“Did you want my help or not?” she said, though not unkindly.
“Go ahead, Lucy,” my dad said.
I exhaled and slowly extended my left hand. Benna gripped it more tightly than before; I was surprised at the force in her bony, gnarled little fingers. She stared again silently at the lines of my hand, as if memorizing the geography of my palm. The flickering candle drew my eyes, held my focus in the still room.
Without warning, I felt a hot, vicious slicing across my palm. I tried to pull my hand away, but Benna’s grasp was strong. She held the dagger once again, and I winced at the sight of my blood, dark and wet against the blade’s edge.
Benna held my hand over the goblet, letting the blood well and drip from the wound. I watched as the droplets fell into the cup, sickened. I bit my lip hard—I would not let this woman see me cry.
Finally she released my hand, pressing the muslin tight against the wound. I could feel the throbbing pain screaming across my palm. Benna now held the goblet in both hands. Was she going to drink the bloody water? My stomach tightened. She did not raise the goblet to her lips, however. She swirled it in a slow, counter-clockwise movement before placing it back on the table.
She opened the tin box and withdrew a small baggy filled with a grainy white sandy material, pouring it to form a rough, thick circle on the table. With that, she lifted the goblet and closed her eyes, pouring the liquid on top of the circle she’d made.
Benna hummed softly to herself as the bloody liquid fell to the table, forming random sprawls and squiggles on the white circle. I pressed the muslin tighter against my palm, wondering what would happen next.
“Looks to me,” Benna said, “that you need to trust your own mind a sight more than you trust the cards. Tools are tricky, girl, and well, you’re the sort who’d dash on forward with the wrong conclusion. The future’s a tease, so you’d best learn to hold your ground. And your tongue.”
“But what about the missing card? Does it give any clues about that?”
Benna blew out a long breath. “You already have the answer, looks like, on where to find that card. And I see that the card will be coming to you—“
“Really? Great, I—“
“Course, you might die first,” Benna said, interrupting me. “Tread careful, Lucy, and come back some day when you’re ready to be serious. Cause you got a whole mess of trouble to work through.” With that, Benna stood and looked at my dad, making it clear our session was over. He quietly slipped a folded stack of money into her hand.
“Thank you, Miss Benna,” he said as we stood to leave her house. We closed the shack’s door shut behind us as the soft, wet breath of the Southern night pulled us in.
We were silent as we walked the short distance back to the Jeep. Once we were back on the road, it felt safe to talk again.
“That didn’t really seem that helpful,” I remarked.
“Other than Benna sees what I see—the huge amount of talent you have. She also said to trust your own intuition above the cards, which isn’t bad advice. And I am worried about the danger you seem to be facing. We should get you home.”
“My flight leaves tomorrow, anyway,” I said. I sighed, “I do need to leave, but I just wish that…”
“I know, Lucy, me too,” he said.
“Can we talk and stuff, now that I know you actually exist?”
“I think so, kiddo, but we need to be cautious. Benna made that clear.”
I sighed and leaned back in my seat, kicking off my sandals. It wasn’t fair that I had such a short time with my dad. Not even two full days and now I needed to head back to Boulder. I had my dad’s cell phone number and email address, at least, and that would be better than nothing. It was just the beginning.
Chapter 19. Last Chance for Zombies.
I WATCHED OUT THE WINDOW AS MY PLANE DESCENDED into the clear brightness of the Denver airport. As the plane shuddered to a stop, I thought of Matt and was glad to be home. I’d hoped that my dad would come home with me, but he’d said he wanted to stay in Savannah to keep an eye on Nathaniel. Gavin, too, had stayed behind, and so for now I was alone with my thoughts and my sore, bandaged palm.
I wondered if I should tell my mom that I’d seen my dad. He’d asked me not to, but I wasn’t used to keeping things from her. It had been just the two of us for so long that it felt unnatural to keep a secret. Still though, maybe my dad was right. It might just make her sad.
I got off the plane and headed outside, carried along by the wave of travelers. Luckily, I’d only brought a carry-on bag so I didn’t have to wait with the throngs of passengers at the baggage pickup.
Matt was waiting to take me home. I ran to him and he squeezed me tightly as I wrapped my arms around his thin frame. He was wearing the shirt that I had designed for the band, one featuring a cartoon zombie chained outside a mall storefront, a sign above its head advertising “Today only—75% off!” I knew he’d deliberately chosen that shirt to wear while picking me up. I stood on tiptoe and kissed the side of his neck, brushing aside his dark-blond hair.
“I didn’t miss you at all,” he said. “Too busy with all my other girlfriends.”
“Yeah, fool, I didn’t miss you either. I’m not even happy to see you. You’re just a smelly boy,” I said, grinning as he leaned in to kiss me. He took my bag from me and slung it over his shoulder. He wound his fingers through mine as we walked to his truck.
“What’s Savannah like?” Matt asked as we drove back toward Boulder. It was comforting to be surrounded by the mountains again.
“It’s hot. And humid. It’s beautiful and it seems really old.”
“Old? Like the buildings are old?” Matt asked.
“A lot of them, yeah, but it’s more just like the whole place feels older.” I shrugged; I couldn’t explain what I meant, how traveling to Savannah felt like spinning backward in time to an era with more magic and deep mystery. In Colorado, things were crisply outlined, more defined. In Savannah, the lines between the visible world and the unknowable world seemed blurred, as if at any time a different bewitching realm could surface.
“Did you get everything sorted out with the old guy in the mansion?”
“Nathaniel? No, he is really hung up on wanting this old tarot card that my grandma used to have.”
“Is it a collector thing? Does he have all the other cards in the set?” Matt asked.
“I’m not sure,” I replied. “But that sounds possible.”
“Why? Is it worth a lot of cash?”
“Probably, it sounds like it’s been around for over a century. But this guy must be loaded; I don’t think he needs to sell the cards online or anything.”
“What makes this deck any better than any other deck?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. I’d wondered myself what would make this deck so valuable to Nathaniel. If it wasn’t money, what was it? Nostalgia? I thought then of my own deck, how it had just felt right in my hands the first time I’d touched it. I remembered what Aurora had said: You’ll never get a good reading from an unfriendly deck.
Was the Oracle Deck the only friendly deck for Nathaniel? Maybe it was the only deck he’d found that maximized his readings and gave him the best answers to his questions. Still, though, what question would he want answered so badly that he’d be willing to hunt, and possibly kill, for the missing cards in the deck? And was it even Nathaniel who was looking for the cards?
As we drove from the airport back to Boulder, I relaxed in my seat and listened to Matt talk. “I have a surprise for you,” he said as we turned on to my street, “And you can’t ask what, because you’ll see soon enough.”
I grinned and squeezed his hand as he parked on my gravel driveway. I hopped out of his truck, almost wanting to run to the front door. I was so happy to be home.
We went inside my house and I set my bags down on the table. “What’s the big surprise,” I asked.
“Get your laptop out and I’ll show you, babe.”
I
brought my laptop out to the kitchen and waited while he pulled up his email. He opened a message and moved aside, motioning for me to come read it. I sat down and read through the message twice to make sure I understood.
“Last Chance for Zombies is getting signed!” I squealed and threw my arms around him.
“Almost. They’re sending a guy out to see us in person in a few weeks, but they say they’re interested. They think the death pop reggae thing will be huge.”
“That’s so great! How did they find you?”
Matt blushed. “Uh, remember when we went to do the tarot thing for Missy Hampton? While you were in there with her, I got talking with a guy who worked with her and he actually listened to some of my stuff and it just kind of snowballed from there.”
“I’m excited. I can’t wait for them to come hear you guys in person,” I said.
“Good, because I was hoping you’d be there. Like, for moral support.”
“Of course I will. You’re going to take them by storm,” I said. Matt hugged me close, pulling me in for a long, deep kiss.
Chapter 20. Purple and Auburn.
A WEEK AFTER RETURNING TO SAVANNAH, I was back into my groove. I still had plenty of appointments for readings and was working on decorating my house to mix in some of my own style with the furnishings grandma had left behind. One afternoon, I was in the middle of painting my bedroom wall a deep amethyst color when, oddly, my home phone started to ring. I’d never gotten around to canceling my grandma’s home phone number, but I never used it. I’d forgotten that I’d given him the number.
I climbed down the ladder and set the wet roller in its tray. Wiping my hands across my jeans, I went to the kitchen and answered the ringing cordless. I reached for a pen and my tarot appointment book.
“Hello, dear Miss Lucy,” the Southern-accented voice on the other end said. I didn’t place the voice at first, then quickly realized that it could only be one person. Nathaniel.
“Oh, uh, hi, Mr. Bode.”
“No need for formalities, my dear girl, just call me Nathaniel,” he replied. “And how are things in scenic Boulder?”
“Pretty good, I guess. You know, just same old, same old. Settling in after my trip.”
“Indeed, indeed. Now my girl, not to rush to business affairs, so to speak, but have you by chance located our missing Empress?”
“No, I haven’t found a card yet.” Truthfully, I hadn’t looked very hard since I’d been back, but didn’t see any need to share that with Nathaniel.
“Well, Lucy, I do need to remind you of its significance. I do anticipate that you will be hunting for the card,” he said.
“I’ll be looking high and low,” I said.
Nathaniel paused for a moment. “I see from my readings that you haven’t been looking much so far, my dear.”
“I don’t think you need to be using your cards to check in on me, Nathaniel.” I said. “I will call you if it turns up. And I’ll be looking.”
“I’m just concerned for your well-being, young lady. Just looking out for safety, I am. I’d be just heartbroken if something were to happen to Eleanor’s kin.”
“Sure, whatever. Look, I really need to go now. I was kind of in the middle of something.”
“Certainly, certainly,” he wheezed agreeably, “just keep looking for that card.”
I ended the call. What was his problem? And how dare he use his tarot cards to spy on me? I already told him I would find the stupid card he wanted. What a pest.
Returning to my bedroom, I refocused my mind on the card. I’d scoured the whole basement thoroughly—the Empress wasn’t there. With my mom’s help, I had cleaned the house from top to bottom. Short of knocking holes in the walls, I wasn’t sure where else I could even look. Had my grandma buried it in the yard or something?
I thought back to the reading I’d done on the card’s whereabouts. The reading had clearly shown that the card was at my grandmother’s home and that she had been the last person to see it. The reading also gave me the feeling the card may be near water, which stumped me, seeing as there wasn’t really any water around the house. I mean, had she hidden the card under the sink, I would have found it by now. And the last card had been about childhood or nostalgia, which made sense given how much time I’d spent with my grandma as a child.
So, back to square one. The card had to be in the house. But where? I thought in circles as I rolled the paint across the wall. The issue was becoming frustrating. I sighed and climbed back down from the ladder again, stepping back to survey my work. The color was gorgeous, deep and dramatic, the perfect bedroom for sleeping and dreaming. Maybe, I thought hopefully, the answer would come to me in my dreams. Or maybe not.
Nathaniel was going to be a pest until I found the card. I wondered what he’d thought of my grandma. She’d disliked him, to put it mildly, but he hadn’t seemed to have negative feelings toward her, or toward me, even. He seemed pleased enough to meet me. With a jolt, I remembered then that he called me by the last name Gibson. Why was that?
Gibson—had he inadvertently called me by my grandmother’s maiden name? He hadn’t known that she’d married my grandfather, so he wouldn’t know about the name Auburn. I picked a small brush, to touch up the wall near the trim. Something was nagging at my mind, something I was overlooking.
I dipped the brush in the can of paint, catching the places I’d missed, while thoughts ran circles in my head. Gibson, Auburn. My grandparents. Married in secret, eager to escape Durendal with their cards, fearful of Nathaniel. And then, it clicked: Auburn wasn’t the name of either of my grandparents.
It made sense. My grandma had left Durendal the night of the fire and at some point had arrived in Colorado. My grandfather hadn’t made it. My grandma had never contacted the Guild again; she obviously hadn’t wanted to be found. And if she hadn’t wanted to be found, she wouldn’t have used her own name or her husband’s. She’d have taken a new last name altogether, I was certain of it.
This meant she must have deliberately chosen the name Auburn. But why not choose something like Smith or Jones, something more anonymous? The name Auburn must have had some significance to her.
The readings had repeatedly shown that The Empress was at my grandmother’s home—what if the reading meant that the card was at my grandmother’s home town, not the house I lived in? And what if Auburn was the name of the town she grew up in?
I excitedly fired up my laptop and searched for cities named Auburn. I held my breath as the results popped up…and was disappointed to see that my answer wasn’t that easy. Dozens of cities were named Auburn; there was an Auburn in Maine, in Iowa, in California. Not to mention Auburn University.
I slapped my laptop shut. What was I supposed to do? Visit every state and just start asking people if they’d ever known someone named Eleanor? Why couldn’t there be something, anything, that would help me out?
It occurred to me that I should do a reading on the question. I searched my journal and looked online again but I couldn’t find a spread that would help me narrow down a city. I didn’t want to misinterpret this question. I considered calling my dad, but my gut told me I needed objective help—a fresh perspective on the problem. But I didn’t know anyone else who could help me.
Or did I? I thought back to when I’d first bought my cards. The shopkeeper, Aurora, had seemed knowledgeable. I decided to pay her a visit to get her advice.
Fifteen minutes later, I arrived at the Mystic Wave. There were no customers inside and Aurora was busy rearranging the merchandise in the display window. She greeted me as I entered, setting down her dusting cloth and asking me if there was anything she could help me find.
“Actually, I was wondering if you could give me some advice,” I said. “I bought some cards here a few months ago and now I have a really important question but I can’t find a spread to answer it.”
“But of course,” she said, her long skirt swishing as she turned to walk to the main counter in the center of the s
hop. The sunlight caught the glitter on her face, making her look slightly inhuman for a moment. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the counter as she looked at me.
“So, first things first,” she said. “Did you bring a friendly deck with you?”
“I don’t know how friendly my deck is being, but it’s brutally honest.”
“Ah, well sometimes that’s the same thing,” she replied. “May I ask what the important question is?”
“My grandma passed away a few months ago, and I’m trying to figure out where her home town was.”
“Aha! I remember you now! The girl researching her grandmother!” Aurora clapped her hands together. “A lovely deck you chose, if I recall, lots of purples.”
“Yeah, that’s me. And my problem is that I think I know the name of the city she was born in, but not the state. But I can’t think of any reading that would tell me a state or help me figure it out.”
“When in doubt, I always recommend starting with a single card reading,” she said. “Why not just ask the cards to tell you more about the city and use that as a starting point?”
I opened my wooden tarot box and pulled out the cards. Tell me more about Auburn, I thought to myself as I shuffled. Fanning the cards across the display counter, I chose one at random and flipped it face up.
The Four of Coins. How could I use this to narrow down a city? The card showed a large man seated on a pile of gold, two gold coins in each palm. The man was smiling, but his eyes were cast sideways, as if he was nervous that someone might mug him, or knock him off his pile of loot.
Aurora focused her blue-green eyes on me. “Now, what comes to mind with the Four of Coins?”
“The Four of Coins usually means greed or wealth, but sometimes superstition,” I said.
“Yes, that is the technical meaning,” Aurora said. “But we need to think of every word that comes to mind when you see this card. I sense that this is tremendously important to you.” She reached beneath her register and handed me a pen and a piece of paper with fairies printed across the top. “Now write down every single thought you have about this card. Make a list.”
Tarot's Kiss (Tarot Chronicles) Page 13
