Turning tables II

“Do you think he’s just here to have an orgasm with us?” asked another voice from around the table, this one female.

“No,” said the first woman.  “No, he wouldn’t be able to org….”  Her voice trailed away as she realised that was revealing too much.  All the faces around the table had turned to her, and though a couple looked shocked, several looked interested and one looked revolted.  “Arthur?”  she said, abruptly.  “Is that you Arthur?”

The table rocked enthusiastically from side to side, which Madame Sosotris knew for certain she couldn’t make it do with her pedals.  She treadled them a little anyway, and found them squishy, the hydraulics clearly failing to engage anything.  She treadled a little harder, just in case, but the table just ignored her.

“Itchy legs?” whispered a voice, a woman next to her leaning in to her.  Madame Sosotris’s skin crawled at the proximity of the woman, and she pushed back in her chair.  The legs groaned as they stuttered against the uneven floorboards.  She nodded, and to her relief the woman leaned away again.  The table started to rotate, rocking on the floor about half-way round the circle, and definitely gaining a little height.

“Arthur?” A man’s voice now, one Madame Sosotris recognised.  More voices around the table joined in, all asking if the spirit rocking the table was Arthur.  She cleared her voice, about to tell the room that the spirit’s never spoke directly, only through the medium, when the table suddenly stopped dead and dropped onto the floor.  Someone screamed, a tiny little scream that was heartfelt, and the people on either side of her tightened their grip on her hands.  All of the lights went out, and the curtains fell across the windows with a sound like a sail flapping in the wind.

“Arthur?” asked Madame Sosotris, her voice quavering.  She was instantly annoyed with herself, but as she was clearing her throat, which sounded a little like a tubercular cow, light returned and she fell as silent as the rest of the room.  On the table in front of them tiny motes of purple light were swirling around, drifting, a hologrammic Brownian motion.  For a moment there were just enough to capture attention, and then suddenly they were a column of light, thick and coruscant, that reached to the ceiling of the room.  Madame Sosotris squinted, trying to see if there was something in the light, and then chips of light seemed to slough away, falling to the table where they splashed and vanished.  This unnatural sculpting persisted for five minutes, after which the light presented the image of the statue atop Nelson’s Column.

“Arthur!”

“That’s Arthur?  Wasn’t he… well, fatter?”

“He was fat!  Very fat!  That’s not Arthur.”

“Oh come on, he wasn’t that fat.”

“He had to have help standing up.  How fat do you have to be before you’ll call someone fat?”

“Well…,”

“Hey, he’s pretty fat too.  Maybe Arthur really didn’t look so fat by his standards.”

“Lady!”

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” said Nelson, his voice rolling around the room as though Madame Sosotris had a sound-system.  Heads turned, looking into the darkness that surrounded them, but they were all drawn back when Nelson spoke again.  “Why have you summoned me?”

“We have questions, Arthur,” said the female voice who’d identified his orgasm noise.  “You fell rather suddenly.”

“I was pushed,” said Nelson, the table shaking as he spoke.  Madame Sosotris flexed her fingers, trying to see if she could break the circle, but the people holding her hands tightened their grip.  “I was pushed, by my lieutenant.  It could happen to you all.”

“Not me,” said a male voice.  “No lieutenants.”

“Hah,” boomed Nelson.  “He was inspired by La Reveille, who I see has not accompanied you today.  Beware La Reveille.”

“We know,” said the woman who’d identified the orgasm noise.  “We know how you fell, Arthur.  You were lazy, you were incompetent.  It is no surprise that the Throne passed to another.  But we don’t have enough data on your Throne, and your little… ah, surprises, are causing us issues.”

“You knew?  You knew that I was targeted?”  The indignation in Nelson’s voice made it louder, and a couple of people around the table cringed.  Madame Sosotris pulled at the hands holding hers, now trying her best to break the circle, but still her neighbours gripped her tightly, squeezing.  “What honour is there amongst Thrones?” screamed Nelson, his face distorting with rage.  “And now you come here to ask me for my help?”

Madame Sosotris let herself fall off her chair and landed heavily on the floor, banging her tailbone.  Her arms ended up above her, her hands still held firmly in place.  She cursed softly under her breath.

“Arthur, you’re dead,” said the female voice.  “The concerns of this world aren’t yours any more.  Why don’t you be a little reasonable?”

“Hah!” Nelson’s face twisted into something that might have been a sneer.  “Hah, I might be dead but I’m certainly not impotent.  Each possessor of a Throne becomes part of the Throne when they die!  You haven’t seen the last of me!”

The hologram of the statue disappeared with a sharp crack and a sudden sea-fresh smell of ozone, and everyone’s hands were suddenly thrown apart, breaking the circle.  Madame Sosotris, her hands above her head, ended up clapping them together involuntarily, which drew everyone’s eyes to her as light leaked back into the room around the edges of the curtains, and she clumsily pulled herself up from the floor and back on to her chair.

“Payment,” she said, “needs to be made before you leave.”

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.