8 days in
I'm still clicking away at NaNoWriMo. The word count is now 15,027. Today's entry includes a scene from a short story I previously wrote, but with the perspective changed so I get to look at the same piece through the eyes of a different character.



Rosa Hearne had lived the life of a nomad and loved it. Only now, trapped at middle age and living in an efficiency apartment in urban America, did she really feel trapped. She sat at the round wooden table that served as her place for meals and entertainment alike and dealt out a hand of cards. An onlooker wouldn't have been able to discern what game she was playing because she didn't use any cards most people knew. The deck of twenty-two hand painted squares had old faded images on them but no words.

She shuffled through the small deck with lightning speed that had slowed only a little since she was younger. With each cut of the cards, she whispered one word: "Tobias."

# # #

"Are you the new fellow?" she had asked decades ago. A young man had stepped out of Mister Zaleski's tent and paused to look at the German countryside. He turned around to look at her, allowing Rosa to figure him out immediately. Tall and thin, with a blank face, pale skin, and gray eyes. He wore a pair of black denim pants and a brown t-shirt under his gray jacket. Rosa guessed that he tried to act as drab and serious as he looked.

"I am, once Mister Zaleski gives me a wagon to keep my things. How did you know?" He spoke in German, but Rosa knew immediately that it wasn't his native tongue. Given the almost tourist-like way he carried himself, she guessed that he was American.

She pulled her plump frame the rest of the way out of the tent, revealing an exotic violet dress as she strode toward the newcomer. "I'm Rosa, the fortune teller. I know everything, past and future."

"What about the present?"

“If I knew everything about the present, I wouldn’t have had to ask you, would I?”

"I suppose not." Just as she had sized up the newcomer, now he sized her up, taking note of her raven hair and green eyes but also seeming to observe several aspects below the surface of her olive skin.

"Here," Rosa grinned, pulling her deck of cards from its hiding place inside one of her sleeves. "Pick a card."

“Is this my fortune?”

“I have to know about the new boy, don’t I?” She cut the cards once, and then offered the deck to him.

“It’s just blackness,” he said after drawing the top card.

Rosa put on her deepest, most theatrical frown and nodded. “How sad."

“What does it mean?”

“It means you take yourself much too seriously,” she said, gently punching him in the arm. “I had you picked as a lonely scarecrow the first time I saw you. The void is a perfect fit.”

“You stacked the deck?”

Rosa nodded. “Here, give me the card again.” She took the black card and placed it on top of the deck, then buried it with a cut. She shuffled forward and back, seemingly losing the card, only to draw it from the top again with a flourish. “Reading people is the same as reading their fortune. I can pick any card that fits them, and I know how to make it appear wherever I want in the deck.”

“Isn’t that sort of cheating?”

“One thing you’ll learn here at Zaleski’s Circus is that everyone cheats all the time. You didn’t think Mr. Zaleski hired you just to perform, did you?”

“No, I suppose not. Can I cut the cards?”

“Go ahead. You’ll still draw the void if I want you to.”

The new boy took the deck from Rosa and shuffled. Then he handed the deck back to her. “Go ahead…tell my fortune now.”

Rosa shuffled the cards again and turned the top one over. This time, though, the card revealed a crumbled tower, not the black void.

“That…is the card of ruin,” said Rosa, her smile fading from her face. “Where is the void?”

The newcomer flicked his wrist. The card appeared from the sleeve of his gray jacket. He handed it back to Rosa, bowed, and then began walking again.

“Who are you?" Rosa called after him.

“Mack the clown."

“Is that your real name?”

“You’re the fortune teller,” he called back. “Why don’t you tell me?”

# # #

She turned over both the void and the card of ruin and stared at them for a long time. When the expected knock came at the door, she scooped the cards back up. She waited until the heavy hand outside pounded on the door again - three times in rapid succession - before moving the answer.

"Mister Bryce," she said, opening the door just enough so her body blocked any entrance into her apartment. "You took longer than expected to get here."

"You didn't run to where I thought you'd go," he answered.

"Some people change. I don't physically, of course," she gestured across her body, which did indeed seem to have changed little over the years except for a few wrinkles and some thinning hair, "but I can change my habits."

"Too bad your friend hasn't."

Rosa stretched a false smile across her face. "Would you like some tea, Larry?"

"No, I just have some questions."

"That's a shame...I was looking forward to refusing your request."

Bryce's bushy eyebrows folded inward as he scowled at her. "Can I come inside?"

"No," said Rosa happily. "Small favors, you know. Since you didn't ask for some tea, I have to say no to something you ask for."

"I think you'll be dodging around plenty of my questions soon enough."

"Yes, but that's what I do, you see. I'm making an honest living, but that doesn't mean I have to be an honest person."

Bryce folded his arms. He straightened his posture, possibly as a subconscious attempt to intimidate Rosa. She had seen plenty of scarier people, though. "I've got questions for you. Are you going to be civil or not?"

"Do you have a warrant?"

"I only need a warrant if I'm going to arrest you. But there were three people killed the other night, and I know you know something about the man who killed them. If I wanted to make the case, you could get arrested for withholding vital information."

Rosa's smile cracked a little, but only so she could laugh. Her chuckle was short and pleasant-sounding despite the anger it elicited from Bryce, whose face flushed at the noise.

"Larry, you really don't think much of me, do you? I'm not completely ignorant to local events, even if I do have trouble keeping my dates straight sometimes. Those people who were killed were nearly killers themselves, weren't they? Is anyone else in your little station going after the man who saved Miss Cassotto and her baby, or are you the only person who sees a villain where others see a hero?"

"Cassotto has pretty much the same sentiments. She thinks a killer is really a hero, just because he was in the right place at the right time."

"Maybe she has a point."

"She doesn't know his history, though. Not like you and I do."

Rosa's smile slipped away. She took half a step back into her basement apartment, shrinking from Bryce's statement.

"We're just a little under twenty years from when I talked to you before," said Bryce. "That time started with three people, too. How far did it go from there?"

"But you caught the man responsible for those killings."

"We both know that's not true."

"Alfred Weil was a -"

"Alfred Weil was not the killer!" shouted Bryce, punching the door frame as he did so. Rosa jumped at the noise. "Why are you so willing to let a good man be slandered so a murderer can run free?"

"Weil wasn't a saint, you know. He had a criminal record."

"Please. Petty theft and one assault does not translate into...what that other man did. It doesn't make any sense."

"But your non-existent mystery killer does?"

Bryce breathed in deeply, then released his breath, blowing out some of the tension inside him. "You weren't so keen to call him non-existent before. If I remember correctly, you even gave me a name to track down. Do you remember that name, Rosa?"

Rosa looked at the floor. "No."

"Tobias McIntyre. Does that ring a bell?"

She looked back into Bryce's face, her defiance growing again. "Did you look into that name?"

Bryce nodded.

"Must have been a lot of records to sift through, huh? A lot of people have that McIntyre name."

"I'm a cop, but I'm not stupid. I had my own criteria for checking. Wound up even looking into some death records."

Rosa's face paled.

"One kid, twelve years old. Supposedly died at the hands of his abusive father, but there was no body ever found. We couldn't look into his family because his father had already been sentenced to death for killing his mother. He's about the right age for what came after, and he certainly fits into the category of ghost, don't you think?"

"Why are you so dead-set in finding this man? He hasn't killed anyone who didn't deserve it."

"'Anyone who didn't deserve it?' Someone doesn't get to decide matters of life and death just because he's got a knife and a black trench coat."

"No, I suppose he'd have to have a police badge to do that."

"Rosa, we don't need to hate each other. You and I want the same thing."

"No Larry, we don't. I hear about three men trying to kill a woman and her baby, and 'm more concerned about why they did it. You hear about it, and you want to see the man who saved some innocent lives thrown in jail."

"There's a whole team working to protect Shelley Cassotto."

"And only one person hunting down this Mack the Knife. Maybe that should make you realize something."

Bryce put his hands in his pants pocket and shrugged his shoulder in surrender. "That's only because I'm the only one who seems to remember what he's capable of. You gave me information about him once before, Rosa, when he crossed the line. I'll keep track of the body count for you and let you know when it's time to help me again."

Bryce turned around and started walking away. Rosa slammed the door and stormed back to her table.

She shuffled her cards randomly this time, not intentionally stacking the deck. Even still, she drew the void.

"Oh, Tobias," she muttered as she scooped up the cards and closed the deck.