Read The Final Catch: Book 1: See Jane Charm (A Tarot Sorceress Series) for Free Online Page A

From where I stood I was able to see the sales counter but no one manned the cash register. That bothered me a little. The shop seemed empty. I noticed a large, leather bound book, the kind of book I’d seen in antique shops with gold trim and embossed spines. I ran my hand along the outside of the book and a small tremor tickled my fingers. It read  -- The Knowitall Journals –
    *
    I pulled open the cover and saw hand written journal entries and the title of the book written again in black script.  I laughed at that. There was a calligraphy pen nearby and a bottle of red ink. I thought the red ink was curious. A little soft music played giving the shop a meditative ambiance and making it feel far away from the bustle of downtown Meadowvale.
    I left the journal and headed deeper into the Curio.
    Soft Celtic voices sang me in and through the shop. The whispery voices chorused all around me. The interior smelled liked mint and the scent massaged my stressed out brain. I wandered soothed and disarmed by the sounds and the sweet and savory smells of the place.  The items for sale were a feast to the eyes; soft colored scarves arranged in harmonious patterns, hand blown balls of glass that looked like miniature worlds, baubles of every color caught the light through the window and reflected around the interior. Everything appeared carefully displayed and designed to nourish the senses. Any fear I might have had left me as I touched and fondled interesting items all the way to the backroom. 
    There, a sign over a door read: TAROT CARD READINGS.
    As I stepped in to the rear of the shop the first thing I noticed was the old fashioned fortune-telling machine with a gypsy-like figure on the inside. She sat quiet and guard like at the threshold between front and rear of the place. The automaton inside looked very familiar. I studied it a minute and wondered where I’d seen one like it. I tried to read the slightly rusted sign above the figure’s head, but there was a tarp partially draped over it. And I couldn’t reach high enough to move it to the side.
    Beyond the fortune telling machine was a smaller, more intimate room. It had dry aquariums with small cacti and other things growing in rainbow colored sand and the lights from the aquarium lids glowed softly. What drew my attention was a sturdy looking card table draped in a beaded burgundy and black cloth. Two chairs tucked under the table looked ready to receive customers.  A small, lit votive sat on the table. A deck of tarot cards inside a box, but with the lid off, also appeared to await the arrival of a guest. I decided to be that guest and took a seat. I picked up the deck of cards, and shuffled them, and instantly I became mesmerized by the design on the back of the cards, a hypnotic swirl of sorts that moved.
    Right away my hands became possessed as they endlessly shuffled and reshuffled the gorgeous cards; spiral pinwheel designs whorled and sparkled and danced like fireworks. My fingers moved rhythmically around the cards.
    The sound of a toilet flush broke the spell!
    The closet bathroom door was camouflaged, but once my eyes discerned its outline, it became obvious-- purple with a very psychedelic pattern of a purple fleur de lis design from the 70’s, and the papered door had a soft and fuzzy touch. I looked carefully at the busy pattern and found myself getting dizzy. A small handle that looked as if it belonged more on a dresser drawer then on a bathroom door was hidden in the pattern.
     I heard a sound from beyond the door.
    Someone was in there!
    I should’ve run from the shop right then and there. Instead, I went back to the table and put the cards down and tried to tidy them and the table so that nothing looked amiss.  The instant I began to reorganize the items on the table, my obsessive compulsiveness took over, and I couldn’t resist making the minute adjustments necessary to make the votive, the box of cards, the lid and the cloth covering the