The Final Catch: Book 1: See Jane Charm (A Tarot Sorceress Series) Read online

  The Final Catch: A Tarot Sorceress Fantasy series

  Book One: See Jane Charm

  By

  Rhea E. Rose

  Copyright © 2015

  www.rheaerose.weebly.com

  This book is dedicated to Kiki cat my own little Cheshire

  Introduction

  I wrote this book because I wanted to create a cozy fantasy series, a world that would be fun and funny to slip into after a hard day’s work out in the ‘real’ world, and this is the first book in that series.

  These stories started out as scripts for webisodes, but as I created the world, I realized there was so much more to the stories that I wanted to tell, but couldn’t in the spare form of script writing.

  One of these days I’ll probably do the webisodes and put them on YouTube, but that won’t be for awhile, yet.

  This is a fiction book. What are the benefits of reading fiction, in this case, entertainment. I had fun writing the books and looking for the images to give the series its feel, and putting it all together to bring into being something which was merely a daydream. This process was, mostly, very satisfying. Most creative’s will agree that having full control over a creative project is the ultimate high.

  As well as the books in this series, I hope to have a set of real tarot cards to compliment the trilogy x3.

  Why tarot? I love the imagery and narrative that accompanies the mysticism inherent in the practice of the tarot, and I love tarot’s deep connection to the feminine spirit.

  Finally, I decided to go indie because I’m getting older and don’t have the patience required these days to hope traditional publishers will take a chance.

  I’m glad that you did.

  I hope you enjoy.

  RainWood Press

  The Final Catch: A Tarot Sorceress Fantasy series

  Introduction

  Print Edition. Electronic edition published by RainWood Press May 2015.

  Chapter 1

  The Star Card

  Inspiration

  Chapter 2

  Querent’s Question

  Where is Theodosia?

  Chapter 3

  The Devil Crosses

  Chapter 4

  The Tower Crowns Her

  Chapter 5

  Wands Beneath Her

  Chapter 6

  Pentacles Behind Her

  Chapter 7of Wands

  A struggle in the Curio

  Chapter 8

  Queen of Pentacles: A Good Business Woman

  Chapter 9 of Swords

  A Dark Place

  Chapter 10 of Cups

  Fortunes Made

  Chapter 11

  Ace of Wands: New Directions

  Chapter 12

  Queen of Wands

  Chapter 13

  The Sun Card: Glowing Girls

  Book Two: See Jane Hex

  Other Books By Rhea E. Rose

  Print Edition. and Electronic edition published by RainWood Press 2015.

  Copyright © 2015 by Rhea E. Rose.

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction, in whole or in part in any form. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design by RainWood Press

  Cover and interior Illustrations

  by Andriy Zholudyev ©

  Chapter 1

  The Star Card

  Inspiration

  The Celtic Cross Begins

  I’m coming for you Jane. Maisie says I can’t love you, but you make my heart hurt. Maisie thinks I should bring you to her. That old witch. I’m not The Devil, no, but I got a piece of him in me. So look out…both of you…

  I thought my divorce caused the monumental shift in my life, but in retrospect… it was the cat.

  These days I work as a part-time teacher at a private girls’ school. But before I worked for myself, I used to slave in my ex-husband Manuel’s shoe stores, measuring big, smelly feet, and trying to stuff bunion toes into Cinderella shoes.

  Then Manuel cheated on me, and then I found out he’d cheated on me a lot. That spurred a seismic shake-up…I was done with being a good girl, a good wife, and always doing the right thing. Besides, being good hadn’t been much fun. Since college I’d skimped and scraped by, sacrificing a family and social life helping my cheating husband build his business. And for what?… So he could pamper his girlfriends?

  I should have been heartbroken but it became clear what I wanted more than anything was to be free. To me freedom was like a flying-dream, the kind where you open your coat to the wind to scoop you up above the world and its worries, like a night-bird, a shadow hawk, free to soar to the moon.

  I sued for divorce but not before I took my fair share of money that Manuel had hidden in his account, which he thought I didn't know about, and I’d decided as long as the money lasts I wasn’t going to be the good little woman anymore. I was spending and shopping. Then I had a mind to make him pay me alimony for all my years of indentured servitude.

  “Jane, you can’t just leave your marriage,” my mother said, straight out. “A good wife has a duty to look the other way, especially when she’s married to a powerful man. That’s the right thing to do.”

  Powerful…that was code for bully, but he didn’t scare me anymore. Let his other women deal with his temper. They could have his laundry, too. My mother accused me of being spoiled, and for once we were in agreement. I became a princess and money was my weakness. I couldn’t have changed more, or so I thought until I met Theodosia—Sia for short.

  I didn't know at the start of our relationship that Sia might be anything other than a regular cat. After all, she was only a kitten. When she mysteriously arrived on my doorstep, I thought she’d be a wonderful companion. She’s a ragdoll, and they have a reputation for being docile, even floppy. Don’t get me wrong, Sia can be those things, but there’s a darker side to her, as well.

  It was a Tuesday night. I’d spent an hour after school working one-to-one with little Riley, and we finally made a huge break through. Her face shone when she read a whole page of the hockey book I’d finally found that interested her. I plastered her planner with four sports stickers and a big gold star, and she raced down the hall to show her mom.

  Riding high on our success, I celebrated with a little shopping trip (had to have those red high heels). While I cooked up a pot of mac and cheese, my cat, who I’d only had for a few weeks went missing. I’d put the milk back in the fridge, and when I turned back around to see how Sia liked her kibble, she was gone. Somehow, in those seconds, Theodosia had disappeared. I went crazy trying to find her. I mean where can a kitten get to in ten seconds or less?

  I called and called, and tore the kitchen apart looking in all the cabinets, throwing out all the pots and pans, and peering under the furniture. I was going nuts until I finally peeked out the back door and found the clues that hinted she had somehow gotten outside.

  Out on the back porch were drops of blood.

  Whenever she escaped I’d find a trail of dead things, such as a mole or a baby rabbit, or one time the neighbors’ dog— a big lab — all stone dead.

  I hurried and followed Sia’s trail of dead and dying creatures, pocketing the stricken critters in my housecoat. I never wanted the neighbors to see any of this. Sia's carnage consisted of a few dead birds, a torn butterfly, and a flopping dead fish from a neighbor's pond, like a trail of sacrificial victims in some feline ritual.

 
I needed to dispose of these dead critters, dump them in the garbage, or stash them in the freezer. By now my housecoat reeked of dead fish and looked like a butcher's apron with blood stains growing from both pockets, bits of butterfly wing stuck to the hem on my sleeves.

  I knew exactly what I had to do. I’d entered one of my dreamy thought filled states. I stood and walked swiftly back home.

  In the kitchen I took off my housecoat and hung it on a hook in the laundry area. I ran around in my under panties and bra looking for a full bottle of stain lifter. I found latex gloves, but no stain remover. With gloves on, I carefully removed the victims from my housecoat pockets. A fish, a mouse, two well chewed sparrows, the butterfly bits which looked, well, they looked more like a mosaic of broken robin egg, blue and lemon yellow. I laid all Sia’s victims neatly on a newspaper, on the kitchen table. I'm not sure I got all the pieces of the butterfly, but I did my best.

  I began to chew my lip as I worried about what to do with Sia’s carnage. The creatures all looked so delicate in their deathly state. I touched and tidied the dead chorus. I felt strangely compelled to make minute shifts and adjustments to them. I wanted to create a kind of picture, a story of sorts.

  Then I started to chew my bottom lip until I felt what I can only describe as a body stutter, like a stifled sneeze but more of a nasal raspberry, if that makes any sense, like an inward ahchoo. A small, but intense force blasted out of me. The release of the sneeze started up with the chewing of my bottom lip. KABOOM--for a moment, I thought I'd blown the butterfly pieces across the room, but was delighted to see that I'd actually blown it all together, and the only parts missing were a leg and an antenna. It was alive. Its wings moved slowly as if it caught a slight breeze.

  The butterfly looked pretty good, alive and mostly all in one piece. The fish was alive, too, and flopped off the table and bounced around the floor. I quickly scooped him up and dropped him into the goldfish bowl on top of my microwave. When I checked on the mouse, well, duh, it was long gone. I'd find it in the cereal box someday. The birds flew around the kitchen like trapped insects. One dropped a nice white little present on my chest. I wiped it away with a dishrag, and then opened the back door to let them out, and that’s when I began to doubt my sanity. During that major doubt of how-did-I-do-this, I heard a long drawn out and annoyed, “Merooooooow.”

  Then I had this powerful urge to go outside with my flashlight and repeat my check of the yard. I grabbed a second, rattier looking housecoat kept for emergencies like this, wrapped the ragged garment round me and held it in place with one free arm. I quickly located my emergency flashlight, and headed for the yard, but my bare feet felt chilled and the thought of wearing my soft, blue, fuzzy slippers overwhelmed me.

  Unable to resist, I headed to the laundry room.

  And that’s where I found my beloved Theodosia, fast asleep, deep inside one of my slippers. I felt a wave of relief at finding her safe. I sat a few minutes and watched her dream and twitch, a small ear flicking at something invisible. Her pink heart-shaped nose was too adorable for words. Then I noticed something odd.

  Sia had nearly slipped free of her little pink rhinestone collar, the one that came with her when she had arrived in a little shoe box on my doorstep. A hand written message came with her. Don’t let Theodosia wander without her collar. As long as she wears it the neighborhood is safe. I remember laughing at that note. But I wasn’t laughing anymore. Later, I’d realize that the collar was the key to everything.

  I picked up the collar, and I saw an inscription there that I'd never noticed before. It read: This animal is the property of The Cheshire Society. Hmm, well, I wasn’t about to give Sia back to anyone. I wondered about the odd phrase, and vaguely thought the right thing to do was contact The Cheshire Society, whatever that was. But I wasn’t about to start doing the right thing anytime soon. Besides I was more than curious about what I’d spent the evening doing, reanimating dead things. I dismissed it thinking all the pressure I’d been under with the divorce had me sleepwalking again, tranced out like I had as a little girl. Those had been strange nightmares back in the day.

  A few days later when I was looking forward to spending Manuel’s moolah in the small downtown of Meadowvale, there was a pounding on my door. I opened it just a crack, but then it crashed open as Manuel lurched inside. His beefy face had turned beet red and his eyes were bulging as he clutched the divorce papers.

  He began sputtering but surprisingly all he could blurt was, “You’re taking back your name? Are you seriously going through with this?” He gave a mean, nasty laugh. “You won’t last another month without me.” Again he laughed but the veins on his neck thickened. “Why would you want to be Jane North Starr again? You stupid bitch.”

  Actually, my name said more about my parents, who’d been star gazers, than my decision to divorce him. I’d even thought about removing the second 'r' from my last name, but decided that it was like the extra sparkle you see when you take the time to look up at the real night stars. I needed more sparkle. “You should read those papers more closely—it’s already a done deal,” I said evenly.

  He threw down the divorce papers and punched me in the stomach. I doubled over, and fell to the floor. I grabbed an end table and knocked over my grandmother’s Chinese vase as it smashed to pieces. When I could draw in a breath yelled, “Holy shit.” Me, only five-foot-two, eyes of blue, and less than 125 pounds soaking wet. Then I said again, “Holy shit, that vase was over a hundred years old.” I stared at the pieces, getting that weird compulsion—not now, I thought; I rearranged a few porcelain shards with my toe when Sia started up a wicked growl.

  Manuel had raised his fist again. Sia flew out of nowhere and splayed on his head, raking her claws over his face. He screamed, peeled her off, and threw her down on the floor. A dark fury rose inside me. That upside-down sneeze began percolating…

  When Manuel lifted his leg to kick Sia, books flew off my bookshelf, launched themselves across the room and pounded him, all thirty five of them. Manuel fell to his knees. That’s when the chair I stared at rose up and smashed him over the head. Groggily, Manuel got up off the floor, staunched the flowing blood on his forehead with his sleeve, and fled the house. Sia began purring as she lapped the puddle of blood off the floor. I sputtered with one more of those strange sneezes and the pieces of my grandmother’s vase snapped back together.

  That’s when I recognized I had actual powers, not strange dreams. On some level I sensed I’ve always had them – that would explain a few things, like how I’d get that overwhelming urge to arrange coffee sticks on the table or cocktail napkins at the bar and wham, the deal Manuel needed was made, or the time I suspected he was cheating on me, and I just had to organize the top of his desk, and slam, there was the bank book of his secret account.

  But if this peculiarity has been with you since you were born, it stays under your radar and you kind of take it for granted. It wasn’t until Sia showed up that my magic openly manifested, and I realized I could control certain things, like people and objects.

  I don’t know why I assumed I was the only one who’d noticed…

  Chapter 2

  Querent’s Question

  Where is Theodosia?

  I had that eerie, spine-jangling feeling; that feeling of eyes raking you over, like being followed and watched, and undressed with x-ray vision; the feeling fell over me like a heavy spider’s web.

  It’s happened to me before, of course. When you’ve been called sensual or friends tell you it’s because you’re a blond ( I smiled to myself thinking how furious Manuel was when I cut my hair short and sassy ditching my long tresses after the divorce.) I’ve got a rocking bod, curved in all the right places. I make the butt pockets on a pair of jeans smile. But I work at all this tight fitness. I like going to the gym. I lift a few weights. I like to run and do yoga. But I think the stare happens more to short, tiny women like me. And that’s disturbing. I wish I was taller than my five-feet-two-with-eyes-of-b
lue (actually my eyes are brown--that's the one thing my magical abilities can't do for me, change my appearance. Well, they can—but only temporarily).

  But this time the feeling of being ogled was different. The gaze felt intense, like a laser beam—and it made me feel exposed like never before. I turned quickly and looked up and down the dark street, but it’s just the same clusters of girls shopping, street guys in doorways, or businessmen talking to invisible phones.

  I could never catch anyone’s eye.

  Until one day after my morning yoga class. I’d had a particularly excellent meditation, and when I left that day, I actually felt a bit high. Riding on the white-light buzz of that class, I felt the stalker’s dark, sinister force like a cloud choking out the sun. He definitely had an evil vibe. I always caught his shadow out of the corner of my eye. But this time I saw him for an instant, etched clearly against a white wall. The light had changed its angle and seemed to catch him off-guard. For a split second I could actually see him. He dressed himself in black, like the bad guy in a spaghetti western, with a long black duster of a coat, black hat--more a toque—and black gloves, the gloves creeped me out, like Darth Vader without the breathing. Except for his eyes, his face was hidden in shadow, but the glint of his cat-eyes seemed ferociously upset and angry at me for catching him in the light. He ducked his head, and then quickly vanished into the shadows of the buildings. I hoped Manuel hadn’t sent someone after me.

  After that one exposure I didn’t go into my garage after dark, and I didn’t date for a while. Then one day, while grocery shopping, I sensed a second stalker in the frozen turkey section. The fine layer of ice began to melt off a bird I picked out. This sinister dude had a completely different vibe, a soul crushing presence; he made me feel like a naughty girl in the school yard. And when the turkey I picked out completely thawed out, I dropped my bird and booked it outta there, barely remembering to grab my Dior purse and pay for the rest of the groceries.