Tales of a Vanishing River

by Earl H. Reed

In the twenty-second year, which was yet to come, the two malefics, Saturn and Neptune, would retrograde in Taurus. Mars and the Moon would be in Aquarius, and this would probably mean that Wattles would have an affliction of the stomach, and would lose one or both legs if he waded in unclear waters.

There were so many things to look out for that he was dazed with their complexity. He was horrified by the “variations” and “transits of evil omen” that were possible in unexpected quarters when the rest of the sky was apparently free. Temporizing signs and harmless transits were rare. Malign conjunctions and oppositions were leading features of every month in the calendar.

At one of the periods, when the moon and Ceres would be in opposition, and Venus “in trine” with Neptune, Wattles would die of an unindicated disorder.

He had certainly got his dollar’s worth. With Mars careering continually through the Zodiac, and all the other malefics falling into conjunction and opposition at the most fateful times, he saw little prospect of escaping an astrological coil that reeked with woe. For him there was no balm in Gilead, or anywhere else in the universe. Like many others he let the blessings of existence take care of themselves, and was concerned solely with its ills. Apparently he was hopelessly enmeshed, but instinctively he struggled on.

The far seeing sage delineated a collateral variation indicating that the subject of the horoscope would, within a year after its casting, become a disciple, and possibly a practitioner, of a certain ancient science that had to do with the heavenly bodies, but the indication was not quite clear as to its name.

Impelled by this covert and ingeniously mystic suggestion, Wattles had procured all the literature he could find on the subject of astrology, and had studied it carefully. He hoped that he might find error in his horoscope, but the more he studied the more he believed. He had been touched with a hypnotic wand and had drifted into the toils of a remorseless power.

The opinion expressed by one of his friends on the steamboat that “the old party who cast the horoscope was probably drunk” had no weight with Wattles. There were too many confirmations of planet positions and significations in the astrological almanacs and related literature that he had succeeded in accumulating.

There was a postscript at the end of the delineation. Somewhere in the realms of infinite space the white bearded prophet felt the presence of a strange and malign star, that, for lack of data at hand, could not be named. Its unknown orbit dimly intersected the fate lines of Wattles. At some crisis in his affairs it would unexpectedly become manifest and would have a woeful significance.

Wattles pondered long upon the missing star in his horoscope, and had vainly sought it in his studies. There appeared to be nothing in his books that could lead to a solution, and the unknown malefic besieged his soul with a haunting fear.

“I got to keep track of all them heavenly bodies, and if that damn star ever shows up I must get a line on it,” he declared, as he folded up his horoscope. “I’ve got all the almanacs, and I know where ev’rything is all the time. I’ve studied astrology ’till I’ve ben black in the face, and I’m an expert caster. I’m goin’ to cast horoscopes right along now. There’s my significator comin’ up, an’ its in Aquarius now,” he remarked, and he pointed to Mars that had just scaled the tree tops in the east.