The Hyacinth girl

Phlebitis shivered even though he was stood in sunlight.  The skies had been clear for nearly two weeks now, and the wind had barely raised itself from its bed.  His ship sat in the harbour, effectively becalmed and he had wondered now for three days if he shouldn’t break out the oars and give the crew some exercise.  Even if it turned out that there was no wind on the open sea, by the time they were there the crew would have no choice but to either keep rowing until they found wind, or at the very least row back to the harbour.  If it were just a little cooler here he’d probably stay until the wind picked up again, but the heat was making him fretful, and the crew were having nightmares.  He couldn’t blame them, over the last six months they’d seen plenty of things to give people nightmares; he rather thought that a day’s rowing would probably tire them out to the point where they slept without dreams.  They might be grateful to him for that.

His thoughts turned for a moment to the great moths that the Eidolon of the Marches kept for the purpose of eating the dreams of its subjects, and he shivered again despite the heat.  Even if he were to capture one, he doubted that anyone would tolerate having it locked up on the ship for any time at all.  Some things were just evil in and of themselves.

There was a splash somewhere starboard of him and he pulled himself from his reverie and went to see who was swimming.  The harbour was normally far too busy and dangerous for that kind of activity, but with everyone becalmed several of the crews had taken to playing in the water.  As he strolled along the deck, he heard a cry go up from some of the men, and quickened his pace.

There in the water, being watched and laughed at, was a young girl with her arms full of flowers.  She was kicking her legs to stay afloat, and even managing a small amount of movement towards the dock wall, but she was refusing to let any of her flowers be tugged away by the chill green water.  Phlebitis sighed.

“Who pushed her in?” he asked.  “And who’s got the book on how long it’ll take her to drown?”  Scattered laughter among the men, but curiously no volunteers.  He hardened his expression.  “I’m thinking maybe we should row out to find the wind,” he said.  “If I don’t get an answer, I’ll be picking me some pacemakers for the rowing.”

“She’s not from our ship, Captain,” said someone in the crowd.  “No-one pushed her that we saw.”

Phlebitis frowned.  There were no other ships near enough for her to have jumped from one of them and reached where she was without being a strong swimmer, and with her arms full of flowers she wasn’t even a weak swimmer.  She was just a slow drowner.

“Lower a boat and bring her up,” he said.  “I want to know who she is.”

“Women are unlu–“ started the voice from the crowd, and Phlebitis pointed like a Titan exiling an impudent child.  “You, Jack,” he said.  “You’re leading the boat-crew.  Pick two others, and if that boat isn’t in the water in two minutes, you will be.”  He knew all the stories about women being unlucky on board a ship, but in his experience women were unlucky full stop.  Madame Sosotris came treacherously to mind, attempting to flirt with him despite being old enough to be his grandmother.  “Ninety seconds,” he said, feeling a touch cruel.

The boat rappelled down in short order, and he watched with slight satisfaction as they rowed out to the girl and then struggled to bring her aboard.  She refused to let go of even a single one of her flowers, and eventually they resorted to dragging her in by her heels and her head, though she squealed and writhed like a sea-snake when they did.  When they reached the ship, she remained in the boat while it was raised, and only when it was back on deck did she step demurely out and look around her.  The crew retreated a little, still superstitious, and Phlebitis stepped forward.

“Who are you, and what were you doing in the water?”

“I was swimming ashore,” she said, sounding defiant.  “Until you interfered.”

“Who are you?”

He got no answer, just a fiery stare.

“Fine,” he said.  “I’ll call you the Hyacinth girl since those are hyacinths.  How did you get into the water?”

“I stepped,” she said.  “I wasn’t supposed to end up in the water though.”

“Did you somehow miss the ship?” asked Phlebitis, and the crew laughed approvingly.  “It’s not that big, as they go.”

She flushed at being mocked, but thrust her elfin, pointy chin out.  “I was pushed off course,” she said.  “I normally arrive where I intend.”

“And you were intending to arrive on my ship?”

“Oh yes.  Madame Sosotris was most insistent that I come and visit you.”

Phlebitis’s heart sank.

Bludgeonomancy

Madame Sosotris, famous clairvoyant and notorious nymphomaniac, stood in her herb garden looking around her.  A scarecrow, fashioned from tying together mandrake root while muttering words of young power over them, guarded the sage.  The words were perhaps less impressive than those of ancient power, but they were easier to come by, easier to pronounce, and frequently a lot more powerful.  She'd had to learn txt-speak to use them, but that had been simpler than learning classical Latin or Ancient Greek (any language, she felt, where the rule was that the stress fell on the third syllable from the end had simply too many long words in it), and she could keep up with it almost entirely by owning a mobile phone.  The scarecrow was wearing a hat stolen from a man who had died a messy end, a jacket she'd found outside a night-club, and trousers made from sail-cloth from a boat that had sunk on its maiden voyage.  Every time she tried to look directly at it she heard a buzzing somewhere behind her, and little black motes scudded across her vision like storm-clouds building in the sky on a summer evening.  No birds approached the scarecrow, and the sage was in pristine condition, for all that she had to wear a blindfold to be able to get close enough to harvest any.
She looked away from the scarecrow, letting the buzzing in her head subside.  Sometimes she wondered if she'd overpowered the scarecrow a little, but she'd not found any signs that it was walking by itself yet, so she was pretending that everything was fine.  Her eyes fell on the dreamcatcher next, a blue and gold mandala made from seashells dived from a shipwreck, flowers grown on consecrated ground and held together by glue made from week-old corpses.  It shook and shivered, even though there wasn't a wind, as the force of the dreams and nightmares that it held tried to tear it apart so that they could stalk the nights again.  She shivered, just looking at it made her fingers itch and her skin crawl, and even though it clearly needed emptying she couldn't bring herself to pick it up and dunk it in the well-water to wash it clean.  She would leave it until tomorrow.
The fishpond was green and murky, and she knew without going closer that the kelpie would have killed and eaten all the fish and would now be lurking, waiting for flesh to get close enough to snatch.  The crazy paving was sparkling with stored sunlight, and stepping incautiously on the stones, especially in the wrong order, would release a brilliant column of stored sunlight capable of incinerating would-be burglars.  The shed was creaking and leaking, and she had no intention of getting close to it without protective clothing.  All in all, she was starting to think that coming out into the garden might have been a rather bad idea.
"Hurry up!"  The voice from inside was a client, and with a start she remembered that she'd come out for a rowan branch.  She edged along the narrow line of grass that bordered the crazy paving, slipping between the rockery and the raspberry canes, and stopped beneath the rowan tree.  It stretched upwards, its branches like arms raised in supplication to the sun god.  Leaves rustled softly, and there was a dusty, musky smell hanging on the air reminding her of druid ceremonies.  She looked at the lofty branches, and then down at her feet.  Sure enough, scattered on the grey soil were a small collection of branches, one of which looked thin and long enough to suit her needs.  She picked it up and sidled her way back to the back-door.
"Coming!" she called, testing the flex of the branch.  It proved satisfyingly whippy.
She stepped inside, her stride now meaningful and determined, and happily away from casual danger.  She had no idea what the name was for the kind of divination that required her to beat the client half-to-death and then interpret the bruises and weals that rose on his flesh, but she did rather enjoy it.

Dental Palmistry

Phlebitis paused at Madame Sosotris's door and re-read the sign on it.  At first glance he'd thought it said Oriental Palmistry but now that he was closer he could see that it in fact read Dental Palmistry.  He hesitated, his calloused fist a couple of centimetres from the door's surface, wondering what it could mean.  Indecision wracked him for several seconds; his visits to Madame Sosotris were not made for pleasure but out of painful necessity and the opportunity to not visit was tempting.
The door opened just as he was deciding that madness was as good a reason as any to not knock and not find out his future from her.  A small woman who barely came up to Phlebitis's waist walked into him and said, "Ow."
Phlebitis lowered his fist, seeing Madame Sosotris emerging from the gloom inside her house.  Her eyes seemed dilated and unfocused, and there was a trickle of blood running from the corner of her mouth.
"I said, 'Ow'," said the small woman, looking up at Phlebitis.  He pulled his gaze from the slightly vampiric-appearing Madame Sosotris and looked down.
"Watch where you're going," he said.  "If you were a sailor you'd be over the side in no time, making friends with the sharks."
"Are you saying I'm clumsy?"  The small woman squeaked when she was excited or angry.
"No, I'm saying that the other guys would think it funny to trip you over and watch you fall over the side.  Don't worry.  You look like you'd float for quite a while."
There was a noise like a boiling kettle whistling, which Phlebitis slowly realised was the small woman.  She was so angry that her face had turned a deep purple and she was standing on the very tips of her toes.
"Are you going to move?" he said.  "Only I'm here to visit Madame Sosotris and you're rather in the way.  You seem to be blocking the entire doorway."
The small woman was actually vibrating with anger now and was having trouble staying on her toes as she did so.  Seeing an opportunity, Phlebitis stepped to the side and tugged gently on her shoulder as he did so.  A spasm of panic passed over her face as she lost her balance completely, her hands reflexively pushing forwards to break her fall and pushing her center of gravity further out of alignment, speeding her fall.  Phlebitis stepped over her and pushed the door shut behind him.
"I'b god a midderable code," said Madame Sosotris.
"You always do when I visit," said Phlebitis.  "It's almost like it's been written about somewhere and we just have to play our parts out over and over again."
Madame Sosotris gave him a penetrating look and produced a lace handkerchief from one of her sleeves.  As she lead the way into her drawing room, where she performed séances, table-turnings, read cards and ate dinner, she blew her nose.  It was a long, drawn-out, mournful honking process, at the end of which she dropped the sodden handkerchief into a bucket
"What's dental Palmistry then?" asked Phlebitis sitting down in the high-backed chair that didn't wobble.  Madame Sosotris glared at him but sat on the other one without saying anything.  She rocked slightly as she tried to make it balance.
"A mistake by the sign-writer," said Madame Sosotris.  Phlebitis could see that her eyes were red as though she'd been crying, and her wrinkles seemed to get deeper and dirtier everytime he came.  "Although, a couple of nights ago I did get a visit from a man who had mouths in his palms.  His future was very hard to read, but eventually I figured out that he'd misunderstood the sign and was hoping for Palmal Dentistry."
"Is there such a thing?"
"Ye–e–es," said Madame Sosotris trying not to look at the builder's wrap of hammers and chisels on the sideboard.  "How have you been though?  Surely another eight months alone at sea must give a man certain... urges?"  She winked.
Phlebitis tried to ignore his stomach doing somersaults and forced a smile.  "I'm not alone," he said.  "I'll just have the usual please.  The future for the next six months in strange images and dire pronouncements.
Madame Sosotris sighed softly, suspecting that Phlebitis was somehow mocking her, and leaned back in her chair.  For many clients she would draw out cards or a crystal ball and use them to distract the customer while she engaged the trance, but she'd been trying and failing to seduce Phlebitis for years now.  He could see it all done the real way, warts and everything.  Her eyes rolled up back in her head, revealing jaundiced whites, and her fingers tensed until her hands looked like claws.
"I see a marriage," she said, and Phlebitis snorted.
"You tried this two times ago," he said.  "You do not see me marrying you, you just wish you could."
"No," said Madame Sosotris, her voice now oddly thick.  "I see you marrying a shape, an intelligence that is not moulded by earth into a human form.  The ceremony is under a moon, and there are people and ... and un-people watching.  There are boiled frogs for the wedding feast.  There are... wait, the image is changing.  There is a chair, a golden chair with eyes in the back.  They are watching you, they are looking for you.  Then they cannot find you and the chair warps and twists.  It is angry.  There are more chairs, and they gather around a table to discuss you."
She sat forward, her wispy grey hair spilling over her eyes and gasped for breath.
"Great," said Phlebitis standing up.  "Married to something not human and it looks like one of the wedding gifts is going to be a carnivorous dining suite.  You've outdone yourself this time, Madame."
His money tinkled on the table.  "I should have asked for the Dental Palmistry," he said.  "That might have made more sense."
As the door closed behind him Madame Sosotris finally got air back into her tired, ancient lungs, and called out.  But Phlebitis was already gone.

Lady's maid

There was a tap on the door, and Madame Sosotris, once a famous clairvoyant and still a notorious prestidigitatress, opened it with flair and verve.  And almost immediately tripped on the hem of her white lace dress and ended up in a crumpled heap on the floor.
"Oooh, very Lady Haversham," said a voice, and Madame Sosotris cringed to hear what she thought of as common-accents, accents which she'd removed from her own voice over five years and through three elocution coaches.  "I rather like it, it suits you, you know.  You've got the face for it."
"What?"  Madame Sosotris couldn't help but notice that she wasn't being helped up, and so had to pull herself back to her feet using the small table that she kept by the door for post that she didn't want to read.
"Old."
Back on her feet, she could see that her visitor was the short, dumpy woman with bad skin who insisted on being called Amelia.  Madame Sosotris had considered telling her what amelia was, but had then decided to save it for when she couldn't stand her any longer.  Which day, she now felt, was drawing closer.
"Please, won't you come in?" she said, trying for gravitas and feeling relieved that her voice didn't do the shrieky think it had started doing a lot lately, making her sound like a pubescent boy.  Her doctor had advised her to take up smoking, but the cards had advised her to change her doctor and she was caught in the snares of indecision.
"Oooh, don't mind if I do!  You know, I tell all my friends about this place, I say how nice it could be if you opened the curtains a little, but then I suppose you'd have to dust as well...."
"Is this a social call?"  Madame Sosotris peered around the door as she closed it, checking for television cameras.  Those Channel4 people got everywhere these days, and she was quite expecting a visit from the mad harridans who invaded people's homes and announced that they were so filthy it was astonishing that they weren't incubating tuberculosis and reviving the Black Death.  The path outside was thankfully empty of lurking camera-crew or be-wellied women with a polishing rag and the twinkle of insanity in their eyes.
"Oh, if only!  It would be lovely just to sit down with you one day and have a little coeur-a-coeur don't you think?  But no, I'm on the cock agai– I mean, I'm on the clock again, how silly of me!"  She tittered, and Madame Sosotris decided not to offer her a cup of tea.  "Yes, I've only got a half-hour and I did so want to find out what this month has in store for me.  You're the best fortune teller around, I tell everyone that.  Even that Mystic Millie, I went to her to have my head read you know, and she thought I was a poodle!  Can you believe the cheek of it?  So I'm back here, and I want those cards laid out for me, pronto!"
"Mystic Millie?  A phrenologist?  A poodle?"  Madame Sosotris felt rather confused; her circle of people involved in the mystic arts included an astrologer who was corpulent enough to have to include himself in his star charts as a significant influence on the life of anyone nearby and a fingerprint reader who she knew was actually working for the Met, but no phrenologist.
"Yes, she's got that shop on Abattoir Road.  But like I said, I'm in a bit of a hurry, so can you sit down and do your thing please?"
Madame Sosotris gestured to a chair at her card-reading table and sat on the other side.  The only shop she could think of on Abattoir Road that might fit was a dog-groomer's, and that kind of bemused confusion fitted her mental image of Amelia perfectly.  She took a deck of cards out of the left-hand side of the table, from a hidden drawer.  These cards were already stacked, just for visitors like Amelia.  She offered them for cutting, and then had Amelia hold them firmly between both hands for several seconds, to imprint on your secret soul.  Amelia giggled a little.
"Right," said Madame S. turning the first card.  "This is the nine of clubs, which indicates that there are many secrets to be uncovered this month."  She laid the card down in the middle of the table.  "This then is the four of wands;" she laid this card crosswise on the nine of clubs, "and that indicates that not all of these secrets will come to light of their own accords.  Wands signify wisdom, so you will need to consider events that are unfolding and seek reasons for them beyond what is presented to you.  This is the eight of..." she paused, realising that she'd not turned the card over yet, and pretended to concentrate, "... the eight of coins–" she turned the card, revealing it was indeed the eight of coins and smiled as though pleased with her prediction, "which in conjunction with the other two indicates that there will be a cost associated with understanding some of these secrets."
"Oooooh!" said Amelia sounding like a steam-kettle on the boil.  "What kind of cost?"
"Let us see," said Madame S., grinning.  She turned the next card, and stared at it.  It was not the two of clubs which she knew she'd set next in the deck.  "This is the Tower, inverted," she said, laying it down below the eight of coins.  "It suggests that the cost will be life-changing.  You should take care what you're prying into."
"Well!" said Amelia, shooting to her feet.  "Prying!  Indeed!"
But Madame Sosotris wasn't listening.  Instead she turned the last card for the layout and looked at it for several seconds before laying it down on the table.  "This is the Fool," she said.  'It can indicate the start of a transformative journey."
She looked up and found she was talking to herself, Amelia had stormed out leaving the front door swinging to and fro.  Madame Sosotris looked again at the cards, and quietly finished the reading with, "And death is very transformative indeed."