Inspired by Writober Flash Fiction Challenge#6
Back in the early days of Vaudevill my Great Grandfather toured the world and even performed in shows where the Great Harry Houdini appeared.
The show my Great Grandfather toured in was called, ‘ Captain Victor Chalmers and his WONDER STARS!’
My Great Grandfather wasn’t a Magician, and his claim about seeing the world may have been an exaggeration his talent as a comediane wasn’t and he was well known in those circles as being a truly funny guy.
He told us liked Harry Houdini- he liked his tricks and he liked his showmanship but Great Granddad had a way of figuring out the how in things- like pulling the wool over people’s eyes and he said at the end of the day Houdini’s greatest talent was his ability to make you look where he wanted you to look.
Did I mention my Great Granddad was also a Prosecutor when he was a young man?
He sent more people to prison or the gallows then he would ever have admitted to out loud, and those numbers are probably the reason he quit law.
AI Artwork By Cursejourney
There was one act that sort of stuck in Great Granddad’s craw, it drove him to distraction my Grandma said, and that act was Marlie Ellison- she was a fortune teller and she had the ability to call Spirits forth.
Marlie didn’t use a lot of props, but she always appeared with her cat- an inky black cat with a white mark that ran from just between his eyes to the nape of his neck and it was jagged- like a lightning bolt.
He was an impressive animal and Great Granddad was certain her cat served as a distraction to whatever slight of hand Marlie may have been using.
So, Marlie and Zeke would take the stage- Marlie and Zeke under their real names, and she would conjure up dreadful apparitions who knew all kinds of secrets about people sitting in the room and after the show, for a tidy sum, she would meet you in the nearest cemetery with her faded deck of hand painted and inked tarot cards and she would tell your fortune.
I’d say future, but in some cases the people who meant Marlie didn’t have a future and after she told them the good news or the bad news she would leave them there in the dark to contemplate their fate.
Sometimes Zeke, who rode on Marlie’s shoulder would swivel his head around and watch those doomed or enlightened figures get swallowed up in the darkness and when they were gone, he would put his muzzle next to Marlie’s ear and purr and Marlie would look down and smile a sly smile that nobody could see.
But it was there. You didn’t have to see it to know it was there.
You could feel it.
Before he passed away my Grandma asked her Dad if it bothered him that he never sussed out Marlie Ellison and from his death bed he said,
” I did. I figured it out.”
My Grandma sat down on the side of his bed. ” The Devil you say. ”
” No. It was the cat. ”
Grandma thought that her Dad’s mind was going a little soft and she asked, ” her cat? ”
” It was the cat who could call the Spirits forth, it was the cat that could see through the veil. It was the cat who could look at a card, see your death and without missing a beat pass that information right along to Marlie. ”
” I figured as much- that it had to be the cat and one night I met them in the cemetery. I told her I was getting married- which was true and could she see what my future held for me? ”
We went to a masouleum and she sat on the steps and spread out her cards, Zeke was sitting on her should and he looked down at the cards and then he looked up at me and I heard him say, ” go on, ‘fess up Marlie. He knows. ”
Marlie looked up at me. She smiled. ” Leave it to the hangman to get to the bottom of my secret. But its here. In the cards. On the day you die, you’re going to tell your daughter our secret.”
” On the day I die? ”
Marlie nodded. Zeke closed his eyes and when he opened them, they glowed deep and green.
Zeke, said in his own voice ” And then she is going to tell your story to her Granddaughter and she is going to write about us. ”
And that’s exactly what happened.
