Gale had left a message for me two days earlier that some astrology books I’d ordered were in. She was holding them down the street at the Mystic Eye. I hadn’t had a chance to pick them up yet but I was anxious to get them. Since I was already downtown and it was Sunday afternoon, I knew the shop would be open. If Gale wasn’t there, our friend Cheryl, who manages the Mystic Eye, would be, and she’d have my books handy.
The sun had peeked out during the afternoon, but it wasn’t going to last long. From the upstairs windows, I could see a fog bank hanging out at sea. I grabbed my purse and a jacket and carried my tote bag down to the car. I dumped it in the trunk of my Geo and left the car in the driveway. I turned down the hill and walked the few blocks to Broadway, where the Mystic Eye occupies a conspicuous spot on the main street, close to foot traffic and coffeehouses.
Gale’s shop caters to occult tastes—books, jewelry crafted by local artists, candle-burning supplies, Tarot cards, sage bundles, and religious items from religions even I haven’t heard of. The shop was just one of Gale’s many business projects that was making a nice profit. Once the Eye was on its feet, Gale had become bored and wanted to move on to other ventures. She’s one of those amazing people who makes money at anything they touch. I, on the other hand, just manage to make ends meet with my astrology practice. But I can’t complain. I’m doing something I love, and sooner or later my income will increase.
Cheryl manages the Eye by herself for the most part. When she and Gale first met, Cheryl was looking forward to a messy divorce and felt completely lost. Her husband of ten years, Frank the endodontist, had left her for his dental assistant. A homemaker all her life, with no real job skills and no children to care for, Cheryl had been devastated by Frank’s exit. She walked into Gale’s shop one day for a reading at one of the psychic fairs, saw a Help Wanted sign, and applied for a job on the spot. She was, according to Gale, as nervous as a cat. She confessed that she hadn’t held a job since college and was renting a room in a residence hotel on Bush Street, having left Frank in possession of their large house in Berkeley. Gale was enraged when she heard the whole story and took Cheryl under her wing, hiring her on the spot. Since then, the three of us have become close friends.
I was in similar shape myself when I first met Gale. I’d earned a masters in anthropology, but after Michael’s death I couldn’t seem to pick up the threads of my old life. That was when I discovered the Mystic Eye and became a regular and a devotee of astrology. Gale opened new doors for me, as she later did for Cheryl, and I never looked back. I’ve written some articles, and one book on love triangles, while keeping up with my private clientele.
I peeked through the front windows of the Eye. Customers were milling about in the aisles. I cut down the alley around the side of
the building. Gale’s parking spot was vacant, but Cheryl’s VW was
there. I wiggled the knob on the back door. Locked. I tapped on the glass pane and saw Cheryl approaching from the office to unlock the door.
“Hey, I expected you yesterday. You got the message your books arrived?”
“I did. I didn’t have a chance to call you back. I had the wedding yesterday.”
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot.” She smiled suddenly. “Did you have a blast?”
“Uh … we should talk about that later.”
“Oh. Sure.” Cheryl could tell she’d upset me. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“That’s all right. I just wanted to catch you before you closed up.”
“Come on in.” She locked the door behind me and I followed her into the storeroom. An energetic, petite blonde, Cheryl is rail thin and full of nervous energy. Like Gale, she doesn’t pay a lot of attention to the occult arts, but she recognizes the money-making possibilities for the Eye. The aroma of incense, scented candles, and sage bundles filled the back room.
“Listen, Julia. I’m so glad you came by. We’re not closing for another two hours. We have a psychic fair going on.”
“Oh?” I had a premonition of Cheryl’s next statement.
“And the astrologer I lined up just called. His car’s broken down. He won’t make it for another hour or so, if he makes it at all. I’m desperate. I’ve been stalling five customers, telling them he’ll be late. Can you fill in? Please?”
I groaned. “You know I don’t like to do fairs. They’re a pain, especially for astrologers. Besides, since I bought my computer program, I’m spoiled.”
“I’m begging.” She clasped her hands together and bowed from the waist. “Please. You’ve got to help me out. Gale’s not here. She left earlier, before all this happened. It’s not the money so much, it’s just that I hate to turn people away and possibly lose future customers. Gale sets these things up for marketing.”
“I don’t even have my laptop with me,” I said. Cheryl looked desperate and I folded. “Two hours?”
She nodded.
“Who else do you have working today?”
“I’ve got Eric for past-life readings.”
“Oh, he’s good. I like him.” Eric is a slight man who seems to barely maintain consciousness during readings. He dresses in dark suits two sizes too large for him, always with a white shirt and a tie. While he reads, his eyes roll back and he speaks in slow, lugubrious tones. His readings are based on past-life relationships and, whether you believe in that sort of thing or not, he’s unerringly accurate in describing the circumstances of current-life relationships.
“And I’ve got Zora,” Cheryl continued. “And Ankaret. You know her. She uses the Tarot.”
“Zora’s very talented,” I agreed. “She did that séance for us last winter and I’ve heard she’s a wonderful psychic too.” A hefty woman, Zora dresses in long skirts and tunics, wraps multiple shawls around herself, and calls her clients “babe” while shouting advice at them in a gravelly voice. “But I don’t know the Tarot lady.”
“Yes you do.” Cheryl leaned closer and whispered, “She’s the Joni Mitchell wannabe. Nice, but she spent too many years smoking dope in Big Sur. Somebody needs to tell her the seventies are long over.”
I heaved a sigh and hung my jacket on a hook in the back room. The shop had been designed with four tiny rooms along the side, each just large enough for two people to sit at a small table. The private spaces were hidden from public view by a curtain over each entryway.
“I’ll need an Ephemeris and a Table of Houses, and do you have one of those little gizmo wheels that guestimate the rising sign? Oh, and a large pad of paper and a pen, and a timer or a clock.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you, you’re a doll. You’re a lifesaver! You know how we sell these readings—a dollar a minute in fifteen, twenty, or thirty minute increments. You just have to talk to each person for fifteen minutes or whatever. That’s not hard, is it?”
“No,” I agreed. The problem was that I hated to do any kind of reading flying by the seat of my pants, so to speak. Fifteen minutes doesn’t allow enough time to do more complicated calculations by hand. If I’d brought my laptop with the computer program, I would have been able to set up birth charts instantly. The best any astrologer can do in a situation like this one is to ask for the birth date and birth place and hope the client knows their birth time. Then make a quick judgment about their personality from the planets in signs and in aspect, and hope that a significant transit was occurring to one of the natal planets, in order to say anything meaningful. Even though I did plenty of fairs at the beginning of my career as a way of building up my business, I’ve never been crazy about doing readings under these conditions.
Cheryl led me to a tiny side room and rushed back with the requested Ephemeris that would give me planetary positions by date, a Table of Houses reference book that could tell me the sign and degree on house cusps—assuming the client actually knew their birth time—and all the other items I’d requested. Then Cheryl ducked out and walked through the shop ca
lling for someone named Shandra.
A young woman in her early twenties peeked through the curtain and hesitated.
“Hi, Shandra.” I smiled. “Please have a seat.”
The girl looked terrified and sat with her hands clutched around her purse. She was dressed in overalls and a T-shirt with a scarf wrapped around her curly brown hair. She gave me her birth information and even the time. I sketched out her chart as quickly as possible.
“It looks like your Ascendant is fifteen degrees of Aries.” I estimated the movement of her progressed Moon for her current age. “I’m sorry I don’t have my laptop with me, but it’s likely your progressed Moon is approaching your seventh house cusp.” I looked up. “Are you planning to get married? Or perhaps making a big emotional commitment, moving in with your boyfriend?
“Yes,” she breathed. “That’s amazing you could tell that. We’re supposed to be getting married in a month. The wedding invitations have been sent out already.” Her voice quavered.
“I see. Well, the seventh house is all about relationships. But you’re having second thoughts, aren’t you?”
She nodded but offered no further information.
I took a deep breath and dove in. “In your natal chart there’s a difficult aspect, one that has colored your early years, your childhood. So, undoubtedly, your fears are connected with this placement.” Shandra stared but did not acknowledge my statement. I knew I was on the right track.
I turned the pad of paper toward her. “You see, your Sun is near the tenth house cusp, right between Neptune and Saturn. Opposing that stellium is Chiron. The fourth and tenth house cusps are the nadir and the Midheaven. This axis indicates parental influences in your life, and since Saturn conjuncts your Sun, I’d maybe say this pertains more to your father than your mother. You’ve suffered a great deal in your life because of the lack of a father figure, but you’ve been very strong. The Saturn conjunction has given you strength and you’ve been able to compensate.”
“Yes. That’s true.”
“Did he abandon you or your mother? Did he disappear in some fashion? Maybe even close to the time you were born?”
Shandra nodded. “He … he drowned in an accident when my mother was pregnant with me. Just before I was born. It took them a long time to find his body. It was terrible for my mother.” Her face crumpled and she started to quietly cry. I passed her the box of tissues. Neptune, I thought, the ruler of watery places. How terrible and how apt.
“I’m sorry. I haven’t thought about this for a long time.”
“And your mother raised you alone?”
“My mom and I are very close.” Shandra blew her nose and wiped her eyes. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to come here and blubber.”
“It’s okay. We all blubber sometimes. Even me … especially me.” I smiled.
Shandra laughed nervously.
“Let’s get back to the wedding invitations. Do you love him?”
“Yes. Very much.”
“And he of course loves you.”
“Yes.” She smiled shyly.
“Well, let’s look at his birth information. Even if you don’t have all the information now, you can always call me later with it. We can set up a very quick solar chart for your boyfriend and see if there are any real problems.” She gave me his birth date and I quickly sketched out his approximate chart.
“My mom really wants to see us get married. I think she’s afraid I’ll be alone and won’t have anyone to look after me.”
I thought of my grandmother. This all sounded very familiar. “I can understand that. So what are you afraid of ?”
She stared at me silently. I let the silence lag, and then asked her softly, “You’re afraid that if you marry him, he’ll die. If you invest in this, you’ll be left like your mother?”
“Yeeees.” At this, Shandra burst into tears again. I passed her the tissues once more and handed her a glass of water.
“Don’t feel bad about crying. Crying’s great. It gets all the demons out into the light of day.”
“It sounds so stupid when you say it like that, but I guess that’s why I’m afraid.”
“Okay, now look at this.” I pointed to the paper. “Here’s the solar chart of your boyfriend. What’s his name?”
“Rick.”
“Okay. Rick seems like a pretty well-balanced guy. There are many, many good connections between your charts. He balances you out very well. You’re complementary to each other in lots of ways. With the information I have, I don’t see anything negative here. It’s very positive. What does your mother have to say about this wedding?”
“Oh, she’s got her heart set on it. That’s why I’ve been so upset. I’ve been thinking of calling it off. I’ve been so scared and I didn’t want to hurt her or hurt Rick. I’ve backed out twice before, and this time, he says he can’t do it anymore. He loves me, but he says if I don’t want to marry him, he just has to go away.”
“Well, the decision is yours, of course. No one should force you to do anything you don’t want to do.” I waited to see her reaction.
“What do you think I should do?”
I always have such a hard time biting my tongue. “I really can’t tell you what to do. But I can give you some good advice. I think this is a very positive relationship. You’re good for each other and, frankly, with his Saturn return coming up this year and your Moon progressing to your Descendant, this is the right time. The Saturn return is considered ‘the astrological coming of age.’ It usually happens sometime between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty. That’s the time we’re most free to make decisions that will affect our path for the next twenty-eight or so years. It’s a terribly significant time. And your progressed Moon … well, you may not be fully aware as yet … but you’ve already made the commitment.”
Shandra was quiet.
“I also think it would help you to see a therapist for a little while, to sort out your father’s death and separate that event from your current life. I can give you a few names of good psychologists, if you’d like.”
I thought about my own therapist, Paula. Maybe I should give her a call soon myself, but it wouldn’t do to recommend Paula to an astrology client. I’d hate to bump into one of my clients in a waiting room. They’d wonder why astrology hadn’t answered all my questions and doubts. Astrology can offer a lot of support, but it’s still no substitute for dredging through your own very illogical emotions.
“Now that it’s on the front burner this would be an excellent time,” I continued. “There’s no need for you to carry these old wounds and fears into a very promising future.”
“Maybe I should give that a try. I’ve been so stuck and so scared to make a move, but I’m really terrified I could lose Rick.”
“That’s it, my dear. I’m afraid our time is up.”
“Oh, thank you. I can’t thank you enough,” Shandra mumbled. “Can I come back and see you again?”
“I’m not always at the Eye, but let me give you one of my cards if you need to see me, okay?”
Shandra took my card and stared at it. She looked up at me. “You’re …”
I didn’t respond. I suspected what was coming next and I dreaded it.
“You’re the astrologer who rescued that woman from the crazy religious cult, aren’t you?
I sighed. I’d hoped all the notoriety from months ago would be forgotten. I took a deep breath and smiled. “That’s me, all right.”
“You’re famous!” Shandra’s eyes grew wider.
I shook my head. “No, really, I’m not. It’s just that they printed my name in the paper.”
“Ohmigod, I had no idea!”
“Well, please don’t hold it against me.” I laughed.
“Wait till I tell my friends that I had a reading with Julia Bonatti.”
I groaned
inwardly. The events of last winter still haunted me. I didn’t like the idea of being in the glare of any kind of publicity, but when my client’s elderly aunt was lured into a religious cult that didn’t have good intentions, I really had no choice.
Shandra tucked my card into a pocket of her overalls. “Thank you so much!” She stepped through the curtain. Through the gap, I could see her two girlfriends waiting anxiously for her. One reached over and gave her a hug as they exited to the street.
I heaved a sigh. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a universal law that we’re constantly confronted with the very issues we have trouble dealing with in our own lives. If Shandra could overcome her fears, then maybe there was hope for me too.
I managed to get through five more readings in my cramped little space: one elderly woman worried about her grandson, a businessman concerned about a move, a housewife considering full-time work, a single woman worried about marriage, and a professional gambler asking about amulets to help his luck. Thankfully, no one else recognized me or my name. Finally, I heard the bell on the closing door ring for the last time.
I peeked out. “Is that it?”
“Yes. Thank heavens. I’m beat!” Cheryl turned the lock on the front door and flipped over the sign to read Closed. “If I have to smell any more patchouli, I’m gonna throw up all over my shoes. Want to get some Chinese? I need to inhale something totally different before I scream.”
“Sure. I’m starving. Where do you want to go?”
“Let’s leave the cars. Did you park in the back?”
“No. My car’s at Gloria’s. I walked over.”
“Let’s go to that dim sum place up the block.”
“The Twin Dragons? Okay.” I slipped on my jacket and grabbed my purse and the new books.
“Would you check in the back and make sure everyone’s gone and the door is locked?”
I dropped my purse and books on the counter and stepped into the back room. I couldn’t find the light switch but felt my way past stacked boxes to the door. A small amount of light from the alley filtered through the dusty window. I heard breathing and the skin on my arms tingled. I wasn’t alone in the back room. Then a shadow moved across the light source coming from the front of the shop. Powerful hands grabbed my shoulders. My breath caught in my throat.
All Signs Point to Murder Page 5