PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

       It was Octbober 30th, the day before Halloween, and the city was in some kind of uproar about the Carnival that was set up on the outskirts of Bangor. We heard the warning to stay away, but as teens, it was an invitation we couldn't refuse.

      “Let’s go see what all the hubbub is about,” Carly suggested with enthusiasm.

     Carly was my best buds and it was hard to say no to her.

     “Okay, but Jayla has to come too,” I summoned back-up. Getting Carlene Jenson to leave a fun park before midnight would be a two team member effort. I’d go, but staying to the wee hours was out.

     Mom and dad were visiting friends in Vermont and Carly had come over to keep me company. An hour ago, she showed up with pizza and a grin. Mom and dad had emphasized, no company, but Carly was family.

     “I can’t, Evey,” Jayla said when we asked her to come.

     “Why not?” Carly demanded. “It’ll be fun. Games, rides, crazy mirrors, clowns.”

     “Clowns are in circuses, Carly,” Jayla retorted, her mouth twisting with irritation. “Anyway, haven’t you been listening to the news? Some folks are in the hospital after a ride malfunctioned.”

     It was cold outside and she had not invited us in. I stomped my feet impatiently. “So, we don't go on the rides."

     “Okay,” she said slowly, studying the oh please-please pleading look on my face. “But no rides!”

     Jayla was my second best bud and I considered myself totally lucky to have two best friends. She was a calm balance for Carly’s usually overly excited state and I breathed easier. She was coated up, smart to wear her white winter bubble insulated jacket and a long hunter green plaid wool scarf. She pulled on a bright green floppy hat that covered piercing hazel eyes.

     Jayla Hendricks lived with her mom who was a nurse who worked a lot of extra shifts at Bangor Medical Center. They lived alone. Her father had died of cancer, so it was just her and her mom. With no brothers and sisters it had been easy to adopt her and she spent as much time at my house as Carly did. Sometimes more.

     There was a lot of traffic. I took N. Main to 395 and over to I-95. What should have taken twenty minutes took forty-five. The parking area was just grass with cars in rows five cars deep all around the tents. The glow from the carny rides turned the cars into iridescent colors of reflective metal and glass. Except for the road in from the interstate, the area was completely surrounded by a dense forest of pine trees. We parked and walked in, the only illumination coming from the neon primary colors of the  rides and games that sat in an open field like a ancient castle nested on a dark moor in a bad movie. Pine needles crunched under our shoes. Carly grabbed my arm, probably having second thoughts. Jayla pulled my left arm close, snickering like a mad woman.

      Soon we were wading shoulder to shoulder in town’s people.  We wormed our way through laughing running children and happy faced Bangorians to the rear tents. FORTUNE TELLER seemed intriguing; the price,  $2.00 per telling, was equal to our purses.

     “This was your idea,” Jayla chuckled and pushed me toward the tent’s open flap.

     "Okay!" I shouted over my shoulder thinking, this will be fun. "You're next!"

      Candle light is mostly shadows and a eerie atmosphere. Inside, I found a gray haired elderly woman in a high back chair with arms. Perched atop the armrests, her arms looked scarecrow thin and the hands gnarled like tree roots. A gypsy head wrap tried and failed to tame the long white uncombed hair. Great silver hoop earrings were right out of a Lon Chaney movie. I could almost hear the wolves howling outside. How did the poem go, something about when the moon is full and the wolf bane does something or other.

     “Sit down, dear heart. Palms or Tarot reading?” she croaked from a warbling voice through rotted front teeth.

     I wrinkled my nose, the odor wafting from her direction was slightly more rancid than the incense that filled the close space.

     “A palm reading, please.”

     A wrinkled hand waved me to sit opposite her. So much for the wolfman crone. She got up and hobble to the rear of the tent.

     "My daughter has the gift," she announced from a gravelly throat. "She will know your future, child."

     She came in from the rear of the tent, looked as young as me and had flashing gray intelligent eyes. The older woman left by the rear, as the daughter settled into the high backed chair. We stared at each other, then into each other's eyes for a long time.

   There was no crystal ball, but a stack of oversized cardboard cards were stacked at her left elbow. My seat was a three legged wood stool that creaked loudly, slightly teetering unevenly on the dirt floor.

     Finally, she asked, “What is your full name?” 

     “Eve Marie Lennox,” I told her.

     “Your left hand then, Eve Lennox." She thrust her right hand across the table and I jumped.'

     With marginally renewed courage, I extended my left hand to meet hers. I half expected the nails to be broken and dirty, but they were manicured neatly and polished in a translucent pastel blue. 

     Her left hand pushed a half burned candle melted to a saucer closer to my hand. She leaned in so close, I could feel her breath on my face. I suppressed a  shudder.

     Either I was overly hot in my coat or her hand were exceptionally cold. “You have the longest lifeline I have ever seen,” she said rolling my hand. Her trim forefinger nail traced the line from the top down to the opposite of the wrist. Her face looked intrigued as if my palm possessed something unusually odd.

     “That’s good,” I tried cheer, feeling mostly edgy. 

     “Only if you have good health,” she said so solemnly I sobered instantly. I swallowed way too much spit accumulated in my mouth. She was good, this one.

     “Here!” she pointed and I flinched.

     “What!” I demanded as if she knew the secrets of my future which rationally I did not believe and felt a bit silly asking. This is fun, I lied to myself.

     “You are surrounded by blood and sharp claws. The full moon sees you. You will see the full moon. Tomorrow. Death will visit you tomorrow. Beware tomorrow.”

     “That’s worth $2.00?” I chuckled behind my free hand. Her grip tightened. Her eyes narrowed, seemed suddenly older.

     “Death is in your aura, Eve Lennox. It is close, very close. Pain will separate you from those you love. Tonight there will be blood. Tomorrow, Death!” her voice rose to a high pitch and almost cracked.

     All the key words to put your hair on end she wielded with expertise developed probably from repetition. Death. Beware. Yeah. I’d had enough.

     I reclaimed my hand; she was looking into my eyes instead of my palm anyway. I fumbled two bills from my wallet, tossed them on the table beside the candle, and fled from the tent. I was breathing hard, my heart racing. Fun was not quite what I was experiencing.

     Carly and Jayla were huddled together outside against the cold, stomping the ground to keep their feet warm.

     “Long fortune telling,” Jay complained. “We been out here half an hour.”

     “Not that long! I retorted loudly, my breath filling the air with evaporating clouds of white. “Ten minutes, tops!”

     “Yeah,” Jayla drew out the word to emphasize contradiction and also how cold she had gotten waiting. I stared at her.

     “I’m next,” Jayla said, but Carly shook her head violently.

     “Not now. I gotta pee,” Carly declared and shook me out of my preoccupation with the old crone and her daugher’s mumbo jumbo. I had been warned and it felt creepy. They used just the right amount of psychological manipulation to rattle me. The usual carnival tricks.

     The spell broke and we were off to find the porta-johns.

     “Why didn’t you go before we left,” I said surprised at myself for being angry.

     “I didn’t have to go then,” Carly nearly sang the reply with the word then having at least six syllables.

     We wound our way through screeching kids, hearing whoops of amazement from the tents we passed and from the games where the foolish and unlucky lost quarters by the pockets full. Finally, we asked, but no one had seen any toilets in or around the campsite.

     “Okay, I gotta go really bad. Out there, behind a tree will do,” she said and it became the plan. The nearest gas station was at least a five minute drive.

     It was dark. We marched past our car on the edge of the grass lot, wishing for a flash light or a match or an electric light on a lamp post.

     “What are we doing?” Jayla asked, her voice trembling with cold.

     “Emulating our ancestors,” Carly stated tight lipped, walking fast pidgin-toed as she made for the nearby stand of pines. We could barely see her as she joined the shadows. Nothing to do, we waited at the forest’s edge hoping she would hurry.

     Since I entered the tent, the temperature had dropped several degrees. October in Mane was no joke. There would be snow soon. I shivered.

     We heard it before we saw it. A huge animal growled from the underbrush and rushed into the moonlight. It looked like a small horse, but it was too low to the ground to be a pony and the barking said big dog. A really big dog. Snarling mixed with loud barking sent terror through us.

   “Carly!” I screamed. “Run!”

    Muted, beneath the animal’s whooping, we heard a man calling. “Beatrix. Get back here. Heel, girl! Heel I say!”

    Whatever Beatrix was she was closing on Carly who ran, pants half up, away from us into the trees. We charged after her. Or, rather I did. Jayla froze where she stood, immobilized by bead like eyes and long moon lit canines, thick fur, and the speed of the animal. Or it was the wolf like howling. Adrenaline propelled me. I wasn’t all that brave, just afraid for my friend.

     It bounded more than ran, then leaped and landed on Carly’s back. Both went down onto unlit ground. Carly’s screams of panic gave way to howls of pain and transitioned to garbled pleas for help.

     The man trudged out of breath into view and pushed me aside as he went down to the animal. He came away, his hands attached to the dog’s collar, heaving back hard to get the animal off my friend.

     Carly scrambled back, “It bit me! That thing is dangerous. What is it doing out here,? It belongs in a cage!.”

     Stress made her sound irrational,  but she had a point. It’s front teeth were covered in red and it was not liking being restrained.

     “No Beatix! Stop it now!” he tamed the beast. “I’m very sorry, Miss.” His flashlight came up and I saw the youth’s face. Long hair, even teeth, a keen nose and full lipped mouth. His face was flushed and he looked thoroughly repentant. “She smelled your scent and broke away before I could harness her. Are you hurt? I have a first aid kit in my truck if you need it.”

      His sincerity got to me andI calmed down, breathed in cold air, forcing my body to move. Behind the lad, Jayla crept in wary of the big beast. Collie, I thought at first, or some kind of wolf hound. In the beam of the flashlight, I stared into the excited eyes of an enormous full furred Huskie.

     He trained the light on Carly.  The left pant leg was torn at the ankle. The fabric of her jeans had been ripped and was dark with blood.

     “Beatix is just playful and her weight just knocks you over. She grabs and holds you down with her maw. You struggled and raked her teeth.”

     Yeah, it was all Carly’s fault. Tell it to the judge.

     There was blood. Lots of blood and I gasped. “Hospital! We gotta get her to a hospital now!”

     The huskie was hauled away and locked in the cab of the boy’s truck. All apologies, he helped us get Carly into the back seat of my small car.

     “Do you have a first aid kit?” the lad demanded of Jayla, who was tongue-tied useless.

     “No, I gave it to my parents before they left this morning.”

      He climbed in the back with Carly. I had never seen anyone tear a shirt like that except in the ficks. Teeth started the tear and the cloth became bandages. Fast wrapped, he ordered me to drive.

     Hospital emergency room lights all look the same. Overly bright, ambulances with flashing lights and way too many cars unloading outside big double motion activated glass doors. St. Joe's E.R.  was busy tonight.

     Jayla was in the passenger seat on her cell, talking to her mother. She was shouting at the boy who had introduced himself as Alex Shambly. He kneeled over Carly’s leg, keeping it immobile. The husky, right out of an Iditarod run with fully stocked sled in the arctic, was back at the Circus park, locked in the cab of his truck, but I could still hear  Beatrix’s growling in my overly stimulated imagination.

     “Don’t put pressure on it!” Jayla screamed. “Dog bite, best to let the blood flow. Keep her leg as still as possible!”

     My mind did a trick and I flinched, remembering something about being surrounded by blood. I had a bloody friend in the back seat and I had blood flowing from people with bandages entering the emergency room.  Somehow in the human psyche, hospitals were justifyably synonymous with blood.

     I screeched to a stop, jumped out rather clumsily, and soon had an orderly and a wheelchair for Carly. Jayla’s mom was waiting for us and ushered us aside to not block the constantly opening and closing doors.

     “I’ve notified her mom. She’s on the way,” Mrs. Hendricks said and I was glad Jayla’s mom was here taking charge. I couldn’t.

     The light falling on us looked iridescent to me. Nerves, I figured. The aftermath of shock. Everything had a halo of blue white light, even the faces around me. I turned away and through a clearing of trees beyond the bulked square of the hospital’s buildings, saw the moon in her full glory. Round as a great yellow ball, I stared at the full moon. I heard somebody yelp, then realized it was me.

     “Eve, are you okay,” Alex asked coming up behind me. I nodded, lying.

     Beware the full moon, the gypsy had warned me. I was already surrounded by more blood than I wanted to admit. I was at a hospital. Death, like blood, was synonymous with hospitals. I was swimming in terror, way beyond spooked. Reality was conforming to what the fortune teller had told me. She was just a woman. An actress, I told myself.  Still, I was surrounded by blood.

     I shook my head and Alex wrapped his hands around my arms.

     “Hey. You don’t look okay,” he said softly.

     I sniffed and managed a tentative nod. I was about to say I was fine just as I heard my cell play Take Me Out to the Ballgame.

     I fished it out, said, “Yeah?”

     “Eve, this is mom. We’ve been in a car accident. No one’s hurt seriously,” she said quickly. “We are on the way to the hospital. Your dad broke his hand. We have it wraped up and the bleeding has pretty much stopped. He'll be all right?”

     I knew that was the edited version to keep me from freaking out. That was so like mom, downplaying disaster. If dad had a bandage, he was in lots of pain. Two minutes of questions got the whole story. His arm was slashed and he had glass in one eye. Damn. They had been blindsided by a red light runner. Air bags had saved mom, but the car was inoperative or totaled or mildly dented. My mother was a horrible liar.

     I wanted to go to them, but mom said no. Dad got on the phone and I could hear his agony as he told me not to come. He was fine, needed a few stitches. He said nothing about the glass in his eye which was not a good thing to omit.  "We love you. Your mom will call once I've seen the doctor. “Are you all right?”

     “Yeah. I’m fine. Worried but fine.” I kept the Jayla incident to myself. They were dealing with enough right now.

      “Good,” he said, sounding exhausted. Talk to you soon. We will probably be home late tonight. Don't worry. Okay?”

     I just stared at the phone. You know how old folks say disasters come in threes. My gaze drew upward and settled on the moon as if it could tell me what was going to happen next.

     I was freezing. My blood refused to warm me and I could not stop looking at the moon that hovered in a cloudless night sky like a threat. Everything was blurred. Overwhelmed, I looked  up at the moon. That damned witch fortune teller’s words would not stay out of my head. Sudden as the crash that had hurt my dad and left him broken with glass in his eyes, it hit me. “Fear Tommorow!” Her predictions rushed me. “Death will visit you.”

     My heart thrummed too fast The idea of dad or Carly dying became icy cold possibilities. I could not breathe. “You are surrounded by blood,” the palm reader had said. “Fear tomorrow!” I had been warmed. “Death will visit you.”  Floundering in uncontrolled foreboding, I recalled the rest. "She has the gift," the old crone had said of her daughter. My arm was trembling, but I managed to look down at my watch. It was already tomorrow. I felt sick as the moon looked back at me. Knees weak, I mumbled the words, "Happy Halloween, Eve." 

Lady A

10-20-14

3:25p