Aces

by Ian Rogers

  “Got it!” Soelle said. I lowered her to the ground. She was holding the white rectangle in her hand, flipping it back and forth between her fingers. “Now this is exciting,” she said.

  It was a playing card.

  The ace of hearts.

  * * *

  A few weeks after that, I came home to find Soelle in the front yard holding a leash. She was dragging it back and forth across the lawn like she was walking an invisible dog. I came over and saw there was a collar on the end of the leash. It was red with the words MY FAVOURITE PET embroidered on it.

  “Dare I ask?”

  Soelle smiled. “I went down to the store to get a chocolate milk, and the guy behind the counter called me a witch.”

  “He said that,” I said, sceptically, “right out of the blue?”

  “Well . . .” Soelle hesitated. “I asked him if he had seen any aces lately.”

  “Any aces.”

  “Like the one I found under the bridge. I’m looking for the rest of them. I thought he might’ve seen one of them around. That’s when he started looking at me funny. He said he recognized me and that people were talking about me.”

  “So what else is new?”

  “They’ve always talked, but no one’s ever called me a witch before.”

  “And what, you’re worried they’re going to burn you at the stake?”

  “No, of course not. The guy in the store did say he’d call the cops if I didn’t leave, though. He was a real ace-hole. But it got me thinking, what if he did call the cops? How would the poh-lease deal with a witch?”

  “I think they shoot them on sight,” I told her, “but they use silver bullets.”

  “That’s for werewolves, you nerd.”

  “What does it matter? You’re not a witch. People in town, they’re just . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “They don’t know what to make of you.”

  “Maybe I am a witch.”

  “You’re still young. You can be whatever you want.”

  Soelle shrugged. “Maybe I want to be a witch.”

  “A witch who looks for aces. Sounds like a wise career choice.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It still doesn’t explain the leash.”

  “Oh, this.” She held it up like she didn’t even know it was in her hand. “This is for my familiar. I figure if I’m gonna be a witch, I’d better start acting the part.”

  “You’re already acting the part,” I said. “That’s why people think you’re a witch.”

  Soelle nodded thoughtfully. “Toush.”

  “That’s touché, you nerd.”

  * * *

  Soelle started dragging the leash with her everywhere she went. This went on for about two weeks, and then one day I noticed her without it.

  “Give up on the familiar?” I inquired.

  “No,” she said, smiling brightly. “I already found one.”

  “Oh?”

  “He’s been living with us for the last week, as if you didn’t notice.”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t.”

  Soelle turned her head to the side, as if hearing something I could not. “Oh,” she said. “You can’t see him. Only I can.”

  “What happened to the leash?”

  “He doesn’t like wearing the leash. He said it was degrading to his person.”

  “He actually said that? Degrading to his person?”

  “Yes. The Haxanpaxan is quite sophisticated. He’s going to help me find the rest of my aces.”

  “The Haxanpaxan?” I said. “What’s that, a zebra or something?”

  “It’s a name.” Soelle rolled her eyes at me. “And I wouldn’t make jokes about it. The Haxanpaxan doesn’t have a sense of humour.”

  “Sounds like he’s a lot of fun at a party.”

  Soelle glared at me. “I’d watch that.”

  * * *

  Ahh, the Haxanpaxan. How he made our lives so very interesting.

  * * *

  “Soelle, I told you to turn off the TV if you’re not watching it.”

  “The Haxanpaxan’s watching it.”

  “The Haxanpaxan is watching Canada’s Next Top Model?”

  “He likes it. He says the models remind him of himself.”

  * * *

  “Soelle, did you leave the back door open?”

  “The Haxanpaxan did. He went outside to do his business.”

  “Well, can you tell him to close it when he’s done?”

  “You don’t tell the Haxanpaxan to do anything.”

  “Can you ask him, then? Pretty please, with sugar on top?”

  “Toby, do you remember what I said about being funny?”

  * * *

  “Soelle, do you know anything about the Conroys’ minivan getting smashed up last night?”

  “I’m afraid not, Toby. But on a side note: the Haxanpaxan doesn’t like minivans. And he doesn’t like the colour lime green. He finds it offensive to the senses.”

  “Uh-huh. The back door was open again all night.”

  “The Haxanpaxan was out.”

  “Doing his business?”

  “No, silly. He was looking for aces.”

  * * *

  On an unseasonably warm Saturday in March, I was outside on the porch swing reading the paper when Soelle came skipping up the cobblestone path.

  “Hard day at the office?” I asked.

  “Look what we found.”

  She was bouncing around and waving something in her hand. It took me a moment to figure out what it was: a playing card. The ace of clubs.

  “The Haxanpaxan was the one who found it, actually. He’s very smart.”

  “Where did you find it?”

  “Mrs. Ferguson’s birdbath.”

  “Mrs. Ferguson?” I pictured an old woman who lived alone with her pet Rottweiler. An animal she could’ve thrown a saddle on and ridden around town. “You went into her back yard?”

  “Duh. That’s where her birdbath is.”

  “What about Kramer? Wasn’t he outside?”

  Soelle flashed me a wicked grin. “Oh, he was there all right. But one look from the Haxanpaxan and his fur turned completely white.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Yep. Then he ran around the side of the house and we went over and got the card.”

  “Aces.”

  “That’s right.” She winked at me and skipped up the porch steps and went inside. I was picking up my paper when I heard the porch steps creak. The front door swung open on its own, then closed again.

  Just the wind, I thought.

  * * *

  Soelle called me from a payphone and told me I had to come over to Mrs. O’Reilly’s house.

  “Who?” I asked, groggily. I had been asleep. I looked over at the clock radio and saw it was half past two in the morning. “Do you know what time it is?”

  “It’s not important. You need to get over here now.”

  “Who’s Mrs. O’Reilly?”

  “My Algebra teacher. Duh!”

  Soelle gave me the address, but the house turned out to be easy to find. It was the one on fire.

  A pair of fire engines were parked out front, blocking off the street. Firefighters ran hither and yon, dragging heavy canvas hoses. A group of rubberneckers stood off to one side. Soelle was among them.

  “What the hell’s going on?” I asked her in a low voice so the others wouldn’t hear.

  “I didn’t do it,” Soelle said immediately. “The Haxanpaxan did.”

  “There is no Haxanpaxan.”

  “The Haxanpaxan doesn’t like it when—”

  I grabbed her roughly by the arm. “Stop it, Soelle. This is serious.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  She nodded at the house. The firefighters had stopped running and were staring at it, too.

  The flames were green.

  * * *

 
“So you’re saying you didn’t burn down your algebra teacher’s house because she was the one who confiscated your deck of tarot cards and got you expelled.”

  “Ex.”

  “What?”

  “She was my ex-Algebra teacher. I feel the need to have that stated for the record.”

  “The record? You’re not on trial, Soelle.”

  “Really? You could’ve fooled me.”

  “You said the Haxanpaxan did it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But there is no Haxanpaxan.”

  “I wish you would stop saying that. It makes him very angry.”

  “Was the Haxanpaxan angry at Mrs. O’Reilly?”

  “No. I guess you could say he was angry on my behalf.”

  “And that’s why he burned down her house.”

  “I don’t control the Haxanpaxan, Toby. He knew I was upset, and I guess he just took it out on her.”

  “Well, that’s just . . . just . . .”

  “Aces?”

  “No, Soelle, it isn’t aces. It’s the exact opposite of aces.”

  * * *

  I got a phone call from the guy who owned the convenience store. He said Soelle was loitering around outside, and if I didn’t come down and collect her, he was going to call the police. I realized this was the guy who started all the witch talk. He sounded terrified. As I got in the car and drove over, I wondered how he got our phone number.

  Soelle wasn’t there when I pulled into the strip mall. I parked and went around back to where the dumpsters were. I found her writing on the brick wall with a piece of pink chalk. She was drawing squares, one next to the other, one stacked on top of another.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “What does it look like?”

  “It looks like you’re tagging the back of the store.”

  “Tagging? Oh, Toby, you’re so street.” She snickered and kept on drawing. “And it’s not graffiti. It’ll wash off in the rain.”

  “Then what are you doing?”

  “Testing a theory,” she said vaguely.

  She drew one final square, then walked back to where I was standing. She handed me the piece of chalk and walked further back, toward the screen of trees between the plaza and the lake. She stopped on the grassy verge, turned around, and suddenly ran full-tilt at the wall. I started to call out, but she sped past me, arms pumping, brow furrowed in concentration.

  At the last moment, she leaped into the air, throwing her legs out in front of her like a long-jumper, and landed on the wall.

  And stuck to it.

  She stood frozen there, in a half-crouch, on the wall. Then, slowly, she began to stand up straight . . . or rather, sideways. She was standing in the middle of the first square she had drawn. She hesitated a moment, then hopped sideways and landed on the next one. I tilted my head, trying to watch her, but it was disorienting. It was one thing to see her defying gravity by sticking to the wall, but it was quite another to watch her hop up and down in a sidelong fashion. It was like watching someone walking up the crazy stairs in an M.C. Escher print.

  It wasn’t until Soelle reached the final square and turned around and hopped back that I realized what she was doing.

  Playing hopscotch.

  * * *

  Things quieted down a bit after that.

  Soelle didn’t do anything too weird, and there were no unusual occurrences in town. It was a textbook Silver Falls summer: hot, quiet, and uneventful.

  September arrived and the kids went back to school. October came and the leaves started changing colour. Everything was still quiet. I started to think maybe it was just a phase Soelle had gone through. Like puberty or something. I thought about getting her back into school, or at least helping to get her high-school equivalency. On the one hand I was surprised I hadn’t received a summons from juvenile court. On the other it was just another example of how removed Soelle was from everyday life.

  I had asked Soelle what she wanted to do with her life, and she told me her first priority was to find those last two aces. I told Soelle we’d have to work on that, but until then maybe she’d like to help me rake the leaves.

  I told her to get started while I went down to the hardware store to buy some paper leaf bags. As I was coming out of the store, I happened to look across the street at the people lounging around in Orchard Park. They were all looking up at the sky. I went over to see what was going on. I tried to follow their collective stare, but I couldn’t see anything. Then I saw it, something small and dark floating high above the trees. It looked like a black balloon. Everyone was talking in low, excited voices, some of them pointing. An old man holding a bag of bread crumbs he had been using to feed the pigeons was shaking his head and saying, “It ain’t right. No sir, it ain’t right at all.”

  Whatever it was, it started to come down closer to the ground. It bounced back up, then came down again, lower this time, and I could make out what it was.

  Soelle.

  She was wearing a black dress and black shoes (part of her witch’s wardrobe, I assumed). As I watched her descend lower, one of the shoes slipped off her foot and fell into the park fountain with a splash.

  “Heads up!” she called down in a giggling voice.

  “Soelle!” I shouted. “Come down from there!”

  I felt absurd saying those words. Like I was only asking her to come down off the roof.

  “Are you kidding?” she hollered back. “Do you know how long it took me to get up here? I’ve been working on this for weeks!”

  “Get down right now!”

  “Don’t be such a drag.” She swung around in a lazy turn and started coming down lower. She brushed the top of one of the tall elms and called out: “Oh, wow!”

  “Be careful!”

  She came floating down to the ground, looking like a gothy version of Mary Poppins (sans umbrella). The people in the park ran away, some of them screaming.

  “This can only end well,” I said, watching them scatter.

  Soelle waved a dismissive hand. “They’re just jealous,” she said. “Forget them. Look what I found at the top of that tree!”

  She passed it to me.

  The ace of spades.

  * * *

  The van showed up the day after the levitation incident.

  I knew something was coming. There was a tension in the air, the kind that reminded me of the wet-battery smell before a powerful thunderstorm.

  I was in Soelle’s room changing her sheets. Not that there was any sign she actually slept in her bed those days. I was just going through the motions of a normal life. I was putting on the pillowcases and staring at the spider that built a web outside Soelle’s window every spring. The web it had made this year was bizarre to say the least. It was all over the place, for one. It was coming apart in places and in others the webbing had been spun into strange, almost geometric shapes.

  I was watching the spider running madly back and forth when the van pulled up: a white van with no markings on it except a plus sign on the side. Sort of like the Red Cross only black.

  A man and a woman got out, both dressed conservatively—the man in a dark suit, the woman in a skirt and jacket ensemble. They looked like Jehovah’s Witnesses. The man was carrying a briefcase, but I didn’t think there were copies of The Watchtower inside.

  I reached the front door just as they were knocking on it.

  “Hello,” the man said. “My name is Waldo Rand. This is my partner, Leah.” He motioned to the woman behind him without taking his eyes off me. “May we speak with you?”

  “About what?”

  “You have a sister.” It wasn’t a question. “May we see her?”

  I turned my head and looked into the living room. Soelle was sitting on the floor amid a drift of our father’s old National Geographics.

  “What for?” she asked gruffly.

  “This won’t take very long,” Waldo a
ssured me. “And it won’t hurt,” he added to Soelle, who didn’t look convinced. “Just have a seat here.” He gestured to the table in the dining room. Reluctantly Soelle came over and took a seat across from Waldo. His partner, Leah, stood in the doorway, one hand resting on her hip, fingers tapping against a bulge under her jacket.

  “Do you have a lot of friends, Soelle?”

  Soelle stared at him for a moment before answering. “No. I don’t need any.”

  “Not even an imaginary one? Someone only you can see? Do you have one of those?”

  “Yesss,” Soelle said slowly.

  “Is he or she in this room right now?”

  Soelle made an effort of looking all around her, then she shook her head.

  “She’s burning hot,” Leah mentioned in a strangely casual voice.

  Waldo took out a folded piece of paper, unfolded it, and put it down with a pen in front of Soelle. “Can you draw me a picture of him?”

  Soelle stared at the paper, then raised her eyes up to Waldo.

  “The Haxanpaxan doesn’t like to be drawn, does he?” he said.

  Soelle shook her head.

  “Have you ever played with tarot cards?”

  “You don’t play with tarot cards.”

  “I’ve never seen anyone shift like this before,” Leah said in a low, awe-filled voice. She raised one of her hands toward Soelle, fingers wavering slowly back and forth. “I’m surprised she’s even visible.”

  “Leah,” Waldo said curtly. He turned back to Soelle. “Have you ever used tarot cards before?”

  “Yes.”

  “A girl died,” I mentioned.

  “I didn’t kill her! She ran in front of a bus.”

  Waldo held up a calming hand. “It’s okay. We’re not here about that.”

  “Then why are you here?” Soelle snapped.

  “We just have one more question.” Waldo cleared his throat. “Have you ever played . . . Have you ever used a Ouija board?”

  “No,” she said emphatically.

  Waldo let out a deep breath. He wiped his brow and looked over his shoulder at his partner. She crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall. “Thank God for small favours,” she said.