‘Let’s see what the cards say.’
‘Yes. Please.’
She reaches under the table and takes out an old wooden box. It is carved with intricate patterns. She puts it on the floor next to her legs and takes the cards out. They have strange markings on the back that are almost obliterated with use, and yellowed dirty edges. She shuffles them lovingly in her gnarled hands—the arthritic knuckles are the hue of church candles. She hands the pack to me.
I take it with frightened hands. Many times in my life the cards have revealed true things about my life—some small, some vitally important, some painful.
‘Think of him,’ she instructs.
I shuffle the cards and think of Jake. Deliberately, I think of him looking happy. I think of him strong and vital. I don’t infect the cards with my own fear and worry.
‘Give them back to me when you are ready.’ Her voice is level and diagnostic, and as pitiless as an immigration officer or prison warden.
I shuffle the deck one more time and give the cards back to her.
She takes them and spreads them into a semicircle on the table. ‘The Black Madonna protects you. Let your cry come unto her,’ she says softly.
I make the sign of the cross over my chest.
‘Pick only one.’
I ignore the creeping sense of foreboding and choose a card. The lovers.
She glances at it with a carefully blank expression. ‘Pick another.’
I take the card that is second from the last on the left-hand side and hand it to her silently. My heart is thudding against my ribs. My hands are clasping and unclasping incessantly on my lap. A diabhal. The devil.
She looks at the card and raises her eyes appraisingly toward me.
‘One last card.’
I close my eyes and let my trembling hand hover over the semicircle. With a prayer in my heart I fish one out. I hand the card to her without looking at it, but I already know. Something is wrong. Very wrong.
She frowns at the cards. It’s a hot day but I feel the chill spread over my skin, making my hair stand on end. She lays the three cards down on the table. Slowly she strokes the card in the middle with her forefinger. Her nail is thick and yellow.
‘An túr,’ she says. The tower. She doesn’t look up at me. Finally, she raises her martyr’s eyes, her expression portentous, and speaks.
‘Beware the woman who is wounded, beautiful and ruthless. She has soot and death in her mouth.’
My mouth opens with horror at her terrible words.
Her black eyes flash, her voice is a shade fainter. ‘You can still pray to the Madonna for a miracle. The abyss may not come to pass.’ She gathers the cards with a snap. ‘Perhaps.’
There is a sign on the door that can’t be missed.
It reads:
Enter but at your own risk.
—Whodini
EIGHTEEN
Lily
That morning Jake gets up early. There is something he must do at the office.
‘Unimportant, but necessary,’ he says when I ask him what.