t do that now, I had a strong feeling I’d be dealing with it in another dream. It had cried out to me with those long, sad, piercing meows and I had to be sure it wasn’t injured.
Beyond the card table, the backroom was a cornucopia of odd and weird ingredients for magic; filled nearly to the rafters with long, narrow workbenches on either side of the room. A world of grow lights and heat lamps which sat patiently over Maisie’s dozens of dry aquariums; the place buzzed, and the lamps warmed up the small area.
The aquariums looked attractive, but I avoided looking into their interiors. I’d encountered these in the past, and the substances and critters they contained often made me wretch because they smelled a lot like my dirty garburator, or looked like nightmares.
One aquarium, I remembered, was full of insects; spiders, flies, crickets and they had little human faces on them. Argh! Yuck! Try as I might not to look, of course, I did; and I was sorry when I glanced to my left to see a tiny little monkey creature, not bigger than a young kitten, all dressed in red attire, with a little red fez on its head, dancing up and down.
At first, I thought, oh, he’s so cute! Then I noticed his hands – there were none. Instead, each appendage was transformed into little metal cups, and he tapped them against the glass at me. A strong urge to save the creature was countered by a stronger urge to save myself. Who knew what the little monkey might really be?
I hurried by.
One thing I’d learned about Maisie, she prac
ticed harsh justice with her magic tarot deck. If the stories about her victims and their crimes proved true, then they deserved everything they got, in my opinion, including being locked up until the end of time inside the cards. What I didn’t like about her system of punishment included letting the tarot card specters out when it suited her, and when the spirit left the card, they often possessed one of Meadowvale’s regular folk. This never seemed fair to me. I’d seen my own best friend taken over by the Sun spirit.
“Meeeeroooww…”
This time, the screech came from the little washroom in the back. The small door to the washroom emerged from its camouflaged state. I recognized its soft velvety, seventies style – purple and paisley Fleur de Lis design and the tiny knob, all as I’d remembered. The very first time I came to Maisie’s shop, I’m positive that door camouflaged itself, but now that I knew how to look for it, it appeared obvious. Right beside the washroom door was the door to the back lane, locked and chained, which made me feel better.
I grabbed the small knob of the washroom and pulled the door open—a toilet, sink, mirror and a window.
I closed the door.
Down at the far end, I heard the scratch, scratch of an animal using a litter box! Sure enough, the scritch, scritch, scratch came from somewhere deep in the back.
This time I crept by all of the tables of sorcery accoutrements, but with hands up to the sides of my eyes, like blinders. Toward the very back end of the shop, where it was dark because no window existed, and only black lights shone, underneath one of the tables supporting two dry aquariums growing what looked like cacti and mushrooms; the scratching grew louder.
I reached under the table and pulled out a litter box.
Nothing.
Yet, the litter moved. Big scratch marks appeared; scratch, scratch, but whatever made them was invisible, and the scratches stopped as quickly as they started. Carefully, slowly, I pushed the litter box back under the table and decided that coming to this shop was a bad idea, after all. The very moment I had that thought, and the litter box was back in its spot; a heavy, invisible, furry force brushed up against my ankles as it ran past me.