

Part 2 Chapter 8
It had been a few days since the rockabilly mechanic at Lodestar had given her the rather neatly giftwrapped box. It didn't smell greasy and acrid anymore. Best of all, it didn't smell of stale smoke. So, Rori decided she might as well open it now before she forgot all about it but not after a first inspection of the wrapping. Red paper with cranes and golden filligree. Who did he think he was!? She examined it further. The corners were so crisp and it seemed like the guy had taken a lot of time and care in doing this for her. Why? Gifts were something her parents had taught her to take in and so even if she rather disliked him...she couldn't ignore his gift forever.
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She was about to look for some tape to peel back. She stopped. There was no tape. How? She felt a weight on her leg and she looked down, seeing her cat, Gremlin, hop onto a chair and then onto table. "You want to watch? That smelly guy I told you about gave me this when I happened to come across his workplace." She sighed, "Why did my bike chain have to break then and there..I bet he's a warlock." I bet its some dumb cigarettes." She picked a flap and pulled it away only then did she realize how the mechanic had put the giftwrap together. "Glue? He glued it? I don't know if he's a genius or not after seeing this."
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"No he's stupid..." She smiled a little when she saw the what the box really was. "A foodie tarot?" She turned the box over, looking at the images on it. It wasn't any old tarot. It was beyond a simple tuck box, it had a lid. Then she lifted the lid of box to look at the cards. They were a beautiful card stock and matte. There was a suit of main courses, one for side dishes, deserts, and even one for drinks. The trumps were additional food items like pizza and a bagel with cream cheese. "Where did he even find this? How did he know?"
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Gremlin stretched, purring before rolling over and lying down onto his side. He looked at Rori and blinked slowly.
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"Right...warlocks are rare even among witches. Its possible that he hasn't even had his revelation. A late bloomer so to say." She laughed a little. A late bloomer. Revelations usually came near the sexual maturity of a witch or warlock if only because of the changes and stresses the people went through during that time. "Kind of absurd don't you think? I would have thought that someone like him would've had his magical revelation ages ago." She then scrunched up her nose, "But do I really have to be the one to try to discover if he is magically touched? Ugh."
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Gremlin meowed and pawed at the air with his front paw, his sharp claws extended. His amber eyes squinted and he hissed. That tail of his thumped on the table with irritability.
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Rori felt like she knew all to well how Joe would act. He might have acted sweet at Lodestar but she assumed that it was all because he was on the clock. "I know we'll fight. We already have over a stupid drink!" She sighed and looked back down at the tarot deck of cards. It could be useful for those days where she didn't know what to cook or buy as take out, "I'll have to cleanse and bless this deck. He did give it to me and a gift is the best way to aqquire a new deck." She placed all the cards back into the box and slid the lid back on.
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She stood up from the table, taking the tarot deck to her altar. There was her grimoire in the middle, her fountain pen, and eraser-crystal. She moved those to her bed and cleaned up the altar desk a bit to make a clearing in the middle. Now there was room, about a 8 inch circle, on the altar.
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She reached over to her windowsill and opened up the moon water jar's lid as well as a sprig of sage that hung from a decoration by her bed. She dipped the sprig into the water and drew a circle on her altar's cover and extended it up with a swirl. A teal magic flowed like shimmering waters from the leaf of sage. "The cauldron's base. The cauldron's bowl. In the waters the deck shall go." She dipped and submerge the whole deck into the magic waters, "Magic waters cleanse this deck of its past n present memories. So it may form new ones as it gazes into futures unknown."
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The magic glow intensified for a moment and the magical water burst into teal flames. The past those cards knew of being a sapling, of being a tree, being but down and pulped to make sheets. The chemicals used to create the inks, the plastics and metals used to make the printing press. The cards forgot about their past. They forgot about their birth and the people who worked on them to bring them to life. The forgot the transit and all the time the had spent waiting for that mechanic to pick them up. The forgot the time the spent in his trunk until he inevitably took them back out to hand them as a gift to her.
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She decided to test the deck "What will I eat next?" She shuffled the deck, cutting it into thirds, riffling it and cutting it into halfs. She continued until it just felt right to stop. She took am oment to look at the back of the cards. Dark and light blue with beautiful cloudlike swirls, an infinity sign in the middle with a radiating circle of rays. She took two cards from the top and flipped them over. The steeped one, a cup of tea. The Baked Good, a platter of breads. "The cafe?" She looked out into the hallway from where she sat in her room. "Why not?" Maybe something good could come out of it.
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She took her grimoire and slipped it into her bag. She took her supplied to make woven wish bracelets and got up. Her book bag had the rest of her daily carry. "Be good Gremlin. I'm going to The Nightingale. I'll bring back something for you." She reached down to pet Germlin from head to tail tip. At the front door she practiced her magic to manipulate the door knob, a wisp of teal flowing from her hand and wrapping around the handle to twist. It opened and with strength to pull the door open too. It seemed like all those hours or practice were paying off!