Poor Little Rich Girl

I remember how timid I was when I first laid eyes on the mysterious figure whom I had freed from the other side. When I feared him simply because he was a stranger and was ready to run away from him at the first sign of trouble.

He was no stranger to me now. I would almost be willing to say that he had become my friend, if it hadn't only been a few days since we first met. But despite only knowing him for such a short time I was already starting to like him. He was such a surprising person and I couldn't help but be drawn to him. No-one had ever been so thoughtful and gentle with the way they treated me. He seemed to understand me better than I understood myself. How did he know so much about me? How was he able to work out what was wrong with me? And how did he know where my magic was hidden?

...I still had chills from laying my eyes upon the whispers of blue that emitted from my palm... My magic. I saw it. For the first time in my life I saw it with my own eyes. I even felt it! How did he know what to do? How was he able to do that to me? Perhaps I would never understand, perhaps his mastery was a world I would never know. But that didn't stop me from becoming ever more curious about him all the same. Just who was this powerful magician before he found himself stranded on the other side? And how did he end up owing a debt to his gods that would warrant such a punishment when he couldn't repay them?

When I joined him again the next day to resume my lessons I found myself waiting for the right opportunity to ask him some of the many questions that drifted through my mind.

I took my place at the seat of his table and began experimenting with my power once again. He sat opposite me in his proud chair and laid the tarot cards in a pile down on the table. Now, finding my magic was the first step, but learning how to control it was an entirely different story.

"Alright, just one now. Straight from the top." Doctor Facilier guided me once again. "Try not to move the whole pile this time."

I couldn't control my magic any more than I could control the smile on my face. I was still so enchanted from seeing my magic for the first time that I was excited at the anticipation of seeing it again.

"I'll try." I still didn't know what was going to happen. "Just don't expect me to get it right this time."

I raised my hand out just a little bit and tried to get my magic to behave itself. Just one, not the whole thing. Just the one on the top. But the moment my magic left my fingertip I noticed the whole pack emitting the same signature blue light as my magic took hold of the entirety as if it was one complete object. But that wasn't all my magic did without me telling it to, as I realised that the table had partially lifted up off the floor. I suddenly release my magical grip and the legs bumped back down against the wooden platform.

At first I wasn't sure if Doctor Facilier would be annoyed with me at all for almost damaging his property, but he seemed unfazed by it.

"I'm starting to wonder if this power of yours is too big for you to handle." The doctor almost sounded like he was losing faith in my witchcraft.

"I'm trying, honestly I am." I pleaded. "But I can't help it. I keep trying to tell it to do one thing and it does a dozen more things at the same time."

"That's why you oughta be careful about where you point that finger of yours." He advised me and rightfully so. "You don't wanna turn somebody into a frog now, trust me."

That last statement of his puzzled me slightly. "I beg your pardon?"

"Eh, nothin'. Just watch yourself, alright?"

Normally I would have respected his privacy when he dismissed the topic, but now he had me curious. "Did you accidentally turn someone into a frog once?"

He partially grumbled, trying not be heard by me. "Not by accident."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nothin', nothin'." He quickly changed the subject. "Now why don't you try again with this magic of yours? Just try not to break anythin', alright?"

I did want to practice my magic, but I had a change of mind about how I wanted to wield it. Doctor Facilier knew my past, he read my cards and knew things about me that not even my mum knew about. Things about my life that I had kept a secret from the world he easily deduced from a tarot reading. The thought of his admirable skills and the mystery that still surrounded him made me feel humbled.

I reached out for the cards, no magic required this time, and with my bare hand I retrieved the card that randomly lain at the top of the pile. Not that it beared any significance as it was not chosen by him nor was it part of a spread. It was the Magician.

"You know, until today I don't think I've ever seen you crack a smile." The smooth friendly voice of the doctor made my smile grow as I looked up at him.

I peered back down at the card, thinking of the similarities between the two characters. I had an odd request to make, I was shy about asking him but my inquisitive impulses persuaded me to just come out with it. "Can I read your cards?"

At first he seemed surprised at such a desire. "Can you what?"

"I want to learn about your past." I decided to bare my soul and tell the truth about my curiosity. "I want to see who you were before you were taken away from this world."

Doctor Facilier held back, reluctant to share such information. "I'm not sure you'd like what you'd see." He wasn't hiding anything, was he? "My past's a li'l scary in places."

"I'm not afraid." I denied any hesitation or fear. "I've live with dead people and you should hear some of their stories. Some are horrifying! How they ended up dying and losing their way. You don't need to be afraid of scaring me. I've probably seen it before."

The doctor still did not give in as he raised a brow with only half a smile upon his face.

"You do want me to get better, don't you? So I can restore to you what's rightfully yours." I extended my hand out towards the hallway behind me where all manner of voodoo merchandise lay broken and unusable.

He rolled his eyes and ran his finger across his mustache. He must have been contemplating about whether or not to permit me. "You ever done this before?"

"Not really, in all honesty." I had to admit. "I own a set at home and I have learned how to use tarot by reading books, but I've never been able to perform a reading on a real person. I've never had the chance."

At that point he finally reconsidered my request. "Hmm… Meh, alright."

I felt the biggest smile stretch my cheeks as I welled up with excitement. "Really?"

Doctor Facilier slid the pile over to my side of the table. "Just don't expect to get everything right first time. Remember you're still an amateur."

I eagerly retrieved the cards from the table, feeling rather privileged to be trusted like this, holding something in my hand that was so personal and precious to Doctor Facilier.

"How long did it take you to learn?" I wondered.

He smirked at me with a smugness to his expression. "Let's just say I'm a natural."

I tried to fan the cards out as best I could, but my hands are rather small. Far smaller than his. "Do you think I'm a natural?"

"Let's find out, shall we?"

After making me feel somewhere between excited and nervous he pulled out three cards, just as I did back when it was my turn, and handed them over to me. I used a three card spread, just as Doctor Facilier had done for me, laying the three cards faced down upon the table cloth.

The first card was one that would normally strike fear into an inexperienced reader. This was his past. Number thirteen, Death.

"Well, if it ain't your specialist subject." Doctor Facilier almost laughed at what is usually the most terrifying card of the lot.

True, I did spend a lot of time talking to the dead and I was familiar with what death really meant beyond the grave. But I wasn't explaining to a deceased person what had happened to them, I was reading tarot cards.

I suddenly I became bewildered and confused, almost as if I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing or seeing when I laid eyes upon the card.

"Go on, darlin'." He encouraged me to proceed, retaining that smug smile. "What do you see?"

"I don't know." I was forced to confess as I hesitated. "I've never done this before."

The doctor suddenly lost his smug demeanor but he still talked to me in a friendly tone. "Easy, don't get all shy again." He reminded me. "That's how you lost your magic last time."

"I understand." I tried to compose myself despite the increased anxiety brought on by my lack of confidence. "Feel, don't think. Right?"

"Why don't I give ya a hand?" Doctor Facilier joked with me, but in all seriousness he was being literal as he extended his palm towards me. "Sometimes it helps to have a palm to read, if you're a first-timer."

"I've never read a palm before either. Not for real."

"Just go with the flow, sweetheart." He reassured me one final time. "Your magic will tell ya what to do."

I was at first reluctant to touch his skin, I already felt uncomfortable when he touched me. Whenever he took hold of my hand or wrapped his arm around my shoulder I didn't like it. But I was so interested in revealing some of the secrets surrounding this gentleman that I brought myself to let go of my reluctancy and I placed my finger tip upon his upturned palm.

I recognised one of the lines immediately. "You're confident. That's what this one means."

The doctor laughed at such an obvious deduction. "You don't need to read my palm to know that one."

He was right about that. I had to concentrate my magic on discovering something about him that I didn't already know. I stared into the card symbolising Death once again. "This doesn't mean death in a literal sense." I started to analyse the card's meaning using the knowledge about tarot readings I already possessed. "Rather it means the death of one way of life, and the beginning of a new one. You ended up on the other side."

"That was pretty easy, wasn't it?" Doctor Facilier almost sounded like he was congratulating me.

"Wait…" I suddenly started to feel my magic as it began to arise inside of me. "There's more." I could see something else in his past.

But Doctor Facilier didn't sound too keen on letting me dive any deeper. "There ain't nothin' more to see, trust me. My past's not that interesting."

Little did I realise that the finger I had placed upon the Doctor's palm had started emitting a familiar ultramarine light. "I see… frogs?"

"Alright, that's enough!" He quickly snatched his hand away, clearly not wanting to get too close to my untamed magic for fear of what it accidentally might do.

He startled me when he snapped like that. What had I done to arouse his anger? But he quickly regained his composure and smiled at me once again. "We'd best be movin' on. Next card, if you please, my Charlie doll."

I obediently turned over the card that would represent his present. To my great surprise it was the card I had revealed to myself earlier that reminded me of the doctor himself. The Magician. "Now this is far more obvious!"

Doctor Facilier allowed a self-centred chuckle to escape his lips. "Isn't it though?" He bragged.

I humoured his boast as I proceeded with my reading. "This really is easy. You're once again the powerful magician you used to be… but, you're not there yet, are you?" I saw something, my magic was leading me down a dark path that gave me feelings of dread and trepidation. "There's something else. You want more. So much more than you have already. But what?"

"Look a little harder." He persuaded.

I obeyed. "I see power, but not just from magic… From money!"

A snap of the doctor's fingers let me know that I was right. "Not bad for a first-timer."

But I wasn't feeling proud of what I had just uncovered, I was feeling perplexed. "Why in the world would you want money?"

"Come on now, darlin'. Everybody in this world has a dream." Doctor Facilier shrugged his shoulders and smiled at me in a friendly way. "I dream of endin' up a rich and powerful man."

"Aren't you already a powerful man?" I questioned. "You have some of the most wonderful magic I've ever seen."

"Aw, Charlie doll. I swear, you're so naive it's kinda cute." His apparent compliment didn't make me feel any better. "The real power in this world ain't magic, it's money!"

I objected. Insistently! "You would be willing to compare something as rare as magic with something as common as money?"

"It's not like magic's ever gonna give me the power I crave." The doctor didn't sound too impressed with his current power. "Y'all know I can't conjure up a single spell for myself. If I want power I'm gonna have to buy it!"

"But there are some things money can't buy."

"Oh yeah? Like what?" He waited on an answer. "Come on, give me an example."

I didn't have to think very hard. "My sister is in a wheelchair." I began giving him the example he'd demanded. "All the money in the world will never repair the damage to her spine. But someday, I hope that my magic might."

But Doctor Facilier simply raised an eyebrow, to say that my example obviously did not apply to him.

However, I was not finished. There was far more to be said than my sister's sympathetic case. My next example would warrant far less sympathy, but to me it was the apex of everything that was wrong with my life. "And that's not the worst part. When you're rich, when you have all the money in the world, your life gets turned upside down. You can't be who you want to be, you can only be who they tell you to be. Every action you take is judged, everything you wear that defines you as an individual is frowned upon. People have high expectations that they demand of you, expectations that are almost impossible to reach. No-one will allow you to make your own choices about what happens in your life. Everyone tells you where you must go, how you must dress, what you must do and who you must be. Money doesn't solve your problems, it brings you so many more."

"Pffhaahaha!" After a tender moment of expressing my true feelings I was abruptly interrupted by Doctor Facilier's outrageous cackle.

I felt slightly offended, was he laughing at my words or my pain?

"You're concern is touching, darlin'. But it's not necessary." He swaggered in his throne-like chair as he picked up the card and presented it to me. "Nothin's gonna get between me and my dreams. And I don't wanna hear you bad mouthin' money like that again, got it?"

I quietly nodded my head as I looked down in sorrow. Why didn't anyone understand the pain money caused? I of all people should know. You don't want money in your life, you really don't! You're whole world will come crashing down, people will punish you for exerting your individuality. They won't let you be you.

"Now, how about reading my future?" The doctor's words brought me out of my distracting thoughts and back to reality, for a moment.

Unenthusiastically I did as I was told and turned over the final card. It seemed that Doctor Facilier's future would be plagued with uncertainty as I revealed number Zero. The Fool.

I wasn't really looking, I was too upset to look at him now. But I did notice that his satisfied smile was gone when he laid his eyes upon the Fool. Did this card have him worried? It appeared so.

"Would you mind sheddin' a li'l light on this here problem?"

"Problem?" I raised my head towards him, only slightly.

"It's not often the Fool stands for anythin' good in a man's future. Tell me what this fool has in store for me."

I was hardly even paying attention anymore. My mind was still full of other worrying concerns, regarding my warning to Doctor Facilier. Money controls people, why can't anyone understand that? Why would anyone wish something so suffocating upon themselves?

"Charlie doll?" The doctor encouraged me to carry on. "C'mon, what do ya see in my future?"

"I don't know." I said without much of a tone to my voice.

"Look at me." He tried to strengthen my spirit, but I didn't want to. "Don't you be givin' up again. I need ya! You've gotta tell me what's in my future? Just lookin' at this guy has me shivering in my spats." Once again he held out his palm towards me. "Keep going. You can do this. C'mon."

I looked back down at the card before laying my eyes on the upturned palm. I gave it one last shot as I placed my hand in his and tried to search for my magic. But nothing would happen as my blue luminescent magic would not ignite. I turned my head and looked away.

The doctor clearly noticed my absent minded mood. "C'mon now, sweetheart. Don't get all upset."

But I feared that it was too late. My confidence had already drained away.

Doctor Facilier rose up from his seat and came round to me. He must have been disappointed, all I had been able to tell him about his future was that somewhere down the line he would make a foolish decision. Whatever that decision maybe.

"I'm sorry." I felt just terrible.

"It's alright." To my surprise the doctor seemed very understanding. "We'll try this again sometime."

I felt him place his hand upon my shoulder. Normally I would have I started to shiver a little, I didn't like being touched. But this time the physical contact almost felt comforting, reassuring me that I hadn't disappointed him and that he would remain patient with me, no matter how many times I lost faith in myself.

I reached over my shoulder and placed my hand over his, accepting his message of comfort. I'd never had anyone like this in my life before. I wanted to appreciate him while I was here. In less than two months I would no longer be here to enjoy his help and his company. I would either be back in Somerset with my ghostly companions… or I would be trapped in the domain of darkness that awaited me on the other side.