Chapter 25 #4
Marie Delai seems to take her time wrapping my purchases, frequently glancing up at me as if she has something to say. It’s beginning to wear on me, and curiosity wins over. “I’m worried I’m going to regret asking, but… I’m getting the impression there might be something you want to say to me?”
“You have an attachment…a black stain in your aura,” Delai basically blurts out. “So much of what you carry is not your own. It is the burden we healers bear… But the spirits are telling me there is something else… I would not charge you for a reading, and I will make it brief.”
“Sounds ominous,” Ethan quietly says. “Maybe you should hear her out?”
I glance at Laura, who is standing a few feet from me, mid flip through a book. “You already know what I would do.”
“Alright,” I say to Marie. She finishes ringing me up, and I follow her to the back room behind the large tapestry.
She gestures to one of the chairs at her reading table, and I slowly lower myself into the seat.
After stuffing the items I purchased into my purse, I place it on the edge of the black velvet-draped table.
I haven’t set foot in this room since the Knight of Wands reading, which led me to do a spell that pulled Dean into my life.
Despite all of the initial conflicting feelings I tortured myself over when our paths finally crossed, Dean has proven himself to be the biggest blessing in my life.
Yet my heart seems to thud a little faster as I watch her remove the cards from their velvet pouch and shuffle them. Quickly, she pulls three cards and lays them before me, then flips over the first one.
“The Moon…” she says, “Illusions, hidden truths lurking in the dark…”
She moves on to the next. “The King of Pentacles… A powerful figure… A man of wealth and control… He is watching…waiting for something…”
She flips over the third card. “The Five of Swords… Conflict… Betrayal… A fight where no one truly wins.” She exhales, her gaze lifting to meet mine.
“There are two energies circling you. One stands close, watching… And the other…” She taps the Five of Swords with her nail. “The other does not wish you well.”
“Who?”
She studies the cards again, her expression contorting with concern. “One is a presence that has followed you for some time… Tied to you in ways you do not yet understand. But the other… The other is waiting for a chance.”
“Are they both enemies?”
She taps the King of Pentacles. “Not this one, but trouble follows him… He does not wish you harm… Perhaps quite the contrary…” She shifts her focus to the Five of Swords. “It is this one... I will pull another card for clarity.”
She shuffles the remainder of the deck and pulls one more, laying down The High Priestess, reversed, beside the Five of Swords. “A woman with hidden motives… Deceptive… She withholds crucial information for her own benefit… She uses charm and looks to deceive and is covertly vindictive.”
There is only one woman I can think of who matches that description and remains on the outskirts of my life. Lucinda.
“Thank you,” I smile at Marie. She seems confused by my relief. I nod at the last card. “I know who she is, and she can’t hurt us… She tried and failed. She can go on hating me until it rots her wicked soul. She has no bearing on our lives anymore, and she never will again.”
When we leave, the motorcycle parked across the street barely registers before I’m face-to-face with Legion in the doorway of the voodoo shop.
“We’ve really got to stop meeting like this.” I sigh.
A grin pulls at the corner of Legion’s mouth. “I assure you, sweet one, this time is a happy coincidence.” His pale eyes slide to Laura and Ethan before they settle on me again. “Are you going to introduce me to your friends?”
“Laura, Ethan, this is Legend. I mean Legion .” When I glance at Ethan, his mouth is agape as he— without a single trace of shame —slowly looks Legion over from head to toe and back up again.
“ This is Mr. Complicated?” Ethan practically gasps, then holds his fingers out to Legion.
“ Damien , if you please.” Legion grins wider, obviously pleased, as he takes Ethan’s hand, awkwardly lifting his fingers because Ethan didn’t offer him a proper handshake.
“Oh, I please … I please very well, in fact,” Ethan goes on, eye-fucking Legion.
Laura jabs him with her elbow to knock it off.
“I really need to start hanging out in biker bars,” he adds, barely under his breath, before Legion drops his hand, offering his own in a greeting to Laura next, who does shake his hand like a normal human being.
“Laura, how lovely to make your acquaintance,” Legion says with all the charm I imagine he’s capable of mustering.
“Likewise, I’m sure.” She smiles.
“What are you doing here, Damien?” I ask once they’ve made their introductions.
Legion’s broad smile turns down into a mock, disheartened expression before he replies. “I’m here to pick up some supplies. Since the tragic loss of the Ametrine Cauldron, this place, though out of the way, is the next best thing.”
“Oh, you’ve been to the Ametrine Cauldron? And we’ve never met?” Laura asks.
“Indeed, I have. Such a lovely shop it was. Such an uplifting, vibrant environment. It is sorely missed.” He goes on like he had nothing to do with it burning to the ground three years ago. I try not to glare at him as he works his manipulative magic on my friends.
Ethan leans closer to my ear, whispering, “ A biker and a practitioner? I wonder what else he dabbles in…”
“Well, you know what they say, when one door closes, another one opens.” Laura sighs.
“Ah , the optimistic words of Alexander Graham Bell. Though did you know, perhaps the earliest attribution comes from Miquel de Cervantes’ famous novel, Don Quixote, in 1605. When one door is shut, another is opened.”
“I did not,” Laura says. “I guess we really do learn something new every day.”
“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn .” Legion glances at me briefly, giving me a wink. “Benjamin Franklin.” He smiles back at her.
“I guess this is how the sapiosexual air signs flirt,” Ethan mutters to me, his whispered tone now laced with discernible disgust. Maybe a touch of boredom as well. “I’d tell them to get a room, but I might be jealous if they do. Though this isn’t the head I had in mind.”
“ Ethan!” I practically gasp. He shrugs, unbothered as per usual. I shake my head. “Would you two give Damien and I a minute? I’ll catch up with you.”
Legion steps aside to let them pass while Ethan pulls a card from his wallet.
He tucks it into Legion’s cut pocket on his way up the cement steps, then turns around at the top to gesture with the sign for “ Call me ” as he mouths the same words.
Laura, thankfully, drags him away, but I can still hear his instigating whistling of Dream A Little Dream .
“Well, that happened.” I sigh.
“ Mr. Complicated?” Legion is wickedly grinning ear to ear. “What did you tell the little queer about me?”
“Do I need to add Homophobia to your list of cons?”
“No.” Legion seems genuinely confused. “What gave you that impression?”
“ The little queer has a name. Ethan .”
Legion plucks the card Ethan gave him from his cut pocket and looks it over. I expect him to drop it on the ground, but to my surprise, he keeps it.
I narrow my eyes at him. “What are you going to do with that?”
He mockingly mimics my expression. “Why are you asking?”
“Because he’s my friend. And you’re dangerous . And he’s an impulsive idiot sometimes. And you use people .”
“I wouldn’t hurt your friends.”
“Oh, really?” I cross my arms.
“I’ve already told you, the Ametrine Cauldron was a means to an end. It was to protect you. I have no regrets.” He frowns at me. “I’m not going to hurt anyone you care about. That doesn’t mean I may never find use for him.”
“ Swing both ways , do you?”
Something tenses in his expression, and he straightens. I hadn’t realized he was leaning into me until this very moment. I definitely struck a nerve.
“No,” he finally replies, but the word seems heavy for some reason.
Before I let myself drag what I do know of Legion’s tragic past to the forefront of my mind and attempt to decipher what just happened here, I clear my throat and tell him, “I shouldn’t keep my friends waiting. We have to catch the ferry back to Fort Fisher. My car is there.”
“Safe travels, my sweet.” He begins whistling that familiar tune again, and I can feel his eyes watching me walk up the steps before I hear the little bell on Marie Delai’s door jingle.
V anna scurries off, eager to put distance between us. I can tell Ethan and the old witch know she and I are something to each other. Vanna talks about me to her friends. That’s progress… And the tune he was whistling… more than mere coincidence!
I debate whether or not to light up a cigarette before my next reunion… It’s been over three years since I crossed this line of brick dust and entered the domain of Marie Delai.
I had been curious about this establishment ever since I discovered the tarot card in Vanna’s closet, tucked in that Knight Spell box.
Though I would have eventually found myself here, regardless.
I was out of options anyway. I couldn’t purchase the items on my list from Vanna, and her little Witch shop wasn’t the type to carry what I was in the market for.
Not everything, anyway. This little basement shop, tucked down a side street in Southport, had been the only other option within a reasonable radius.
Memories pull me back to that evening…
T he dark-skinned root worker had taken in a startled gasp when she spotted me standing in the middle of her cramped shop.
“ Demoon…” The whispered word brushed past her full lips as she backed away, tucking herself behind the antique cash register. Dark eyes, wide with surprise at first, narrowed as suspicious curiosity eclipsed her concern. “Why have you come?”