Friday Night- Uncle Nicky

“How are you doing that?” asked Uncle Nicky, “I can’t even do that trick with the invisible ball and the paper bag.”

Sandy shrugged, and looked back at the card.  It was the Queen of Spades, kind of dog-eared at the corners and with a weird brown stain where tea or beer had splashed on it once, and Sandy had just made it move clockwise around Uncle Nicky’s kitchen table without touching it.

She was brainstorming, in a way.  The old lady- Mrs Jaeger, if that really was her name- would be back at some point, and Sandy wouldn’t be able to catch her off-guard a third time.  Part of her hoped that she wouldn’t even need to, that maybe the old lady was bluffing.  It wasn’t as if Sandy had ever seen her doing anything supernatural.  Maybe she couldn’t.  But then Sandy would remember the way Sonny had growled when he’d seen her, and the way she’d known exactly who’d caused that bloke’s voice to go away at the fete, and decide that she couldn’t take that chance.  She needed to come up with a plan.

“Are you blowing on it?” asked Uncle Nicky, “You have to tell me if you are.”  He put his bottle of John Smith’s down on the table, considerately away from the card’s path.  “I saw this clip on telly once with that James Randi bloke…”

“No,” said Sandy, “I’m not blowing on it.”  Which was the truth.  But she wasn’t going to tell him how she was doing it, and she wasn’t going to do anything that she wouldn’t be able to explain away if it all got too freaky.  Otherwise it would be Amy’s sister and the tree all over again.

“I’d like to see you try this with a Ouija board,” said Uncle Nicky, “You could be one of them fake mediums.  Make a killing.”  Ever since Sandy was a toddler, Uncle Nicky had been fascinating to look at.  He had so many tattoos and piercings that you felt as if you’d never be able to count them all.  There was always one that you’d never noticed before, like the spider just behind his ear or the name “Debbie” on his calf.  It was as if he was a human Where’s Wally puzzle.  “I’ll be your agent, if you like.  We’d be partners in crime.”

Sandy laughed, and looked back at the card.

The thing with the tree hadn’t been something she’d done because she was angry, or because she wanted to do someone a favour.  It had happened because Sandy had looked at a tree and let her mind wander.  That was all it took, apparently.

She’d been walking through the park with her friend Amy and Amy’s little sister Chloe, and she’d found herself staring at a willow tree and thinking of how much it reminded her of a film she’d seen once, a cartoon where the trees had suddenly grown cruel, scowling faces and grabbed the heroes with their branches.  And just as she’d been thinking that, the tree had moved.

Sandy hadn’t even been shocked, at first.  She found herself moving her hands, and watching the branches mirroring her, moving to the left and the right, and then towards the three of them as she beckoned them in…

And then Chloe had screamed.

Sandy shifted the card to the middle of the table, and let it lie still.  “OK, that’s enough of that,” she said, stretching out her arms as a warm-down exercise.

Uncle Nicky chuckled.  “The old inner eye getting tired, is that it?”

“Yeah,” said Sandy, who wasn’t completely sure what he meant but got the basic idea.

“Well, we can’t have it getting Repetitive Strain Injury.  Last thing you need.”  He pointed to the living room door, across the hallway.  “Want to take a break and watch some crap telly?”

“Sure,” said Sandy, getting up from her chair and leaving the card on the table.

Amy, who hadn’t seen it properly, had told Chloe that the tree had just been moving funny in the wind.  Sandy had backed her up, but it had taken a long time for them to convince Chloe, and even then, she’d looked pretty pale and shaken.  After that, Sandy hadn’t been able to kid herself that she was imagining things, or that everything she did was basically harmless.  She hadn’t done anything as big and unmistakable as that since then.  Even the thing with the hailstones on Sunday was the kind of thing that could be explained away- weather changed quickly sometimes, no big deal.  But doing something as blatant as the tree was too much of a risk.  People might see, and not be able to explain it to themselves.

But whatever she did when she saw the old lady again, it was probably going to have to be even bigger and more blatant than that.  It would have to be, if she wanted to scare her away.  Otherwise she’d never get rid of her.

Sandy sat down on Uncle Nicky’s sofa, and thought.