The Curse of the Mystic Cats

by R. E. Rose

  I waved him off. “Leave me alone, so I can shop.”

  “Your wish is my command, beautiful lady.” And with that he walked away, leaving me standing in the pharmacy section holding the bouquet of flowers I’d taken out of my cart.

  “Miss, do you know that man?” I turned to see one of the older grocery boys behind me.

  “No, not really,” I said. The young man stepped forward and took my flowers from me.

  “He took those from the front outside. If you want them, you’ll have to buy these. I can wrap them for you,” he said overly cheerfully.

  I didn’t know what to say. I stood there shaking my head, for some reason I thought the roses were a magical gift from Devon. I should’ve known nothing came for free from him.

  “Sure, I’ll take them, go ahead and wrap them.” With that, and my roses, the young man sprinted away.

  When I got home, I put my flowers in a vase and sat them on the kitchen table. That’s when I noticed that the grocery boy had included a small card with the flowers. The card fell to the table, and I could see Devon’s phone number on it.

  Ignoring the card, I quickly put away the groceries and called William again. Last night, I told his voice mail about my dream in which Devon nearly turned me into a spider. Now I wanted to tell him about today, about my run in with Devon, my changing magic, and all my concerns. I noticed a message in my voice mail. William! I listened, but all he had to say was go see Maisie!

  “Are you sure?” I asked, forgetting I was listening to a recording. Then, there was a second voice mail from him. I listened to it too.

  “I’m sure,” he said, as if he’d heard me, “You’ll find Sia there.”

  What? I tried calling him back to confirm that I should go to Maisie, and that he and Sia would be found there. I found that hard to believe, after all that had happened. I left a voice mail telling him about my worry that Devon was once again running around the streets of Meadowvale, free, and my concern that this voice mail might be his next trick.

  “Okay, I’m leaving now.” I ended the call. I actually didn’t leave right away. I slowly put on my makeup, brushed my hair and thought about those voice mails. It was likely they were faked and that Maisie and Devon were once again setting me up. In my heart, I really hoped that William had been the one who called me.

  Someone called me back. My cell indicated another voice mail awaited me. Again, it was from William, and his message said he’d have my back while I allowed Maisie to do a tarot card reading. I really, really didn’t want to return to Maisie for the reading. I only agreed to it because William said he’d be there with Sia. At least that’s what I kept telling myself.

  William, I’d come to learn, was a pretty powerful guy when it came to magic and such. Unfortunately, he needed to spend a great deal of time in the Cheshire dimension in order to stay any time at all in this realm. And now there was this supposed and very strange initiation business he was involved in.

  In our idle chit-chat together, before he disappeared, he’d told me he was becoming a more powerful sorcerer and doing so permitted him to come out of the “shadows” and spend more time in this dimension with me.

  Going for the tarot reading would give me another chance to look at all those cards and see who was still inside the deck and who was free to roam the streets of Meadowvale.

  I decided I had to do it, for my own peace of mind.

  When I got to Maisie’s, William wasn’t there. As she had in the past, the charming sorceress invited me into the back of the shop. The reading table was, of course, ready with the lit votive and the cards spread on the table top.

  “I have a gift for you, Jane,” Maisie said, beguiling me with her smiles and affectionate pets to my hand and hair.

  “Of course, you do,” I said, pulling my hand away and pushing off her affections, “You know I’ve got a weakness for those kinds of things. Is it another feather and candle set?” She looked at me like I was speaking another language, like she had no idea what I referred to.

  “Oh, and one more thing,” Maisie said. “William’s not coming. Something came up.”

  Furious, I jumped up and grabbed my cell and punched in his number. I got his voice mail. But it informed me that his box was full and couldn’t take any more messages. I was so upset; I looked to Maisie for an explanation.

  She only smiled sweetly.

  I should have walked out then. But I was so angry I was feeling helpless. I sat back down at the table and watched as Maisie shuffled the tarot deck. I noticed that when she stirred them, the cards sparkled for her. The same way they had for me the first time I’d picked them up and played with them. Tiny fireworks orbited her hands as they had mine.

  “Maisie, before you begin,” she looked over the top of her glasses at me, “My gift? You promised me.”

  “You can’t wait till after?” She asked, clearly annoyed as she stopped in mid-shuffle, then she put the cards down.

  “No. I can’t wait.” I’d made up my mind. I wasn’t going to wait any longer for William. “I’ve got a date, and you know how I love to get ready for those. I’m out of here the moment we’re done.” I said, but really, I didn’t have a date, but I was pretty sure I could get one. I didn’t trust her at all. As far as the gift was concerned, she might renege on her promise after the reading.

  “You’re dating again? What about William?” she asked, looking truly quizzical.

  I shrugged. “What about him? He promised to be here, and he let me down. I don’t suppose you have Sia locked up in that powder room back here? He told me he’d bring her here.”

  No-show William had left me in the lurch, so it seemed.

  I was so angry that, when Maisie went to the store front to get my gift, I decided to get him back and remembered an online sweetie that was looking for a date that very night. Through email he told me that he was a fireman, and, I mean, who can resist one of those? I’d already bought his calendar. I pulled out a number he’d sent and contacted him right then and there. He said he was available that night and that made me feel so much better. Now, finally, something to look forward to

  I grabbed the tarot deck and began a quick flip through. And to my dismay, my suspicions were confirmed. Quite a few of the major players were missing. Of course, I knew Devon was out of his card, so his picture stood empty, filled only by the dark silhouette of his demonic self in the devil card.

  It really depressed me to see that. I almost canceled my date with the fireman. The Charioteer was missing, and so were the usual gang: Whitman’s character, the Emperor and more; Whitman always became possessed and controlled by the emperor’s spirit when he was out of his card, as if Whitman needed any more imperialism in his personality. Mr. and Mrs. Gottschalk, who were the Hermit and the Empress and two ne’er-do-wells to boot, worked for Whitman, and they were also out and about!

  And if my memory served me correctly, many of these major arcana characters were on the list of the new circus committee, struck up over the last long weekend and posted at the local post office and in the local rag.

  It was all starting to come together. The committee seemed to be heavily seeded with tarot majors, all released by Maisie. I had never actually met many of the missing characters, like Temperance, the Lovers and a few others, at least not yet. As I understood it, the major arcana characters had one option once they found themselves released. Take over their old lives in town if they had one, and take over the town. Maisie needed her payments.

  There were so many missing characters from that deck that I wondered if any at all remained. Once I checked, it was obvious that a few of the majors did remain, but arrgh, I was so disappointed. After all of my hard work to recapture them, Maisie had once again released them.

  I flipped the cards until I came to the Death card. Emilia Darkness waved out at me. I waved back. She was still inside, and she was the only character from the deck I really, truly missed.

  Only three characters from the deck hadn’t emb
ezzled Maisie’s money (at least as far as I knew): Emilia, the Death-Dealer, Devon, the demi-demon and Maisie, herself, the Star-card personality. They were beings unto themselves.

  Leaving would have been the right thing to do, but I really wanted this next gift Maisie promised to give me. I hated myself for not having the strength to go without it!

  I heard Maisie’s heels click-click-click, as she headed back my way. So, I quickly tidied the cards and left them back in the neat pile in the middle of the table.

  She carried a small box. She hesitated when she came to the table. She looked at the cards and noticed that I’d rifled through them.

  “Did you find what you were looking for, Jane?”

  “How did you know I peeked?” I asked, truly curious.

  She looked up toward the ceiling. I saw the small black eye of a security camera up there watching us.

  “Oh,” I said, “That’s new,” I added, again feeling a little sheepish.

  She held out the box she carried. Bigger than a ring box, about the size of a paperback book but thicker, a beautiful sleek, black box with a subtle shiny pattern on top which only appeared if you tilted it in the right light. I actually liked the box quite a bit. The box alone suited me as the gift.

  “Open it,” she said.

  Like a kid at Christmas, I took the box and shook it lightly. I smelled it, held it upside down. Something slid around, very light but try as I might, I couldn’t guess what it possibly could be. Jewelry, I hoped. Finally, I took the lid off and looked inside. Anything had to be better than a feather and candle. While I dug through the nicely folded black tissue paper, the prickly sensation of a magical spell ran up my arm. Maisie shuffled the tarot cards, readying them for the grand reading.

  The gift had a spell on it. Before I got through all the amazingly folded paper, she asked me to cut the deck, so I did, suddenly feeling more amenable to the whole situation. She spread seven cards before me, face down.The sparkle and dazzle around her hands that came from the cards, came to a stop-- as did my rustling through the paper in the gift box.

  “There’s nothing in here,” I said, feeling like an idiot after unfolding all the black tissue paper that filled the empty space.

  “There is,” she said, without meeting my eyes.

  “There isn’t,” I said and pushed the box toward her.

  “You can’t see it.”

  “No – I can’t because it’s empty.”

  “When I say it’s not empty, it’s not. You’re not powerful enough yet to see that gift.” She pointed at the first card she put down. Speechless, I looked in the box and was about to turn it upside down. I felt so foolish having fallen for another of her tricks.

  “Don’t do that!” she yelled. I stopped and set the box down, carefully. “Put the lid on it. Keep it somewhere safe. Keep looking into it every once in awhile. And never ever turn it upside down. When you finally see what’s in there, then you’ll be something.”

  6.

  Panther Paw and Lovers’ Lockets

  Maisie shuffled and flipped the remaining tarot cards.

  “Hurry with the reading, Maisie,” I said, feeling very impatient. While she mixed the cards, I pulled out my local fireman calendar. It barely fit in my bag. I’d carried the calendar around for days, and it looked a bit soft and split around the edges.

  “Look at this! This is why I need you to hurry.” I flashed Maisie with Shane’s shiny centerfold. This godlike man might prove to her that there really is a Shane Apollo in town, and that I needed to date him, ASAP.

  She shrugged, not very interested in my picture. “He’s not the man you think he is. Get over it.” I gazed back at my glossy picture of Shane. Get over him? I didn’t think that was possible. I pressed his smiling face to my cheek. Unless he didn’t like women, I didn’t want to get over him.

  By now Maisie had placed all the tarot cards for the reading in front of me.

  I took my time turning the first in the lineup of seven cards. But Maisie annoyed me with her dismissal of my calendar, so I quickly flipped the rest of the cards only to see yet again see an empty major arcana, the Lovers’ card, devoid of an image. Only a silhouette of the man and the woman that once stood there.

  I looked at the rest of the cards neatly spaced in the pattern of a small “n” shape. The next card selected showed the empty Chariot card, only a silhouette, like a dark keyhole set against the white backdrop of the card, the outline of an ancient chariot as well as the outline of the two animals pulling the chariot framed the place where the actual coloured image should be placed. The silhouette of broad shoulders and the helmet of the charioteer stood out clearly.

  “The fireman you’re dating tonight belongs in that card,” Maisie said.

  “You’re telling me that my date tonight is from the Chariot card. He belongs in this empty spot here?”

  She gave an affirmative nod.

  “Is he in possession of someone’s body, someone who really lives here in Meadowvale?” I recalled Glendie’s situation when she’d been possessed by the Sun spirit for a while. But once I got the sun spirit back into the tarot deck, Glendie was her old self again and actually had no memory of being taken over by the Sun card’s spirit. I hoped the same scenario applied to the fireman.

  I’d tapped Glendie with the Sun card sending the offending spirit back to the card and the card back to the deck. I’d do the same to him with the Chariot card; that would send any specter that possessed him back to Maisie’s tarot realm, and then I’d date the real guy. I really hoped it could work out. I wanted to make friends with the real Shane Apollo minus the escaped tarot spirit.

  I explained this to her.

  “He’s in the deck serving time for me. He doesn’t possess anyone in town,” she said, all matter of fact, tapping Shane’s silhouette in the card with a finely polished nail. I considered this. He wasn’t the man I thought he was. Was it even possible for me to date him?

  “But I don’t understand. Is he in the deck or is he out and about acting like a fireman?”

  “He is part of my deck, and eventually he will return to it. He is out and about at the moment, and he really was a fireman when he was in charge of his own life. He’s back at his fire hall at this time as his old self.”

  “So, he’s not possessed?” I asked.

  “Only by me,” she said, “I control him and make him reside in the chariot card when I don’t have business for him.”

  “So, there is a real Shane Apollo in Meadowvale, and he isn’t taken over by the spirit that resides in the Chariot card?” I asked as clearly as I could.

  Maisie nodded. “That’s correct. When he’s out and working for me, he’s only controlled by me. If I let the Chariot spirit have Shane then he ends up wondering all over town.”

  “So, you control Shane?”

  She rolled her eyes and nodded, yes, one more time then she added, “Your friend Glendie was possessed by the Sun card spirit. There’s a Moon spirit and a spirit for the Tower of Destruction and any other major arcana that isn’t actually a person.”

  “Like the Star card?” I asked. She gave me a look and then nodded an affirmative.

  If Maisie could “possess” Apollo, then I was pretty sure I could too. I needed to talk to Shane.

  The rest of the cards in Maisie’s reading consisted of the six of wands, the seven of wands, the eight of pentacles, the three of swords, the Death card, which still held Emilia, the Death-Dealer, but she looked all serious and didn’t move or blink, not even when I waved to her to say hello.

  “Hey, Emi,” I said, and touched the card. She was all business and didn’t greet me back. When she was out of the deck, we were pretty good buds.

  “How can you read these cards when the pictures are missing?” I pointed to the silhouettes then held up a card. “I captured them, and you let them go,” I said accusingly.

  She put out her hand to silence me.

  “Putting them back into the deck got you off the ho
ok to become the new deck guardian. That doesn’t mean I can’t let them out again.”

  “But how did you get hold of them? I had them locked away,” I asked. But she didn’t answer, but appeared to be considering my question.

  She then began to read the spread, but I didn’t pay much attention, unable to concentrate on what she had to say. I waited for my answer, and when she didn’t seem interested in telling me why she let the majors out of the deck, I told Maisie my time was up. I needed to get home to get ready for my date with the fireman.

  “You’re determined, aren’t you?” she said, taking back the cards and returning them to the box.

  If it turned out that Apollo had to be put back into a card, I was going to make it a fun assignment and find every reason to keep Apollo free for as long as I could. For a moment, the idea of a deck of cards imbued with power over others got me excited, especially a deck with Shane Apollo inside of it, but when I remembered my own short time trapped inside the Star card, and I snapped out of my reverie pretty quickly. After all, I was a free spirit myself, meaning I did what I wanted. The small spell Maisie put on the gift finally wore off, as the tingling feeling my arms disappeared.

  I’d call Shane and have him pick me up at the shop, whereupon I’d do everything I could to prevent him from being touched with his Chariot card which would put him out of commission.

  I had to do something to get William off my mind.

  “The carnival,” Maisie said, like that explained everything in life.

  “What about it?”

  “That’s the answer to your query.”

  “My query?” I was confused.

  “About the tarot deck, the majors,” she said and gave me a wink. “You wanted to know why they’re gone.”

  “They’re out of the deck because they want to go to the circus?” I asked, not quite believing what I was hearing.

  “That’s one way to put it,” she said. She gathered up the cards, all except for Emilia’s. I stopped her.

  “Wait. Did you really let them out?” I asked her.