by R. E. Rose
“What did he look like?” I asked.
“I think you know what he looks like, Jane.”
“I mean did he look – good? You know – normal?”
“He looked overdressed,” she said, taking a sip of beer and giving me a sideways glance as if she looked for something wrong with me.
“Overdressed?”
“Like he was going to a wedding, or a funeral, or maybe a job interview,” she said.
“But not like he was going to the vet!”
“Or maybe a –” she hesitated.
“What? What? Going to a what?”
“Well, I hate to say it.”
“Say it, please, Glendie. I need to know what’s going on with him. He doesn’t contact me anymore. He’s avoiding me.”
“Now I really hate to say it, but he looked like he might be dressed up for a special date. Sorry.”
“A date? Did he have flowers?”
“Well, no, but he smelled really good, like you know how a guy smells when he wants a girl to like him?”
“Yeah, well, thanks. You don’t know for sure. He might have had one of those other things going on, like a funeral or some such,” I said, but in my heart, I knew something was up with William. “And what about Sia?” I asked.
“What about her?”
“When will he bring her back? And for that matter, what happens if she gets bit by that ghost cat?”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t give me those kinds of details.” Then she paused in mid gulp. “Wait, I do remember something else. “He said that if he got Sia’s vaccinations up to date, then no one had to worry about her being bitten by the ghost cat.”
“You said that already. What happens if she’s bitten?” I moved a little closer.
“He did say something about that. He said that ghostly Cheshires are rare, but a little dangerous. If Sia were to be bitten, she’d become something akin to a rabid Cheshire kitty, and he said no one really wants to experience that.”
“Well, sure, I can understand,” I said, but not really. I didn’t understand one bit. Not one word of it. The thought of a rabid Sia frightened me. It was for the best that Sia not be around while that ghost cat wandered. If what Glendie said was actually true.
Then it was Glendie’s turn to change the subject.
“Open it,” she said, and nudged my arm.
I put down my cider and finished ripping through the first layer of brown paper, having checked again for a return address, but nothing showed. The parcel itself was about the size of the CPU on my desk.
“I had a weird dream last night,” I said, as I pulled away a fist full of scented pink tissue paper which came out of the package, smelling delicious, like vanilla bean and a little something else – couldn’t quite place it, tangy sweet, flowery.
“You always have weird dreams.” One thing about Glendie she got drunk easily, and I think she was on her way.
“This one was even weirder. I dreamed about a carnival, and a bunch of strange looking men, dressed like old-time monks, gathered in the bleachers inside a carnival’s main tent. And even stranger, I recognized Whitman as a leader of these guys, and – this is where it gets really weird – the carnival tent was the same colour and size as the one they’re raising in the old north cornfields, and the guy from the Koldwell Bank’s board of directors was there, Gordon. He’s alive and well! But it’s his ghostly body I keep running into in odd spots around town. Places I happen to be at, like my garden.” But Glendie seemed unimpressed.
“You saw the tent at some point in your travels, and then you dreamed about it. No big deal.”
“Not the tent, the men. Why were they dressed like that? Why the gathering?”
“Dressed like what? Why do you care? Men gather for all kinds of crazy reasons. It probably had something to do with sports. It doesn’t involve you, even if it was in your dream.”
“Exactly! I think it was more than a dream. A vision is what it was.”
“How did your trip to Maisie’s go?” she asked. No sooner did Maisie’s name come up when the box I was unwrapping vibrated a little.
“Did you see that?” I asked her.
She shook her head no and sipped her beer. “See what?”
“The box – it moved.” I stared at the box; my hands hovered out at my sides.
“Do it again,” Glendie said to the box, looking more interested. We sat for five minutes staring, but nothing happened. My imagination went into overdrive. I had the crazy thought that William sent this parcel, and he might be giving me a new kitten to replace Sia. I didn’t like that thought, not one bit. It niggled at me. Really, who would send a cat through parcel post? I already half suspected that William, Maisie, Devon and even Sia were a unit of some kind, and they were somehow all working together to get me to “join” their strange coven.
“I saw it! I saw it!” Glendie screamed. She slammed her bottle of beer down on the table so hard a finger-sized splash flew out.
“What did you see?”
“The box moved! It moved.” Before I could stop her, the impetuous Glendie was pulling open the package. I moved out of the way, sat and sipped on her beer, having already finished my cider. She made quick progress. A pile of paper lay on the carpet. She stood and stared, hypnotized, looking, not blinking, not anything.
“What’s in there?” I asked in excited anticipation.
She looked at me. “You’re gonna be disappointed.”
“It’s not another Cheshire kitten?”
She slowly shook her head, no. She frowned and looked very disappointed. Then she reached in.
“Careful,” I said warningly. I finished her beer.
“It’s only a –” She reached deep into the box.
“What, already, what is it?”
“Feather,” she said, and, “Something – a candle.” Glendie came up holding a black feather and a black candle. The candle gave off a gorgeous subtle scent of rose. She placed the objects on the table.
I had one word for the gift.
“Maisie.”
“I don’t think so,” Glendie said.
I couldn’t believe my ears. “What do you mean?”
“It’s not her style. She doesn’t give you anything unless she’s in the room with you. That’s a detail I’ve noticed from all the stories you’ve told me. This seems more like the kinda gift a guy would send a woman,” she said, as she picked up the feather and smelled it. “Mmm – nice. Smell this thing.” She tried to run the feather under my nose, but I ducked away. It smelled like magic to me.
“When did you become such an expert?” I asked, truly surprised by her analysis.
“You think I’m a little beneath you because I like bowling, but I know a thing or two about the subtleties of guys. You’re not the only one that likes to date.”
“Wow, okay, so, who sent it then, William?” That was my hope, but again in my heart, I knew it wasn’t a gift from him.
“Not William. This gift is a little too dark to be from him, although William is capable of handing off dark gifts, but not to a woman he loves.”
“Too dark? What does that mean?” Glendie’s insights were blowing me away.
“This gift –” she said, “is from –” she paused again, closed her eyes, and then opened them. “It’s from a secret admirer.”
“Suuure it is,” I said, with a smile.
“Look, no card, very expensive items, smelly tissue paper. It all smacks of a secret admirer to me. Probably delivered it himself, just to get near your place.”
“Why dark?”
“Mysterious, black, seems like he wants you to do something with these things, and knowing secret admirers, it’s probably sexual. But you got me. I don’t know what kind of performance he’d expect with a candle and a feather, but he seems to have a great imagination.”
“I think you’ve just described Devon Raker!” I said, and pushed the items back into the tissue paper and back into the box.
I’
d drop it in the trash later.
4.
Massive Magic
If I used the black candle and black feather, or even touched the gift, I’d be taking another step deeper into Maisie’s schemes. I’d let the candle and feather sit.
I needed to talk to Vince Cabria, the owner of the White Swan Public House. He was a bad guy. At one point he’d stolen my cat, too. And he’d wronged Maisie in a big way, having absconded with her life savings. She’d wanted her money back, and she wanted more than a little revenge.
When I last worked for Maisie, she’d been hot on Cabria’s trail to make him a part of her tarot deck, and her plans to capture the pub owner included me. I was the bait. I had once tried to convince him to return the investments Maisie made into his failing ventures. I was unable to find her money and had to lure Vince into Maisie’s card-capture trap.
I figured if I helped Maisie out and used my “charms” to convince Cabria to return Maisie’s investments or even just bring him back to the curio shop for her to deal with, then maybe she’d reward me by leaving me alone. But that little scheme didn’t work out either.
Turns out Cabria and his new home inside a tarot card hadn’t been “prepped” by Maisie for his life sentence in the deck, and until then he couldn’t be captured, not yet. I’d asked Maisie to teach me how to select a higher arcana card and turn it into a prison, but she brushed me off. So, Cabria, although he may not suspect it, is next in line for Maisie’s tarot deck. But before she eventually snags him, I needed some information from the guy.
Vince had a relationship with William. He’d borrowed a large amount of cash from Koldwell, and William had approved the loan. I wasn’t about to get rid of the one person who might be able to help me find my boyfriend and my cat.
When I drove up to the White Swan at about nine in the morning, the pub looked quiet. A few cars sat parked in the lot, and it surprised me to see anyone there. The Swan opened at noon for lunch during the week. I saw Devon and Whitman standing outside the front door. Normally, Devon took direction from no one, except Maisie, and most times not even then! I’d caught him! He clearly was making plans with Christian Whitman, or that’s how it looked.
They talked tête a tête, and of course, now they were on the carnival committee together; maybe they had a legit reason to be standing around discussing things, but I doubted it. Whitman had a piece of paper in his hand, but the paper was too small to be anything but a phone number. Whitman pointed to the paper several times as if he wanted to be sure that Devon committed to memory what was written there.
I was about to get out of my car when I noticed a very large, black shadow hidden at the side of the pub. It broke away from the early morning outlines and silhouettes cast by the sun against the building. The surrounding bush cast a few, very dark shadows, but the one that disturbed me most moved on its own and moved with purpose. The White Swan was nearly engulfed with bush and shrubbery, which gave it a once-upon-a-time storybook feel, but suddenly it seemed to have grown wild from neglect, and brambles nearly took over the building’s exterior, so anything might hide there.
The two men didn’t seem to notice that they were being stalked by a massive dark, creature that kept to the darker alcoves created by the shrubbery. I locked my doors. I saw a pair of green eyes glowing from the distance bushes. I wanted to beep the horn on my car to warn them and scare away the stalking thing, but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.
Transfixed, I watched as the dark liquid form of a catlike creature slipped off into the black wells of the shrubbery and disappeared. Devon and Whitman never knew what nearly had them.
Too terrified to move, I sat for quite awhile, watching them talk, so caught up in their jibber jabber, they were oblivious to their situation. My principal and the rascally Devon seemed to be deeply intent on hatching their plot.
I’d have to get out of my car and head into the pub, if I was going to let Vince know that he was in Maisie’s crosshairs to finally be put into the deck. He needed to find a way to give her back her cash, or he was going to wind up a forever character in her tarot deck.
Cabria was a ten on the scale of creeps, and probably deserved more than most to be a part of the sorceress’s magical chain gang, but I didn’t want Maisie to get her hands on him just yet. I needed him to continue circulating around town and, in particular, to stay on top of the Wild Swan (which he owned and operated), so I could figure out where William had gotten to.
Since I’d arrived in Meadowvale, I’d inherited a little bit of money, a lot of money for me, and thought I might offer it to Cabria for the return of my boyfriend. Cabria would then offer the money to Maisie so she wouldn’t put him inside the cursed tarot deck, and he’d remain free to help get William. If William even needed help.
After observing Whitman and Devon for a few minutes longer, I remembered I could sneak around to the back entrance of the Wild Swan and enter there. I’d worked at the Swan as a pole dancer for a short time and had learned some of the less obvious entries and exits to the place, but I was very nervous about running into that big cat critter lurking in the shadows. It must have escaped from a local zoo. What other explanation was plausible? I searched through my purse for the magic canister of hairspray that Maisie gave me a while back. I always carried a can with me and found it! Armed with that, I avoided Devon and Whitman and headed for the back of the pub, keeping a close eye on the shadows.
*
I headed to a side entrance and entered the Swan. After all my excitement, I needed to visit the lady’s room, so I headed there, next. No sooner was I nestled down on one of the seats, (after covering it with strips of toilet paper) when I heard someone slip inside. Sick with fear, I lifted my feet so that the place looked empty. As far as I knew no one else was inside the pub, but maybe one of the pole dancers had arrived early for work.
No such luck. I gulped quietly as I heard the soft sliding pad, pad, pad of an animal! The low, dull, gurgling growl of a big cat! OMG, I’m sure I stopped breathing at that point.
If that animal wanted to slip under the door and make a meal of me, it could have, but I heard it leave. Even then I didn’t dare move until I counted to one hundred. I was so nervous I couldn’t think straight. I stayed quiet, but the rest of me didn’t. I flushed and cautiously stepped out of the stall.
The bathroom appeared to be empty.
I washed my hands and counted to ten, twice, calming myself. I gave my hands an extra drying and decided that no one had come in and that that cat creature was a part of my wild imagination. Still, it creeped me out just a little to think that a lurker or a big cat could be hanging around.
After all, I knew the washrooms in this place were magic portals to other places in town, but only if you had one of the keys from the tarot deck, and I knew those keys were soundly locked in the safety deposit box in Koldwell Bank. But then I’d thought that of the tarot deck and now it was free!
I stepped out of the washroom area and ran right into Devon!
He grabbed me by my arm.
“Janey, baby, shhhhh,” he said, putting a finger with a too long fingernail to his lips.
“Eff off, Devon! It’s illegal for you to come in here. This is the ladies room. No men!”
He started to laugh. “Thanks for the compliment. But I’m not a man, not even close. And we’re standing outside the ladies room.” He pointed at the sign above our heads. He grabbed my arm harder. I yanked it free and headed for the pub exit. “Don’t go, Janey. He’s waiting for you out there.”
I stopped in my tracks. “Who?”
“Whitman. You saw us, baby. He’s got plans for you.”
“Looked to me like you both have plans. I saw you two talking,” I said, trying to sound tough. I kept one hand on the exit door, ready to push it open and get out. “I’ve got to find Cabria. He’s waiting for me,” I lied. Devon grabbed me again, and this time he made a move.
I don’t recall all the details of what happened next, but I
know I did slap him, maybe a few times, but he seemed to enjoy that, and hitting him only made him grip me tighter and grin broadly. He hit me back and pulled me in close which made it more difficult to get in a another good hit, but I remembered some of my old defense lessons from kickboxing, and I brought my Dayton down on the arch of his foot. He didn’t like that.
I barely got away.
When I got away, Devon’s cursing and swearing and near screaming followed me through the pub. I couldn’t stand the sound of it, and I had a gut feeling his fury and pain might transform the demon from man to devil, and I didn’t want to deal with that right at the moment.
“Going somewhere, Miss Starr?”
“Mr. Whitman. What a surprise. I have an appointment with Mr. Cabria.”
“Really?” he said, looking over my shoulder toward the ladies’ washroom.” I took that moment to step around him and move quickly into the open pub. He grabbed at me. I slapped his hand away, and something came away, but I didn’t take a moment to see what it was. I headed for the front door and hoped I’d get to it before Whitman and Devon joined forces.
I did get there, but the door was locked. I tried to unbolt it, but I was too rattled to figure it out.
“Locks don’t keep me. Creeps don’t creep me. Open sesame. Free me.” The bolt moved. I twisted it the rest of the way, opened the door and ran to my car. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized I’d used magic without organizing a pattern and sneezing. And the piece of paper Devon and Whitman had been discussing, and which I’d inadvertently slapped free of Whitman’s grabbing paws was in my hand!
My magic was changing.
*
That night I slept like a cat. The dreaming started again, but the only part I remembered was running into Devon. He talked to me and asked me how my practice of magic was coming along.
He started to show me how to cast a spell; it was too late when I realized it wasn’t a practice session, but a real spell he was casting on me. I tried to run from him, but that didn’t work. My arm quickly turned into a spider’s leg. I watched in horror as it transformed, starting with the fingers. They turned into long hairs, the wrist and arm to the elbow became spindly and bent.