Shadows Out of Time

Behavioral experts claim the public is gullible. That’s one reason why they consult psychics. But no one has greater faith in psychic prevision than the professional reader. We know what it’s like to plug into a higher source of information. We know how it feels to see a clairvoyant image hang in the air before our mind’s eye. We understand the subtle whisper of the clairaudient warning. And we can chart how often we see true and clear, because our clients come back to validate our predictions for us. When you total up the hits and misses, we have a better track record than the meteorologists. Thom was digesting my suggestion. As a Scorpio-Taurus, he was stuck in a happy rut that his Scorpionic tendencies would eventually rebel against, I knew. I was merely helping the process along.

Over the next month, I dropped psychic hints.

“I’m getting Sedona around you,” I would say. Or: “I’ll bet they don’t rake leaves in the high desert, or shovel snow in Malibu.”

Thom would laugh dismissively. But I began to catch him looking at travel brochures.

One October day, he burst in to announce, “I’m flying out of here next week. Boston to Phoenix, and on to Sedona. No winter blues for me this year.”

It was as easy as that.

They gave Thom a going-away party. Everyone treated him to a bon voyage reading. His chart was drawn up. All the auspices were favorable. A good time was had by all.

After the tea room shuttered for the night, Thom and I hung around to clean up. For the last time, he read me:

“I’m getting a sea cruise.”

I made a face. “Not a chance in Hades. Can’t sail and I don’t swim.”

Thom gave out a great belly laugh. “Typical Taurus. But I’m just telling you what I see.”

“I’ll send you a validation postcard if it ever happens,” I promised. “Which it won’t.”

“Deal.” We shook hands.

Before Thom left, Miss Theresa put in an appearance. Thom surrendered his key ring with quiet ceremony. You would think he was handing over the keys to Fort Knox.

I was not surprised when Theresa quietly offered them to me, saying, “Why don’t you lock up for the night, Carl? It will be your responsibility from now on.”

“Thank you,” I said, keeping my walls up. As the only male reader left, I was the logical one to get the scut work. I made it sound like an honor. Her Leo ego practically purred.

The taxi took Thom away. Miss Theresa retired upstairs. The day’s tea had been stowed in the cellar long before, so I pretended to lock up, walked down the street and disappeared into the chill October night.

At seven past Midnight, I slipped back, reentered and stood in the middle of the darkened tea room floor. I sensed various presences. It wasn’t that the ghosts only come out at night, but their more subtle energies are not easily detected amid the buzz and bustle of the day. I tuned them out. They did not matter to me. Most were long-dead readers, anyway. I would not end up like them — so stuck to a life and locality that even in death they could not move on into the Light.

Once my eyes were accustomed to the webby gloom, I sought the cellar entry door with its ebony-painted Holy Lord hinges. It was padlocked, but the key ring offered up an old brass skeleton key that fit. The ponderous padlock broke apart with a rattling clatter.

Quietly, I descended. Easing shut the door behind me, I flicked on a pencil flashlight, and moved down the tread-worn steps. The air down here smelt of salt and spray, as if the fishy Atlantic was slowly seeping in through the foundation stones. Or possibly the rafters were still soaked in the brine that had swallowed the wreck of the old Blue Moon.

The tea stood openly in stacked oaken chests, high up on rough pine pallets above the flood line. Old chests, bound in salt-rusted iron straps. Pirates surely buried their booty in such chests. The chests were padlocked, too. I chose one, attempted to insert various keys to it. None fit. From a pocket, I drew a stainless steel pick. My talents are not merely limited to the psychic.

The lock surrendered after a long period of ratlike squeals and squeaks of metal. Carefully, I lifted the heavy iron-bound lid.

The tea lay wrapped in nautical oilskin. I undid the flaps, exposing heap upon heap of blackish Orange Pekoe cut leaves that make me think of rich tropical loam.

The smell was spicy, exotic, instantly intoxicating. Regulating my breathing, I slowed my brainwaves, easing down into an Alpha state, then doused the flash.