Chapter Three

I shook myself out of my funk. I needed to get to work, drum up some business. I put the crystal ball on its twig tripod in the center of my table and threw a silk cloth over it. Wrapping an apron around my damp skirt, I marched out of my tent to look for potential customers.

I didn’t have far to walk. The lot for my joint is small—a five-foot center. It cost me fifty a day to have it up and running. I needed another customer to make that today, and then I could start thinking about groceries. My tent only had space for a table and a couple of chairs. A corner held shelves for the powders and potions I sold as a sideline.

A couple of little kids were playing at my Mug board outside. The plywood poster in the shape of a gaudily dressed Gypsy man and woman had holes instead of faces. It was usually a good draw. People stopped to take silly pictures of each other and stayed to get a “real” Gypsy experience. The little kids at the board weren’t going to get their cards read.

“Hey, kids. Where are your parents?”

The kids gave me wide-eyed looks and bolted like rabbits. My makeup must be working.

Bally cloths decorated the rest of my tent’s exterior—the painted canvases that advertised my show. My cloths were rife with mystic symbols and gaudy depictions of a dark-eyed woman surrounded by spirits. On one, she was levitating a prone man. Another had her communing with a translucent spirit. My mother had painted them before I was born. Other than a little junk jewelry, those cloths were all I had left of her. She died fighting demons when I was eight, leaving me for my Grammy to raise. She was twenty-four when she died, only a year older than I was right now.

Above the door, a similarly decorated banner declared Madam Magda—that’s me—the World’s greatest psychic reader. The difference between the banner and the bally cloths is the arrangement of the mystic symbols on the banner set a mild compulsion hex. I used a little energy to activate the spell, and it encouraged people who studied the sign to take it seriously. No mind control or anything magically illegal—just a little charmed attention-getter. It only worked if I kept energy in the spell. Usually, the idea of a psychic reading was enough to bring me business, but on a slow night like tonight, I figured I needed to energize the spell, and get out and do a little talking to drum up business.

A couple in their twenties walked by, not quite holding hands. Noticing both wore shiny new wedding bands, I figured they were worth a try.

“Would you like to learn of your future?” Their stiff stance drew my attention. This reading might turn into a cheap marriage counseling session. I continued, “Perhaps, Madam Magda can help solve your problem. She has insights from realms beyond this world.” I used my mild Bela Lugosi imitation.

The woman stared at me, her eyes widening. The man glared angrily. “We don’t have any problems,” he said in a gruff voice. He took his wife’s hand and practically dragged her away. As much as they obviously needed it, this couple wasn’t buying. Oh well. It was worth a try.

The fake Gypsy Fortune Teller thing is a living, more or less. I tell people my readings were a little addition to the joy of the world. No joy tonight.

A small group of townie teenagers listlessly wandered the lot, wearing shorts and flip-flops like a uniform. They hung on each other in mindless adolescent inattentiveness. None of them even looked toward my joint. I did not make an effort to draw them in. Lot lice like these didn’t spend money to get their fortunes read. The odeur de barnyard, which filtered in after the gaggle of teens passed by, told me they probably came from the livestock exhibits at the other end of the fair.

The heat was oppressive, but there was usually a crowd by now. It seemed odd, but county fairs like these have a lot of ebb and flow. Different exhibitions draw the customers off the midway. I heard the roar of engines over by the bandstand. I think tonight is a tractor pull or maybe a hell-driver stunt show. Most of the townies were probably there, or at the horse competitions in the covered arena. There would probably be more play on the midway once the Fair’s activities end.

I’d started walking toward the midway when I spotted a guy with potential. He was a slender, rat-faced man, an inch or two over my five foot four. He’d just turned the corner at the end of my tent’s row. His narrow-leg black jeans had silver chains hanging from the pockets. I turned back to my joint. As he came closer, I noticed his mop of black hair was at least ten shades darker than his auburn eyebrows. I don’t know why people forget to do their eyebrows when they dye their hair. Back in my blonde phase, I certainly made sure all my hair—literally all—was properly dyed.

Mister Bad Dye Job wore a Black Sabbath T-shirt, tight enough to show that the multiple piercings in his ears and face were not the only ones he was sporting…Ooh, ick. I’m not opposed to people decorating themselves, but with so much metal, this guy wasn’t decorating…he was self-mutilating. I wouldn’t want to stand near him in a thunderstorm.

Close up, his tight jeans showed he dressed left. I don’t usually notice which side a guy wears his penis. I surely can tell you this freak of a guy was never going to be on my lust list, but it had been a while. What can I say? My libido has a mind of its own. So sue me. I noticed.

As he looked toward me, I started my pitch. “Hello Mysterious Man in Black. Madam Magda can see you have strong forces surrounding you.” I dropped my tone an octave below my normal speaking voice. The low vibrato draws attention in contrast to the carnival sounds full of loud tinny, artificial-recorded music. I also threw in the tiniest bit of an Eastern European accent, just to live up to the stereotype.

He stopped and turned toward my tent. I took a step back into the relative shadows under my sign. “Allow Madam Magda to explore the mysteries of your past, present, and future.”

“What if I don’t have a future,” he said.

“Ah, a fatalist.” I’d heard that line before. “Perhaps knowledge gained from the great beyond will change your fortunes and allow you to explore unimagined possibilities.” Marks love melodramatic delivery.

He looked at my overhead sign with its symbols, glanced at the small painted board that held my list of fees, shrugged his narrow shoulders, and said, “Why the hell not?”

Once we were in close proximity, the buzz behind my eyes made me realize my second customer of the day was not a person I should take lightly. He pinged my psychic senses. Courtesy of my genetics, I do get occasional psychic flashes and muddled clairvoyant images; however, my unconscious mental gymnastics, or ability with spells, seldom gets used. Most of my mystical revelations come straight out of psychology texts. I don’t want regular people to think I’m amazing. I just want them to pay me and leave happy. It was an odd coincidence that two customers in a row had powers of their own.

“Would you like a palm reading, or do you wish to see what the cards foretell?” I asked.

He decided on a tarot reading, thank goodness. I didn’t want to read his palm, mainly because I didn’t want to hold his hand. In close quarters, he gave off a creepy vibe, which came from something more than his penchant for self-mutilation.

Today was my day for weird customers. I wasn’t turning this one away. I needed the cash. As I led him into my tent, I pulled my pepper spray to the edge of my skirt pocket and surreptitiously put it in my lap after we sat down.

I looked at the mark carefully. I am very good at pretending to look into people’s eyes. I focus on the bridge of their nose. They never know the difference. Most true magical practitioners were careful not to look directly into a person’s eyes. Gazing too deeply can give you a view into another person’s ego—their soul if you will. You can see things about the person. Things you might not really want to know. Conversely, they get to see inside you—all the inarticulate things not meant for public viewing.

I had only looked into one other person in my life. It was when I was sixteen, during my first—to put it politely—romantic interlude. I found out the true intentions of my twenty-year old paramour, and it broke my adolescent heart. In any case, I was not going to risk looking into a kid who seemed to have fallen face first into a pincushion.

I could sense Pincushion Guy had a gift. Unlike the man this morning, I didn’t have to open my senses to feel his innate magical ability. It was like a tiny vibration deep in my skull. More than intuition, he projected enough magic to mess up his life.

I collected my fee, which I placed deep into my cleavage—a little flourish I automatically did for all my male customers. At least this guy had the courtesy to watch.

While he shuffled the cards and cut them into three piles, I reached out and gently brushed him with my sixth sense. I felt pressure in the middle of my forehead, like all the pictures of the third eye seen in mystic paintings. I imagine it feels the same for anyone who has the ability.

My mental touch was light. I was ready to draw back immediately. By the bell and the book, this guy had a significant, untrained gift. His mind was a jumble of surging energies. He had enough juice to considerably mess up his head if he didn’t learn how to control it.

Untrained witches make me wary. All kinds of bad things can go wrong around them. People with this guy’s energy make the average person uncomfortable. I could imagine the isolation he lived with. People with no magical ability unconsciously know something is not right about a person with a strong, untrained gift and avoid them. This guy would be living like a pariah and had no way of knowing why.

I pressed a bit more psychically, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He didn’t look at me or show he was conscious of what I was doing. The poor kid. He didn’t know what he had, and it was driving him goofy.

I laid out the cards in a standard past present future cross. In my Magda voice, I said, “Magda needs your age to properly visualize your past.”

“You’re the psychic. Why don’t you know my age?” he challenged. Goofy and angry, with some power. Whoo daddy! I needed to be careful with this one.

“Magda sees beyond this world. She wouldn’t want to delve back to a former life,” I droned without hesitation. I loved referring to myself in the third person. It was so Jungian.

“I’m twenty,” he replied just as quickly.

Given his size and build, I bet he was a late bloomer. I turned over the first card.

“Your early life means little to the man you are now,” I said, watching his eyes flick up, indicating I was on the right track.

I flipped another card. “The course of your life has changed a great deal in the past two…maybe three years.” Again, the eye flick, and he edged a tiny bit forward in his seat.

Another card flipped. “Now, you are a seeker, looking for enlightenment.” He settled back a bit, and his eyes dropped.

“No,” I backtracked quickly. I closed my eyes and waved my palms over the cards. “You are confused. You’ve been ridiculed, ostracized.” No psychic talent needed to guess that one, given the way he looked. His eye flick and deep intake of breath said I’d hit a nerve.

I flipped the final card—the hooded skeleton of the Death card…and they say coincidences never happen. “This is a card of change. You have a gift that you don’t understand.” I said, raising my gaze to the spot between his eyes. I visualized a quick spell and used the slightest effort of my will and a complex hand gesture under the table. The spell effectively shut off exterior sounds to make him focus on what I was saying. “You must change, learn to use this gift for good, or the consequences will be calamitous.” Making my voice the only sound he heard really got his attention. He shivered involuntarily, going pale.

“What do you mean? Will I die?” he asked timorously. He leaned forward now, and a small bead of sweat hung off the tip of one of the six dumbbell-shaped studs that pierced his left eyebrow. His finger nearly touched the final card.

“The future is fluid. This card…” I tapped the hooded reaper. “…indicates a need for change. Death is a possibility, if you take the easy path. But, with change, I see…” I took a dramatic pause. “I see hope of a useful life. It is yours if you chose,” I said in a deeper tone.

“What do I do?” His voice cracked, as if he were ready to sob. He really was close to the edge.

I took the cards remaining in the deck and smeared them across the table. “Choose your fate,” I said ominously. He pulled the knight of swords. Excellent. I could have made something up on the fly, but this card worked great.

“This card represents the man you must find. A man who can guide you and help you train your gifts,” I started.

He leaned forward, his breathing rapid, expression animated—just like a real boy, despite the hardware in his face.

“He is near, by the lake.” We were not far from Cleveland. I knew a coven there, led by a man who could help this kid deal with his gifts. Mike Stone ran a motorcycle shop on Lakeshore Drive. I met him once a couple years ago. He came to the carnival with his kids, saw my banner, recognized the symbols, and stopped in to talk shop. We kept in touch, Christmas cards and the like. Yes, both Carnies and Witches send Christmas cards.

Through the witch grapevine, I had heard good things about Mike over the years. Now, all I had to do is give the kid directions. I couldn’t make it too easy. Nothing worthwhile is easy, my Grammy always used to say.

“This man, he has brown hair, blue eyes, and a white scar on his left hand. He is strong like a rock. I see him with machines…motorcycles,” I paused theatrically. “Tomorrow, seek out this man, tell him of your gift, about this reading. Ask his help. He is wise, he can help you.” Sometimes, I wanted to gag when I did the Madam Magda thing, but it was what the marks expected.

“You really think he can help me,” the kid asked eagerly.

“It is not me, but the cards and the spirits who tell. You have to find your path. Do you wish a paper to record the details of your search?” I asked.

He nodded eagerly. I dropped the sound dampening spell while I ripped a sheet out of my ledger notebook and handed him a pen. He wrote ‘motorcycles, on the lake, blonde, blue-eyed guy with a scar on his hand’.

I prompted, “Don’t forget he is strong like a rock.”

He added strong rock to his list. If this kid couldn’t find Mike Stone, he was too dumb to learn to use his power.

“Your reading is over. Go now. May the Universe be kind to you,” I droned in my most soothing Magda voice. I laid on the accent a bit thicker.

He stood quickly and clasped my hand. The creepy vibe he’d given off was totally gone. I’d done my good deed for the day. I should have been a Girl Scout.

“Do you think I can find the guy,” he asked.

“Anything is possible. You have everything you need,” I said. “Good luck in your search.”

As he left, he seemed to have a new bounce in his stride. Maybe it was my imagination. I still hoped young Mister Pincushion found his way.

While I fished the soggy, sweat-soaked bills out of my bra, Myra showed up again. She held out a three-bean salad and a couple of Cokes.

“It’s so slow, I thought I’d come over for dinner.” She handed me a Coke and a plate of food. “That last guy seemed a little creepy,” she said.

“He had a little magic in him. I tried to set him on the right path,” I said. At Myra’s surprised look, I continued, “Most people would be amazed at how many with a bit of psychic talent are around. The average person with a talent pushes the gift deep down into their psyche and lets it atrophy. Others, like this kid, can’t control it without training. It can drive them crazy. They end up as suicides or in psych wards, drugged out of their gourds.”

“Really,” she said. “You’d think having power to do magic would be fun.”

“It is sometimes, but all magic has its price.” I could feel an itch on my neck caused by the little spell I used on my last client. It would soon pass. “Young witches like me, who are born with powers, tend to do some creative things before they learn how dangerous their power really is.” Boy, I was being chatty tonight. “I’m no exception. I pulled a few stunts as a kid. I’d hate to think what could happen to a born powerful witch who didn’t have someone to train and guide them like I had with my Grammy.”

At Myra’s inquiring look, I continued, “There is a story from back in ancient times about a kid who had been taken as a slave by the Romans. He ended up in the city of Pompeii, with no guidance, right about the time he hit puberty. It was in 79 AD. We all know how that turned out.”

“What happened?” Sweet Myra didn’t have a lot of formal education.

“His uncontrolled magic caused a volcano to blow up. It buried the city, and thousands of people died,” I informed her. “In any case, nowadays, most practitioners try to help gifted kids sort themselves out, like I did with the guy today.”

“Why didn’t you teach him?” She gave me a leering grin. She really had a one-track mind lately.

“Oh, Darlin’. I surely didn’t want to take him to raise. He wouldn’t last forty miles with the carney.”

Myra nodded sagely. “You’re probably right,” she mumbled through a mouthful of beans.

We finished our meal in a companionable silence. I wondered if I had said too much about the weird world I lived in. Sometimes, a little knowledge can do more harm than good. I wasn’t worried Myra would blab my secrets about the witchy world. Who would believe her anyway?

People are good at rationalizing any supernatural weirdness they might see. They find all sorts of logical explanations. They see a demon, and it must be an early Halloween costume or a trick of the light. They have sex with a succubus—it must have been too much beer, or they were drugged. No way a supernatural being controlled their mind and drained off some of their life force.

Myra seemed subdued when she got up to leave. “Airy,” she said with a frown. “If you got powers, why don’t you do more witch stuff?”

I sighed and said, “Honey, being a Witch isn’t all fun and giggles. It’s dangerous unless you’re very careful. Besides, Witches had a lot of bad press in the dark ages. We got tagged with a Devil-worshipper stigma forever. It is not true, but that’s what a lot of people think. It was what the mark I chilled this afternoon called me. Those religious types can get pretty intense. At least two of my many times great Aunts and one Uncle back in the day were killed for being Witches.”

“Why wasn’t it on the news,” she asked. Myra had a great heart and was a loyal friend, but she was not the sharpest tool in the box.

“It was a long time ago. None of us have been caught lately,” I told her.

“Well, you be careful,” she warned as seriously as I’ve ever seen her. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Don’t worry. I’m always careful,” I reassured her. She did not look at ease, so I continued, “Most of us with gifts try to stay under the radar. We hide in plain sight like me with my Tarot cards, or Vegas magicians who pretend the magic they are doing is an act. Some are brazenly out in the open, witch’s covens online and such. Although, I doubt they’re very powerful, since they can use computers. The most powerful, out of the closet wizard I’ve heard of is this guy up in Chicago who actually advertises in the phone book.”

Myra brightened at that. “Hey, we’ll be up there when we play Skokie at the end of September. Maybe you could give him a call and get something going.”

I shook my head. “You are hopeless.”

“And you will never get laid if you don’t take a chance,” she shot back with a grin.

I had given Myra too much information, and she did the best she knew how to adjust her personal reality…the one I had shaken.

It is fortunate most people think anyone who flaunts their occult connections were crackpots and discounted their claims. I never understood why anyone would want to be so blatant as to announce their supernatural status, considering most people associate with our kind with evil.