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Marty made his way through the slush to East Thirty-fifth Street. The Brownstones no less ominous tonight than any other night, no less guarded against the cold, all the brownstones that is except 249B. With its red door and bronze lion’s head doorknocker and its strange goings on, it loomed every bit as mysterious as it had before. Marty climbed the neatly manicured steps, he reached for the brass doorknocker and then yanked it back - he could’ve sworn it moved, just a little, just the eye. He shrugged it off as his imagination or a trick of the light, he gave the knocker a hard rap. It resounded louder than he imagined it could’ve. Almost immediately the door swung up and the cadaverous Stevens stood ever present in his white mess jacket.
“Good Evening, Mister Robinson.”
“Good Evening, Stevens.” The smell of freshly oil wood greeted Marty as Stevens helped him off with his wool pea overcoat and surrendered his wool cap and scarf.
“Will you be having the brandy again, Sir?”
“You know what I’m in the mood for, Stevens?”
“I can’t imagine, Sir.”
“Would you happen to have a ‘hot wine punch with a cinnamon stick’?”
“I would indeed, Sir. Excellent choice, Sir, one we don’t get here very often. Will you be taking that by the fireside again?
“Are drinks aloud in the library?”
“Yes, Sir. I’ll bring it to you there. Anything else, Sir?”
“Would you happen to know if Mr. Witherspoon is here?”
“No, Sir. Mr. Witherspoon isn’t a frequent guest.”
“Guest? Isn’t he a member?”
“Yes, Sir, but he doesn’t frequent as often as some of the other members.
“Are you sure? Could you check with the rest of the staff?” Marty cast a curious glance at Stevens, waiting for his reaction.
“No need, Sir. I’m quite positive Mr. Witherspoon is not here.”
“Are you sure? Couldn’t he have slipped in without you noticing?” Marty raised an eyebrow.
“That would be highly unlikely, Sir. Highly.”
“Still, I’d appreciate it if you checked with the rest of the staff, if you would please.”
“Yes, Sir.” Stevens nodded politely.
Marty started down the hallway. The freshly oiled woodwork glistened in the low light. The colors on the runner where fairly translucent against the marble floor.
“Persian?” Marty asked as he looked over his shoulder at Stevens who was putting his stuff in the closet.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Gentlemen.” Marty greeted Dobber and Dodger who where at another game of chess. Fritz and Ellsy were enjoying a smoke by the hearth. There was a low rumble coming from a card game in the game room, and a quite game of billiards in the poolroom. There was another room at the end of the hall past the poolroom with the door closed. Marty gave the knob a twist, but it was locked. Marty gave a little hrmph and made his way back to the library.
The library was just of the great room. It was a two tiered, massive expanse of oak-lined bookshelves that went around the circular room. It had one window with a window seat. And a spiral stair case that lead to the catwalk on the next level. Marty picked up a book: “The Laughing Warrior by Sun Tzu”. He flipped through a couple of pages to find it was a joke book; it was filled with military jokes. One joke in particular caught Marty’s eye: A General and an Admiral where arguing back and forth about whether sex was work or fun. “Sex is work,” said the General, “you must focus on the task at hand and not stop until the goal is achieved!” “Sex is leisure,” countered the Admiral, “I only get to do it when I’m on shore leave.” The argument went back and forth for some time with neither of them giving or gaining any ground. So they agreed to break the tie by asking the lowest ranking person they could find. So they walked up to a soldier who was digging a latrine. “Is Sex work?” asked the General. “Or, is it leisure,” asked the Admiral. Without breaking a stroke the soldier answered. “Sir! It must be leisure, because if it were work you’d have one of us do it for you.”
Marty gave a little laugh and put the book back. He poured over some more before picking up another book of interest. The interesting thing about the book wasn’t the cover, or the title, but the author: ‘The Miscellaneous Ramblings of the Madman” by Friedrich Nietzsche.
‘Could’ve sworn he was an atheist.’ Marty said to himself before another book caught his eye, this one even more peculiar than the last: ‘Love In Alpineland: A Book Of Poetry by Herman Goring with Illustrations by Adolph Hitler.’ Marty thumbed through the book; the poems were unremarkable, likewise the watercolors were stark and bleak, yet striking for there contrast if not memorable for there content.
"Wow.” Marty turned the book over in his hands and looked for a publisher, a published date, or a library of congress number, nothing. It was like it was produced out of thin air. He picked up another book, a small, non-assuming hard cover book. It was black with gold letters that read: ‘Tales from the Bag lady’s Cart’. He thumbed through it to again find no publisher, or date of publication, no information of any kind, except the author’s name: The Bag lady. Marty sat at the window seat with the little book.
‘It must open up on the alleyway.’ He thought to himself as he peeked through the Venetian blinds. Wherever it was it was very dark and Marty could hardly make out anything. ‘Is that leather?’ he squinted his eyes against the darkness until he thought he could make out a light, or more like an eye – the reflect glow of a feline eye. The reflective glow of a feline eye that had discovered something was watching it, and it didn’t like it. The brow must have furrowed as the eye drew to a slit and dropped low into a crouch, and came closer.
“Excuse me, Mr. Robinson.” Marty nearly jumped out of his skin. “Your ‘hot wine punch with a cinnamon stick, Sir.”
“Thank you, Stevens.” Marty hands were shaking as he took the steaming glass mug from Stevens.
“I check with the rest of the staff as you requested, Sir, and Mr. Withspoon is not here
“Thank you for checking, Stevens. You’re a good man.”
“Thank you, Sir. Is there anything else?”
“Ahh, Stevens, what’s outside this window?
“Whatever do you mean, Sir?”
“I mean, there’s something big outside this window.”
“I don’t see anything, Sir.” Stevens said as he leaned over and peered through the blinds. Marty did likewise and to his dismay he saw the same nothing Stevens was referring too.
“But there was something out there, something big.” Marty stared at the window with his mouth open.
“Must have been your imagination, Sir.”
“Yeah, must’ve been.” Marty regarded Stevens warily before sitting back in the window seat with his hot wine punch. ‘Now where was I?’ He thumbed through the little book again. The first story in the book was called ‘Tempus Fugit’:
TEMPUS FUGIT
FROM THE BAGLADY'S CART
By
The Bag lady
Eccl 1:1
“Vanity, vanity says the preacher,
all is vanity.”
“Now where is it? Where is it?“ Chatty Kathy asked herself over and over as she rummaged through the dumpster. She was waist deep digging through a particularly full dumpster with her black square-toed shoes flailing in the air at an odd angle.
“I know it’s around here somewhere.” Her voice echoed up through the waste receptacle as she jabbered aloud to herself.
“Eureka!” She let out an unusually load exclamation before falling in entirely. Her head popped up out of the dumpster like a piece of half-baked white bread out of a spring-loaded toaster. A leaf of wilted lettuce and an assortment of other refuse hung from her head giving her the appearance of a Carmen Miranda of the garbage can. The Bag lady gave a little chuckle as she pulled the refuse from her head and gave herself a good scolding for her carelessness. She figured as long as she was in she might as well stay in until she found what she was looking for.
“Now where’d it go?“ She ducked back down into the garbage bin, scraps came flying out in bunches. “I had it a second ago, where could it have gone?” To the casual passerby it might look as though the garbage bin had eaten something that didn't agree with it.
“It couldn’t have gone far.”
“Aha!“ Another exclamation signaled that she had succeeded in her task. She picked up the object and brushed it off, jabbering to herself constantly. She held up her prize, looking it over very carefully. She chattered and chuckled as she made her way out of the dumpster. She placed it in her wire-shopping cart among the other items. Her cart had a wobbly front wheel that made at rattling sound as she went down the alley, and the rear wheels didn't touch ground very often. She had stringy, yellow - gray, dirty hair that resembled straw. She wore a gray sweater that used to be white, and a flower print blouse and skirt that looked like a bargain at the Goodwill ten years ago. Her stockings were tied just below the knee, in plain view below the skirt. When she walked she wobbled from side to side and chattered incessantly.
She walked up the alleyway, chattering to herself as she always did, that’s how she came by the moniker ’Chatty Kathy’. She checked the garbage pails and dumpsters systematically until she came upon a particular favorite trash bin. It was surrounded by a group of stray cats. The Bag lady reached into her cart and produced a broken broom handle. She brandished the yellow broomstick over her head and clanged the side of the trash pail. The cats scattered leaving their delicacy of fish heads behind. She shook the fish heads off the lid with much disgust and proceeded to rummage through the pail.
“Who is there?” Asked Yonni the bus boy. He was young and thin with a mop of dark hair that hung from under his white hat, with that ruddy complexion of his native Greek Isles. “Oh, it’s you Cha - er, Kathy. I heard a lot of commotion out here and I came out to see what was going on. I left some fish heads out for the cats to eat and I thought maybe some stray dogs had come by.” He hated to see all that good foods from his Uncle’s restaurant go to waste. “Hold on Kathy, I have something for you.” Yonni ran back inside and quickly reappeared. "Would you like something to eat?" He waved a plate piled high with choice leftovers under her nose.
"Thank you very much young man. You‘re a sweet boy." Kathy walked over to the trash can lid that she had chased the cats away from in her weeble-wobble manner and pulled up a milk crate and sat down like she had a reservation. "Mmm, you are a very sweet boy. If I were a couple of years younger …,” She didn't stop talking even to eat. She gestured to Yonni to bring her cart over to her. He obliged although admittedly having some difficulty steering the craft. The cart rattled and turned in the wrong direction banging into another trash pail.
“Yonni!” His uncle Gus bellowed in his deep, baritone voice. “What are you doing out here in the alley when I have customers inside?” Gus was the owner of the ‘Katalava Kitchen’ restaurant. He was a large man, although he was larger horizontally than he was vertically, he was still an imposing figure.
“I was just …” Yonni gestured to the dumpster, “… taking out the …” Gus cut him off with a wave of his pudgy had and bluster and a snort.
“Taking out the nothing! You spend all your time out here feeding the stray alley cats, and this …, … this …,” Gus looked at Kathy, “this, … thing! While my paying customers are inside standing with their money in their pockets because you haven’t cleaned off a table for them yet.”
“Hey, wait a minute.” Bits of food flew from Kathy’s mouth as she spoke up for herself. “I’m a customer too ya’ know. I’m just as good as anybody inside. I just choose to eat out here because I like the company better.” She turned her nose up, but kept eating.
“You?!” Gus bellowed like never before. “Get away from here! Get away from my restaurant. You give my restaurant a bad name. You make it look like I’m running a soup kitchen! And you!” He turned his attention to back to Yonni. “I told you not to feed her. If she wants to eat the food she can come to the front and pay like everybody else. Next thing you know I’ll have every bum in town at my back door. I’ll have so many bums at my back door I won’t be able to throw out the trash. I won’t be able to get anyone in the front door for all the bums at the back door.”
“I’m no bum!” Kathy was so insulted she stopped eating. She even stood up on her stumpy little legs and poked her chin out to Gus.
“Can you pay? No! Then you’re a bum.”
“I can pay, if this food was worth anything. It’s not even hot.”
“You pay, you get hot. You don’t pay, you get out!”
“I’ll pay. You’ll see, I’ll pay.” Kathy waddled over to her cart and rummaged around and pulled out the box she had just found. “I’ll trade you. I’ll trade you this clock.”
“Let me see that.” Now Gus was a shrewd businessman, and he had an eye for the finer things in life and this clock caught his eye right away. “Where’d you get this?”
“Whatdoyamean, where did I get this? You saw me pull it out of my cart.”
“Is it stolen?” Gus turned the clock over in his hands. It was a mantle clock. It was stained dark, mahogany and was about a foot and half long and about half as wide. It had gold numbers and lots of ornate decorative carving. The words "TEMPEST FUGIT" were engraved in large golden letters across the face.
“No. “ Kathy was insulted. “It’s a family heirloom. It’s been in my family for over a hundred years. I had some nice stuff once. I used to live in a big house, bigger than this building, bigger than this block … why my family …”
“Yonni?” Gus bellowed, turning the clock over-and-over in his fat little hands, “give the bum anything she wants for a week. One week only!” Gus shook his finger at the younger. “And you,” He turned back to Chatty Kathy, “you tell all your bum friends ‘if they want something to eat here they are going to have to pay.” Gus walked away, before going inside he said one last thing to Yonni: “Warm the ladies food up.” He winked.
“Constantine?! Constantine?!” The voice of his beloved wife, Olympia, cut through him to his soul. “What are you and that boy doing out there in the alley?” Olympia, a short woman with a midsection almost as large as Gus’ and with nearly as much body hair; she had thick, dark hair on her arms, and the beginnings of a five o’clock shadow, gave him a sideways glance. “Whatever it is it must wait for later. We have work to do.”
“Come along, Yonni. Back to work.” Gus put a pudgy finger to his lips and pointed at the clock. Yonni squeezed his way past Gus and made his way to bus some more tables before his Aunt Olympia could get hold of him. Gus shooed Olympia back to the kitchen and headed for his office. His desk was covered in paper work: bills, receipts, debts and credits. The books were out, and he had been pouring over them. That was before he had found this clock, this amazing clock. He turned it over in hands again, scrutinizing it more carefully to see if it were actually worth feeding a bum for a week, or was there a “Made In China” sticker on it somewhere. To his surprise there was none, none at all. He opened the back and an object fell out. It clanged loudly to the floor. It was heavy. A key, a solid gold key. A key for winding the gears he deduced. Gus felt the weight of it in his hand. Why, the key alone was worth feeding a bum for a month! Gus looked at the inner workings of the clock. The pendulum was taped down and seemed to be made of solid gold as well. There was something else, something Gus couldn’t quite see. Something that made the inside shimmer when it caught the light just right. Something that looked at him when he looked at it. He was just about to get a good look at it when Olympia barged in.
“Constantine? This time you have to fire her.” Olympia held a struggling Helena by the arm.
“Let go off me you fat pig!” Helena was trying desperately to free herself from Olympia’s grip. “I didn’t do anything.”
“She was stealing! I saw her taking money out of the cash drawer!” Olympia stuck her hand down Helena’s blouse.
“How dare you!?“ Helena screamed as if mortally wounded.
“Here it is! Here it is!” Olympia crowed triumphantly as she produced the ill-gotten booty from between Helena’s cleavage. She slammed it on Gus’ desk amid the day’s paper work.
“I didn’t steal it.” Helena protested. “Constantine said I could have it, didn’t you?” The fact that Helena had called him by the same name that she did didn’t escape Olympia as the two women brought their hatred to bear on poor Constantine.
“I’ll handle this.” Constantine said calmly. He pushed the money into Olympia’s hand as he pulled Helena free.
“I want her fired!” Olympia demanded. “I want her out of here!” Gus shushed her and eased her out of the door.
“O.K. Indaxi, Indaxi. I’ll handle this.” Olympia muttered under her breath in her native Greek as she made her way out of the door. Gus closed the door gently behind her.
“That fat pig!” Helena spat. “That fat cow! How dare she grab me like that?!” She rubbed the bruises on her arm.
“Did she hurt you, my love?” Constantine cooed as he soothed her wound.
“Don’t give me that!” Helena said, jerking her arm away. “I’m tired of this bullshit! Either divorcer her, or kill her. I don’t care which, but I’m done with this: it’s either her or me.”
“Now, now there,” Constantine soothed, “You’re just a little upset.”
“A little upset?! I’m more than a little upset. I’m sick and tired of that Cow harassing me. You better do something about all of this or I’m leaving.”
“Shush, shush, shush,” Gus held a finger to his pursed lips, “you see this clock? It is very valuable. Take this clock home with you, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Valuable, eh?” That got her attention and she stopped crying.
“Yes. See how much I love you.” The Old Smoothy worked his magic on her. “I trust you with a treasure like this clock. Now take it and go home … and do not let Olympia see the clock, … er, you..” Helena scooped up the clock and her other belongings; she peeked out the door to make sure that Olympia was nowhere in the vicinity. Helena’s high heels click-clacked on the hard tile of the Katalava Kitchen’s hard floor as she made her way to the alley.
“Now get out! And stay out!” Gus bellowed as Olympia came into the kitchen. “I’ll see you in the morning.” He whispered to Helena. He gave her a quick peck on the lips after Olympia left and then slammed the door. “That will teach you to steal from Constantine Andropopov.”
Helena made her way out to the parking lot with the stolen kiss still wet on her lips. She got in her green Miata, don’t think for a minute that Olympia didn’t know that that was a very nice vehicle for a mediocre hostess at a small Mom-and-Pop restaurant to be driving. She drove her little sports car back to her loft apartment downtown. Her apartment was furnished in fine cloths and earth-toned textured throw pillows. She had big plants that sat next to her big windows and ferns where her drapes should be. She sat the clock down on her coffee table before looking it over curiously. She held it in her hand, the wood felt strangely warm. She opened up the back; she didn’t know about the gold key that Gus had kept. A strange glow emanated from somewhere inside, but she couldn’t quite make it out. She removed the tape from the pendulum in order to get a better look to no avail. The face read ‘Tempus Fugit’ she didn’t know what that meant, and she didn’t particularly care. She set the clock on the mantle over her fireplace. Without the key she couldn’t wind it. Then the clock struck, it was a deep and low, a melodious sound that made her feel hollow inside, like time was running out.
Helena paid the ticking clock no attention and went into the bathroom and turned on shower. ‘What’s this?’ she asked herself as she looked at her hand on the faucet. ‘An age spot?’ She stared a dark spot on the back of her hand, turning it over and over. She looked at her other hand in mute horror to see if this aging disease had crept any further. Her breath caught in her throat as her worst fears were realized. There on her left hand was another age spot. ‘How could this be?’ she wondered. She wasn’t even thirty years old, hardly old enough for such nonsense. She rubbed some Asian anti-aging cream over the dark patches hoping that the salve would miraculously make them disappear before she stepped into the shower.
She was young and beautiful, wasn’t she? The world was her oyster, wasn’t it? She would use her youth and beauty to get all those things that she had seen on television and in the movies diamonds and furs. Constantine was just one stop of many. There was Yonni Yonnison, the landlord, that let her stay in this beautiful loft apartment rent free, and Jorgi, the clown of a used car salesman that had given her the use of the Miata to drive up to meet him for the weekend, that was two months ago.
Next was Alexi, he owned the jewelry store next door to the Kataleva Kitchen. She had seen him ogling her. She was sure to bend over extra low in her low cut, tight, clingy dresses when she looked in the jewelry case in the window, and that’s why she always had to ‘adjust the heels on her pumps’ in front of his store.
Paul who owned the pawnshop was also on her ‘to do’ list. He had all those furs just waiting for her, then Nicholas the banker - all that money. Yes, she would have all the fine trappings in life, in what? Another week? Two maybe, two months at the outside? Then it would be off to bigger and better places, better looking men, with more money. Yes, Gus was just one of many, a stepping-stone to the good life.
She wiped the steam from the window she liked her water hot. She liked it when the hot drops of water sizzled on her skin it made her feel alive. She stepped out of the shower and toweled off and wiped the steam from the mirror. The clock chimed from the living room.
‘That stupid clock.’ she thought. Then something caught her eye, a small something she thought was a trick of the steam. She wiped the mirror again and examined her face closer. Yes! Yes, it was, ‘crows feet’ around her eyes. She gasped and reached for the Asian Anti-Aging cream again and smeared on a healthy portion around her eyes, hoping against-all-hope that that would take care of that pesky problem. She looked at the age spots she had put the cream on before entering the shower, they looked darker know - she hoped it was just a trick of the light.
“No, no,” she muttered to herself, “there must be something I can do.” Was it that time already? Hadn’t her mother told her that the signs had come upon her early, and without warning? And she couldn’t end up like her mother: a worn out husk of a washer-woman who had worked all her life, married to a dirt-farmer who had never had more than ten dollars in his pocket at one time, with a house full of screaming brats.
“Love,” her mother had told her, “is the only real thing in the universe. It is the only thing you can take with you from this world to the next, and the only thing you can leave behind.” Wasn’t her mother full of useless sayings like that, “the more love you give, and the more love you get back.” What good was love: it can’t pay the rent, it can't drive you around town, and it won’t buy you dinner a fancy restaurant.
Yes, Helena Popadopolis had no need of love. Didn’t she grow up in a ‘loving’ household? Didn’t she have loving parents, and a loving family? Yes, she had all the love she needed, what she needed was ‘money’! What she needed was those things that love couldn’t buy; a room to yourself that you don’t have to share with squabbling sisters who stretch out your sweaters, didn’t return your skirts, ruined your blouses - your hand-me-down blouses, - and yes, stole your boyfriends, stole your dreams. Helena had planned a life with Nickos, he would work the pier like his father and she would have his babies and his dinner waiting when he got home, that was until she caught her sister, Teia, in her blouse under the boardwalk with Nickos. Worst of all - she had ruined her blouse!
No, love she had had enough of, what she wanted were ‘things’, ‘material things’. All the trappings that love couldn’t buy and no power on heaven or earth was going to stop her. Not her mother, her father, her broken heart, or Olympia, and certainly not a few age spots and crows feet! And the clock struck the hour.
“Stupid clock! It can’t possibly be the hour. It struck just a moment ago.” A quick glance at the clock showed that not only had an hour past since last she looked, but two. ‘I wasn’t in the shower that long, was I?’ she thought to herself as she dug out her cucumber cold cream, and her exfoliant. Her head now wrapped in a towel she lathered her face and rinsed, then plastered on the cold cream as thick as she could. She took two slices of cucumbers and placed them over the exposed eyes and leaned back and breathed deeply, … and the clock struck again.
“What?” she asked herself, “It couldn’t possibly be an hour already, could it?” She sat up, the cucumbers falling from her face she raced to look at the clock: sure enough, an hour was past. “How could that be?” she wondered aloud, “my hair is still wet, yet the clock tells me I’ve been out of the shower over three hours?” She sat back in front of the mirror and washed the paste from her face. Helena retrieved her blow dryer and to her chagrin removed her head wrap to reveal a steak of gray hair. What she saw took her breath away: a cowlick of gray hair. It had the audacity to start in the middle of her forehead and dangle down her right side in luxurious curls while the rest of her hair was straight! Helena began to cry.
“What’s happening to me?” It was the first real tears she had shed since that night her mother had sent her out to find Teia, and she had found her writhing in the sand under her boyfriend in her white blouse, the one Poppa had bought for her, the one with the ruffles that Momma said made her look like a woman - and she ruined it! There was no time for that now. Now she needed hair dye, jet-black hair dye.
“Where is it?” She muttered to herself as she rummaged through her things. “I had some here a while ago, where did I put it?” She shoved stuff from one drawer to the next and slid stuff around from the back of drawers to the front of drawers and back again. She turned every drawer and every cabinet inside out and started over again until she found a jar she thought was it. “This must be it.” She held up and tried to read the small print. “What the hell is going on?” She squinted her eyes to try to make out the small print. “This wasn’t this small when I bought this, was it?” She asked herself, and the clock struck again.
She raced back to the bathroom with the jar in hand; she would begin the anti-aging process as soon as possible. She arranged her ingredients for her recipe for a youthful appearance on the counter-top. In the time it had taken her to find the hair dye the gray had spread. Now it was more than just a cow-like, now it was on either side of her head. She looked in the mirror with disgust until she noticed something else: her teeth where yellow. Well, maybe not yellow, maybe just dingy, but not as bright as usual, and more of a coffee-stained color around the edges. She reached for her battery operated, two stage, multi-direction, three speed tooth brush and loaded it with the new crystal loaded-gel whitener that was suppose to leave your teeth kissably white and your breath winter-green fresh. She set it on high and scrubbed her teeth till her mouth foamed and lathered, then rinsed with a freshening-whitening-brightening antiseptic and looked into the mirror again. The gray hair was spreading, the crows feet were deeper than ever, there were more age spots, her eye sight was dimming, and her teeth weren’t any whiter, and to top it all off there were laugh lines developing around her mouth. Helena buried her face in her hands and began to cry just as the clock struck again.
“What’s happening to me?” She cried. She pulled her hands away from her tear-streaked face. The tears had left salty tracks down her face. The breasts that were so perky this morning now drooped to once flat stomach. A middle-aged paunch had begun and her bottom covered the stool she used with her vanity. She noticed how her cheekbones had hollowed, her hair nearly completely gray framed her face and she noticed that she was still a very striking woman.
“O’ God!” she cried to herself “I look like Olympia!” She buried her face in her hands and began crying again.
************************************************************************
“Killed herself you say?” Chatty Kathy asked as she rummaged through the garbage.
“Yeah, and her beautiful young woman, you’d think she had everything to live for.” answered Yonni Yonnison, the landlord.
“Well, I’m sure she’ll make a beautiful corpse.”
“Yes, she will, may she rest in peace.”
“What are you planning to do with her stuff?”
“We’re just throwing it out, no one wants it.”
“No one wants it?” Kathy’s eyes bugged out even more. “Do you mind if I pick through it?”
“No, not at all. Take what you like.” Yonni ushered her to the treasure trove of goods.
Kathy wasted no time picking through Helena’s things; she wrapped herself in a multi-colored silk scarf, and draped a cashmere shawl around her shoulders. She held up a beautiful black skirt with sequins running up the side. It didn’t fit half way around her waste, but Kathy threw it in her cart like she had to have it. Kathy raided her socks, then her braziers and panties, even though none of it fit.
Chatty Kathy had finished rummaging through Helena’s clothes and was halfway through her furniture when she struck on an old familiar object. It was stained dark, mahogany and was about a foot and half long and about half as wide. It had gold numbers and lots of ornate decorative carving. The words "TEMPEST FUGIT" were engraved in large golden letters across the face. She opened up the back just as the pendulum swung.
“Oh, no you don’t!” she said as she grabbed the clapper, stopping it mid swing. Kathy reached into her cart and pulled out a piece of tape and used it to fasten down the pendulum. “However, the key’s missin’. No matter.” She said and pulled a blackened lead key out of her once white sweater. Now where’s that gold paint?”
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Riding The Witch II: Dancing With The Devil
