Tiny Mysteries

Do not doubt my powers just because I am shorter than you."

Bill glanced at the Tarot card and then he looked more closely, from the card to its tiny wielder, back and forth. Good Lord. It was Rowena herself depicted on the card. What was she trying to tell him? Was she trying to tell him anything at all, for that matter?

"What are you trying to tell me?" he said aloud finally. "From what I remember of the Tarot, The Devil is the card of self-bondage to an idea or belief which is preventing us from growing. Is this somehow related to your and Clive's... condition?"

Rowena hissed, she actually hissed at him. The Devil indeed. "Do not try my patience," she said, "and remember what I have told you. "Leave Clive be!" She melted back into the darkness.

So he had lost his wife. He apparently had lost his son Clive as well, if he didn't want to risk the microscopic but probably quite annoying wrath of Rowena. There was still Joe, he supposed, but

Rowena the Gypsy

The question tortured him as he dropped tears on Wilma's still and beautiful face.

She looked just like he remembered her. His moon, his stars, his delight. He didn't understand how he could have tossed her away like that.

"I know who you are," someone said, over his shoulder.

Bill turned around, burdened by the weight of his grief and loss. He saw no one.

"I know you," the voice said again, from below. He looked down at what he first thought was a young girl.

Her eyes were wise. And she was shaped like a woman, dressed in a from fitting black dress and tiny heeled shoes.

She was a dwarf, he realized. He could not help but shudder with revulsion, and then the guilt ate at him.

"What?! Who are you?"

"I'm Rowena, The Gypsy," she said. "And I won't let you hurt him again."

"Hurt who?"

"Clive. Your son. He's mine, and was fated for me. I will live with him and bear his babies. I don't care if he is ten years younger than me, he is mine and I won't let you hurt him again."

"My son? My boy? The dwarf?"

"And what if he is a dwarf?" Rowena the Gypsy spit at him. He stepped back involuntarily and then felt a fool. She could not be taller than 3 feet. "I am one too and you know not what you play at."

He backed away again as she reached into her black clutch purse. Did she have a gun?

She pulled out a tarot card.

The Devil.

"You will always destroy the ones you love." Her voice sent shivers through his spine. "That is your fate. I warn you now--