I recently got a new computer, and while cleaning out my old compy, I discovered this little gem, from back in my HIGHLA-L days. I don't think I ever posted it there, though, so consider this its debut. It was written right after a trip to New Orleans, an experience sure to inspire writers, or artists of any sort. I stayed in the youth hostel, took the St. Charles trolley to the French Quarter, and walked. A lot. I highly recommend it.
"We'll meet you in Jackson Square," MacLeod had said. "If we're late, you can check out the artists and musicians."
"Or get your palm read," Methos had joked, punching Dawson's arm.
It had sounded silly that morning. But this morning, Joe had pictured them being maybe an hour late. Not six hours. He was starting to get worried; he was also getting bored. And frustrated. If Mac had run into another Immortal, he should be there to observe and record. And pray. But he didn't even know where this property of Methos's was, making it hard to go find them.
There was nothing to do but stay here and wait for one or both of them to come back. The escape artist had gotten loose from the chains and straightjacket two hours ago, the juggler had extinguished his torches a half-hour later, and the painters and musicians had started packing it in when dusk fell. All that was left at this hour was a variety of supposed psychics, reading palms and tarot cards.
Dawson paced restlessly down the row of card tables draped with fringed scarves and lit by K-mart scented candles. Bits of 'psychic readings' drifted to his ears, ambiguous phrases and generalities that the customers attached their own meanings to. Platitudes and advice bland enough for a fortune cookie. Hand-printed signs claiming to be everything from gypsy to native american to Wiccan, some with rambling biographies.
Under the overhang of the sidewalk south of the Cabildo, Dawson noticed a table that didn't have any of the usual trappings. It was manned by a young woman dressed in mildly gothic garb and an incongruously cheerful grin. She was reading a paperback mystery. The sign on the table, neatly computer-generated, read simply, "Tina Psychic" Joe stopped before her, and she glanced up from her book, a finger marking her place.
"What, no cards, no candles?"
"No bios, no pseudo-native spirit-guide names, and no bullshit," she agreed cheerfully.
"It makes for a hook that stands out from the rest of the crowd," he admitted.
The girl didn't take offense. "No hook. I read auras, so I don't need cards or runes. And enough people stop by without all the trappings, so why bother?"
"Auras, huh?" Dawson had been standing still before her ever since she'd looked up from her book. "So you can tell me which foot is busted to make me need this cane?"
"Neither. Your aura's only a ghost from the knees down on both sides. Must be pretty good prostheses for you to walk so well. There's no pain in the stumps from pressure points or chafing. Judging by the degree of ghosting, I'd say you lost them quite a while ago, maybe when you were a teenager or a little later."
Joe remembered to close his mouth. *Peripheral vision,* he told himself. *She pretended to read that book, and watched me walk up. She could tell by the way I walked.*
"You look like a nice guy, lots of blues and greens. Got anything you want to ask me? If you don't like it, it doesn't cost you anything, and if you do, it's up to you what it was worth."
*Bet everyone who stops by has a lot of blues and greens. But she's someone to talk to, take my mind off of waiting for MacLeod and Methos.*
Joe lowered himself onto the folding chair opposite Tina. She slipped a bookstore receipt into her paperback and set it aside.
"So, what exactly can an aura tell you?"
"Well, a lot of the time, it's stuff people don't want to hear. I can see if they're sick, and when I tell them to go to the doctor, they tend to get upset and not pay me. But you look in pretty good shape for your age. You must not smoke."
"Not unless you count secondhand."
"The way the colors swirl together, you must be an artist of some sort, although not full-time, not for a living. Let's see...." She looked him up and down, staring at his hands for a few seconds. "Music. Guitar, I think." Then she broke into a grin. "Okay, that wasn't fair. You've got callouses."
Joe grinned in spite of himself. "Well, at least you're honest enough to admit you cheat."
"There's always an element of Sherlock Holmes in interpreting auras. The only way I knew you're not a professional artist is that there's something else there, very intense, very important to you, that must take up too much of your time for you to focus on music." She studied him again. "When I said that, there was an intense flicker on your wrist. Is there a watch or bracelet there that relates to your passion?"
"Something like that," Dawson admitted. His sleeve was covering the Watcher tattoo, but he supposed it could have ridden up when he sat down.
"You're very worried about something or someone right now, and feeling frustrated that you can't do anything. It's in your body language, but it's in your aura, too, even stronger."
*Very smoothe. Acknowledges the body language before I can bring it up.* "And what exactly am I worried about?"
"Hmmm....safety of a friend, I think. Or the outcome of some important event. Like you're missing your team's homecoming game, but much more intense. Must involve elements of both of those."
"You're pretty good," he admitted grudgingly.
"In this case, I'm sorry to hear it. I hope your friend is okay."
"Me too."
"Got anything you want to ask me? Kill some more time?"
"Yeah, I would like to ask you something. How is it that you can see auras?"
She shrugged. "Always could. I might as well ask you how you can see colors, or hear music in a bunch of noises. They're just there. It's interpreting them that you have to learn. That's one reason I'm out here, to try out my skills and see by how people react whether I'm right or not. Best way to learn is by doing."
*I like this girl. Whether she's for real or not.* "You said that's one reason. What other reasons have you got?"
That impish grin again. "Earning money for college, what else at my age?" Her eyes were lit with excitement now. "I want to get into a really good university, one with respectable researchers, and then find someone willing to help me investigate my gifts the *right* way. That way, we can publish, and get in touch with other people with similar gifts."
"Sounds like an ambitious plan. How exactly do you pick a school that will be willing to spend research grants on a girl who claims to be psychic?"
"Research on the internet. Look for what little has been published that approaches the subject scientifically, then look into the authors of that work, and --"
Her voice trailed off, her neck craning to see around Joe towards the other end of the Square, past the Cathedral.
"Oh, wow!"
"What is it?" Joe turned, but he couldn't see anything unusual. Maybe her younger eyes could see farther than his older ones. "I don't see anything."
"You wouldn't. There's a glow, from someone down that way, that's like nothing I've ever seen before. Like someone's aura got supercharged. Like the sun came down at night." She was searching with her visual eyes, but Dawson got the feeling that she was looking more intensely in other ways. "No, wait, there's two of them, close together. Wow!"
Dawson suddenly had a strong suspicion whose auras she might be seeing. He still couldn't see far enough down the Square to confirm it. "What do they look like?"
"Well, they're both really bright, but one's bigger and brighter than the other. The edges extend really far, and where they rub up against each other, it's like flashes of static. The littler one is still pretty big, and it's much more intricate. Like fine lace or cobwebs. Closest I've seen is really old people, with lots of life's experience. The deeper I look, the more layers I can see. It's really....beautiful."
The awe in her voice was more moving than Dawson would have credited. *This girl's for real!* he thought, *And Duncan and Methos are alive and well, and had better have a good excuse for making me worry like that!*
"Their auras are incredibly intricate. It's like they're a whole bunch of auras woven together. There are lots of bits that contradict each other, things that don't fit in with the core, but they all fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, held in place by an overall web that's sort of the central, personal aura, except stronger than a personal aura should be.
She'd turned back towards Joe now. "You know what I'm seeing, don't you?" Her voice was mildly accusatory, but heavily curious too. "You're not worried any more! You know who that is from their auras!"
"I can take a pretty good guess. I think it's the friends I was waiting for."
"Please, please. Could you explain it to me? What the heck does an aura like that mean?"
Joe pulled out one of his cards, one with the Watcher logo and his home phone number. "Can you call me? I'm staying at the Sheraton. We can talk later."
"Not in front of your friends, huh?" Joe looked back, and could see that Duncan and Methos had come into view under a streetlamp. He turned back to her quickly.
"Tell me something, before I have to go. Have you ever seen anything like this before?"
"Not like this!"
"But anything like it?"
"Well....there was a cop back in Chicago, when I was little, who had a really intricate aura like that, but his was a lot darker and redder, and it wasn't *that* bright. And there was a Japanese guy, Yuta, that I met on campus as a student, whose aura looked like he was really old but he was only about twenty. I just chalked it up to living a hard life giving you character back then. Neither of them had this sort of intensity, though. But....maybe. Across a stadium or going around the corner down the street....I might have seen something extra-bright from afar a few times, but never like this. This is....believe me, my mind's eye is squinting from the glare."
"You just made my day, Tina. I think we both really need to talk. Call me, and we'll work out a time and place, okay? Please?"
"You can bet on it." Tina grinned, sticking the card in the back pocket of her black jeans. "Better get going if you don't want your friends to see me staring at them like an idiot!"
Joe hoisted himself up with his cane, not trusting the card table. "Oh, yeah, I almost forgot." He pulled out his wallet. "You said I could pay what I thought it was worth, right?" Dawson slipped a fifty dollar bill into her paperback and handed it back to her. "Now, I must be going. Talk to you later?"
"You bet, Joe." She hadn't looked at the money yet, too dazzled by the auras of the two Immortals who had just spotted Joe and begun waving at him. The Watcher waved back and began walking to meet them halfway. Methos elbowed MacLeod and pointed to the girl. They were both grinning as Dawson arrived.
"You really did it, huh? Got your palm read?"
"Well, what else was there left to do at this hour? Where the hell have you two been, anyways?"
"Lost," Duncan said, looking at Methos rather pointedly.
"Look, is it my fault the landmarks have all changed since I bought the place?"
"Or that the plantation is nothing but swamp now?"
"Don't worry," said Dawson. "From what they're charging for swamp tours around here, the land's probably worth more that way."
"So what did your pretty psychic friend have to say?" MacLeod asked. "She's still looking at you, you know. You must have made quite an impression."
"Yeah, she seems quite smitten to me, too."
"You have a dirty mind, old man. She's just a kid trying to earn some money for college. Besides, it's probably you guys that've caught her eye. You *look* a lot closer to her age, Mister Eternal Grad Student."
"True, true. Boyish charm and good looks do come in handy, right, MacLeod?"
"She's a nice girl, though. A not unpleasant way to kill an extra *several* *hours.* A nice way to distract myself from worrying about your *heads!*"
"Aaww, he was worried about us! I'm touched!"
"Well, if you would have stopped to ask for directions..."
"Against the Rules of the Game, my friend. I may be Immortal, but I'm still a guy!"
Their banter swirling around him, Dawson was already working out just how to break the news to Tina that the 'old' auras she saw on young bodies belonged to Immortals. How to recruit her to the Watchers. How useful it would be to have someone who could actually *see* who was an Immortal and who wasn't.
How soon he could see her and talk to her again.
If anyone was smitten, it was Joe Dawson.
The character of Tina is based on someone I ran into in New Orleans. We were both certain we knew each other. We were both fans of Forever Knight, but despite our respective travels, we couldn't come up with even a remote possibility for a time we might have been in the same *state*, let alone the same exact place. I still have no clue where I could have met her in person before. And yet there's no doubt we did. This Tina is a composite of her, someone I know actually named Tina, and a certain perky goth character invented by Neil Gaiman. ;-)
"We'll meet you in Jackson Square," MacLeod had said. "If we're late, you can check out the artists and musicians."
"Or get your palm read," Methos had joked, punching Dawson's arm.
It had sounded silly that morning. But this morning, Joe had pictured them being maybe an hour late. Not six hours. He was starting to get worried; he was also getting bored. And frustrated. If Mac had run into another Immortal, he should be there to observe and record. And pray. But he didn't even know where this property of Methos's was, making it hard to go find them.
There was nothing to do but stay here and wait for one or both of them to come back. The escape artist had gotten loose from the chains and straightjacket two hours ago, the juggler had extinguished his torches a half-hour later, and the painters and musicians had started packing it in when dusk fell. All that was left at this hour was a variety of supposed psychics, reading palms and tarot cards.
Dawson paced restlessly down the row of card tables draped with fringed scarves and lit by K-mart scented candles. Bits of 'psychic readings' drifted to his ears, ambiguous phrases and generalities that the customers attached their own meanings to. Platitudes and advice bland enough for a fortune cookie. Hand-printed signs claiming to be everything from gypsy to native american to Wiccan, some with rambling biographies.
Under the overhang of the sidewalk south of the Cabildo, Dawson noticed a table that didn't have any of the usual trappings. It was manned by a young woman dressed in mildly gothic garb and an incongruously cheerful grin. She was reading a paperback mystery. The sign on the table, neatly computer-generated, read simply, "Tina Psychic" Joe stopped before her, and she glanced up from her book, a finger marking her place.
"What, no cards, no candles?"
"No bios, no pseudo-native spirit-guide names, and no bullshit," she agreed cheerfully.
"It makes for a hook that stands out from the rest of the crowd," he admitted.
The girl didn't take offense. "No hook. I read auras, so I don't need cards or runes. And enough people stop by without all the trappings, so why bother?"
"Auras, huh?" Dawson had been standing still before her ever since she'd looked up from her book. "So you can tell me which foot is busted to make me need this cane?"
"Neither. Your aura's only a ghost from the knees down on both sides. Must be pretty good prostheses for you to walk so well. There's no pain in the stumps from pressure points or chafing. Judging by the degree of ghosting, I'd say you lost them quite a while ago, maybe when you were a teenager or a little later."
Joe remembered to close his mouth. *Peripheral vision,* he told himself. *She pretended to read that book, and watched me walk up. She could tell by the way I walked.*
"You look like a nice guy, lots of blues and greens. Got anything you want to ask me? If you don't like it, it doesn't cost you anything, and if you do, it's up to you what it was worth."
*Bet everyone who stops by has a lot of blues and greens. But she's someone to talk to, take my mind off of waiting for MacLeod and Methos.*
Joe lowered himself onto the folding chair opposite Tina. She slipped a bookstore receipt into her paperback and set it aside.
"So, what exactly can an aura tell you?"
"Well, a lot of the time, it's stuff people don't want to hear. I can see if they're sick, and when I tell them to go to the doctor, they tend to get upset and not pay me. But you look in pretty good shape for your age. You must not smoke."
"Not unless you count secondhand."
"The way the colors swirl together, you must be an artist of some sort, although not full-time, not for a living. Let's see...." She looked him up and down, staring at his hands for a few seconds. "Music. Guitar, I think." Then she broke into a grin. "Okay, that wasn't fair. You've got callouses."
Joe grinned in spite of himself. "Well, at least you're honest enough to admit you cheat."
"There's always an element of Sherlock Holmes in interpreting auras. The only way I knew you're not a professional artist is that there's something else there, very intense, very important to you, that must take up too much of your time for you to focus on music." She studied him again. "When I said that, there was an intense flicker on your wrist. Is there a watch or bracelet there that relates to your passion?"
"Something like that," Dawson admitted. His sleeve was covering the Watcher tattoo, but he supposed it could have ridden up when he sat down.
"You're very worried about something or someone right now, and feeling frustrated that you can't do anything. It's in your body language, but it's in your aura, too, even stronger."
*Very smoothe. Acknowledges the body language before I can bring it up.* "And what exactly am I worried about?"
"Hmmm....safety of a friend, I think. Or the outcome of some important event. Like you're missing your team's homecoming game, but much more intense. Must involve elements of both of those."
"You're pretty good," he admitted grudgingly.
"In this case, I'm sorry to hear it. I hope your friend is okay."
"Me too."
"Got anything you want to ask me? Kill some more time?"
"Yeah, I would like to ask you something. How is it that you can see auras?"
She shrugged. "Always could. I might as well ask you how you can see colors, or hear music in a bunch of noises. They're just there. It's interpreting them that you have to learn. That's one reason I'm out here, to try out my skills and see by how people react whether I'm right or not. Best way to learn is by doing."
*I like this girl. Whether she's for real or not.* "You said that's one reason. What other reasons have you got?"
That impish grin again. "Earning money for college, what else at my age?" Her eyes were lit with excitement now. "I want to get into a really good university, one with respectable researchers, and then find someone willing to help me investigate my gifts the *right* way. That way, we can publish, and get in touch with other people with similar gifts."
"Sounds like an ambitious plan. How exactly do you pick a school that will be willing to spend research grants on a girl who claims to be psychic?"
"Research on the internet. Look for what little has been published that approaches the subject scientifically, then look into the authors of that work, and --"
Her voice trailed off, her neck craning to see around Joe towards the other end of the Square, past the Cathedral.
"Oh, wow!"
"What is it?" Joe turned, but he couldn't see anything unusual. Maybe her younger eyes could see farther than his older ones. "I don't see anything."
"You wouldn't. There's a glow, from someone down that way, that's like nothing I've ever seen before. Like someone's aura got supercharged. Like the sun came down at night." She was searching with her visual eyes, but Dawson got the feeling that she was looking more intensely in other ways. "No, wait, there's two of them, close together. Wow!"
Dawson suddenly had a strong suspicion whose auras she might be seeing. He still couldn't see far enough down the Square to confirm it. "What do they look like?"
"Well, they're both really bright, but one's bigger and brighter than the other. The edges extend really far, and where they rub up against each other, it's like flashes of static. The littler one is still pretty big, and it's much more intricate. Like fine lace or cobwebs. Closest I've seen is really old people, with lots of life's experience. The deeper I look, the more layers I can see. It's really....beautiful."
The awe in her voice was more moving than Dawson would have credited. *This girl's for real!* he thought, *And Duncan and Methos are alive and well, and had better have a good excuse for making me worry like that!*
"Their auras are incredibly intricate. It's like they're a whole bunch of auras woven together. There are lots of bits that contradict each other, things that don't fit in with the core, but they all fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, held in place by an overall web that's sort of the central, personal aura, except stronger than a personal aura should be.
She'd turned back towards Joe now. "You know what I'm seeing, don't you?" Her voice was mildly accusatory, but heavily curious too. "You're not worried any more! You know who that is from their auras!"
"I can take a pretty good guess. I think it's the friends I was waiting for."
"Please, please. Could you explain it to me? What the heck does an aura like that mean?"
Joe pulled out one of his cards, one with the Watcher logo and his home phone number. "Can you call me? I'm staying at the Sheraton. We can talk later."
"Not in front of your friends, huh?" Joe looked back, and could see that Duncan and Methos had come into view under a streetlamp. He turned back to her quickly.
"Tell me something, before I have to go. Have you ever seen anything like this before?"
"Not like this!"
"But anything like it?"
"Well....there was a cop back in Chicago, when I was little, who had a really intricate aura like that, but his was a lot darker and redder, and it wasn't *that* bright. And there was a Japanese guy, Yuta, that I met on campus as a student, whose aura looked like he was really old but he was only about twenty. I just chalked it up to living a hard life giving you character back then. Neither of them had this sort of intensity, though. But....maybe. Across a stadium or going around the corner down the street....I might have seen something extra-bright from afar a few times, but never like this. This is....believe me, my mind's eye is squinting from the glare."
"You just made my day, Tina. I think we both really need to talk. Call me, and we'll work out a time and place, okay? Please?"
"You can bet on it." Tina grinned, sticking the card in the back pocket of her black jeans. "Better get going if you don't want your friends to see me staring at them like an idiot!"
Joe hoisted himself up with his cane, not trusting the card table. "Oh, yeah, I almost forgot." He pulled out his wallet. "You said I could pay what I thought it was worth, right?" Dawson slipped a fifty dollar bill into her paperback and handed it back to her. "Now, I must be going. Talk to you later?"
"You bet, Joe." She hadn't looked at the money yet, too dazzled by the auras of the two Immortals who had just spotted Joe and begun waving at him. The Watcher waved back and began walking to meet them halfway. Methos elbowed MacLeod and pointed to the girl. They were both grinning as Dawson arrived.
"You really did it, huh? Got your palm read?"
"Well, what else was there left to do at this hour? Where the hell have you two been, anyways?"
"Lost," Duncan said, looking at Methos rather pointedly.
"Look, is it my fault the landmarks have all changed since I bought the place?"
"Or that the plantation is nothing but swamp now?"
"Don't worry," said Dawson. "From what they're charging for swamp tours around here, the land's probably worth more that way."
"So what did your pretty psychic friend have to say?" MacLeod asked. "She's still looking at you, you know. You must have made quite an impression."
"Yeah, she seems quite smitten to me, too."
"You have a dirty mind, old man. She's just a kid trying to earn some money for college. Besides, it's probably you guys that've caught her eye. You *look* a lot closer to her age, Mister Eternal Grad Student."
"True, true. Boyish charm and good looks do come in handy, right, MacLeod?"
"She's a nice girl, though. A not unpleasant way to kill an extra *several* *hours.* A nice way to distract myself from worrying about your *heads!*"
"Aaww, he was worried about us! I'm touched!"
"Well, if you would have stopped to ask for directions..."
"Against the Rules of the Game, my friend. I may be Immortal, but I'm still a guy!"
Their banter swirling around him, Dawson was already working out just how to break the news to Tina that the 'old' auras she saw on young bodies belonged to Immortals. How to recruit her to the Watchers. How useful it would be to have someone who could actually *see* who was an Immortal and who wasn't.
How soon he could see her and talk to her again.
If anyone was smitten, it was Joe Dawson.
The character of Tina is based on someone I ran into in New Orleans. We were both certain we knew each other. We were both fans of Forever Knight, but despite our respective travels, we couldn't come up with even a remote possibility for a time we might have been in the same *state*, let alone the same exact place. I still have no clue where I could have met her in person before. And yet there's no doubt we did. This Tina is a composite of her, someone I know actually named Tina, and a certain perky goth character invented by Neil Gaiman. ;-)