by R. M. Ridley
“I kept at this for over an hour. It was like watching my own train wreck. I couldn’t stop even though I felt nauseated with each turn. I was gripping the thing so hard my fingers turned white. Every time I turned it over, it predicted my death. The words changed sometimes but never the message.”
“All right, Wendell, I believe something’s going on. I’m going to look into this. I want to check out this thing,” he said, pointing to the orb, “and I want to go to that antiques store.”
Wendell looked relieved for the first time since he’d entered Jonathan’s office. He placed the ball on the desk and sank back into the chair, not looking at the cursed object again. “Could I impose on you for another cigarette?”
“Yeah,” Jonathan said and slid the case towards Wendell without sitting down. He was, for the moment, not interested in Wendell. Jonathan knew he still needed to get more information from his client, foremost being what the hell had actually happened at the antique store, but it could wait.
He also hoped Wendell could become settled enough by that point to tell him clearly about the excursion. In the meantime, Jonathan would be remiss if he didn’t check out the Magic 8-Ball for any lingering spells or hex marks.
He perched on the edge of his desk, picked up the ball, and slowly turned the item in his hands. At every slight irregularity in the smooth surface of the black plastic, Jonathan stopped to examine it. He would run his fingers over the mark, bring the toy under the light of his desk lamp to inspect it, and wouldn’t move on until absolutely certain it was just a scuff or scratch.
It took some time, but finally Jonathan convinced himself that no hex mark or spell symbol had been carved on the item.
The next thing he wanted to do was test the thing for residual magic. However, he wasn’t sure it would be a good idea to perform magic, even the most subtle and benign of spells, in front of Wendell at that point.
Wendell seemed to have reached a place, mentally, where he could be content to just sit back and allow Jonathan to take over.
He gazed absent-mindedly out the window on the far wall and, though his fingers still loosely clawed at his pant leg, his foot had stopped its staccato twitch. His eyes had lost some of their haggard appearance.
Jonathan considered it a good enough condition to be able to leave the man alone. What he wanted to do would only take a moment at any rate.
“Wendell, I’m just going to step into the next room. I’ll be right back.”
Wendell nodded and, slowly turning away from the window, looked at Jonathan. “That’s fine—if you think it will help.” He then looked back out at the grey sky.
With a nod, Jonathan stepped into the front office. He set the Magic 8-Ball on the desk he kept for the secretaries he never could keep.
From his pocket, Jonathan took a small, wooden container. He dipped a finger into the ivory powder within and smeared an almost undetectable layer of it on the black orb. Jonathan then spat lightly on the 8-Ball.
He brought the ring and middle fingers of his right hand together and rubbed them together. In a voice, hardly more than a whisper, he spoke in Latin. A luminous white aura formed around his fingers.
The spell came fast. The energy he had suppressed just moments before leapt into him, his very flesh eager to perform even a simple spell. As the magic flowed, he felt the need that always resided inside his bones relent a little.
He placed his hand above the ball and, with a small effort of will, caused the white glow to fall away from his flesh and onto the orb.
Jonathan watched the white luminosity as it coated the black plastic. He kept his gaze firmly on the spell light and not the item it almost obscured. After a while, when nothing else had happened, Jonathan shook his head slightly.
He brought his two fingers together once again and started to chant. The cadence of this spell differed completely from the previous. Jonathan spoke the Ojibwa words quickly. Despite their rapid movement, a grey powder began to gather on those same two digits.
Once the powder became thick enough to obscure the details of his fingers, Jonathan stopped summoning. He tapped his left hand lightly on the back of his right, depositing the powder over the eight ball.
Nothing happened.
There were other spells he could use, less effective castings but still viable.
He wanted to use them, despite their limitations. He yearned to cast just for the feeling of purpose and power. Use, simply to bask in the feeling. Allow the energy to flow through him, to unshackle himself from the constant self-control. Soak in it and relieve the aching mental fortitude that bore down on him every moment he denied that which dwelled in him.
Jonathan closed his eyes. He gasped and expelled his breaths like a beached fish. He dug his nails into the flesh of his palms to stop his fingers from moving.
He had to be stronger than his hunger. Using would consume him eventually, but not today. Not this time.
Squeezing his hands tighter, Jonathan forced himself to speak the word to cancel the current spells. He cursed softly and sighed.
Not only had he found no hex marks on the damn toy, there appeared to be no evidence of any magical tampering at all.
Jonathan walked back into his office, leaving the thing where it was.
As soon as he sat down behind his desk, he took a drink to fortify his resistance and lit another smoke.
It took a moment for Wendell to get around to noticing that Jonathan had returned.
“All right, Wendell, this card.” Jonathan picked up the first thing that his client had given him and tapped the edge of it against his desktop. “Tell me again where you got it.”
“It came from a machine . . . one of those fortune teller booths,” Wendell added when Jonathan drew in a deep steadying breath.
“You mean the coin operated ‘Zoltan’ things from, like, the thirties?”
“Yes—yes! Only this one wasn’t a ‘Zoltan.’ I don’t remember just what it was called, but it featured an old woman inside the booth, not a man. She had a scarf on her head, and a shawl, and tarot cards spread out before her.”
“We are talking about a mannequin, or animatronics, or whatever here, right?”
Wendell sighed his answer. “Yes.”
Jonathan decided he’d better only ask questions when absolutely necessary. He feared Wendell still mentally teetered too close to the edge to be sidetracked or distracted. Some people just couldn’t handle their brushes with the mystical.
“Okay, sorry. Go on.”
“I was on my way to my dentist’s appointment. I always try to get there ten minutes early so I can relax and get myself in the right state of mind, you see. But the office had moved quite recently and, as this was my first time there, I had misgauged the time it would take to get to the new building. Consequently, I arrived twenty minutes early for my appointment, not the ten I had planned for.”
Jonathan wondered if Wendell had a medium setting.
First, he hadn’t told Jonathan anything. The conversation had been only slightly above the grunt and point level. Now, Mr. Courtney had given into pointless yammering that Jonathan thought unlikely to hold any significant meaning to the issue of his death threats.
“Finding myself so early,” Wendell continued, oblivious to Jonathan’s opinion regarding his speech, “I wondered what I should do with the extra time, when I spotted the antique store two doors away.
“Being as I like to peruse antique shops, I thought it a perfect solution, see? I even had the thought that I could make a habit out of treating myself to a trip to that store after my appointments with the dentist.
“The owner had seemed nice enough and though the shop felt cluttered, it appeared reasonably clean. The contents of the store were the usual compilation of curios, crap, and collectables. But I was drawn to the . . .” Wendell actually gave a shudder before bringing himself to say, “. . . the fortune machine, as soon as I laid my eyes on it.
“I had always loved them and found them fasc
inating, you see. I checked the asking price and though more than I could manage, it was, from my experience with such things, rather cheaply priced.”
Jonathan lit another cigarette from the dying embers of the previous and tried to will his client to get to the salient point of his rant.
“I asked the owner if it worked and he looked up from the counter at me with a look of puzzlement. He had been concentrating on a crossword, I believe, and it took him a moment to comprehend what I had asked.
“But once he understood to what my question pertained, he said to me, quite affably, that it did indeed work before lowering his head and once more resuming his scribbling on the paper.
“And so, with this reassurance, I took a coin from my pocket. It cost only a nickel, see, and I figured what the devil. Well, they do say you shouldn’t tempt fate or the devil, don’t they, Mr. Alvey?”
“Yes. Yes, I believe people do say that.”
“Well, once my nickel clanked into the bowels of the machine, the head of the doll began to move back and forth slowly—as though reading the cards spread out before it. After a moment of this, the head looked up and the hand reached down, as though sliding the card to me personally. That damn card you now hold.”
They both looked at the card Jonathan still toyed with. He placed it flat on the desk and motioned for the man to continue.
“That very card was what came out of the little slot of the machine. I read it and, at the time, thought it a joke.
“I glanced back at the owner of the place to share the jest he had set up but he could not have cared less about me. I looked again at the card and it was as you see it. I left then, swiftly, and went directly to my car.
“I drove home and tried to calm myself. I didn’t even know why it had affected me so. Perhaps, on some level, I knew it was more than a prank, even then. Knew it to be what it is.”
“What is the address of this place, Mr. Courtney? I want to go check out this machine. It’s possible it’s been tampered with.”
Wendell got a confused and hurt look on his face and Jonathan back-peddled to explain just what he meant.
“I’m not talking about the owner, or someone else, putting in these cards, Wendell, although I will check into that as well. I think the horoscope and the eight ball prove there is more to this than a simple card swipe. No, the tampering I am speaking of is, well, more esoteric in nature.”
“You really—you do that? It’s real?”
“At this point, Wendell, are you doubting there is something unnatural about what is happening?”
After a moment, Wendell replied he did not. He looked down at his shoes and went on to say, “No. I guess as much as I might like to hear you say otherwise, Mr. Alvey, well, I guess I know better.”
“Okay. I’m going to go visit this machine. You are going to go home and relax. I know that sounds insane, but run yourself a nice warm bath and soak in it.”
Jonathan slid a small notepad and pen across the cluttered desk so his client could give him the address.
As his new client wrote he said, “You know, I didn’t even think about the appointment which had brought me out there in the first place.” He glanced up at Jonathan with a look of guilt. “It wasn’t until I was home again—until I was trying to rationalize it. To get calm.”
He slid the notepad back and went on. “I thought about calling, just to tell them . . .” he ran his hand over his face and tiny Japanese flags fluttered to the floor. “At least to apologize, but I was afraid, see?”
“Well, dentophobia isn’t an uncommon thing,” Jonathan said and glanced at the address.
“I’m not scared of my dentist.”
Jonathan was impressed that the term hadn’t thrown the guy; it said a lot for his current mental state.
“I was afraid of what they’d—” He shook his head. “No. I was afraid . . .” He hung his head and sighed.
“You were afraid something weird would happen there, too.”
Wendell lifted his eyes.
“Afraid,” Jonathan went on, “something so simple and mundane would also be corrupted.”
His client nodded.
“Every time you start thinking about what’s happened, I want you to picture, in your mind, an acorn.”
Wendell’s head came up.
“It’s a meditation technique I find helpful to those who have never done it before.” Jonathan explained, “You think of nothing but an acorn, Wendell. Then, slowly, get more and more intricate in your vision of the acorn—see the cap, the ridges in the side of the nut, the rich color striations.”
When Wendell nodded that he understood, Jonathan reemphasized, “Try to do as I say. Home. Relax. Take that bath and I’ll call you as soon as I’ve done what I can.” And then Jonathan felt he had better add, “With what we have. Deal?”
“Sure,” Wendell agreed amiably enough. “Yeah. I’ll try the bath and even the nut thing. I’ll try.”
“Good. Don’t worry, Wendell, we’ll get to the bottom of this. And hey—in the mean time you could always live wild, you know, since you’re not going to die for three days yet.”
“Um . . . right. Thank you, Mr. Alvey.”
Jonathan nodded and escorted his client out.
Jonathan thought about what he would need to test the fortuneteller machine for a curse, or its like.
He wouldn’t be able to use the methods he had for the Magic 8-Ball. He disliked drawing up and casting from the innate power within like he had before . . .
That wasn’t true. The truth was he did like it—liked it too much. Anyway he could avoid triggering that craving was the wise man’s way to go, and Jonathan hated playing the fool.
Performing magic, Riding the White Dragon, made your bones feel like they were sweating, and soaked your brain in colors that had no name. The comedown, Bitten by the Dragon Black, when you stopped using, would make a heroin addict look like a teetotaler.
You couldn’t have one without the other, which is why the symbol to mark a practitioner was called the White Dragon Black. The Chinese called the symbol a taijitu, better known as a ying-yang symbol, but without the center dots. The symbol was far older than the Chinese use of it. Anthropologists had found the image in Etruscan art from the fourth century B.C. It had served as a way for practitioners to know each other and marked safe havens for centuries before that.
Jonathan knew he was a functioning junkie. To remain so, he didn’t like to push his luck, not if he could avoid it.
He tried using his own energy when there was no other choice. What he’d just done for Wendell’s magical ball had required a small amount of energy dispersal, but even that had still left him downing another glass of bourbon to counter the yearning and jittering deep within.
Jonathan filled his glass, lit a smoke, and sat down.
There was another reason he couldn’t use the same method on the fortuneteller machine—it wasn’t exactly subtle. Jonathan adhered to the unspoken rule to hide the truth of the world, from the world. He had to think of a substance to place on the machine that would perform the same test without overtly drawing attention
It also had to be something that wouldn’t damage the machine, should it prove, like the Magic 8-Ball, to be magic free.
If it did appear to be cursed, Jonathan would deal with that problem, even if it ended up being destructive and obvious. Some things were more important than the issues they caused.
He leaned back in his chair, sipped from his glass, and drew long drags from his cigarette while staring at nothing.
Had there been anyone there to observe him, they might have concluded that he couldn’t care less about his client’s problems. It would be easy to think, in fact, that he had lied to Wendell about doing anything for him. However, in his mind, Jonathan scrambled about like a rat in a maze made of cheese and garbage.
He combined and recombined ingredients to find a way to test the fortune machine discreetly. Such mental exercise also helped distance himself f
rom the effects the magic usage had wrought.
Jonathan never tried to go dead, straight out, cold turkey, even when using magic was unnecessary, but he had a feeling his new client would make his chance of controlled usage a laughable effort.
Jonathan focused on creating the perfect mixture: a substance that would require little expenditure of his own power. He needed a concoction that relied mostly on the active energies and magical properties of the ingredients themselves, but would still reveal any paranormal tampering.
Slowly the right combination fit together in his mind. Knowing that he wouldn’t conceive of a mixture that would cover every possible application of esoteric influence, he had targeted the most logical spells and curses that a practitioner would employ.
Jonathan had found, in his own history of interacting with this sort of thing, that there were just certain ways a practitioner did and did not make things happen.
Someone might have used an incantation whose residual magical energy wouldn’t show up with his final formulated concoction, but the odds were so low that he couldn’t allow himself to worry about it.
If he was honest, Jonathan still thought the whole thing a prank—that someone, somehow, had played this out on poor Wendell. He just couldn’t figure out why. At this point, he had no fucking idea how either.
Whoever had targeted his client had to be using magic. There should have been something for Jonathan to pick up on.
Suddenly, his mind supplied the last ingredient needed to make a paste that would turn different colors as it reacted to each residual energy left by an incantation or conjuring.
Jonathan wouldn’t bother making much of the mixture since the very nature of the concoction would inherently make its effectiveness last only a few hours. No use wasting the ingredients on something that would shortly be good for nothing, except possibly masking bleach spots on dark natural fibers.
Jonathan got up and opened the only other door in the office, revealing his own little apothecary.
Stored in the large closet were glass jars, small boxes, hanging plant material, cork plugged bottles filled with various liquids, and assorted writing materials, on shelves lining the walls .