As many of you have read on My young friend Fairweather’s blog we have a mutual friend named Madame Sadie. I am using that term very loosely.
Sadie is perhaps the worst psychic in the area and perhaps the most well known. True talents prefer to be incognito. At least I haven’t heard of any others around here.
I admit Willard and I are more aware of things around us than Sadie usually is, barring Captain Morgan-- that is.
Which leads me to what Sadie has gone and done. Three days ago, Sadie came to my home where I was fixing some herbal remedies, and beseeched me to cover her "shop" for her.
"Ornery, you know I don’t trust anyone else to cover for me. "
"Sadie, get on with it. My Cough medicine is boiling away."
"Ornery, I need to go talk to my Sadie Hawkin’s date. I haven’t heard from him. He left in such a hurry claiming one of the children was ill."
"Sadie remember when T Jack left, it wasn’t for no job. You scared him senseless."
"I didn’t mean to. And this time it was the Captain not me!"
"Where are you going to get the money. You spend all you get on Bud Light."
"I have enough stashed away. Please Ornery."
Yes I gave in. But only because I didn’t want my hard work destroyed while I tried to reason with that old bat Sadie. I’ve seen what a chase she leads Willard and Fairweather on. Those two are sweet caring innocent children compared to Sadie.
Well she took off that night after leaving her house key with me (makes sense when you think her shop is in the parlor. ) She neglected to feed her cat (a black cat named Familiar of all things), turn off the kitchen stove, and the water in her shower. I took care of these problems but I drew the line at picking up her new Sadie Hawkins dress, a skin bikini ( I assume it is the possum one) and a motheaten costume that looked like a Scarlet O’Hara reject.
I took a page from Willard’s book—I took a cleaning cloth with me and got rid of a full pound of talcum powder from Sadie’s glass ball and the table and chairs. I emptied the garbage can full of glass bottles into a recycling container which ended up weighing over thirty pounds at the glass recycling center. I even checked that older refrigerator of hers to see if she had anything in there that needed getting rid of. No food but stacks of Bud Light two deep filled the entire thing except for the small section that was supposed to be the freezer. And nothing at all was in it. She evidently lives on Bud Light.
My one "client" was a man who Sadie had told was being followed by the devil. Poor guy. He believed her too.
"Harry, Sadie left a drink for you. It will keep that devil from you forever." I handed him a cup of my cherry bark cough syrup diluted heavily so that it just calmed him some. "You drink that and go home to bed. When you wake up it’ll be over."
I whispered a quiet word as he drank it. He handed me Sadie’s envelope and left. His "devil" remained behind where I had told him to.
"William Hicks. You’ve been dead three years. Don’t you think it’s time to leave your boy alone and head toward the light?"
"That featherhead needs me."
"No he don’t. You are dead. He’s a grown man and will have to deal with whatever problems life throws at him. If you had been taking care of him he wouldn’t be VISITING SADIE." I took a little powder from my pocket and threw it in the air so that the light shimmered. "Irene has waited long enough for you to get there to her. Go!"
"Aunt Ornery, tell my boy I loved him."
"I will." At my nod he walked off from the shimmering powder into a long tunnel and waved one last time at it’s end.
Oh Sadie, how could you claim to be a psychic and not help that boy or his father. The old bat makes me so frustrated.
This morning Sadie finally came back. According to her she tracked her "date" all over England and the only thing she found was people who claimed he peeked around corners like a scared hound.
I only hope Sadie don’t come visiting me again anytime soon.