Tricks Manifested

The smell of cooking oatmeal was overpowering in the small house’s kitchen, competing with the first rays of daylight as the small woman stood in front of the stove humming to herself. She glanced down to the wedding ring carefully preserved on the pewter ring stand she kept for her jewelry’s safety. She stirred the oatmeal clockwise and took it off of the oven after a moment more, though she half-glanced to the side with a smile suddenly before going back to her task of sliding the oatmeal into two bowls. She heard the clumsy walking sounds before he entered the small, cozy kitchen and wrapped her up in his arms seconds later amid a chorus of giggles. She glanced to the side with her Nutella eyes crinkling at the edges as she smiled in delight to see her husband behind her, “Hello my love, are you hungry? I made oatmeal for breakfast since you seem to dislike rice.” She winked mischievously, the sunlight rising through the thick window turning her gaze into molten gold,. She stole a quick kiss from his lips and offered him the bowl of oatmeal after she sweetened it with maple syrup and a little butter for flavor’s sake.

Her husband ended up taking the bowl, kissing her forehead in thanks, and shuffling like a zombie over to the island counter and pulled up a stool to sit on. She smiled before pouring him a cup of hot tea along with herself that had a pleasant earthy fragrance. She sat next to him and sipped her tea while playing with her food a little before she spoke up.

“So, Theo darling… I was thinking that I could go to work and maybe we could have lunch at that deli down the street between both our workplaces, what do you think of that plan?”

Theo glanced to her, his green eyes widening a little as he seemed to have an epiphany while in his sleepy state. “Right…lunch…. on our anniversary…. I know I have trouble remembering our anniversary for some reason Pumpkin, but sure. Lunch at the deli sounds great, but you need to let me take you out to dinner this year, okay?”

“Dinner? I dunno darling…y’know how Boston traffic is late at night when everyone is trying to get home.” His wife started with that same little grin on her features.

“Yes, Dinner. I’ll be out of work at six, I’ll pick you up at seven pm sharp at your workplace, okay?”

“Make it eight? You know how I hate the early dinner rush; it gets so loud and distracting. I kind of want to pay attention to you, not let my mind be stolen by kitsune.” She winks, noticing how her husband grinned at her use of her Japanese roots to get her way.

“Ah yes, you always jump to the Kitsune myth…. wouldn’t want the fox spirit to get upset hm? Alright, eight o’clock…. don’t be late this time, Cassie!” Theo said with another stolen kiss and he rose to scrape his old oatmeal into the trash. He then decided to wash out his dish and put it in the dishwasher conveniently located beside the sink before he left the kitchen like a determined tornado to get ready for work.

“Cassie” lingered a bit at the table, crossing one leg over the other as she pondered her oatmeal. Her nose wrinkled a bit in slight disdain for it before she glanced towards the doorway, the only exit into the rest of the house, and upon hearing Theo occupied somewhere upstairs, she plucked a small hair from her head, whispering to it in Japanese as she let it float into the bowl of untouched oatmeal. As it gracefully floated downwards to mix with the glopped mess, the oatmeal began to change into a bowl of rice mixed with milk and topped with what looked like sugar, and her spoon also changed to a pair of highly stylized chopsticks complete with an enameled white fox with three tails on them. She smiled to herself as she started to eat her rice, bowl in hand, and a sneaky smirk on her features.

* * *

Cassie leaned against the brick exterior of her small lawyer’s office, her phone in her hand as she occasionally glanced from side to side, waiting for Theo to come to pick her up for lunch. As she waited, her eyes brazenly met several people’s and she winked before Theo came into sight and she went back to her innocent leaning. Theo came up to her with a big grin and started by offering her a little box wrapped in red ribbon, which Cassie accepted before she kissed his lips in greeting.

“Theo, what’s this?” Cassie asked curiously as she started to unwrap the little box with her agile fingers.

“It’s your anniversary present, I was told by the dealer that it was quite rare, even in Japan. Old and ancient.” Theo quoted while holding her there close to his body since it hadn’t predicted rain, but storm clouds seemed to be blowing in quite quickly as he glanced upwards.

“Cassie, honey…. it’s raining quite hard, let’s head inside?” Theo half pulled, half guided Cassie towards the Deli just down the street even as he tried to shield her from the rain.

Cassie herself was shocked into silence and submissiveness by the little gift that she hadn’t seen in so long. She beheld her three-stranded ring, each strand of metal interwoven into a ring mounting of three different stones: an opal, moonstone, and jade arranged so that the strands looked like tails. She barely even registered that her husband was guiding her towards the deli when the rain was starting to beat down in sheets, plunking on the concrete, windows, and road mercilessly as everyone in the deli shrugged out of their soaked coats. Cassie was trying on the ring and gasped when it fit on her ring finger like before, the opposite hand as her wedding ring. She showed it off to Theo with glee in her voice: “I can’t believe you found it! after all these years, I never thought I’d----I mean. Theo, it’s beautiful, where did they find it?” Cassie only just managed to catch herself, aware that she had almost broken the rules of her kind. She watched her husband with a paler face than normal as her shadow with its three tails writhed behind her as if in warning to the disguised Kitsune.

Theo seemed oblivious to her sudden change in mood as he didn’t think to question what Cassie had just said, instead he guided her to the deli cashier with one of his big hands strategically positioned at the small of her back, his wedding ring prominently evident.

“Baby, they found it on a black-market auction in China that was overrun by the police and given to reputable auction houses. I’ve been looking for months.”

Cassie ordered the tuna fish on sourdough as she fiddled with her ring, a goofy smile on her lips while Theo ordered a Philly cheesesteak sandwich. The two of them, thick as thieves currently, decide on a corner table so they could sit close and kiss, or flirt with each other discreetly. Cassie leads the way to the table after collecting their drinks and napkins and slides into a chair after laying her tray down. She slides the ring on her opposite ring finger with unmitigated glee before kissing Theo’s cheek as he sat. Theo ate his sandwich piece by piece, watching Cassie fiddle with her ring, then he spoke suddenly:

“What you said before, you were pulling my leg, right?” he asked her point-blank, his eyes not even blinking as he attempted to take in everything about her body language.

“Wha-…oh, yes, of course, my love. Why wouldn’t I be? You know how I babble on when I get really excited about things.” Cassie tried to interject and blow it off with a fake smile while she paused in her eating to watch Theo. Her shadow had started to play up again warningly behind her, but Theo couldn’t quite see her shadow with how they were sitting, and other people sitting in the deli were quite busy themselves.

Theo slightly narrowed his eyes, having caught on to his wife’s tell when she was lying years ago. Cassie had an unfortunate habit of fiddling with her jacket cuff. Theo watched quietly as his wife lied to his face, her fingers fiddled with her left jacket sleeve during her comment. He raised an eyebrow slowly and settled his gaze on her face sternly while reaching over to grasp her hand.

Theo repeats himself in a quieter, serious tone. “Is there something going on here that you’re not telling me, Cass? I know when you lie, and you have a tell. You fiddle with your shirt sleeves every time, and you just now did so.” Theo took a deep breath of the air-conditioned air into his lungs, his big body stiffening as he prepared for the worst.

Cassie immediately pulled her hand away from his like she had been burned or hit by Theo while her eyes hurriedly searched his face and she jerkily pushed herself away from the small wooden table. She was obviously panicked because Theo could see her chest going a mile a minute and she felt like the walls of the small deli were suddenly closing in on her like a cage. Sweat dotted behind her hears and her forehead while her neck, ears, and cheeks flushed. She spied her cellphone on the table and swiped it into her hand like a lifeboat before her mouth opened to speak, but no words came out until thirty seconds later.

“I…. I don’t know what you’re talking about Theo. Nothings’ going on, I promise but I... I have to go.” Cassie suddenly announced as she stumbled around the table and half-stalked, half ran towards the exit door of the Deli.

Theo had risen from the table in trying to stop her, but in comparison to his wife’s petite, agile body, he just wasn’t speedy enough to catch her. He overturned his chair in his haste to catch her, drawing the attention of the other customers and the employees behind the counter, but he didn’t care as he jogged over, trying to catch Cassie outside the shop. By the time Theo’s sculpted body was outside and searching left and right up the small sidewalk, Cassie was nowhere to be seen. Theo ground his teeth out of frustration and ran his fingers through his hair to grasp his skull while people passed and gave him funny looks.

***

Cassie’s shadow had been playing tricks on the people she passed, masking her presence as she fled the Deli while out of sorts. Tears started leaving her eyes as she took the bus to their small apartment. The bus was standing-room-only, so she clung to the pole and stared upwards to stop the tears from coming, but she clenched her fist at her side as well because she felt that insatiable need to run away from her husband. This always happens…why. I don’t want to, I’m happy here…. I wanted to tell him about the baby... Cassie was so lost in her thoughts she watched her apartment whizz by in the dirty window and pulled on the cord to let the bus driver stop there, which he did, just a little down the street. She was in a hurry to leave the bus and nearly fell onto the sidewalk if she hadn’t caught herself on a light post. She then turned, took off her stilettos, and started to jog down the street. She unlocked the front door, climbed the thirteen flights of stairs as fast as her legs could carry her before she practically slammed into another apartment’s door and unlocked it, then slammed it shut behind her in a whirlwind of energy.

Cassie glanced behind her, noticing her tails still waving chaotically she growled. “Yes, yes I know. The rules. I’m going damnit!” Electricity crackled at her fingers before she took a deep breath and dragged her suitcase out from under the bed.

She unzipped it, inside there were several Ziploc bags neatly placed inside, but full of different currencies several passports and she picked one at random along with an ID before she packed some of her clothes in there and grabbed everything that meant something to her, which included a carnival teddy bear that Theo had given her on their engagement. She paused as she considered her jewelry box before with a deep and long sigh, she opened the delicate piece of craftsmanship. She carefully removed some of the older pieces that she had collected, and several necklaces, earrings, and bracelets Theo had gifted her.

In the side compartment, she took out an already addressed envelope that said “My Husband, Theo.” on the front in almost calligraphy levels of writing. She pressed the enveloped letter to her chest, her tears dampening the back slightly as she thought of what it said:

My dear husband,

I am sorry for what is about to happen to you, but the rules of my kind cannot be broken. I am a Kitsune, a fox spirit that I spoke of so much, and the men I marry can never find out about me, but you now have, so now I must leave. This is Lady Inari’s will. I know it’s the modern-day world, but I cannot contact you to sign divorce papers, or anything else. If you check, it’ll appear as if I never existed. I loved you.

-Cassie.

Cassie deposited the letter, along with one of the ultrasounds attached so that at least Theo would know about his child at the windowsill overlooking the sink, with her wedding ring carefully placed in the ring holder. She slammed the door and with a single mystical claw scribed a kanji onto the doorknob before she sprinted downstairs, outside, and into a taxi, directing them to the nearest airport just as Theo was advancing on their apartment building.

Theo sprinted upstairs calling for Cassie to only hear his own voice echoed back to him. He looked wide-eyed with terror as his hand enclosed the doorknob, the Kanji being activated took his terror away so that he merely looked confused. Why am I here? … Is this my apartment? Ah, yes. I have keys. Weird. He unlocked the apartment and wandered the rooms, looking at the life he had that he no longer remembered.

Theo stood there perplexed and scratching at the back of his neck while an alarm went off for his anniversary dinner, but all he could hear was a fox’s call.