by R. E. Rose
I screamed. I clapped my hands over my mouth.
I turned around in time to see what I assumed was the now nearly visible creature appear as a dark, blurry shadow racing across the table tops, knocking a few things to the floor, and then it was gone.
It definitely looked like a very, very large cat! I scurried after what I was positively certain was a cat. Hearing its claws skitter, and the deep guttural growl of the creature, I followed the sounds all the way back to the card reading table. I got down on hands and knees and stayed low because I saw the cat go down under the furniture. As I crawled around looking for it, my forehead actually bumped into someone’s leg.
I looked up.
Maisie Price sat at the tarot table, regal and elegant as she fanned the flame on the votive with a long purple feather. With the feather, she sent a long snaky string of smoke into the air which slowly spiraled in on itself to form the smiling face of a cat.
Through the image of the cat’s smoky face, Maisie smiled down at me. “Hello, Jane. Nice to see you again,” she said and widened her friendly smile. Still, on hands and knees, gobsmacked, I stared up at her.
She continued to weave the smoke in and out, back and forth with the feather. “I’ve sent you some dreams,” she said. With the feather, she indicated the smoky illustrations she drew in the air.
Maisie looked great; I always guessed her age to be about fifty-something, but I could never be sure. Her silky, shoulder length dark hair, and perfect, pearly, white teeth, and flawless skin made it difficult to tell her real age. I’d always wanted to ask her what her beauty secret was, but truth be known, I think I knew already. I’m pretty sure it had something to do with magic.
Her eye makeup looked particularly dramatic with Egyptian style kohl and dark, sparkly, azure shadow that somehow worked to make the deep chocolaty brown of her eyes look even darker. Her lips, although full, remained perfectly heart shaped. She wore beautiful pink pearls. Her floor-length dark, pink chiffon gown seemed a little highfalutin and formal for working in the store, but maybe she hadn’t changed from her holiday. Even at her age, whatever that might be, she could get away with being a rock star, or some kind of celebrity with her looks. It made it that much more difficult to resist her requests.
“Did you get it?” she asked me.
“Huh?”
“The dream I sent you. Did you get it?”
“Uh, huh, yeah, I think I did,” I said, nodding like a bauble head. “The dream – or should I say nightmare is running around the shop right now.”
“What are you doing down there?” she asked, sounding impatient.
“Did you see it?” I asked her, positive that whatever I chased a moment ago had something to do with her.
“You’ll never catch Anesthesia like that,” she said and gave me a condescending glance.
“Who?” I asked, squinting up at her. The candle’s light seemed to get brighter as she fanned its flame.
“My ghost cat.”
I sat back on my butt.
“Sit up here, Jane. It’s such an inequity of power with you on the floor like that.”
I got up, but when it came to sitting across from her at the reading table, I hesitated.
“I returned to the shop this very day,” Maisie explained, “I was on vacation for a couple of weeks. And imagine my delight to see that you’d arrived to check in and take care of the place.”
“I’ve done no such thing!” I said, hands on hips. This was a typical Maisie manipulation, her accusing me of wanting to take care of the curio shop.
Where did you go for your get away?” I asked.
“Oh, nowhere special,” she said and got all secretive on me. She continued to play with the candle and feather and make more smoke pictures, creating another smoky picture of a cat.
“That’s a neat trick,” I said. Pushing my fist gently through the image and ruining it.
“Really, it is,” she said in an agreeable tone.
“I don’t want a reading,” I informed her.
“Really?” She raised an eyebrow at me and indicated with her free hand that I should sit. Maisie was silent, focused on her smoking votive, creating another image.
“Tell me about the ghost cat,” I said
“You tell me? That’s why you’re really here to tell me what’s going on around you.”
“I hate the idea of a ghostly Cheshire cat,” I blurted out, “one that haunts me early Saturday morning when I try to sleep-in! Saturday is sleep-in day! Did you send her to me with – with, whatever it is you’re doing there?” I asked louder than I’d meant to and pointed at the candle and her feather.
Maisie gave me her look of wise assessment.
“Just got back, remember?”
“Well, who knows the extent of your abilities? Perhaps you sent the creature from your hotel room in Timbuktu.”
“A very magical place,” she said then winked.
Maisie had to know that I wasn’t interested in her or her tarot; she wielded her tarot cards like the too many shoes she probably had in her closet; in and out, on and off at a whim.
I wanted to stop dreaming about her, and the characters from the deck, as well as her Cheshire cats. I wanted my old life back; a life of the occasional, fuzzy, half-remembered hangover soaked events from the night before with sleep-in Saturdays.
“Well, if you’re not going to talk about Anesthesia, the ghostly Cheshire cat – a redundant condition if you ask me. Cheshires – and cats in general – are already half ghost, with one foot in another dimension,” I said, “then I’m leaving.”
“Don’t worry your pretty little head over my ghostly cat. She won’t bother you again. I assure you.”
“In that case can you explain my dream of the gathering – the hooded men? Many were from the deck. That’s actually why I’m here. I wanted none of those higher arcana characters out and about. What a coincidence to find you here on your first day back from your two-week vacation, sending dreams out into the world. It’s all very disturbing.” I informed her. She lifted another well-shaped eyebrow (maybe tattooed in) but they looked lovely.
“Tell me about the dream,” she said, and she blew more spirals of smoke in my direction. The tendrils gripped my ears; their tiny soft hooks snagged me like warm jewelry. The candle smoke made me cough and sputter, and when I recovered, three tarot cards lay in front of me.
I did not want a reading.
“To understand that dream, you need to look at those cards,” she said, instructing me. I heard only her voice and couldn’t pull my focus away from the cards that lay face down in front of me. Maisie, again, lightly fanned the smoke curling up from the lit votive.
“I’ve sent you a few dreams, Jane, that’s true.” She used the feather like a wand and then flicked it to show me how she sends a dream. “I will do a half-moon spread for you.”
“No, I don’t care if it’s a jam and jelly spread. I’m not getting involved.” I closed my eyes tightly.
“Meeeerrrrooow!” The creature made such a spine-tingling wail that I clapped my hands over my ears, shutting out all that I could.
“I thought you said that Anesthesia wouldn’t bother me anymore?” I asked, my eyes closed, hands over my ears.
“That’s not my little Thesia you’re hearing, Jane. You need a reading. Go with it,” she insisted.
“If the creature making that terrible cry isn’t Thesia, then who or what is it?”
“William,” she said.
When I heard her say, William, my eyes popped open. Maisie touched my wrist. A blue cat collar with rhinestones circled my arm. I knew the collar as a magical object, one that would send me into the Cheshire realm. I had to get it off, but too late. I’d already entered that dimension. A huge, black animal with bright green eyes sat on the card table and stared me down.
“YAAAhhhhhh,” I screamed and fell backward off my chair.
With the rhinestone cat collar on, I’d crossed over into the Cheshire realm. I�
��d been there before and didn’t really care for the place. I ripped the cat collar from my wrist, but before I managed to pull it away, I took one last glimpse of the fat, black, ghost cat. Its huge form filled the card reading table. It looked more like a wild, furry hippo than a domestic cat. I swear I saw the table legs wobble and nearly buckle under the weight of that creature, and standing beside the cat was my missing boyfriend, William.
He looked incredibly handsome, but faded. He seemed overly dressed in his black suit, tie and vest.
I always described him as Ichabod Crane’s better looking younger brother, being tall, thin, and wiry of build, with dark wavy hair and startling eyes. Even though his looks were unusual, they made him kind of gorgeous and gave him his star quality, in my eyes, at least.
Beside him stood the well-coifed Maisie; all three of them, William, Maisie and the cat, stared at me with the big, bright green eyes of the Cheshire, like traffic lights on go!
3.
The Black Feather
Maisie got her way. She gave me that tarot reading—her way. If I’d paid attention like she wanted me too, she told me, she wouldn’t have had to resort to using the rhinestone collar, sending me to the Cheshire realm and putting me into shock.
When I drove across town to get home, I did notice a giant tent going up in one of the back fields of the farmlands that surrounded nearly all of Meadowvale.
Come to think of it, the tent in my dream was the same colour as the one in the field.
After my strange encounter with Maisie, I needed to lie down and think about the tarot reading and William’s specter, and the ghost cat, Anesthesia.
I lay on my bed. I hadn’t managed to snag the cards. I came to the conclusion that the vision of the three, Maisie, William and Anesthesia, held a message for me. They – the three – were connected. Maisie and Anesthesia, yes, I understood that connection, but William?
I knew he was a member of the Cheshire Society, but how did he play into Maisie’s life, especially since her cat was – dead, sort of? I still knew very little about the Cheshire Society. It mainly bred cats and gifted them to people of a “Cheshire caliber,” as William put it. What constituted that “caliber” remained a mystery to me, even though I clearly possessed it. I wondered if William had something to do with Anesthesia’s death, but no one was in any hurry to discuss how the poor cat met its end while under Maisie’s watch.
I also knew that Cheshires walked in two realities. They wore special rhinestone collars at all times while in this dimension, or they didn’t last long here. If the collar came off, they almost immediately reverted back to the Cheshire dimension.
If they stayed long periods of time in this reality, then they lingered here, or parts of them did, even after their rhinestone cat collar was removed. Perhaps that lingering trait had something to do with Anesthesia’s lingering ghostly form? Try as I might I wasn’t able to make all the connections I needed to understand the meaning of my situation.
It was late afternoon. I pulled a spliff out of the night table drawer where I kept my stash and lit up. It would help loosen my mind. In the world of the mundane a toke or two always brought me better thoughts – although, there was always much debate about whether it hindered my magic. A loud knock at the front door interrupted my next toke.
“Darn.” I quickly pinched off the end and tucked the remains back into the drawer, and I whapped at the air with my hand to dispel the scent.
By the time I ran to the front door and stood on my toes to look through the peek hole, there was no one there. I really didn’t want to open the door, but what looked like a large package, wrapped in brown paper, lay on the welcome mat, and I was a sucker for a gift, or a package of any kind.
I cracked the door and stepped out to get the parcel. It was light to lift, and I’d nearly stepped back inside with the bundle when, from the corner of my eye, I caught Glendie as she stepped into the front yard, having gone to the backyard looking for me.
“Hey,” she yelled at me. “I almost left. I thought you weren’t home.” I waved, and it was pretty obvious she was inviting herself in.
“Where’s Sia?” I asked, expecting her to return my cat.
“I gave her to William. Didn’t he tell you?” She smelled nice, ever so lightly of lemons.
She gently pushed me aside and headed straight for the fridge where I kept a few micro-brewed pops.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Glendie, but she’s interminably cheery. She’s a brunette to my blond. She’s my size, and we like to share clothes, she more than me. I’m a bit more possessive because I’m all designer wear. She likes to buy anything that looks good even if she picked it up at the flea market, another one of her favourite pastimes. I’ve got to admit she does come up with some dazzling boho-chic outfits, but it’s not the way I like to shop. The creative side of her has always surprised me because she works in a bank – Koldwell; yet another of my nemeses, even if William is on the board of directors.
Glendie’s personality tends to be pretty conservative compared to mine. Her manager, Big Boss Ross, as we like to call him, is a bit of a drip. With her naturally high energy and “the world is wonderful” take on life, Glendie makes cheerleaders look depressed, and I wanted to mellow after my stressful morning with Maisie.
“Did William say anything?” I asked, sighing. I was getting used to him absconding with my cat whenever the mood struck him. Glendie flopped onto my couch and drank half the bottle of pumpkin lager.
“Smells skunky in here. You toking alone?” She handed me a bottle of brew.
“I’m happy to share,” I said and pretended to offer her a reefer.
“Naw – that stuff brings you down. What’s in the package?” she asked and pointed with the end of her bottle.
“Don’t know. I just now got it. I thought you brought it?” I pulled the box in and placed it on the coffee table between us, glancing quickly at the return address to see if it gave a clue as to who might be sending me a mysterious package. I took the beer she offered me. I decided I wasn’t in the mood for pale ale; they were always a bit too bitter for my tastes. So, I went back and exchanged it for cider.
When I returned, Glendie was already working her way into the first layer of brown wrapping paper.
“Hey!” She looked at me like I was an alien. “That’s mine!” I said.
“Well, open it,” she commanded and stepped away.
“I never knew you were so, so, – “
“So, what?”
“Curious!” I said, being polite.
She took that comment as permission to proceed and continued to dig into the parcel, but she didn’t make much progress.
“Be careful,” I said. She looked at me like she thought I was joking, but I wasn’t. “Look,” I said, in a warning tone, “it’s wrapped tightly in layer after layer of brown paper. That tells you something.”
“Don’t get cray-cray on me Jane. You know I don’t believe in all your talk about magic and tarot and take over by specters released from the inside of cards, or the spirit of the Sun card, blah, blah, blah. Stop going to the occult for explanations and stop meditating. It’s making you weird.”
“It’s magic. Just sayin’. When they come wrapped that tightly and that thick with brown paper there’s some heap big magic in there.” I pointed with my own bottle.
“That’s so racist. You know I’m one-hundredth Cherokee,” she said.
I didn’t know that. I decided to change the subject. “What do you want to do for your birthday?” I really didn’t have a clue what she might want for a gift, or want to do.
“What I always want to do,” she said, “go bowl at GiantBowl. I love it there. We could invite a few people. Order a cake – you know all the junk that goes with birthdays.”
“If you’re ten,” I mumbled.
“What?” She looked at me.
“If you want ten-pin then that’s the place to go,” I said for a quick recovery. “Personally, I find ten-pin ba
lls hard to lift.”
“You need to work out with me. You shouldn’t have any problem with those balls, besides I love the look of them. They make them sparkly and all other kinds of cool looks,” she said. “You, of all people, could appreciate the aesthetics of a bowling ball that looks like a crystal ball,” she said, turning her attention back to the feather and candle.
“Back to the parcel in a minute,” I said, and pushed the package to the side and took a seat across from her on the coffee table. “I need to know what’s going on with William. What did he want with Sia?” It worried me that he’d go to Glendie to take my cat and not come to me with it! Glendie took a long glug, glug of her pop and looked at me with a piercing stare.
“I don’t know what’s going on with him, but he did speak to me. His words – “Don’t be worried.” He wants to make sure her shots are up to date – ”
“Seriously?”
She nodded.
I didn’t believe her, and I guess it showed because she nodded again, more emphatically, “Really,” she insisted. “Oh, there’s more,” she said, suddenly remembering. “He’s concerned that Maisie’s conjured Anesthesia’s ghost and the society needs to be sure that Sia isn’t bitten by her ghostly sister.”
“Conjured? Bitten? Is there more?”
“No – wait – he misses you.”
“Did he say when he’d bring her back? Or, or, what would happen if she was bitten?”
“Uh, no,” she said. We both took a sip of our drinks. I tried not to worry too much and really wanted to trust William’s words and adopt Glendie’s faith, but it really wasn’t working for me.
Sia belongs to the Society and is only on loan to me, as I understood it. Still, it struck me as a little odd that William, who was missing, now made my cat a missing person, again! Usually, William let me know what he wanted where Theodosia was concerned.
