by R. E. Rose
I woke up covered in sweat, breathing hard with all the covers kicked to the floor. Dread filled me like a black soup. In the dream, he’d injected a warm burning concoction into my arm, and it felt as if the limb had gone to sleep and was only now coming back to life. I rubbed my hands together and then rubbed my wrist up to my elbow then squealed in horror when I noticed my arm did look hairier. My fingernails looked too dark, but as I rubbed and flexed they came back to normal.
I can dream in magic, OMG.
I got up and poured myself a glass of red wine. Lately, I’d observed that magic lingered in my body for quite awhile, like a hangover. I felt it now. I never knew it was possible to dream in magic. A scary thought – what if I got out of control? What if I’d dreamed that cat creature crawling up my bed from the night before and made it come to life?
I gulped my wine.
Once, when I went through a sleepless period in my life, my doctor said it was okay to have a glass of wine before bed, it might help me sleep. One glass didn’t work. Tonight, I had one more, and I did relax. My Ouija board lay boxed up in a corner. I was tempted to pull it out and ask about my dream, but I decided against it.
I closed my eyes and thought about the magic I’d used to open the door at the Wild Swan, when I’d needed to get out in a big hurry. Maybe that made the difference, being panicked I’d never had my magic work without capitulation to my obsessive compulsion to organize a mess and make a pattern.
I decided not to over think it and reached for my stash of grass. Glendie’s words about smoking pot by myself, echoed in my head, but what’s a girl to do? Tonight, I figured, was an exception.
And then I remembered the piece of paper I’d grabbed from Whitman.
It held a number. A phone number, but I wasn’t sure because it had no spaces between numbers. I looked at the picture frame beside my bed all cracked and badly glued back together. William’s face stared out at me, a little smile and lots of mystery in his green, green eyes. He was actually very sexy, reminding me of an actor who played in one of the newest Star Trek movies. I really missed William. Was this his way of breaking up? I didn’t think so, yet his failure to make contact must mean something.
Why, I wondered, if I was able to fix a broken bauble at Maisie’s shop, and move a lock on a door without touching it, couldn’t I do the same with the frame that held my only picture of William.
“Quick fix, make it stick, works like magic crazy glue, bond together just like new.” I got excited when I saw the broken glass heave a bit and vibrate, but when no actual fix took place, I pouted and smoked a little more and tried again, nothing.
In fact, the more I smoked the less effect my incantation had, until it had none at all. I’d also noticed that when I drank wine, my abilities got a little less – enchanting. Why was I drinking the ten-dollar plonk I’d purchased at the local beer and wine shop? I had the bottle of wine I’d taken from Joseph Seer, the fool in Maisie’s tarot deck. I’d won it from him when I recaptured him and sent him back to the deck.
It was magic wine, I knew, but I’d thought its only “trick” was that the bottle replenished itself. Taking William’s broken picture with me, I ran to the kitchen to find that bottle of wine.
It was right there in the wine rack. I popped it open, poured, drank, and enjoyed the instant warm feeling that swirled in my tummy. The magic wine washed away the lingering feeling of dream magic and replaced it with a light happy emotion of release from care and worry, which extended into my limbs and face. The magic wine cleansed me.
I set the broken portrait of William on the kitchen counter. I sipped my wine, stared at the picture and said, “Quick-fix, fiddles and sticks, broken frames and bones, mend my picture, use this tincture –” I splashed a few drops of wine on the frame and before I could finish, the cracks in the frame and across the glass faded and mended – “keep William’s picture honed.” The words just came to me. The picture of William changed ever so slightly. His eyes became more oval, their pupils slit, like an animal’s.
I touched the picture, and it was warm. Wow, I thought. I can do magic after drinking alcohol, at least this alcohol. The magic bottle of red wine, let me keep my magic! I pushed William’s portrait to the center of the counter. On a tea towel were a few spoons, knives, forks: cutlery I hadn’t put away for days.
I had the strongest urge to arrange them around William’s picture. I pulled cups from a cupboard, and I shook out a handful of Sia’s crunchies and decorated around the frame. I looked at my arrangement and felt the magic building inside me. I only needed to chew my bottom lip to bring on the crazy release that would push my powers into the room. I sneezed, the most powerful sneeze ever, a sneeze with a force I’d never knew I possessed. I waited a moment to see if I was all right. I looked around the kitchen. It seemed okay. I grabbed a tissue and wiped my face. And then,“Meeeeerow!”
I freaked.
“Meeeerooowwwaaooo.” The sound was horrible, like cats mating only way louder and creepier. What had I unleashed? The sound seemed to come from below, as if whatever made that noise was trapped in the underground parking. I was afraid it would wake up the entire complex! I threw on my housecoat and bunny slippers and ran outside. Dawn wasn’t yet breaking, and a few birds twittered. It wasn’t until I let myself into the underground parking that I heard it again and every hair and skin cell stood on end. I had remembered to grab a can of my magical hairspray and held it out in front of me.
I wished it was a light saber.
The door slammed behind me, and I screamed! Except for the echo of my scream, the place was silent. When my heart settled, and the blood pumping in my ears calmed, I heard a sound coming from the garbage dumpsters! Some thing was having a meal. The crunching and chomping of chicken bones, the steady slurping of garbage, the claw and tear of plastic bags, all sounds that said run don’t walk back to your safe little condo. But I had to face it. I felt strongly that my kitchen magic had somehow conjured this creature. I had to know what it was!
I managed to creep up to the dumpsters without disturbing anything. I really had to suck it up to force myself to peek around to the far side.
But I did it.
What I saw was a large catlike creature that licked her way through a soggy, drippy ice-cream carton. And she didn’t look much like a ghost. But she was huge, about twice the size of a normal cat. And her fur looked crazy and wild, sticking out in every direction which made her look even larger. Her head bobbed when she ate, and I noticed that her rhinestone collar wasn’t there, yet she looked very solid for a creature supposedly dead, and at best existing in another dimension.
She started purring. “Finally,” she said. “Yes, I’m dead. But you’ve conjured me back from my ghostly existence, for a while.”
I felt my legs go weak under me, and I slid down the side of the dumpster until I sat on the cold cement floor of the underground, knees up under my chin.
“Put your hairspray away. You won’t need it,” she said without turning to look at me. But the hairspray canister had already rolled out of my hand and under the dumpster.
“Cat got your tongue?” she asked, and then I swear I heard her laugh. I was still faint on the ground. “Pull yourself together, Jane. I don’t have a lot of time, and there’s much to discuss.”
“Anesthesia?” I managed to sputter.
“That’s right,” she answered.
Anesthesia, Maisie’s ghost cat?
My strength returned in ebbs. The ghost cat seemed too huge for a domestic, and when I asked her about it, she said, “It’s mostly aura.”
“Aura?” I whispered. I still didn’t have much strength; the shock and fear of the giant ghost cat and finding myself alone in the underground parking left me spent.
“Aura – energy, it emanates from the body. I don’t have a “body” anymore, so my energy isn’t contained. It emanates, which makes me appear much larger than I really am, or was.”
I nodded. I got it.
; “Good. You don’t look well, Jane. What’s the matter?”
“Resting. I’ll be over it in a minute or two. Continue, please!”
“I’ll start from the beginning and give you the touch points of my situation.”
“Yes, of course.” I sat a little straighter, tried to get comfortable, tried to look like I might be recovering from my faint. Something told me I’d be here awhile.” The garage floor cooled the back of my legs and my butt. I put the palm of my hands down and let them get cool, too, grateful that I’d found a cool, convenient place to collapse. Anesthesia continued, and she took a moment to turn away from her meal and look at me.
“My death wasn’t exotic or planned. I wasn’t murdered or anything dramatic. I got hit by a damned car.”
“No!” That sort of death seemed so pedestrian for such an impressive creature.
“Yes. I should have seen it coming, but I got distracted by a neighbor’s dog. Maisie had left the front gate open, after carrying in a bunch of groceries and the damned dog got into the yard. I got out, quick, and like a common rat, I ran into the street. SMACK! Actually, the car technically didn’t hit me. I hit it. Ran into its damn wheel and SNAP went my neck. “
“Terrible! No nine lives?” I asked.
Anesthesia turned back to the garbage a minute and licked at some spot on the ground. Yuck!
“That was the ninth, but it didn’t matter, really, Cheshires never die. I became a ghost. As a ghost, I normally stay in the Chesh dimension.”
“Cheshire?” I asked.
“Such a damningly long word, Cheshire,” she answered.
“But with the carnival coming to town, and the warlocks and witches gathering and sorting themselves, oh, and then there’s the gang rivalry, to boot, and you refusing your powers and position, and William needing attention, I have to hang out here for awhile. Maisie gave me orders to hang with you.”
“She likes giving orders,” I said.
“She does.”
“But you still eat? I mean you’re eating garbage!”
“Garbage to you, maybe. To me, these scraps have a food aura as yummy, perhaps even yummier, than when it was actually food.”
“I see,” I said, but once again really didn’t, literally didn’t see what she feasted on except for scraps she pushed around with her paws. “Well, what’s next?” I asked. “What’s your next step?”
“Everything needed to speed up. So, William had to be called for initiation. Maisie told you all about him, correct?”
“Kind of,” I said, not wanting to sound too certain in case Anesthesia thought she could leave out any information she thought I already had. There we were, the two of us, a Cheshire and a collapsed neo-sorceress, in the underground lot, picking at old fish bones and discussing William’s initiation into a world I didn’t understand at all.
“You understand that all Cheshires are female,” she said.
I nodded.
“Eh, can’t hear you,” she growled in a very cat-like manner
“Yes,” I said, louder and my voice echoed.
“Of course you do. So, isn’t it strange that William, a man, gets an initiation? Yes?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Good,” she said, and then took a moment to paw through a greasy fast food bag. “In times of momentous importance, it becomes necessary for the Cheshire community to initiate a powerful warlock into the sisterhood. Do you have any idea why?” she asked.
“Ah, ah,” I really had no idea. I decided to grasp at a straw. “To breed, maybe?”
That got her attention. She stared at me; her eyes narrowed, and she hissed. “Guess again.”
“Please, Anesthesia, just tell me.”
“Very well – it’s about the balance of power! Surely you understand that?” I did understand.
“I get it. A female society if unbalanced needs to right its bias and can do it by bringing a single, powerful male into its fold.” How did I know that? The words came floating up like bubbles released from the bottom of a pond.
“Very good. Exactly. But not any male of course, but a practicing warlock, like William, who wields great power in this dimension and equally great power in the dimension of shadows.”
“Shadows?”
“Another reference for the Cheshire Society.”
“Uh, huh.”
“That’s it,” she said, and she started to clean herself.
“That’s it? No, that’s not it. How does William wield great power in this dimension?” She gave me a very condescending look, as if I should understand. I shook my head, no. At the moment, I hadn’t any idea.
“He’s a banker. Can’t get any more powerful than that,” she said.
“I suppose.” I closed my eyes for an instant, or at least I thought it was an instant, and when I opened them again, only Anesthesia’s green glowing eyes stayed behind to stare at me. It disturbed rather than comforted me to see those saucer sized eyes floating before me. I forced myself to my feet and headed back upstairs to the condo.
It was about five in the morning when I decided to call William and invite him over for the rest of sunrise and to tell him about my encounter with Anesthesia. His picture frame sat perfect and perky on the table by my bed.
I was absolutely electric with magic that I didn’t know what to do with. I needed to learn even more about what I was and who William was. And why he’d taken Sia. I called all his numbers. His cell, office and landline and got no answer, only answering services. Finally, I pulled out the scrap of paper I’d accidentally taken from Whitman, the one with the number on it. I called it.
I needed to cuddle someone.
5.
Then you’ll Be Something
It wasn’t William’s phone number.
The voice on the other end of the phone sounded like the devil himself. Actually, it sounded like my old nemesis Devon Raker, back from the tarot deck! I hung up. I took the piece of paper with the phone number to the candle in the front room. I lit the black candle. The brown packaging and pink tissue paper was still tucked around it like a small island. I watched the paper with the phone number burn in the candle’s flame. That was the end of that!
I didn’t have any food in the house. I don’t know what I would have fed William even if he had been able to come over earlier in the morning. I decided I’d go back to bed and go shopping later. But sleep avoided me because of the electric, sparkling feel of the magic I’d conjured with the wine, and my frightening encounter with Maisie’s ghost cat still had me on edge.
Eventually, I slept until my alarm rang for the third time. I dragged myself through my morning routine and headed straight to the grocery store for food and grounding. It was a place I understood, a place that nourished me in more ways than one.
But five minutes into pushing around my cart, I knew I was being watched and followed. Trying to grocery shop when you know you’re being stalked by a dreadful half demon is next to impossible. Devon pretended to be grocery shopping, too. I was curious to know what a demon buys for dinner. But as I tried to turn the tables and follow him around, I noticed that my hand-written shopping list began to lose its items, and then I lost my entire list. I bought cat food for Sia (in case William suddenly brought her home), but the cat food disappeared from my shopping basket.
The wheel on my grocery wagon began a terrible wobble, and the clincher came when the toilet paper pyramid display tumbled down around me. Finally, I confronted Devon. I cut him off coming around the corner of an aisle; I crashed my cart into his.
“Devon Raker, what a surprise,” I said. He wore his signature hoodie with the hood up, but he didn’t look quite as scruffy as he usually did. He didn’t look unattractive, but once again appeared to me like the sexy pirate-type, one semi-opened eye. He always looked like he was winking at me, a stubble beard and dark shiny hair; he looked like a surprised movie star who didn’t want his picture taken by the paparazzi, a look that disturbed me because I found it attractive. I sooo did
not want to be attracted to him.
“You’ve got the wrong guy,” he said, in his deep, gravelly voice.
“No, no, I think I’ve got the right demon. Why are you following me again? And, even more importantly, why’d you turn me into a spider in my dreams?”
“Janey, Maisie wants you. She needs you, and so do I.” I noticed a movement in his cart and when I looked down a bunch of fresh flowers lay there.
“What trick is this?”
“No trick, lovely Janey.” He picked up the flowers, roses, and gave them to me. They were gorgeous. “For yesterday at the Swan. I’m sorry! Let’s make-up.”
“What does Maisie need me for, now?” I asked.
“She wants you to be Queen of the tarot deck. And you’re perfect, baby. I want you to boss me around not that witch. She needs to be free to pursue her wish.”
“What wish is that, Devon?”
“She wants to own restaurants, be a restaurateur.”
I barely held back my laugh. But I wasn’t going to let him off the hook too easily.
“Why a spider, Devon? Why’d you try to turn me into a spider in my dreams?”
“I wanted to capture you. Put you in a little jar and watch you spin your web. Then Maisie would give you a nice big, warm aquarium to live in and then she’d have you! We’d have you. And I’d be freed.” He shrank away from me after that little confession. His stare darted around as if he feared being overheard by something.
“She’s gonna let you free of the deck if you bring me back to her?” I said, really annoyed at the thought. I put my hands on my hips. I was getting ready to deck him.
“Oh, no, no, no. Just kidding with you, sweet thing.” He really looked spooked.
“Maisie just needs a friend,” he said, recovering from his admission.
“I’ll think about taking Maisie’s place,” I said, having no intention whatsoever of doing so. “What do you know about William? Where is he?” I asked.
“Who’s William?” he asked back.