Chapter 8

I was wary. Something’s going on here and I have no reference whatsoever. Yes, recent events, including the little Japanese doll standing before me, have given me an understanding that there was more to the world than the physical, more to the world than the spiritual I’d learned in church. I have no clue as to limits, though.

Lady Ramona’s eyes say she’s learning more than she knew, too.

Chiki gathered the cards on the counter and added them back into the pack, deftly cutting the whole pack several times. She fanned them and extended them to Lady Ramona. “Please?”

Lady Ramona drew a card from near one end of the fanned deck, laid it on the counter.

“Tower. Something that exists. More history,” Chiki said, an air of confidence in her tone. She quickly dealt from the top of the pack, arranging seven cards in a circle, then another with five in a star.

I know that the pentagram is supposed to be a big thing in what little I know of magic. Lady Ramona’s eyes tell me she’s really watching closely.

“Seven and five are auspicious in Japan. Good luck.” She deftly flicked cards out of the seven-card arrangement. “This is Robert’s schooling. He is very successful.” She smiled at me. Real smile. Eyes and all. “I am proud. Some day a little Japanese farm girl might understand some of what he does.”

Her next motions attended the pentagram she’d created. “I was summoned by an incantation. Here...” she pulled two cards from the pentagram, “ ... it seems that it was poorly done. Not strong. Very weak. Mistakes, omissions, exclusions, inclusions ... I have questions.” Two cards. “Robert was strong in a way that was not recognized. This is one reason the spell went in a different direction.”

She glanced at Lady Ramona, who was hanging on every word, then glanced at me. Smiled. “My Robert prayed for a mate, a wife. His prayers countered a weak spell.”

More cards. “Release. The incantation, properly performed, would have bound the summoned one to the one who summoned.”

“The circle in her incantation was broken. I saw that,” Lady Ramona said. “Many mistakes. That was one. Sybil did not think details mattered.”

“That may be the case,” Sachiko smiled. “It may be that there was a greater power at work than Sybil and her poor spell.” She gathered the cards again. First one down.

“The Wheel,” Lady Ramona said.

“It is of things that are and will be...”

“You can see the future?” Lady Ramona asked incredulously.

“Only as through a fog,” Chiki replied. “Some things ... good fortune ... She turned two cards.

Lady Ramona gave an almost inaudible gasp. “King and queen of pentacles...”

“Robert and I – his queen. We have good fortune...” She turned two more cards, pulling them from deep in the stack. She looked up at Lady Ramona. “Tell Robert what YOU get from these...”

“Seven of pentacles. Hard work, perseverance, diligence. Nine of pentacles. One shall enjoy the fruits of his labor.” She looked to Sachiko.

“Good! We see the same thing. And seven and nine are auspicious numbers as well.”

Our session was interrupted by the tinkling of the bell at the shop door. Sachiko put the deck of cards on the counter and stood beside me, a pretty good move because in walked Sybil.

I certainly wasn’t going to be the first one to speak. After all, the impetus of her curse was to have me dead and damned just for having the temerity to break off a relationship with her.

Sybil’s loquaciousness got her. “Hi, Lady Ramona. Hello, Robert,” then to Sachiko, “I don’t know your name. Sorry.”

Sachiko. Inscrutable. “I am Sachiko Kaga. I am with Robert.”

“Rooobbbberttt!” she gushed, “I hadn’t heard you were even dating.” Her eyes let me think that she was surprised, first that I was still physically capable, and second, that I was successful.

“I’m not dating,” I said. “Sachiko and I are engaged. Just as well be married.”

“That’s fast,” Sybil jabbed. “You and me...”

“It’s like Sachiko was sent from heaven,” I tossed back. Sachiko was standing close to me, looking like the most innocent creature in the world. And she KNOWS.

“I’ve never seen you on campus,” Sybil observed.

“Like Robert said, it is like I tumbled down from heaven...”

“I’m sure...” then to Lady Ramona, “I sent you an email...”

“You said you would be in tomorrow. It is ready, though...”

On her way to the counter, Sybil brushed rather closer past me than the geography dictated.

That’s when I noticed. Right ear, four little gold earrings. Left ear had only three. One missing. Interesting.

Sachiko and I stood aside while Lady Ramona completed Sybil’s transaction.

Finished, Sybil turned to me. “How’ve you been, Robert? I’ve been meaning to look you up. Friends, you know...”

“Yeah, friends,” I said. “I got a surprise introduction to Sachiko and we’ve been off to the races together. It’s like she came to me out of the clear blue...”

“I’m sure,” Sybil purred. “Well, nice meeting you, Sachiko. See you around, Robert.”

“Yeah. Be careful out there,” I replied lamely as she walked out.

When the door closed, Sachiko emitted a little snicker.

“She lost. You. One of her earrings...”

“You noticed that?” Lady Ramona blurted.

“Yes, Lady. I notice many things. She is a child without direction, neither good nor bad, just in need of proper attention to her schooling.”

“Schooling?” I asked.

“Yes,” Sachiko said. “To be trained in what it is to be a human. I was as a kitten. She is the same as a kitten. Only acting on what she sees in front of her, no thought of tomorrow. She did not see a young student and see a future ahead of him and her. She saw today. Maybe tomorrow. What is new. What is exciting. No thought to achieving peace and contentment.”

“You see these things?” Lady Ramona asked.

“Indeed I do. I had a good teacher in Lady Sakura. The world I was learning, if one does not know how to achieve peace from within, life is tragic and a vail of pain.” She smiled. “Poor Sybil. Lost Robert. Her curse went wrong. And her car doesn’t work.”

“Her car?” I asked.

“Yes. Her little car. It does not work. Start? It doesn’t.”

I exchanged glances with Lady Ramona.

“You caused her car to... ?” Lady Ramona blurted, uncharacteristically animated. She’s usually the definition of serenity.

“Noooo,” Sachiko purred. “But somehow I know things ... I do not try to know things. They just come to me, as in ‘this is a fact’.”

I craned my neck to see out the window at the front of the store. Sybil was getting out of the car. She walked around it, examining it. I have no idea what that was for. She never struck me as having any mechanical knowledge whatsoever. Her next move was to pull her phone out, talk animatedly for a minute, then get in the car, try again. Apparently having no success she started back towards the door.

“Sachiko and I are heading out,” I said.

Lady Ramona smiled. “Please, the two of you, come back tomorrow. We can have a cup of tea and conversation.”

“I would be honored, Lady Ramona,” Sachiko said.

We passed Sybil as she came back into the store. She looked grim.

“Syb,” I said. “It’s like this one fell down from heaven.” We kept walking. I don’t know if my comment had any effect at all.

Now comes a hurdle. What do I do to feed a Japanese girl who dropped in from eight hundred years ago?

“Chiki, are you hungry?”

“I am, Robert.”

“I don’t know what to feed you,” I admitted.

“A hungry person does not worry over choices.”

“We have a dozen places where we can eat in a five minute drive. I just don’t know what you’d prefer. I mean, your life before...”

“Was my life before. Chiki the kitten observed you and others eating many things. Most of them were strange to a girl who lived as I did before, in Japan. But I saw that you enjoyed, laughed, complained, but nobody here looks like the food is bad. So...”

“Nobody starving in 21^st Century America,” I stated. “Overweight, now...” I knew that there are horrible exceptions, but seriously, obesity is much more prevalent.

“Yes, that observation. Many...”

“So, without making you fat, what do I feed you?”

“Harrison’s ... chili?”

“One of the few things he cooks,” I said. “Let’s call him and see...”

Phone call. Chiki paying close attention to the process. Chili’s simmering for five o’clock serving.

“Your phone. I saw that as the kitten. I am amazed.”

“I can imagine.”

Harrison was happy to see us return, and even happier that Chiki was interested in his chili.

Chiki worked her way through a bowl, with beans, the heat level causing beads of sweat to glisten on her forehead.

“Too hot?” Harrison asked.

“I have never tasted anything like this,” Chiki squeaked. “Robert eats it as if it is normal.”

“It could be much hotter. This is actually a pretty good chili,” I inserted.

“Thank you, Robert,” Harrison grinned. “Would you put that in writing?”

We left for home, the weather deteriorating a bit, breezy, beginnings of misting rain blowing onto the windshield. That gets me past a little hurdle I’m not sure how to approach – I’ve never brought a girl to my apartment for the night. The weather, though, kept Aunt Doris and Uncle Gene from sitting on their porch where they might ask questions.

It’s a hurdle.

We’re home, up the stairs and into the apartment and Sachiko stands before me demurely, head bowed, eyes upturned looking at me.

“Is it proper now that I should want to kiss you, Robert?”

“Very proper. And here, you never have to ask. I’m yours, Chiki.”

My phone rang. Caller ID said it was Uncle Gene. “Yessir. How’re y’all doing this evening?”

“Great, son,” he said. “Got a pretty good sized delivery here for you.”

“Really?!? I wasn’t expecting anything.”

“It’s here. Curious. Not another Amazon box. This one’s addressed to Sachiko Kaga, care of Robert Richard.”

“We’ll be right down to get it,” I said. “It’s time you get formally introduced to Sachiko.”

“Now I’m intrigued,” he said. “Y’all gonna come in for a bit?”