The Curse of the Mystic Cats

by R. E. Rose

  “Wadda ya think?” she asked me.

  “Pure magic,” I said, holding the deflated piece of plastic out to her. She took it and winked.

  When I got back to my little tent, two women on the stage still practiced their burlesque routine, and had already worked half way through their number; there scantily clad bodies sparkled under the lights, all boobs, belly and butt. They flailed and pulled away at each other’s bodices and fishnet stockings. They ended with their legs intertwined and arms all tangled in their clothing.

  “Very cute,” I called out. They waved.

  “Thanks!”

  “Are you from the deck?” I asked. They looked at each other and began a funny improv.

  “Are you from the deck?” one asked the other.

  “I’m from the poop deck,” she said, and saluted, “Are you from the deck?” she asked back.

  “I’m from the patio deck,” she said and patted her partner’s bare butt.

  “Deck the balls with bows of bolly woooood,” they sang, then broke into fits of laughter and did head baubles, and a charade of naughty positions. Mundanes, for sure, I thought. They didn’t belong to Maisie’s deck, which I found refreshing.

  I went into the back and donned my scanty costume. By the time I got out, the two previous performers had gathered bits and pieces of props and clothing.

  “Oo-ooh, a pole dancer,” one woman exclaimed. “May we watch?”

  “Ah, sure, why not? If I can’t dance in front of you two, then, well, I can’t dance.” OMG, I wanted to hit myself in the forehead. After Emilia’s act, and the performance these two mundane women gave, the pressure to entertain sat on my chest like an extra large boob.

  I spent too much time checking the poles. I heard one of the women call out, “They’re still there!” I waved a thank-you.

  I started my music and began. I started with crazy hair flipping and hip wiggling all the while holding onto the pole. I really got into the beat of the music. I swung and split and gripped up, doing mostly attitude moves and hip locks. I knew my magical suit made me a real star! Its power took me over, and I did things I’d never even imagined.

  By the end of it, I breathed like a fire bellows, exhausted, but in a good way. My audience of two stood and cheered. That felt good.

  Then, out of the shadows at the back of the raised bleachers, Christian Whitman descended like a shadow demon. He didn’t clap. He didn’t smile. The burlesque ladies took one look at him and escaped by scuttling to the back rooms. Whitman raised one long snaky finger toward me and curled it a couple of times. He wanted me to come to him.

  I grabbed my things and ran to changing rooms.

  22.

  A Magical Leap

  He followed me! The guy had boundary issues.

  “Get out!” I said.

  “Not until I’ve said what I came here to say.”

  I sat in my vanity chair in the back changing room, and he towered over me. I watched him in my mirror.

  Christian Whitman had a storm in his eyes. He waggled a long, skinny finger at me.

  “Jane, do not to expose yourself in this manner, or I will have to fire you from your job at school.”

  “May I remind you that it’s an adult show and no one will know, and I need the extra work to make ends meet?”

  Then Whitman reached deep into his jacket pockets and pulled out a lot of cash and handed it to me. When I reached for it, he grabbed me and started kissing me. I pushed him away and threw his cash at him. “I’d rather work for the show than work for you. Fire me if you have to.”

  “Do you have any idea what is going on at this carnival?” he asked. I stared at him. He looked angry; his lips pulled so tight they disappeared. “Do you actually think this set up is here for the fun and entertainment of the folks in Meadowvale?”

  “Maisie’s characters are out of the deck for some R and R, but mostly to make her some cash,” I said, and hoped my update sounded like old news.

  “That’s it?” he asked. He trembled with anger and a weird kind of laughter.

  “If there’s more I don’t know anything about it.” I lined up my toiletries on the table and began to organize it all. I powdered my nose, but I never really use powder, and I made myself sneeze, several times, and with the sneezes came my magic. The vibrations filled the tiny room. The palpable sneeze mojo made me jumpy.

  Whitman’s face snarled as one end of his mouth curled up and the other curled down, as if some horrific scent crawled up his nostrils and pulled them upward in pure, utter disgust. He uttered a horrible yelp and growl.

  “Magicae statur!” As he uttered those words, he changed, but only for a moment. But in that instant, he wore not a suit and tie, but a long black robe with a hood, like the one from my dream. I wanted to scream, but no sound came from me. I managed a croak, and felt my magical force drain from the room, like a dimmed light. My random supernatural atmosphere, that I’d created only moments ago, wavered.

  Finally, I was able to speak.

  “Magic stay! Firmamentum notoriae,” I said in a voice that sounded an awful lot like Whitman’s just did. I don’t know where the words came from. The room refilled with my power and more.

  “Return Silvio’s paw,” he commanded me. Whitman’s outer appearance changed completely. He now wore a velvety black robe and hood. He’d become the person from my dream, his disguise as the private school headmaster completely gone.

  “You came to me in my dream! Is that what you came to say? Return Silvio’s paw?”

  “We meet at midnight,” he hissed at me. “Bring the panther’s paw to the main tent at that time,” he said, and added, “You’ll be sorry. This is the road they want you to go down.”

  “Am I fired?”

  “Not yet,” he said. Then he pulled out one of the skeleton portal keys, inserted it into the air, turned and a spinning vortex appeared. He exited through his magic portal. He still had a key! I searched through my purse for the amulet that Silvio gave me. I found it and put it around my neck.

  “Wow,” I said, to my reflection. “What just happened?” That stupid gift Maisie gave me, that shriveled old paw, turned out to be too important – important enough to bring Whitman to me.

  Stunned as I was by the turn of events, I heard music out on the stage. I crept out to have a peek and to my delight a troupe of Chippendale-type dancers rehearsed their act. I decided to take a front row seat. But even while I enjoyed the sexy male dancers, Whitman’s nasty vibe and visit stuck to me like a hot piece of gum on the bottom of my shoe.

  After watching the male dancers do their naughty moves, I wanted to find Emilia and share my concern over Whitman’s demand. I headed back to the fairgrounds only to find chaos and mayhem as people ran and screamed and knocked one another down. I grabbed one of the fair’s people, dressed in uniform.

  “What the heck is happening?” I asked.

  “The panthers!” he said, breathless, “They’re running!”

  “What?”

  “They’re fighting, and don’t care who or what gets in their way.” A small tent in the distance crashed down, and people inside screamed.

  “Let me go! Run and hide before they find you!” he said, and ran.

  The scene was like one from a dream. One by one, small tents fell. All around me the material ripped and tore, and the terrible screams of people filled the sky. I found a place to take shelter and called Emilia.

  “I know about the panthers,” she said. “I’m on their trail.”

  “Emi, one of them is William. I’m sure of it. Don’t hurt him! You can’t hunt those things with your knives. You’ll need a gun, but don’t shoot Will.”

  “Guns or knives won’t bother these guys. They’re not normal panthers. Oh, and a message from Maisie. Don’t, whatever you do, give Silvio that paw she gave you. He’s probably trying to get back to you, and William has stopped him so far.”

  “OMG!”

  “Don’t go home,” she said.

&nb
sp; “I won’t.” I dropped my phone as the panther – Silvio, flicked me in the face with his tail. Somehow, he’d found and cornered me! I pushed backed into the deepest corner of the small tent – he crouched to leap –”

  *

  The next thing I knew I found myself at Maisie’s Curio Shop. The Star card sat in front of me on the front counter. I touched it and sent myself into the interior of the card. And felt wonderfully safe.

  “Well done, Jane!”

  I jumped three feet. Her voice frightened me that much.

  “OMG, Maisie! What’s going on?” She sat on a high three-legged stool. It didn’t look that comfortable, but it still made her taller than me. She dressed more like a magical being rather than her usual professional dress. She wore a lavender chiffon cape that frilled at the neck with long lines of glittering sparkle in it. Beneath it, she wore a dark, plum colored shift with subtle symbols of magic all through it, moons, stars, wands and more. She looked more the part of a witch than ever before.

  “You brought yourself here – with your magic – You made a big magical leap!” She sounded excited.

  “Am I safe?”

  “For now. Silvio can’t find you here, and even if he guessed your whereabouts, and he will, he can’t come into the shop or anywhere near this card.”

  “Good to know.”

  “Now you have to decide what you want.”

  “I really don’t know what’s going on, Maisie.”

  “Do you want to be mundane, or do you want to be magical?”

  “I never thought I had a choice. I’m magical.”

  “You’ve always had the choice. When you relied on your mundane abilities, your magic didn’t get you far.”

  “Well, there’s no choice there. It’s like asking someone if they want to win a million dollars or not.”

  “Not everyone that wins a million dollars fares well.”

  “Well, I can’t put the magic down, and it only interferes in all the wrong ways when I try to remain mundane. So, I need to keep my abilities and hone them.”

  “Then you need to apprentice with someone more powerful than yourself. Someone who knows what they’re doing. And now, that your life is threatened. It seems like a good time to take on your new role.”

  “As what?”

  “My assistant.”

  “Yeah, I saw where this was going a mile back,” I said. A loud crash stopped the conversation. The noise came from the shop. Maisie disappeared from the inside of the Star card. I tried to make myself disappear too, but whatever I did, didn’t work. I eventually found the retro purple bathroom door that led me back to the shop. I closed it – flushed, then quickly opened it and voilá! I found myself in the back area of the curio shop. I didn’t step out too quickly. I waited, listened.

  Nothing.

  “Maisie?” I called. No answer. Nothing, no one, it seemed, occupied the shop. I sucked it up and went out.

  The front area looked nearly destroyed. Shelves knocked over, so many of Maisie’s precious little things fallen over and messed up. I wanted to pick it all up, get it tidied as soon as possible.

  I picked up a large crystal ball, a box of candles, three hypnotic music DVDs, two with cracked cases. I put these on the counter and went back for more. Once I’d collected about a dozen scattered items: packs of tarot cards and angel cards still in cellophane wrap, stacks of bath salts and hand-blown glass baubles, I pushed them all together on the counter along with handfuls of crystals and semi precious stones.

  I started to organize them, but something in me wanted them organized in a fashion different from the original displays. I pushed them around and around the counter, circling quartz crystal around glass balls, stacked the packs of cards, until finally I’d created a miniature city scene, with towers and streets and trees, symbolically represented by all the stuff from the shop. It looked very much like Meadowvale!

  My magic flowed and swelled inside me. My fingers tingled; my shoes squeezed my feet because my toes swelled with the magic. I needed to release it, but I didn’t know what for.

  The magic crept up my torso all prickly and scratchy and full of heat. I breathed deeply, over and over as I tried to hold it down, and hold it back. I didn’t want it to reach my face, head, or nose full force, but each time I took a deep breath and oxygenated, I fed the power and the magic spilled into my eyes. Colours blossomed everywhere, sparks of energy, lines of force, all became visible. My hair became electrified. I had the irresistible urge to clap my hands. I did, and the store became a tornado of force.

  A word rose from my gullet and like a gas bubble pushed into my mouth. I uttered:

  “Mutatio Ordinis.” All the objects in the shop fell into the tornado’s force. I stood in the center of the vortex.

  “Stop!” I flailed. My arms flapped like a flat-footed booby in a poor attempt to fly. Everything stopped mid air! Between the debris and through the window, I clearly saw one of the black panthers headed toward the shop. I quickly looked around and found the Star card, touched it, and found myself safely inside.

  Once again, all alone inside the card, but I’d left everything in mid-swirl in the shop!

  I heard the panther walk around the shop, and sniff, and bump, and growl, and wheeze.

  My cell phone rang! OMG! I wanted it to stop. I hoped that creature above me hadn’t heard any sounds I made in the card, but I could hear the big cat as it moved around the shop’s interior, so maybe that worked both ways. If I could hear him, he could hear me. I hoped not.

  I answered the cell.

  “He’s at your house,” Maisie said.

  “No, he’s at the shop,” I whispered.

  “That’s William. Silvio’s at your condo and you know what he’s looking for. Did you hide it?”

  “OMG. Ah, I put it back in its box and placed it on top of the mantle over the fireplace, right next to the black candle and feather you gave me which I re-wrapped in the brown paper it came in and then –” Maisie interrupted my babble.

  “Be quiet and listen carefully,” she said. She sounded mean and nasty.

  “Get back to your place and get that box. Do not open it. Silvio must not get that paw back. Do you understand?” I nodded.

  “Do you understand?”

  “Yesss,” I found myself hissing back at her.

  “Take William with you. If he’s still waiting for you in the shop. Go with him.”

  “Where do I take it – the paw?”

  “Back to the carnival. Take it directly to my card-reading tent.”

  I felt like a naughty, scolded child who’d been locked in her room and about to be conditionally released.

  23.

  Thesia

  I managed to get myself out of the card and back into the shop, which still looked like a tornado had messed with it. I sneezed loudly and somehow uttered magic words that not even I understood. My magic spells seemed to have turned into a Harry Potter-ish latinate, which could only mean my spell casting was evolving and my voice, too.

  “Ut ad! Statim formo ordino!” I said in Maisie’s voice. Instantly, everything was as it should be in the shop. I’m going to have to try that at home when my place gets messy.

  William, the panther, apparently left without me. I tidied a little but thought better of that when the familiar sound of Christian Whitman’s rattling key ring made me freeze. My dread threw me into slow motion, like I tried to push through thick, heavy water in a super slow, nightmarish scenario. I heard Whitman, coming through a portal in the back room.

  He stepped lightly into the front of the shop.

  “Jane, come this way, quickly!” He commanded. His urgency snapped through me, so strong and so powerful was the sound of his voice; it moved me to the back part of the shop, and through the portal before either of us uttered another word.

  The vortex blasted me like a floppy doll through its dimension and, on the other side, I hit and bounced backwards off my couch, ricocheting into the front from of my condo, la
nding on my butt and, for a moment, I sat there while I tried to catch my breath.

  My condo looked quiet. Behind me, Whitman closed the portal.

  “Where is it?” he asked. I pointed to the fireplace. “Get it quickly!” Still under the spell of his voice, I crawled over and got up to grab the box that held the panther paw. I dropped it carefully into my purse that had somehow managed to still hang from my shoulder. Before I said a word, Whitman flashed the ancient key ring and opened another portal; this one so brightly lit that an arc welder’s flash might seem dim in comparison. Whitman pressed me through, and he followed close behind.

  In moments, we’d left my condo and arrived at the interior of Maisie’s darkly lit, card reading carnival tent. William, the panther, his eyes glowing bright green, sat in one corner among the shadows, staring; Sia lay curled up next to him, and Anaesthesia’s black ghostly form floated and hovered like a curly black wig that had escaped its head.

  “Quickly! Sit here,” Whitman said, knocking the floating Thesia to one side. “No matter what happens don’t get up from this chair.” He moved to Maisie’s chair and pulled it out.

  “Sit,” he said, insistent and tapped the chair back with his fingers.

  The chair looked like something imported from an Egyptian pyramid: ornate, gold with incredible hieroglyphs of the ancients practicing unusual rituals. I sat.

  “Keep your purse under the table and no matter what happens next, do not remove that paw from its box or even indicate where it might be.”

  At that moment, Whitman brought out the ring of keys one more time. He inserted one particular boney looking key into the space beside him, turned it, and waited a moment while a vortex swiftly appeared. He stepped through, and nothing of him remained behind.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Whitman’s disappearing form.

  “Yikes! Meadowvale may as well go down a sink hole,” Thesia, the ghost cat, said in her smart-ass way.