The 13th Destiny_Heaven's Deadliest Sign

by Roger David Francis

  “I can’t do that, I’m afraid, it’s too late. You asked for five hundred and five hundred is what you’ll get.”

  Beth felt a tug of annoyance. What a wind up, she thought. Why encourage her to ask for more then tell her she couldn’t have it? And then she burst out laughing, realising how ridiculous the conversation was.

  “I’m glad this is making you happy, my dear, like I said, it’s just a bit of fun, isn’t it? Now, if you don’t mind waiting a few minutes, I’ll get back to you.”

  Beth almost expected some mood music to fill the silence but all she could hear was the rustling of paper and what sounded like the woman breathing heavily. After about a minute everything went quiet and Beth began to wonder if she shouldn’t put the phone down. It occurred to her Shandra could have wandered back out into the garden and forgotten about her. She felt annoyed with herself, she should have checked the area code; the call was probably costing her a fortune. What was the woman doing? Processing her details into a horoscope?

  “Ah,” the woman suddenly breathed noisily down the phone. “You have an admirer. He’s not a handsome man but he’s kind and thoughtful but you’re too selfish to give him time of day. If you want to extend your hours at work then you must find a way to get rid of one of your co-workers to create an opening for you.”

  “That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?” Beth was taken aback.

  “It is what it is, my dear, it’s your life. You might also want to ask that boy of yours what he’s searching for on the internet.” She chuckled suddenly, “Oh, my, you have an interesting exciting few days ahead of you.”

  Beth felt like slamming the phone down but something was stopping her. Shandra was talking about Jason again as if she knew things about him his own mother didn’t. It made her feel uncomfortable as if she was being spied on. Also how could the old woman possibly have found out Beth was looking to extend her hours at work? Guesswork, it was all guesswork, that’s how sham physics got away with it, some of the stuff they spouted would hit the mark, law of averages. And Shandra was good at firing her little bullets, Beth acknowledged that.

  Anyway, Beth thought, what had she expected? No-one had twisted her arm, she’d rung Shandra of her own free will and she was getting what she asked for, a physic reading. Maybe, just maybe, the old woman was genuine and really could see into the future. The thought sent a shiver through Beth’s body. Just because she’d decided she didn’t much like Shandra didn’t make the old woman a fraud.

  “That’s very interesting, thank you,” Beth said politely.

  “Oh, my dear, I haven’t finished yet. I’ve aligned you with Libra and the stars are favouring you at the moment. Go out now and buy a one pound scratch card and you’ll get your five hundred pounds.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Oh no, my dear, not just like that. I have to work hard on your behalf to make it happen and in return you will do something for me.”

  Here we go, thought Beth, the catch is coming, no-one gets something for nothing. The con was about to be revealed. What would it be; a request for her bank details? Surely now was the time to put the phone down.

  “Now my dear, all I ask is for you to tell eleven friends to phone me up, my fee is twenty pounds per person but make sure every one of them has a different star sign, and Gemini must be the last one. I can only do one horoscope at a time, do you understand?”

  Beth found herself grinning. So that was it. Hook one person in and get eleven more to part with twenty pounds each. Not a bad scam. Of course it would only work if she actually won five hundred pounds and the chances of that was zero. “Lady,” she said, “If I win five hundred pounds on a scratch card today I’ll get you a hundred new customers.”

  “No, no, no, I said eleven, the remaining star signs.”

  “Okay. Is that it?” A thought struck Beth, “How will they send the money to you?”

  “You collect it off them and send me a postal order for £220.”

  “I’ll need your address.”

  “I’ll give it to you when I’ve received all eleven requests. You have my number. So do you accept the terms and conditions of the deal, yes or no?”

  Beth raised her eyebrows. Deal? Was that what it was? And then she smiled. It wouldn’t come to anything, it was all nonsense. “Yes,” she said.

  Shandra’s tone changed then, her speech became more hurried, “I have to go now, don’t let me down. Remember we’ve entered into a pact and you’ve accepted the conditions. If you haven’t collected all the star signs by seven o’clock Tuesday evening, if I’m even short of one phone call, one star sign, then there will be consequences for you, do you understand?”

  “What sort of consequences?” the uneasy feeling was returning. It sounded to Beth like Shandra was actually threatening her.

  “I’m not threatening you, my dear,” Shandra’s voice broke into her thoughts. “I’m warning you. You must uphold your side of the bargain.”

  “Okay. So I’m to go and buy a scratch card right now and I’m going to win five hundred pounds?” Beth was beginning to feel silly believing the old woman.

  “Yes, that’s what I said. Now my dear, just one more thing; the phone calls are private, no-one must hear what the person has asked for, their wish must be kept a secret.” There was a pause and the woman seemed to be breathing heavily. “I’ve given you what you desired,” she said eventually, her voice raw as if she wasn’t used to talking so much. “Tell your friends to ask for Shandra. It’s been a pleasure.”

  The phone went dead.

  Beth stood at the bottom of the staircase and yelled, “Jason, I want a word with you.”

  Her son slouched down the stairs. “What have I done now?” He mumbled.

  “I want to know what you’re searching for on the internet.”

  Beth watched him carefully. His eyes widened and his shoulders twitched. So he was up to something, Shandra was right. Dear God, she thought, what if he’s messing about on porn sites. He was a teenage boy it was very likely, did she really want to know the details? If she hadn’t asked she wouldn’t be standing here now feeling her cheeks flush.

  “Have you been snooping on my computer?” Jason tried to look offended but instead only managed to look like a scared little boy. “I was going to tell you.” He dropped his head and mumbled something.

  “What? I can’t hear you.” Christ, Beth thought, she sounded like a bully.

  “I said I’m trying to find dad.”

  “Oh, Jason.” Beth suddenly felt like crying. The poor boy. This was all her fault. She hesitated, unsure what to say. It wasn’t a conversation she was looking forward to but her son deserved honesty. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about him but I’ve been putting it off. You’re old enough to know the truth now, we’ll talk tonight, I promise. Why didn’t you just ask me?”

  “I didn’t want to upset you.” He turned his head away. “Can I go back to my room now?”

  “Of course, I promise we’ll talk later.” Beth had always known this day would come. In some ways she was surprised it had taken Jason so long to begin his search for his father. The easiest thing to do would be to tell him his dad was dead; died a hero saving someone’s life but it would be a lie, a big fat terrible lie. Only the truth would suffice and her son needed to hear it. But not right now. She could put it off for a little while longer. Her marriage had been a pathetic sham, only lasting a few months, a time she never wanted to think about.

  Maybe she should be thanking Shandra. However difficult the conversation was going to be with her son it was long overdue.

  Beth hadn’t intended to go out but she couldn’t resist the temptation. The local shop was only a five minute walk away and she thought she could stock up on a few essentials, milk, cheese, while she was there. She laughed at her own stupidity as she put her jacket on. What were the chances of winning five hundred pounds today, she wondered, it had to be about a million to one. There was still a niggling voice in the back of her
head telling her off for not asking for more. What had the woman said, that she’d only got one chance? The whole thing was silly, and so was she for believing it and yet here she was, almost running along the pavement to the local shop in order to collect her promised five hundred pounds. She needed to calm down, it was after all as the woman said, just a bit of fun. So why was her heart racing?

  Jason sat on his bed staring out of the window. He heard the front door slam shut but the sound only registered as a distant background noise. His mum was going to tell him where his dad was. That was big. It was true he’d tried searching for him on the internet but he didn’t have enough information to feed into the searches. Just putting his dad’s name in the search engine hadn’t produced any results. Elusive, that’s what his dad was, elusive. He didn’t want to be found.

  Jason wished he could find the right words to tell his mum it didn’t really matter, it was just a whim, a curiosity, that he wasn’t really bothered and he’d been about to stop searching because it wasn’t that important to him, but somehow she’d found out he’d been looking. From the expression on her face he was going to hear something he didn’t want to, he’d inadvertently opened up a can of worms and couldn’t shovel them back into the tin.

  He’d never even seen a photograph of him; his mum must have destroyed them all including the wedding album. Jason thought his father must have done something pretty awful to make her do that. Perhaps he’d cheated on her; in that case he deserved all he got. At fifteen everything was black and white, there was no room for grey areas, if his father had left his mum and run off with another woman, abandoning his baby son, then Jason wanted no part of him.

  His dad had probably got another family somewhere and he had half brothers and sister, but so what? It was no big deal. He’d only been mildly curious anyway; a man that could leave his wife and baby son didn’t deserve a second chance in his opinion. He secretly thought his mum had done a fine job bringing him up. He’d never gone without the important stuff, why did he need to know about his dad?

  Too late now. Jason sighed; he’d caused the problem messing about on the internet, his mum wasn’t going to let it go, it looked like he was having the conversation about his dad whether he liked it or not.

  Which one would she choose? Beth stood in front of the glass display case and as usual went for the most colourful looking card. She only indulged occasionally when the mood took her and had never won more than her pound back. She wasn’t one of those lucky people who won the lottery twice in one month. The girl behind the counter smiled.

  “Are you sure that’s the one you want?” She asked. She glanced around and lowered her voice, “between you and me nobody ever wins on those.”

  “Do you know what, Ruby, I feel lucky today,” Beth said handing a pound coin over. She took out a penny and began scraping off the symbols. To win five hundred pounds she needed three bells. So far she had two and only one more symbol to scrape.

  “It’ll be a clock or an orange,” Ruby confided, “It always is.”

  Carefully Beth ran the penny over the symbol hardly able to believe it when the third bell took shape.

  “Oh, my God,” Ruby yelled. “You’ve actually won!” She seemed genuinely excited but Beth could only shake her head in wonder. Two customers came from the back of the shop and congratulated her and the proprietor, Mr Wilkins beamed with delight as he counted out five hundred pounds and gave her a receipt.

  “You lucky thing!” Ruby yelped. Two spots of colour stained her cheeks and she watched greedily as Beth shovelled the banknotes into her purse. “You must have done a deal with the devil,” she spoke breathlessly, “I tell you; nobody ever wins on those scratch cards.”

  Beth walked home in a daze. The bottom line was Shandra had made her wish come true and she owed her. Monday when she went into work she would recruit some of her co-workers and favourite customers. She knew once she told them what had happened they’d be lining up for their chance. It all seemed too good to be true. Of course it could have just been coincidence but something told Beth that the woman, Shandra had made it happen, how, she couldn’t imagine, but she had and Beth felt elated.

  She wished though that Ruby hadn’t made that remark about doing a deal with the devil, it sat uneasily with her. Glancing at her hands Beth could see that they were trembling but she decided it was with excitement, not fear and she couldn’t wait to tell Jason. The five hundred pounds would buy a good second hand settee and a laptop for him.

  Maybe she wouldn’t tell him after all, she’d surprise him with it. She hadn’t been able to afford much for his birthday, working part time didn’t exactly enable her to live the life of luxury she was unaccustomed to and she could still remember her son’s disappointment when she’d handed him a birthday card with twenty pounds in. A laptop, even a second hand one would put a smile on his face however dearly it cost him. No, Beth decided, she’d keep her lucky win to herself for now.

  She had no time to lose; she needed to recruit eleven friends to share her good fortune. What they asked Shandra for would be their business but Beth thought if they all suddenly gave their notice in at work then the chances were they’d come into a heap of money, thanks to her. Maybe, and she smiled at the thought, it would be a backdoor into her getting full time employment at the coffee shop.

  She stopped for a moment and frowned. What had Shandra said? Beth needed to find a way to get rid of one of the full time workers so she could step into their shoes. Was that what was going to happen? How strange, she thought.

  Of course if winning on the scratch card had simply been coincidence then they’d all be wasting twenty pounds of their hard earned money and some grovelling would be in order. Surely they’d just see it as a bit of fun though and at least they’d get their fortunes told, it was worth it for that.

  Abby, Beth thought, she’d phone her first. Her birthday was January, Capricorn. She knew this because Abby always checked her stars on Monday morning in the TV magazine. Her friend was an avid believer in something good waiting around the corner so she’d jump at the chance of having her fortune told.

  Abby worked five days a week at the coffee shop; she was a couple of years older than Beth, thirty seven and she owned a nice kind husband, Joe who was forty five. It was left to Abby to take care of Joe’s seventy seven year old interfering mother, Vera, plus three manic Jack Russell Terriers, four cats, an out of control ferret and a tank full of exotic tropical fish. She’d often confided in Beth that she wished she had a bigger house for her menagerie. No prizes for guessing what she’d be asking Shandra for.

  Big ask though, Beth thought, still, worth a try. She grinned as she phoned her friend up.

  “Not here,” Vera told her abruptly. Beth winced, Vera sounded as if she had a sore throat, her voice was not much more than a raspy whisper. “She’s out shopping for essentials. If you’re thinking of inviting her to one of your parties then forget it. She’s busy looking after her family.”

  You mean she’s busy looking after you, Beth thought. Mean old woman, how did her friend put up with her? The parties she was referring to were no more than a couple of drinks with a few friends. Anyone would think they were sex based orgies, or maybe Vera thought she was using her living room as an unauthorised tattoo parlour. Beth tittered and covered the sound with a small cough. “Sorry to have bothered you,” she said, “will you tell her I called?”

  “Probably not, I’m forgetful.” Vera coughed.

  “Aren’t you well?” Beth asked, not really caring.

  “None of your business.” Her voice kept fading in and out and Beth decided it was time to end her conversation with the miserable old bat.

  “Fine by me” she snapped. “I wouldn’t want to put you out. I’ll ring Abby’s mobile.”

  “You do that.” The phone was slammed down and Beth shook her head. She’d met Vera a couple of times and thought she was taking advantage of her friend, good hearted, do anything for anyone, Abby. The old woman h
ad got her running around on her every whim and Abby somehow kept the smile on her face, her favourite two words, “No problem,” forever on her lips whatever was asked of her. Joe kept out of it, with a big silly grin on his face he let the two most precious women in his life get on with it. If there was underlying tension then he didn’t pick up on it.

  Abby definitely deserved a break.

  Chapter 2

  “So, let me get this straight,” Abby was laughing, holding out the leaflet. “I phone this number up, say what I want most in the world and it’s mine for twenty pounds?” She shook her head, “You’re not serious?”

  “All I know is it worked for me.” Beth showed Abby the receipt for five hundred pounds. It was four o’clock and Beth had phoned Abby. She’d managed to interrupt her friend’s search for Vera’s support stockings in a department store in town and persuade her to call in and see her on her way home. Abby had arrived, pink cheeked and flustered.

  “Go on,” Beth urged, “the worst that can happen is that you lose twenty pounds, and you get your fortune told. Live a little.” She hesitated. “I won’t listen in; Shandra said what you desired most was your secret, nothing to do with anyone else.”

  “You do know it’s just coincidence, you winning on that scratch card?” Abby’s eyes were bright with merriment but Beth thought she detected an underlying sharpness that belied her friend’s words.

  “Maybe, but what if it’s not, Abby? What if something strange is happening and we’ve been given a chance to change our lives for the better?”

  “I can’t believe you’re taking this seriously.”

  “Neither can I.” Beth frowned. Abby was right, what was she thinking? It had seemed such an easy thing when Shandra had told her to find eleven other star signs but already Beth was wondering how she was going to achieve it in just a few days. She hadn’t taken into account people’s suspicions about being offered something for nothing. It was natural they would think she was scamming them out of twenty pounds.