Black Magic by Russell James Page A

most poetic weather reports. They didn’t make sense, but Dolly loved them, the way one loves a song with nonsense lyrics for its melody. She patted his hand and headed across the room.
    Shane Hudson held morning court at one of the card tables. Chester Tobias and Denny Dean sat opposite him. Chester had the bulky, sagging physique of a formerly burly man. What remained of his hair was a crown of short silver fringe, though he tried to compensate with a bushy moustache. Denny was a scarecrow of a man with rheumy blue eyes and a non-existent chin. When Shane had been head honcho at Apex Sugar, Chester and Denny had been his right and left hands, hands that weren’t afraid to get dirty, to slap down a worker who had forgotten his place in the pecking order.
    Shane cut off his lecture to the two as Dolly passed. His black cane lay across the arms of his wheelchair. He gave it a few taps. She ignored his summons and took a seat in the far corner. The day was too lovely to spend a moment of it with the likes of him.
    Shane screwed his face up in frustration as she walked away.  
    “Noticed how stuck up that Patterson bitch has become?” Shane said.
    “You said it, boss,” Chester said. “She could use a moment of education.”
    Dolly knew she had been on Shane’s hit list since her environmental crusade to save the Everglades began. As far as Shane was concerned, her quest to save the environment had cost him the Apex plant, no matter what the Apex annual reports said about profits and losses and global competition. Not being Shane’s pal wasn’t much of a loss.
    Nurse Coldwell led a slight woman into the day room. The twenty-something blonde had frizzy hair that went down to her shoulder blades. She wore a long denim skirt and a white blouse that was either homespun or trying hard to look it. She opened a brown leather rollup on the table top at the front of the room.
    “All right, everyone,” Nurse Coldwell said. “This is Janine, the woman I told you would be visiting us today. Let’s give her our attention.”  
    The nurse had a look of relief as she left the room in Janine’s hands. The few residents who were coherent turned their bored expressions Janine’s way. Walking Bear continued his study of the local fauna.
    “Well, I’m Janine,” she said in a sing-song voice better targeted to preschoolers. Her eyes bulged just a bit in their sockets, which made her look surprised at everything she said. “I’m from the Eastern Institute in Marathon. We’ve volunteered to come in and help you all focus your personal energy.”
    Janine pulled out a large, clear crystal from a pouch in her roll. The oblong stone was a few inches long, uncut and unpolished. She held it up and as she rotated it, the surface sparked on and off like Christmas lights.
    “Crystals are nature’s wonder,” she said. “They channel and direct any energy they come into contact with.”
    Of all the stupid ideas … Dolly thought. She rested her chin in her hand and contemplated an upright nap.
    “Now we all have energy that emanates from us,” Janine said. She made a big sunburst gesture with her hands. “But it all escapes in every direction. Crystals can reflect the energy back so we can recycle it.”
    Dolly wondered if today was Caesar salad day. Management had changed the menu twice this month.
    Janine grabbed a handful of crystals from her roll and began to flit around the room like some New Age pixie as she spoke. “So what we will be doing is placing crystals in strategic locations around the day room, where the most people are throughout the day.” She slipped crystals on the edges of bookshelves and in windowsill corners. “These will collect and return all our radiant energies. Those with excess will share, and in return will get the energies of others from a different wavelength.”
    Janine passed before Walking Bear. He gave her a quick, sympathetic look and then refocused on the rabbit at the edge of the woods. She