Angel's Bend Chapter 3

Chapter Three

After lunch, Lacey sat at her laptop in the back room of Aunt Beth’s shop.  Full of enthusiasm for her idea, she was keen to upload the photos she’d taken.  Aunt Beth was out the front re-shelving books.  She hated it when people left them lying around after browsing. 

“Aunt Beth?”  Lacey called.

“Hmm?”

“I saw the strangest thing while I was at the maze today. It looked really cool.  Come and see.”

Aunt Beth put down the book in her hand and came to sit by Lacey.  “What was it?”

The photos uploaded, Lacey began scrolling thought them to find the shot she needed.  “This guy.  He was sitting like a bird on the statue, right on Saint Michael’s shoulder, as if he was talking to him. Do you know him?”  Angel’s Bend was a small town.  Everyone knew everyone. 

“It was probably Cam, the boy they hired to do the maintenance. He’s always climbing around on that statue.  Gave me quite a surprise the first time I saw him at it.  No fear at all.”

Lacey nodded.  “What’s he like?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never spoken to him apart from a hello in the street.  He’s only been in town a few months. Tends to keep to himself.  Why?”  Beth knew exactly why Lacey had a sudden interest in Cam.  That white blonde halo of hair would be enough to attract any girl her age. And the skin - like alabaster - he looked as if he’d dropped from Heaven.

“He looked interesting.  That’s all.  I’d like to meet him.  Take some more shots, you know, if he’d let me. He’d be a cool model.”

“You sure that’s all?  ‘Cause if it’s a friend you’re after Lace, I don’t know that he’s the type of boy you should develop a relationship with.  He’s a transient. Besides, you’re here to work, not go cavorting around town with the locals.”

“Geez.  It’s not like I’m going to marry him or anything.  I just wanted to say hi and ask him if I could take a few pics.”  Lacey’s face coloured. 

Finally, the shots she was looking for came up on screen.  She moved the cursor over the thumbnails and clicked to enlarge. “Here it is.  Look.  It gave me an idea for my final exhibition.  I’m going to do a study of angels.” 

She gazed at the screen.  Saint Michael’s torso and head could be seen clearly but the boy was nowhere in the frame. “I don’t understand.  I took a shot of him from there.  It looked so cool.” 

She scrolled through the next few pictures.  They showed the statue but the boy was absent in them.

“He was there.  Really.  He was.” Lacey’s eyes flicked to Aunt Beth, then back to the screen. 

Aunt Beth got up.  Now wasn’t the time to be delving into the mysteries of photography.  She had work to do.  “Maybe there’s something wrong with your camera?”

She went back into the shop.

Lacey looked at the screen again.  There was nothing wrong with her camera.  That boy had, well, disappeared. Closing the lid, she stood and stretched.  She couldn’t think about it now.  She would go and help Aunt Beth instead.  There was a whole new box of stock to be sorted and a heap of coffee cups to be washed.

*****

At five o’clock, the last customer gone, Aunt Beth rose from her place behind the counter and went to the door, flipping the closed sign over and pulling the bolt.  Tired, she rubbed her fingers over her temples for a minute or two. Then she bent to the coffee table, picking up three used cups.

“Is it always this busy in here?” Lacey asked, as she helped to tidy the last few things away.  “I never knew so many people lived in town.”

“Since I put the wifi and coffee in, lots of kids have started to hang out here.  It’s good for business and it keeps them out of trouble but they make so much mess.” The kids loved to flick through her ‘loan’ books while they drank.  They knew where she kept them and she was happy to see them used, if only they’d learn how to put them away. 

“Do they ever buy anything?”  It seemed pointless to have a bookshop if nothing got sold.  Aunt Beth may as well have a coffee shop.

“Vampire books.  They devour them as fast as I can stock them but given the current trend I suppose that’s par for the course.  One group is so into it, they’ve started a book club.  They meet here monthly on Thursdays and they only read vampire books. It takes all my energy to hunt down new ones for them, they read so fast.”

“I’d have thought that whole craze would be over by now.”

Aunt Beth smiled.  “It’s not.  And its spread to other areas of the supernatural and occult too.  Stock I’ve had for years on Wicca and the like has been flying off the shelves these past few months.”

“That reminds me. Do you still do that stuff?  You know, tarot and that?”

A cautious frown spread over Aunt Beth’s face.  “Yes.  Why?”

“I found this on the road.” Lacey pulled the crumpled card from her pocket and gave it to her aunt.  “I thought you might be able to tell me about the picture.  It’s so pretty.”

Beth turned the card in her hand.  “It was on the road?”

“Yeah.  I was going to chuck it out but there’s so much detail in it. I thought I might be able to pilfer a bit and rework it as borders for my own pieces.”

“Hmm.”  Aunt Beth studied the card closer. “This is the High Priestess card.”

“What does it mean?”

“Can you remember which way it was facing when you picked it up?  Right side or inverted, I mean, upside down?”

“Upside down.  Is that important?”

“It is.  If a card’s inverted it has a whole different meaning.  I know you don’t believe ‘that crap’ as you put it, but would you like me to do a reading for you?  I have my cards in the drawer under the counter.”

Lacey sat down in one of the armchairs.  “Sure.  Why not?”  What harm could it do?

Returning with her deck, wrapped in a silken scarf, Aunt Beth went through the motions of shuffling and cutting until finally the cards were laid out on the coffee table between them.  She’d asked Lacey to focus on something she’d like to know about to help with the reading.  Lacey, skeptical of course, had wanted to find out what was going to happen in the near future.  Would she make friends?  Would she pass her exams?

The first cards Aunt Beth turned over were as she expected.  There’d been sadness and now a new beginning.  Things were changing and there were new people in her life, new friends too.  Lacey could have done the reading herself, it was such a crock. Then Aunt Beth turned another card.  The Lovers.  Inverted.  She was quiet for a moment, thinking.

“Am I going to fall in love or something?” Lacey all but giggled at the naked lovers entwined across the card.

Aunt Beth looked up.  “The lovers don’t necessarily indicate love but they do speak of relationships.  And in this instance, they’re telling us that you’re going to have to choose.  A difficult choice.”

“What?  Choose between two boyfriends?   Cool.”

“I’m not seeing two boyfriends.  As I said, this card is not always about love.”

“So, what are you seeing?”

“A difficult choice where no one can win. It will involve the heart.”

Lacey pressed her lips together.  Aunt Beth was being all spacey and weird.  This was so funny.  She couldn’t laugh, though. It would hurt her feelings.  A hard choice that involved the heart.  Geez.  What next? A sparkly vampire boyfriend?

Aunt Beth’s fingers flipped the next card in the array.  The Tower.

“There’s danger all around, Lacey.  You must take care. This card indicates a fight, a struggle or even…”

“What?”

“Sudden death. Suppressing your feelings or emotions can lead to disaster but if you’re flexible and ready to believe, the danger can be averted.”

Oh please. Now she was joking, wasn’t she? Trying to ignore the feeling of foreboding that had crept into the room, Lacey watched as her aunt turned the final card.

It couldn’t be. Not the High Priestess again.  And she was inverted. 

On the ceiling above them, the lights flickered as if acknowledging what lay on the table. A whisper of breeze sang down the chimney, reigniting the remnants of the fire in the grate and sending a chill skittering down Lacey’s spine.  Hairs stood to attention on the back of her neck. There were heaps of cards in that deck.  How the hell could it be possible for the same one to appear twice in a week?   It was unbelievable. It had to be a trick.

“How did you do that?”

Aunt Beth’s face had drained of colour. “What?”

“The card. How did you make it come out of the deck?”  It was freaky, that was for sure but she wasn’t about to be fooled.

“I didn’t.  You picked the cards. Remember?”

Aunt Beth was right. Maybe it wasn’t a trick.

“What does it mean?” 

Aunt Beth studied the card.  Her fingers trembled as she skimmed the surface.  Her voice, low and serious infused every corner of the room and Lacey realised that this was not a joke.  Aunt Beth was entirely serious.

“There is a secret, long buried.  You will need to expose the secret in order to be happy.”

But Lacey didn’t have any secrets any more.  Dad knew all about the things she’d done. He’d bailed her out of the local Police Station when she’d been caught driving drunk and without a license. He’d found the stash of coke she’d taken to snorting to dull the pain after Mum’s death. He’d picked her up unconscious from parties. Aunt Beth knew it all, too.  Lacey had nothing to hide.

“The secret will cause you pain, more pain than you’ve ever felt,” Aunt Beth continued.

“But I don’t have any secrets.  You and Dad know them all.  And I’m certainly not going to go around town sharing them with everyone.  What good would that do?”

Aunt Beth chewed on the side of her lip, thoughtful.  “The secret is not your own.” “What the hell does that mean?”

Aunt Beth looked back at the card and then to Lacey, her face had closed. She knew something else but she wasn’t telling.

“Aunt Beth?”

“Nothing. It’s not important. They’re only cards.” Quickly, Aunt Beth scooped up the cards and wrapped them out of sight. “I wouldn’t give much credence to what they say.”

“You do.”

Aunt Beth stood and walked to the counter, sliding the deck of cards back into the bottom drawer. Lacey was sure she was being given the brush off.  “Yes, but that’s me.  You’ve got far better things to worry about, like passing your exams. Now let’s get home.  Jezebel will be bellowing the house down for her dinner if we don’t make a move.”

buy from Amazon.com

Buy from Amazon.co.uk

WANT TO READ MORE?....