Free 1 Lost Under a Ladder by Linda O. Johnston Page B

to include the entire audience. “Welcome to Destiny, California, which could be the luckiest place on earth … if you obey our superstitions, of course.” He pivoted to stare down toward the front of the audience on one side, then the other. He must have seen Martha since he tipped an imaginary hat in that direction. “But do you believe in superstitions? I mean—well, let’s check. Please raise your hand if you have ever knocked on wood the way I just did to increase your luck.”
    Almost everyone in the audience raised their hands.
    He nodded, then asked similar questions about crossing fingers, picking up found pennies, and other common superstitions.
    “Okay, then. If you’ve ever forgotten to do any of the things I just mentioned, did your luck turn bad? I mean, did you get hit by a car or lose your job or anything else that upset you? Some of you are nodding, but most are shaking your heads.” I’d looked around, and he was right. “Now, Destiny is my favorite place on earth, mostly because I want you all to have heard of me and come to my bookstore. Buy my book. Maybe I should curse any of you who don’t to have seven years of bad luck. My bookstore is called the Broken Mirror, so that would be appropriate, don’t you think?”
    Before anyone could say anything, he turned and climbed the steps on the stage to the top of the platform that was raised about two feet.
    “Some superstitions started out as attempts to cause bad luck to other people, like the ‘evil eye’ way back when. So let me see how else I can curse you.” He named a few other omens of bad luck, including the standard black cat crossing a person’s path.
    This seemed like a strange kind of talk, and I had a sense it wasn’t his usual one since the mayor kept edging out onto the side of the stage where he’d exited. But Tarzal kept going—until the mayor walked up the steps onto the platform.
    Tarzal didn’t relinquish the microphone to him, though. Instead, he walked toward the opposite set of stairs from the platform and onto the rest of the stage.
    Only, after he’d gone down only two of the three steps, he fell. He landed on the stage, but his right arm seemed to crack against the steps.
    “Damn it!” he shouted. I wasn’t sure where the microphone was, but I’d no doubt that everyone could hear him. He managed to push himself up with his left arm until he knelt on the stage.
    “Are you okay, Kenneth?” Mayor Dermot approached him while still on the platform.
    “I’m fine,” Tarzal said, more softly but somehow the microphone , wherever it was, picked up his voice. “I will be, at least—when I find the imbecile who dared to spill milk where I was likely to fall in it.”

eight
    “Does that mean you’ll have seven days’ bad luck?” I could see the horror on the mayor’s face.
    Obviously he, at least, was superstitious. Was Tarzal superstitious enough to buy into that kind of curse even though it was a lot more lenient than the seven years ’ bad luck for breaking a mirror?
    If Tarzal was rattled, he didn’t admit it in front of this crowd. “Not I,” he said calmly. He’d pulled himself back to a standing position on the stage and was so tall that the top of his head reached the same altitude as that of Mayor Dermot, who still stood on the platform. “Whoever tried to curse me that way—well, I hereby state that, like I suggested before, I, the expert on superstitions, now turn that around so that whoever did it will be the one who experiences bad luck.”
    I heard a lot of muttering in the audience, then someone—a man I hadn’t noticed previously—stood and said, “Can you do that? I’ve never heard of anyone turning a superstition already in play on someone else, either good luck or bad.”
    “This show is over,” Tarzal said, without responding directly. “Remember, this is Destiny. My town. My superstitions. Things happen as I say. Now, everyone leave.”
    I noticed that Preston had come