'And you think the Sage has something to do with that impression?'
'It wouldn't surprise me a bit.'
'And you don't believe in mythical beasts, do you?' The woman grinned mischievously.
Henry Lightstone hesitated, trying to decide if she was attempting to bait him.
'I try to keep an open mind about things I don't understand,' he explained seriously. 'But I also believe in human nature… especially the nature of humans like the Sage, who I suspect enjoy taking advantage of people who are more trusting than analytical.'
'So you're more analytical?' She observed him with just a little more curiosity than he felt the situation warranted.
Lightstone shook his head. 'Not really. I just remind myself that I'll fare a lot better if I cut the cards and count my change. And if somebody like the Sage offers to sell me a genuine good-luck charm made from a genuine mythical beast, I probably wouldn't pay top dollar.'
'Yet you claim to maintain an open mind about things you don't understand?'
'I try.'
The woman hesitated for a moment. 'Do you need to leave now, too?'
The question caught Lightstone off guard, but he recovered immediately.
He smiled easily. 'Like I said, I'm between jobs. My friends expect me home for dinner. Beyond that…' He shrugged.
The woman stood, the top of her sun-streaked hair rising to the level of his chin as she motioned toward the interior door. 'Then come with me.'
They walked into the restaurant portion of the house, the woman leading and Lightstone cautiously trailing slightly behind, sensing a certain tension in her walk and trying to ignore the curved and yet slender outlines of her body as her lush, firm thighs, hips, breasts, and shoulders alternately strained against the soft, thin cloth of her tunic… a moving vision that embodied, from Henry Lightstone's point of view, the definitive model of sleek and sensual grace.
After following a long narrow corridor lined with smooth logs, they went through a swinging door, turned right, then though another door — this one bolted and bearing a large PRIVATE DO NOT ENTER sign — and then, almost immediately, a second, double-bolted door.
Suddenly, Henry Lightstone found himself in a darkened room that would have been large and cavernous except for the presence of an enormous, ancient black oak growing up through the floor.
As they approached the huge tree, Lightstone realized that the trunk measured at least eight feet in diameter at the base, and its thick branches, beginning just above his head, extended outward and upward in all directions. The only illumination in the room came from a small shaded lamp that directed a small circle of light on a low table surrounded by three cushions, all arranged beneath one of the mammoth lower branches. Looking up, Lightstone realized that he couldn't see the ceiling — it simply disappeared into the tangle of branches extending some fifteen feet above his head.
For some inexplicable reason, that darkness overhead, like the woman, made him distinctly uneasy.
'Sit down.' She motioned toward one of the cushions.
Lightstone glanced up at the dark void one last time, and then joined her, sitting cross-legged on the opposite side of the small table, noticing as he did so that the diffused light from the lamp, and the resulting shadows, seemed to enhance the erotic features of her now only vaguely tomboyish face. Once he settled himself, she opened a wooden chest on the table and removed something from it.
The object she placed in the circle of light between them looked like a crudely sawn-off chunk of fence post. On closer examination, Henry Lightstone observed what looked like a tuft of hair caught in a splintered portion of the wood.
'Do you see that?' she asked softly.
'You mean the hair?'
'Yes.'
Lightstone paused.
'Are you going to tell me — ?'
'That your mythical beast might not be so mythical after all?' she asked in her soft, husky voice.
Henry Lightstone examined the tuft more closely and noticed the distinct reddish cast to the forty-odd twisted and crinkled hairs.
'How do you know — ?' he started to ask, but the woman had leaned forward to take something else from the chest.
Ignoring his question, she carefully plucked two of the hairs out of the tuft with a pair of forceps, and placed each one in separate small glassine envelopes. She then pressed one of the envelopes into the palm of his hand such that the warmth of her hand seemed to radiate up his arm, and then slipped the second envelope down inside her tunic between her breasts.
'I hate to even ask,' he ventured after a long moment.
'Some say that the hair of a Sasquatch protects the one who holds it from the evil ones… but only if that person possesses a cat spirit and believes that it is so,' she added meaningfully.
'And the other one that you — ' he gestured in the general direction of her blouse.
She smiled. 'Oh, that's just something that we witches do.'
'Ah.'
'Did you know,' she added before Lightstone could comment further, 'that the Sage truly believes that the Sasquatch — the creature who left his hair in that fence post-is his pet?'
'I guess he's not the type to settle for a dog, is he?'
A serious expression replaced her smile. 'Now that you mention it, you don't strike me as the type who would settle for a dog either.'
'Why not?'
'Fortune-teller's intuition.'
'Ah.'
'Ah, meaning you don't believe in fortune-telling?'
'Ah, meaning I'm always curious to find out how things work. Don't fortune-tellers read palms, or tarot cards, something like that?'
'Sometimes the paranormal takes many forms. I just sense the way things are,' she explained seriously. 'You look at a person and you know, for example, that they aren't the type to tie themselves down with a spouse, kids, dogs — all of whom require constant attention.'
She smiled faintly. 'You aren't, are you?'
It was a statement far more than a question.
'No wife or kids,' Lightstone agreed, subliminally aware of those warning bells again.
'Of course not,' she spoke confidently, as if confirming a well-known fact. 'And surely no dogs either?'
Lightstone shrugged. 'I grew up with them, and they were okay, I guess. I mean, they were affectionate enough. But they always seemed so dependent — like they didn't have a life of their own.'
'So you never got a dog of your own when you left home?'
'Never felt any need to… especially since I never seem to stay put in one place for very long.'
She nodded her head in apparent amusement, and he felt himself relax… only to be jerked back into alertness by her next question.
'Were you ever afraid of them?'
'Of what? Dogs?' Lightstone grinned, but his mind continued to analyze her critically. 'Of course not.'
'Even big scary ones?' A touch of disbelief edged her sensuous voice.
'You mean Dobermans, German shepherds, ones like that?'
'Or Rottweilers and Pit Bulls. Dogs bred for strength and aggressive behavior.'
'No, not really,' Henry informed her after considering the matter briefly. 'I see it as a matter of self-confidence more than anything else. Dogs can sense if you're afraid of them. In my experience, if you're not, they usually back off.'
'And if they don't?'
'I don't know, use brute force, I guess.' Henry Lightstone shrugged. 'I've never had that problem.'
