Part 1 || 6 | Judy

A Tale of the Four Jacks

Meanwhile, Judy Windermere awoke a little after 8:00 a.m. in a delirium about her weird encounter with three talking cards and her subsequent dream that she failed to comprehend even now. If she were to describe it, she’d say it was like spying on someone else’s dream, though she hadn’t a clue who those gun-toting women were. Maybe they were dreamers, or maybe they were just figments of her imagination, but she remembered that scent of cherry blossoms and peach blossoms wafting from them in her God’s-eye-view of her dream. Even after waking up, she noticed these fragrances lingering around her bedroom, where she lay inert for a time in fragrant bliss.

After some moments to herself, she stretched, got out of bed, and began making it in her sludgy wakefulness. Then she paused and stared at the surroundings of her bedroom, wondering how she ended up here when she remembered fainting in the family room. Then again, she figured she had slept-walked her way here in one of her sleep-walking episodes.

She looked at her surroundings again. The morning outside burned bright and clear through the closed blinds of her bedroom window, unseen birds chirped and twittered and cooed at their mates, and her low bookshelf below the window sill stood before her, warm and inviting, like an old friend beckoning her into another imaginary adventure in between the covers of its share of books. So Judy crept to her familiar row of books and ran her fingers along the familiar set of titles, some of which she’d read, others not yet. After the weird coincidences of last night, she took out an omnibus of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, intending to read a story or two to bring a sense of clarity to her mind.

She flipped through the pages and placed her bookmark at a short story, “The Adventure of the Empty House,” and carried it with her. Then she stopped in her tracks before she passed the threshold of her bedroom door, looked back over her shoulder, and saw three anomalous pairs of boots sticking out behind the foot of her bed.

Had she taken those boots to her bedroom in her sleep? No, she thought. She couldn’t have. Besides, she had never worn boots in the first place, nor had she stolen anything in her life, not even in her sleeping-walking episodes.

And so, clutching her omnibus, she crept back towards her bookshelf, looked over the right side of her bed—

And found three sleeping cosplayers there.

Her reaction was immediate. In the nanosecond it took for the synapses in her brain to fire, linking the events of last night’s talking cards and her fainting spell and her weird dreams and her awakening in her own bed, she screamed.

And her screams startled the three Jacks into waking up.

Yet Judy was out of her room and down the upper hall and down the stairs, where she lost her footing on one of the treads and fell head over heels through the air, screaming again at the top of her lungs. She squeezed her eyes shut in mid-air, waiting for the inevitable jolt to her body crashing down the steps, waiting for the pain to surge through her, yet for all her waiting, there was no jolt.

There was no crash, either.

And consequently, there was no bone-crunching pain.

Judy opened her eyes and saw the three Jacks stumbling their way to the banister on the second floor, looking at her with shocked faces, wide-open eyes, and gaping mouths. Only then did she realize she was floating in mid-air before fluttering like a feather towards the foot of the stairs.

As soon as her butt touched down on the polished floorboards, she got to her feet, still clutching her omnibus of Sherlock Holmes, and looked back up at the three Jacks now descending the stairs in a line.

“Are you all right, lass?” the Jack of Hearts said.

“Are you hurt anywhere?” the Jack of Spades added.

“Are you raving mad?” the Jack of Clubs added, and his two companions looked back at him and shook their heads, then turned back at the mixed-up damsel that was Judy.

To their questions, Judy said nothing but stared back at them and backed away into the living room on tenuous steps. She placed her omnibus on top of the console table next to the wall and said, “Um, who are you?”

“Oh, pardon us, lass,” one said. “I’m the Jack of Hearts.”

“And I’m the Jack of Spades,” another added.

“And I’m the Jack of Clubs,” the third added.

And all three Jacks took off their beret and bowed to Judy with the practiced sweep of their movements, then placed their berets back on their heads full of long hair and smiled. Had any other girl witnessed their courtly smiles and mannerisms, they might have stayed and invited them to tea.

Not so with Judy, who remained ever-vigilant for any sudden movements as she backed away through the living room towards the foyer entrance and said, “Why are you three here?”

At this, the three Jacks traded glances with each other and shrugged their shoulders at her, and the Jack of Spades said, “Your guess is as good as ours.”

“We don’t know how we got here,” the Jack of Clubs added.

“Or why, for that matter,” the Jack of Hearts added.

“Oh, okay,” Judy said, smiling at her three intruders as she opened the entrance door behind her. “Then maybe the cops will know. See you later. NOT!”

And she bolted through the door into the bright morning air and down the entryway and out of the cul-de-sac of Chesterbrook Court, running barefoot in her pajamas towards the direction of her friend’s house on the other side of the block. She then fished through the pockets of her pajama pants for her smartphone, then cursed herself for not taking it with her in her mad dash out of her room. Yet going back to her house with those three creeps inside was no option, so she just ran and ran and ran down sidewalks and past cul-de-sac entrances, till she reached Riddell Court and ran towards the end of the cul-de-sac where Grace Ransom’s house stood. Judy was wheezing and sweating as she stalked up the entryway to her friend’s door, where she rang the doorbell, praying for Grace to open up, imagining her friend answering the door with a radiant smile and dark hair blowing from a nonexistent breeze.

Yet when the door opened, imagine Judy’s reaction when yet another Jack, the Jack of Diamonds, opened the door and greeted her and said, “Ah, you must be Judy Wind—”

“Who the hell are you?” Judy said, stalking up to the strange man in the same Renaissance cosplay as her three house-invading intruders, fisting her hands as though she was about to wallop him a good one if this strange man had done anything to her dear friend. “What did you do to Grace? Where is she? Grace!” she yelled. “Grace, where are you?”

“Now, now, ma’am,” the Jack of Diamonds said, raising his hands and backing up from the threshold, “I was just—”

“Don’t get any weird ideas, buster,” she said, “or so help me God, you’re gonna pay for what you did to Grace!”

“B-b-but I didn’t do anything,” the Jack of Diamonds said, backing away as Judy advanced on him.

“You’re suspicious,” she said. “What did you do?”

“I . . . I did nothing, ma’am,” he said.

“You did something to her, didn’t you?” she said. “Don’t lie, or I’ll kick you so hard, you’ll be—”

“I’m sorry for offending you,” he said, bowing to her and keeping his eyes to the floor, which pissed Judy off even more, because she thought this cosplayer was trying to act all nice just to cover up some hideous deed. In fact, Judy was about to kick the man in shins—

When Grace called out from her bathroom upstairs, saying, “Judy, he’s harmless! I’m just in the bathroom at the moment. I’ll be out in a minute, so hold on.”

So Judy passed by the intruder, stalking through the living room, till she reached the stairs and looked back over her shoulder at the weird cosplaying man staying put in Grace’s living room. She said, “Just stay there, and we won’t have any problems,” and she turned back towards the stairs. “Grace, what’s going on? Do you know this guy?”

“Hold on,” Grace said from the upstairs bathroom. “I’ll be out in a second.”

So Judy waited for a little more than 30 of those seconds, but she heard Grace opening her door with the click of the latch and descending the stairs in her own pajamas with a towel wrapped around her head, drying her wet hair.

“What’s going on?” Judy said and jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Do you know him?”

Grace looked up at the dashing teenager in a doublet and trews and a beret and said, “Only since this morning.”

So Judy crossed her arms, saying, “What’s going on?”

“That’s what we'd like to know, too,” said three familiar voices at the entrance of Grace’s house, and one of them added, “May we come in, lass?”

“Sure, come in,” Grace said beside Judy. “Just take off your shoes and leave them in the foyer.”

And so, while the three Jacks did just that, Judy looked at her friend, then at the fourth Jack talking to his three cronies like they were jolly drinking buddies, though his manner of fine speaking made him out to be somewhat of a lightweight in the drinking department. When the other Jacks finished, they stood back up and flashed their dashing smiles and waved their hands at Judy and her friend.

“Ah, hello again, lass,” the Jack of Spades said.

“Did you miss us?” the Jack of Hearts added.

“Or not?” the Jack of Clubs added.

Judy just stared at her three intruders (turned stalkers) before looking back at Grace Ransom with the Jack of Diamonds muttering something behind the backs of his cronies near the doorway. After some moments of staring and gawking, Judy said, “I’m not sure what to say, other than this is the weirdest morning of my life.”

Judy’s three unwanted intruders traded puzzled looks, raising their eyebrows and shrugging their shoulders.

So the Jack of Spades said to Grace, “Ah, and nice to meet you, lass. I’m the Jack of Spades.”

“Same here, my lady,” added the Jack of Hearts. “I’m the Jack of Hearts.”

“Same here,” added the Jack of Clubs. “I’m the Jack of Clubs.”

Then all three Jacks bowed in the living room of Grace’s house like a trio of Renaissance stooges, while the Jack of Diamonds went on muttering to himself about something involving three rakes and one saint. Which caught the ire of the three visiting Jack, who turned on their youngest member and pulled him forward in front of Grace and Judy.

“And this young man here,” the Jack of Spades said, “is a bit of churlish fellow—”

“—with a thing for holding onto grudges,” added the Jack of Hearts, “and muttering to himself—”

“—and also has a thing for older women,” added the Jack of Clubs, “so you ladies need not worry about him too much.”

Then all three Jacks put their arms over the Jack of Diamonds’ shoulders and made him bow, all of them saying, “Have you introduced yourself?”

“Not yet,” the Jack of Diamonds said.

“Then do it, boyo!” the Jack of Spades said.

“Or we’ll kick your shins,” the Jack of Hearts added.

“In three . . . Two . . . .,” the Jack of Clubs added.

“All right, all right, already!” the Jack of Diamonds said, twisting himself away from the custody of his three tormentors, and turned towards Judy and Grace. “I’m the Jack of Diamonds. Pleased to meet you,” and he bowed at the waist just in the perfect position—

For the three conniving Jacks to step back and kick his ass and throw their heads back laughing at their victim tumbling over onto his hands and knees.

Then the Jack of Clubs said, “Nice to know you’re still the ‘butt’ of our jokes, eh, dear boy?”

And all at once, the three Jacks laughed again like maniacs, throwing their heads back in their laughter and then bowling over and clutching their knees, sniggering on and on like hyenas in gut-busting hysterics.

“A pall upon you three!” the Jack of Diamonds said on his hands and knees, brushing the backside of his trews, where the imprint of three vicious kicks had tumbled him over. “What’s gotten into you demons?”

“Now, now. Don’t be a Jack of Asses,” the Jack of Clubs said, and the three Jacks laughed even more.

All the while, Judy and Grace just stared and gaped at the scene before them. And for all of Judy’s initial hostility towards the Jack of Diamonds, she squeezed her hands into tight knuckle-white fists and glared at the three laughing bastards ganging up on one of their own. She then traded a glance with Grace, who nodded her head and crossed her arms and said, “Go show ‘em who’s boss, Judy, so I won’t have to.”

“Will do,” Judy said.

So, while Grace went over to the Jack of Diamonds asking him if he was okay, Judy stalked up to the three miscreant Jacks and kicked each of them in their shins in practiced succession, sending the Jacks of Clubs and Hearts and Spades hopping on their good legs, swearing up a storm like sailors on the main. She then glared hellfire at the three Jacks, backing them away from her on limping legs, and said, “If there’s one thing I hate more than three home invaders sleeping in my bedroom, it’s three bullies in my friend’s house! Now apologize to that man over there,” and she pointed to the Jack of Diamonds with Grace crouching by him. “Or I’ll kick your other shins, got it?”

And so, as quick a three limping blokes could muster, the trio of troublemakers apologized to the Jack of Diamonds, bowing over and over and over—

Till Grace added, “And apologize to me for your behavior in my house, or I’ll kick your other shins.”

And so, the trio of troublemakers apologized to Grace, bowing over and over and over, saying that they won’t do it again, especially in the house of such a fine lady as her.

“All right, that’s enough, boys,” Grace said, then to Judy: “I think we’ve made our point, don’t you think?”

So Judy eased up, feeling sluggish now after running all the way to her friend’s house and confronting the four Jacks, and said, “Yeah, I think so, too. And I’m hungry.”

“Me, too,” Grace said.

“We’re hungry, too,” the four Jacks said, in unison.

And once again, Judy and Grace traded glances with each other and read each other’s minds. Like it or not, this morning was gonna be one of those mornings when accommodating strangers’ appetites (as well as their own) came first and foremost. So Judy followed her friend into the kitchen to make breakfast, while the four Jacks entered the dining room and made themselves at home sitting at a round dining table.

A Tale of Manners and Vows

After a time, Judy and Grace came out of the kitchen with two trays of steaming spicy ramen noodles, each holding a tray with three bowls and setting a bowl before each of their new-fangled guests and setting aside one for themselves. Then they stalked back into the kitchen and came out again, Grace carrying a tray of tall glasses filled with orange juice and apple cider and setting them in front of her guests, and Judy carrying the silverware and napkins and setting them before the four Jacks. After that, Judy and Grace settled down to their breakfast, sitting next to each other, and they ate and drank with their guests in amiable silence, until they got an eyeful of their table manners.

In fact, the rambunctious Jacks were slurping up their noodles and chewing with their mouths closed and taking moderate gulps of their tall glasses with raised pinkies.

At their antics, Judy was unsure whether to laugh or scream at their prissy attempts at good table manners. So she looked to Grace Ransom for her thoughts, because they were eating at her house, after all.

Grace caught Judy’s look and said, “I’m fine with it. As long as they don’t break anything, it’s fine.”

And that was that, and they continued eating and drinking and being merry this morning. All the while, Judy was thinking back to the weird dream she had about these four Jacks and the pair of gun-toting girls.

That is, until the Jack of Diamonds finished gulping down the broth in his bowl and clapped it on the table, scaring the Jack of Clubs in the middle of taking a swig of apple cider to choke and double over the table and spit it out in a spray onto the Jack of Spades’ forehead as he was finishing off his own broth in his bowl, causing the Jack of Spades to spit out his broth in another spray at the Jack of Hearts’ face and eyes, causing him to swear like a sailor and fumble for his glass and tip it over as he squinted his eyes, spilling the contents of his orange juice over Grace’s dining table, causing Judy and Grace to stand up from their chairs and grab their bowls as the spillage spread to their side of the table and pooled against the edge, till it dripped over onto the floor.

Thus, at the end of this hideous chain of events, Judy and Grace were pushed onto the precipice of a terrific emotional reaction, both caught in the uncanny valley between fits of laughter and verbal slaughter, both having different reactions. For Grace, she was laughing so hard that her sides ached in wheezing spasms, but for Judy, she was glaring a hellfire so hot against the four Jacks that the air turned hot around them, and they stopped what they were doing, though the Jack of Hearts was still squinting.

So Judy and Grace took their bowls to the kitchen and set them on the countertop between the sink and the microwave, Judy placing hers on the left and Grace placing hers on the right. Then Grace said, “Let me handle it, okay?”

“Are you sure?” Judy said.

“Just get the dish towels,” she said and pointed to the bottom drawer between the kitchen cabinets. “Oh, and wet three of them under the faucet and give them to me. I’ll do the rest.”

Judy did as directed, opening the bottom drawer and pulling out dish towels, then heading to the sink and turning the faucet and running water over three of the towels, before she returned to the dining room. Meanwhile, Grace had been to the pantry and had taken out a bottle of water and was now pouring it over the eyes and face of the Jack of Hearts, leaning back in her chair that Grace had pulled aside for him. So Judy handed Grace a wet towel, which she dabbed over the man’s eyes and face. She then handed Grace a dry towel, which she dabbed over the man’s face.

“Is that better?” Grace said.

“Yes, my lady,” the Jack of Hearts said, staring up at her as if she was a goddess. “Oh, you’re too kind.”

His compliment made her giggle, then: “You’re welcome,” she said and smiled a radiant smile, which fluttered the heart of the Jack of Hearts.

In return, the Jack kneeled before Grace as if he was proposing to her and bowed his head low and said, “I swear my fealty to thee, Lady Ransom,” and he took Grace’s hand and kissed her knuckles—

Which irked Judy to no end. So she placed the towels on an untouched part of the table, then went over and grabbed their hands and separated them, saying, “What’s the deal, buddy? Why are you being so weird?”

“Oh, come, come, lass,” the Jack of Hearts said. “I’m only swearing my humble fealty to Lady Ransom here and—”

“And what’s with the ‘Lady’ part of it?” she added.

“I’m only being a gentleman,” he said.

“You’re being a creep,” she said.

“Judy, be nice,” Grace said.

And with her words, Judy mollified a bit. Instead of fuming over a creepy cosplaying man swearing an oath to her girl crush, Judy picked up a wet towel and handed it to the Jack of Spades, who took it, saying, “Ah, thank you, Lady Windermere. I—”

“Please, stop it with the ‘Lady’ part,” she said, “and just wipe yourself.”

The Jack of Spades smirked, saying, “Ah, the shy type, are you? But I’ll keep that in mind,” and he took the towel and wiped the apple cider from his forehead, while the Jack of Clubs and the Jack of Diamonds crept on tiptoe out of the dining room into the living room.

Then, without warning, the Jack of Hearts and the Jack of Spades ran up to their fellow Jacks and collared them from behind and dragged them back into the dining room. With the Jack of Spades pulling up another chair from the table, the Jack of Spades and the Jack of Hearts clapped the Jack of Diamonds and the Jack of Clubs onto the chairs.

Then the Jack of Hearts said to the Jack of Diamonds, “You’re a jinx, man! A jinx!”

And the Jack of Spades said to the Jack of Clubs, “And you’re a sorry excuse of a man, you scaredy-cat!”

Then both Jacks pointed to the two damsels, Judy and Grace both cleaning up their mess, and paled at the sight. Judy was crouching over the floor, wiping up the spillage and spittle of orange juice and apple cider and ramen broth from the floor, and Grace was wiping up the spillage on the table, yet the dish towels weren’t enough. So Grace unwrapped the towel from her forehead, revealing wet black hair shining in the sun’s rays slipping through the blinds, and used her head towel for the lowly purpose of cleaning the rest of the mess on the table.

At such a humbling sight, both Jacks said, in unison, to the Jacks of Diamonds and Clubs, “Do you see that? Does that not move you to tears? Apologize to our mistresses, or we’ll thrash you on your heads!”

That’s when Judy and Grace looked up from their cleaning duties as the Jacks of Diamonds and Clubs said, unison, “We’re so sorry, oh mistresses! We’re but humble sinners who know not what we’re doing. Please, have mercy on us!” And they bowed at their waists and stayed that way like statues.

But Judy added, “Didn’t you two also make a mess?”

So the Jacks of Hearts and Spades also said, in unison, “We’re so sorry, oh mistresses! We’re but humble sinners who know not what we’re doing. Please, have mercy on us!” And they bowed at their waists and stayed that way like statues.

Judy and Grace just stood there, staring at them.

“It’s okay,” Grace said. “We forgive you.” Then she nudged Judy’s arm.

“Don’t worry about it,” Judy said.

And the reactions of the four Jacks were immediate: they each took a knee before the two girls, taking off their berets and bowing their heads, and clapped their berets over their bosoms. And as one, they all said, “We humbly swear our fealty to thee, Lady Ransom and Lady Windermere.”

Both girls just stared, and Judy was about to say something about leaving the ‘Lady’ part out when addressing them, but she figured, what the hell. At the very least, in Judy’s estimation, they were trying to be considerate, which was more than what she could say about most men.

“You guys try way too hard,” Judy said.

TBC