A Soul To Steal

by Rob Blackwell

  “Why?”

  “Because I didn't get any customers,” she replied. “I went under my real name-Carol Cuthberson-and put out a helpful sign. This was the 1970s. I thought my power alone would keep me going.”

  “It didn’t?”

  “Heck, no,” she replied. “You wouldn’t believe it now, but in those days I was a looker. And all they saw was a pretty girl who told them some things they wanted to hear, but mostly stuff they didn’t. I was right, and I knew it, but they didn’t. They felt ripped off without the theatrics of the psychic scene. They had seen so many movies, even by then, that it didn’t feel real to them without all the fake crap surrounding it.”

  “So you played along?”

  “Eventually,” Zora said. “I worked as a secretary right out of high school. I did the whole 9 to 5 work thing. And it wasn’t for me. For starters, I got tired of knowing things I shouldn’t, like who was real sick and probably going to get cancer and whose wife was cheating on them.”

  “You saw that psychically?”

  “Saw is probably the wrong word,” Zora replied. “But, yeah, I knew it. It was like a gut feeling. I have had it since I was a kid. Sometimes I just knew stuff. I found that the more I listened to that voice, the more I knew. Sometimes all it took was talking to the person, other times I would shake their hand. I used to amuse my girlfriends at Lincoln High by telling them all sorts of gossip. Nobody knew how I got it-and sometimes even I wondered if I was making it up. But this one time, I knew this girl called Colleen had slept with my best friend Jeanne’s boyfriend. I told Jeanne and she cried a fit, denied it, and said I was a liar.”

  “What did you do?” she asked.

  “I proved her wrong,” Zora said. “I told her to wait by the girl’s locker room on Thursday night and see for herself. And sure enough, she saw that little hussy getting it on with her ‘loving boyfriend.’ If I had a nickel for every time I knew about some adultery, I would be a rich woman.”

  “So you decided to take up being a psychic as a job?” Kate asked.

  “I hated being a secretary,” she replied. “Just hated it. I wanted to be my own boss. But I hadn’t gone to college and this was the only talent I had.”

  “You opened your own shop,” Kate said.

  “I did, right on the outskirts of my hometown,” she replied. “And I stayed away from the theater at first. I really did. But while being psychic is a talent, I figured out pretty soon it isn’t enough. People want the theater. They need it. It’s the same type of person that keeps going to Catholic mass when they don’t believe a word of it. People like being mystified. They aren’t going to take psychic advice from Carol from Keystone, West Virginia. But they will take the advice of Madame Zora-Psychic of the East.”

  With that, both Zora’s countenance and voice changed. Instead of seeming tired and resigned, she now appeared regal and in command of the room.

  “Let me tell you your future, Kate,” she said, and Kate was blown away by the change. She seemed like a wholly different person. “Let me gaze through the sands of time and tell you what the goddess Fortuna has in store.”

  And as quickly as before, Zora slumped back into her chair and returned to her regular voice.

  “Be honest-who would you believe? Me or Madame Zora?”

  Kate smiled.

  “Exactly,” she said. “So I left Keystone, moved to Leesburg, and opened up this office here. The worst part about it is that so many people think you’re a fake. They see all this bulldiddly and think, ‘No way.’ I get that. But you know what? Most of those people wouldn’t believe me anyway. I’ve convinced plenty of people I was for real, but I’m not sure if it is the talent or the theatrics that does it.”

  “You seem somewhat irritated by that,” Kate said.

  “Do I?” Zora asked and sat up. “I’m not, you know. In a way, I’ve grown to like it a bit. It’s like an actor must feel giving a real fine performance. When you see some people walk out of here, you can just tell their whole world has expanded. They believe, Kate. And I know I delivered it to them.”

  “But you know some of the stuff is fake?”

  “Does it matter?” she asked. “They get the real stuff too.”

  Kate paused.

  “How much of this are you going to want me to print?” she asked. “Surely, it won’t help business.”

  “Sweetheart,” Zora said and cocked her eyebrow at her. “You can print what you like. People see what they want to, anyway. And, not to break your heart, but I’m not too worried that the readers of the Loudoun Chronicle will have much effect on my business. There aren’t that many.”

  Kate chuckled a bit.

  “Maybe not,” she said, smiling.

  “I like you, Trina,” Zora said and the color drained from Kate’s face.

  “What did you call me?”

  “Are you okay?” Zora asked and a look of genuine concern was on her face.

  “What did you call me?”

  “Trina. That’s your nickname, isn’t it? I didn’t really think about it…”

  “It’s not my nickname,” Kate said evenly. She was flustered but let it go.

  “Oh,” Zora said. “That’s odd. Well, maybe it’s just an off day. First, my botched entrance and then…”

  “Have the police ever used you?” Kate asked suddenly.

  Zora leaned back in her chair.

  “Oh,” she said and put her hand to her lips. She then pulled idly at her ear.

  “What do you mean, ‘Oh?’” Kate asked.

  “This is about him, isn’t it?” Zora asked. “I’m sorry I didn’t see it earlier.”

  “About who?” Kate asked.

  “Honey, I know you think I’m a nutball, but you have to believe I really do have some talents. So, yeah, I see stuff others can’t. For real. And the minute I called you that nickname, I could see it in my head.”

  “See what?”

  “A press clipping. Of those murders 12 years ago. You are practically throwing it off in waves. I don’t know why you care so much about it. I can’t see that far, but I can see that.”

  Kate pushed back her chair.

  “I ought to get going.”

  Zora reached across and grabbed her hand.

  “Honey, you don’t need to worry,” Zora said. “If you don’t want to talk about it…”

  “I don’t.”

  “Then we won’t. There is no need to run away. I have the feeling there has been a lot of that already.”

  “Look,” Kate said. “I like you, but don’t think you know me, okay? I’m not some customer you can just snow over.”

  Zora leaned back again.

  “I never thought you were,” Zora said. “Well, not since I saw you at any rate.”

  The two sat in silence for a minute. Kate was unnerved and she felt like she had enough for a story anyway.

  Zora took a large breath.

  “You want to see the Tarot card bit?” she asked.

  Kate nodded. As long as they weren’t going to talk about her mother, she would be okay.

  “Tarot cards are great little devices,” Zora said. “I used to think they were crap. But I made the mistake everybody makes when they see these used. They think the cards somehow have power. And that is, of course, absurd.”

  “What then?”

  “The cards are inanimate objects,” she replied. “They have no power at all. But the people-the two of us, for example-have the power. My abilities and my read of the person affect how I shuffle the cards and subconsciously affect what I pull out. It’s really quite simple.”

  “And the cards then tell the future?”

  “Well, that’s the other part,” Zora said and smiled. “The cards don’t tell you anything. It’s all in the interpretation. And that is done by me. Someone with no talent will just randomly interpret. Maybe they will get lucky. Someone with a little talent even can start discovering fascinating things. If they trust their instincts, the cards can tell them many t
hings.”

  “The future?” Kate asked and started writing again.

  “Maybe,” Zora said. “Do you want to see?”

  Kate nodded with a slight hesitation

  She watched Zora as she shuffled her way through the deck and laid them out on the table. She laid three in the center face down.

  “This is just a test run, honey,” Zora said. “You can do this with all different kinds of cards in all sorts of ways. I’m just going to do three from the Major Aracana.”

  With that, her voice changed.

  “Now we shall see your destiny,” Zora said in her British accent.

  She flipped the first card.

  Kate was a little surprised to see it was the Hanged Man. A man was suspended upside down from a tree, his feet tied up with rope. Kate had seen this card before-she remembered seeing a friend get her fortune told at the beach some years ago-but then the man had looked peaceful, as if in suspended animation. On this card, the Hanged Man looked in pain, as if he was struggling to get free but failing. His arms were tied behind his back and Kate could see a figure in the distance coming towards him. Whoever it was, the Hanged Man looked panicked about it.

  “Strange,” Zora said. She flipped the cards over and stared at it. “I use these cards a lot, but I don’t remember seeing this version before.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Probably Lou Ann bought me the wrong pack,” Zora said, but her voice sounded unsteady, as if she wasn’t sure that was the case.

  “All right, though, what does the card mean?”

  Zora kept staring at it.

  “Well, it can mean many things. Sacrifice, giving up, surrender, even passivity,” she said. “But I don’t think that’s what this one means.”

  “I don’t follow,” Kate said.

  “Everything is instinct. My gut says you are not the surrendering type and this card-this version of it-is about anything but surrender. I’ve never seen one like it. But the Hanging Man is also a doorway of sorts. He sees what others do not, from an angle they do not. In this case, he could be an opening to the Truth. To the mystical.”

  Kate wanted to look away and couldn’t. The image bothered her more than she wanted to admit, particularly the look on the Hanged Man’s face.

  “Isn’t he supposed to be peaceful?” she said.

  “In every other card I’ve seen, he is,” Zora said, looking up at Kate. She couldn’t be sure, but Kate thought Zora looked a little bit frightened. “This card isn’t like the others. It’s about a journey, one that may be quite painful for you. But it clearly denotes the start of something, something that will look like one thing but be another.”

  “Like a friend who isn’t a friend?” Kate asked.

  Zora nodded. “Or something that seems good, but isn’t. Or the reverse. The Hanged Man sees things in a different way-he sees what’s real.”

  “He looks like whatever he sees is terrifying him.”

  “Let’s just move on to the next card.”

  Zora drew carefully from the deck this time, as if she wasn’t quite sure she wanted to. With some hesitation, she put the card on the table.

  Kate didn’t need an interpretation. At a glance, she knew the card: The Devil. A horned, giant beast stood in the middle of the card, holding a trident in one hand and extending his arm to two human figures below him. There were a man and a woman on the card, both naked with horns of their own.

  Kate looked up. “If this is a joke, it isn’t funny,” she said.

  But Zora seemed more unnerved than she did.

  “The Devil can also mean many things: ignorance, stupidity, prejudice and pessimism,” Zora said. “But I think this one is about something else too. It’s about sex.”

  Kate took a look at the card. The human figures weren’t looking at the Devil-not even a little bit. Instead, they seemed to be staring at each other with a look of raw desire. Kate wasn’t sure how the artist could show it in such detail, but now that she looked at it, it was obvious the two wanted to have sex. And not the kind you see in the movies, or at least not the films she watched. These two people wanted to get it on right there and then and if the Devil was watching them, she doubted they cared.

  “Again, this version of the card is unique,” Zora said, her voice still unsteady. “The Devil often indicates sexuality, but this is more obvious than on some. There is another thread here as well: obsession and temptation. One thing I know: sex will change everything.”

  “I’m not exactly a virgin,” Kate replied.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Zora responded. “This-whatever this is-is different. Is there anyone you are attracted to? A boyfriend?”

  Quinn came unbidden into her thoughts. She had been about to say no, when an image of him popped into her mind. But she hadn’t looked at him that way, had she? No, he was just a friend. Then why had she kissed him? Why was she thinking of him now?

  “No,” she said.

  Zora was staring at her.

  “I don’t need to be a psychic to tell that you are lying,” she said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Kate said.

  “Not to me, it doesn’t, but it matters to you,” Zora said. “This is not your average relationship, that’s for sure. If you move forward with this person-if you have sex with him-the world will never be the same.”

  Kate tried to smile, tried to laugh it off, but none of it felt funny. The more she thought about Quinn, the more she realized she was attracted to him. She was breathing faster, her pulse rate up. She licked her lips. It dawned on her that she was very attracted to him and that scared the hell out of her.

  “Next card,” she said.

  Zora hesitated.

  “I don’t know that it’s a good idea.”

  “Look, we’ve come this far,” Kate responded.

  Zora reached into the deck and pulled out the card. Kate noticed her hands were shaking. She already knew what the next card would be. She had known it all along.

  The card showed a knight on a dirty, matted horse. The knight held a sword aloft and below him were the trampled bodies of kings, merchants and peasants. Women and children lay sprawled at his feet. The knight himself was a grinning skeleton.

  “Death,” Kate said. “Well, at least I know what this one means. Is it my death?”

  Zora looked back at her. She suddenly seemed worn and very, very tired. Kate knew she wanted to lie, was almost sure she was going to.

  “Maybe,” she said. “Usually, the answer would be a straight no. I would tell you this is a symbol and nothing more.”

  “But not this time?”

  “Honey, I’ve never seen these three cards together. The Hanged Man, The Devil and Death? That’s a bad combination.”

  “I’m really missing why you get any return business.”

  “Do you think I would fake something like this?” Zora said, and her voice was back to having a southern accent. “How stupid do I look?”

  “You could just be trying to frighten me,” Kate said.

  “There are two frightened people in this room at the moment,” she said. “Believe me when I tell you that whatever you are into, it’s some serious mojo. Truth, Sex and Death.”

  “Great, I realize the truth, have sex and die,” Kate said. “Sounds like a slasher film to me.”

  “The death card may not mean your death,” Zora said. “Typically it stands for the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. It’s about transformation. Taken together, these cards show a major event in your future, one that could have massive ramifications.”

  “Including my death.”

  “Yes, that’s a possibility,” Zora said. “But there are others.”

  Kate sat in stunned silence. She looked at the three cards. The man hanging upside down, the couple staring at each other, and the skeleton on top of the horse.

  Something gnawed at her about the death card, so she picked it up off the table. The message in the card was clear enough: death takes every
one-men, women and children, from nobility to serfs. The skeleton knight held a sword out in front of him and it was unclear if he had trampled his victims to death, or used his weapon.

  There’s something familiar in this, Kate thought. But she couldn’t quite place it. An image that was similar, but not quite right. It was on the tip of her tongue when she noticed a word written on the sword. The letters were hard to see and Kate had trouble making it out.

  “What’s this?” she said and pointed to the sword.

  Zora took the card from her and stared at it. She reached behind her desk and pulled out a pair of glasses. If you ignored the outfit, she looked like a librarian. Zora examined the word carefully.

  “Sanheim,” she said finally.

  Kate nearly grabbed the card out of Zora’s hands.

  “I know that word,” she said, and felt like the room was starting to spin. She had seen it written in the bathroom mirror just the other day. Then it had disappeared. And hadn’t she seen it before that? A memory flashed in her mind. Her mother was dead on the bed beside her and she was holding the phone. Lord Halloween’s note was below her. But instead of saying, “Happy Halloween,” or anything else, it just had one word: “Sanheim.” She must have seen it in her dreams.

  “What does it mean?” she asked. “What’s Sanheim?”

  Zora stared at her.

  “Sanheim was the Celtic God of the Dead. It’s also a festival celebrated by thousands every year.”

  “I’ve never heard of it,” Kate responded.

  “Not under that name. But believe me, you know it. It’s the festival the early Christians renamed when they came to convert the Irish. They started calling it All Hallow’s Eve.”

  “Halloween,” Kate said under her breath. “Sanheim means Halloween.”

  Zora disappeared into the back for a moment and left Kate staring at the card.

  “This is about him, isn’t it?”

  Zora shook her head.

  “I don’t think so,” she said.

  “Come on. I get a death card with the word ‘Halloween’ on it and it isn’t about Lord Halloween? What are the odds of that?”

  Why does everything come back to him? Kate fought down an urge to run. She didn’t believe in divination-not really-but this was her worst nightmare in card form. She had always feared she would die at his hand and this appeared to bear that out.