Twist the Kaleidoscope Again by Emma Sloan

“It’s wonderful, Madge, wonderful! I hit the trifecta as pretty as you please, one, two, three, across the line just as you said. And will you look at that? I’ve enough coin to hold my head up, ask Bessie out for a dance. But I’ve got to rush, got to tell her the good news. And all thanks to you, Madge.”

And then he was gone, dashing through the rain and into the diner, the small pile of coins still cradled in his hands.

She saw his blurry image through the diner windows, saw him pile his coins on the counter. The wee serving girl appeared, blushing crimson, her hands held to her cheeks. Then she nodded and smiled. Madge dropped her bitter eyes to the empty counter. No hula girl, no gnome, no token nor trinket.

Madge hunkered down on her stool and pondered the fate she might bestow on the love-addled fools. A wide river flowing between them, and both grown old and gray before they can cross over again. Sheer peaks will rise between them, leaving each trapped in a lonely valley, able to hear the cries of love’s anguish, but unable to scale the rocky heights. Yes, or her favorite, Ollie blinded and wandering in a desert while stupid moon-faced Bessie searches in vain.

All these fates Madge has conjured and more, but in truth, she’s grown tired, so tired. This new world of wet and dark pushed the old magick aside, creating new realms of suffering. Madge raised her old eyes, looked past the rain-beaded windows, saw the two lovers hand-in-hand.

Poor, poor fools. This world will do you so much worse than anything I could ever fashion. I’ve lived past my time and that’s a hard truth to swallow. What powers I have are becoming no more potent than a child’s plaything. Much harder fates there are, and such will be yours with no meddling of mine.

Wealth is what matters in this dark world. Magick counts for naught and love even less. Wealth breeds more wealth and poverty more poverty. The gulf between the two is a broad dark sea, easy to cross from one side, impossible to cross from the other.

This will be your curse. You will become lovers entwined, bound together in poverty. Let need gnaw at the bones of your love until there is not a scrap of meat left. Even then, even then my poor fools, poverty will hunger still. And then that same hunger, never satisfied, will grind you both to meal.

And beneath it all, an even deadlier curse, harder than a troll’s heart, sharper than dragon claw. The faint promise of some future sunrise, yellow-bright on the eastern horizon; the thinnest sliver of hope, far worse than no hope at all. It is the false dream of a new day, the lure that draws new lovers deeper into the trap. Oh yes, My Dears, the odds are long, one in a million at best. Do you think you have the luck for that, a chance at the happily ever after?

Bah! Leave them to their misery.

Madge leaned back into the shadows, reached for her pipe, filled it, tamped it. The lucifer flared under her thumbnail, highlighting every crack and crevice carved across her face. Pipe lit, she flicked the smoking matchstick into the wet night.

She puffed on her pipe, watched the smoke roll, watched the rain beat down. Then she heard it, the sound of wet footfalls, hesitant and uncertain. The steps veered closer, seeking out the light, a dry patch to stand on, shelter from the deluge. A young man appeared at the edge of the light, skittish as a colt.

“Don’t be afraid, Lad. Duck in out of the wet.”

Under the awning he came, thin, but his cheeks still ruddy and round. Young this one, young and green. The razor had not yet grazed those apple cheeks.

“Hello there. Are you new to the city, then?”

“Aye, Ma’am, I am.”

“Call me Madge, Dearie. You can call me Madge.”