by Safa Shaqsy
She felt too ashamed by his actions to race down the stairs, and definitely too enraged with herself for putting up with him for so long, to even go anywhere near her room for now. She had often heard people saying the world was a cold one, and there was absolute testament before her as she simply could not relate how a man would stop loving or caring for his wife because she was dead.
“Why?’ she whispered to herself, hoping the question would remain unanswered.
The fear of learning the truth terrified her and she slowly crouched on the staircase, picturing the sweet, caring and loving face she had grown up to know before her mysterious death. Nora pictured her father’s face looking joyous too and holding absolute happiness in it years ago, unlike the one she had to live with every single day at the moment.
“Help me!” she heard the same voice call out again, but upon turning around, there was nothing behind her but the odd looking attic door.
The situation sent chills down her spine, but it also reinforced her intent to find out whatever her father was keeping from her, and after watching him yank at the door behind her desperately to ascertain its integrity, she knew where to look.
***
Muzin walked into the living room looking refreshed from the past night sleep without realizing the gloomy looking figure slumped on the south side couch from him. He dragged his feet towards the kitchen to make himself and his wife some coffee, before realizing they had run out on milk.
“Nora!’ he yelled atop his voice, holding the milk container in his hand.
Nora raised her left hand up slowly, without any vocal response. Muzin turned around in shock to find the girl still in her pajamas at ten in the morning. He took another look at his watch, stared at his daughter and made no action to proceed towards her.
“We ran out on milk last night”, Nora replied finally. “Good morning Dad”.
Muzin slowly moved closer, bearing an angry look on his face while he bent over to look at his daughter. She smiled and waved oddly at him before turning and facing away.
“How is this even possible?” he asked in a bemused tone.
Nora shrugged and sighed aloud so he could hear her.
“We had a full carton as of lunch yesterday, so… “, he attempted to finish his question before halting.
Nora slowly turned around, got up from the couch and replied, “Well, maybe someone finished it before this morning… you could ask your new wife”.
Muzin stepped backwards while his daughter slowly walked away from him. He looked less bemused with each passing second as he stared at the milk container in his hand. Mornings without coffee would usually become a nightmare for him, and ultimately ruin the remaining day before it even began.
“Mom would have stocked up and made sure we had extras!” Nora reminded him while she walked up the stairs and headed for her room.
Muzin tossed the empty mil container aside and marched up after his daughter before yanking at her shoulder. “Don’t you walk away from me while I’m speaking with you!”
Nora turned around, gently nudged his hand off and to his absolute shock, before marching back up and heading for her room.
“What has gotten into you!?” he yelled while he followed her.
She waved him off, continued on her path, before stopping by her room door. Muzin stopped some feet behind his daughter as well but made no move to speak or follow her any further.
“Why?’ Nora asked.
Muzin flailed his arms in the air and shrugged as though he had no idea about what his daughter spoke of.
“Why did you choose to forget about her? Why did you abandon her and act like she never even existed?” Nora asked.
Muzin fell silent and watched his daughter turn around.
‘I saw her yesterday, I felt her and I heard her voice”, Nora spoke passionately.
Muzin motioned to speak but she halted him rudely. It is an act even Nora knew would cost her dearly once she was done venting her anger.
“Yet, when I mentioned her to you, it didn’t even strike a nerve”, she sighed. ‘How poorly has mom’s memories fizzled out of your mind?”
Muzin finally decided to speak. He shook his head and held out his hands but words didn’t accompany any of his actions. Nora could see his eyes bore enough stress indicators and his lips motioned to speak on every turn, but for some reason, he continued to hold back. He lowered his head and bowed it into his hand before gentle sobs began to emanate.
“You knew her as the woman I married years ago and the one that made me lovely dinners, pressed my clothes and made our home a home, but… “, he stopped and sniffed hard.
Nora had never seen him that devastated since her passing. It felt like watching the man with a heart of stone, suddenly grow one and it threatened to break hers too.
“Your mother changed”, he added, finally, after catching his breath. “You had no idea what I had to put up with, and all for what? All for what!?”
“Changed?” Nora stepped closer with a slight frown.
He looked towards the stairs, almost as if he was trying to make sure they weren’t being heard, before stepping closer to his daughter.
“There are things you have no idea about because we were trying to protect you”, he replied. “The hell we had to go through, while I tried to protect you from it all”.
Nora wished there could be better explanation from the man. He walked closer and held her by her hand before unlocking her door and taking her into her room. Nora remained silent, obviously noting the array of emotions her father was desperately trying to hide but to no avail. He sat her down next to him on her bed, just as he used to when she was little.
Nora had not felt that closeness in a while. He would read her stores and invite her mother to come join them later on. The sweet memories had only continued to feel like a distant past for years since her passing, and Nora was certain things could never be the same.
“I want to tell you something even you mother never wanted me to share with you”, he muttered in somewhat worrying tone.
A cold breeze surged into the room and caused Nora’s hairs to stand right on the back of her neck.
“You didn’t know this at the time, but your mother wasn’t herself for years before she died”, he explained.
Nora frowned and felt her nerves stiffen at hearing her father say such a thing about her mother.
“She was really sick and we tried everything from therapy to psychiatric evaluation and even weeks of hospitalization”, he continued. “It almost ruined our marriage and I wasn’t sure on how to proceed, considering she had bursts of suicidal acts”.
Nora’s world suddenly began to crumble and it felt like the woman she had assumed she knew to be strong and caring was nothing more than a shard.
“The woman you knew for years before her death wasn’t your mother, and it began right after… “, he paused and felt as though he had said enough.
“After what?” Nora pushed for an answer.
Muzin got to his feet and shook his head. He hurried to the door and held a thin but bitter smile on his lips.
“Your mother was a good woman, but there are far more than you can understand”, he noted, before holding the door and attempting to leave.
Nora reached out her hand and called out to him, “Papa!”
Muzin halted, looked back at his daughter with her outstretched hand. Something else caught his eyes, other than her willingness to have him around and engage him in some more conversation.
“What?” Nora asked upon noticing the look of worry in her father’s eyes.
Muzin rushed over and began to mumble incoherently as he took her hand in his and shoved up the sleeve of her pajamas. His eyes widened hard and fast, as did hers as they shared a blank expression with each other almost immediately.
“How did that get there?’ he asked in a rather befuddled and terrified tone.
Nora had not seen it on her skin before and she definitely wasn’t one bold eno
ugh to get a tattoo of any sorts. In fact, the idea of having anything prick her skin remained a frightening act she would rather not have even if it meant she was sick.
“I… I don’t know!” she stuttered.
She got to her feet and walked over to the mirror to have another look at her arm, stretching her sleeves up the left arm and holding it before the mirror. The reflection before her eyes, bouncing off of her arm left her absolutely mystified as her father began to pace around the room in worry.
“It is happening to you too”, he mumbled. “It is happening to you too!”
Nora ignored the paranoid man to examine the tattoo of what appeared to be a strange bird, edging up her right arm, but incomplete as at the moment. It looked beautiful and definitely possessed a good degree of allure too.
“How did it get there?” she asked herself.
Her father replied, “I know how! It is those darn cards! You had to get those darn cards too!”
Nora looked confused, but her father seemed to bear absolute assurance in the words he had just spilled.
“First t begins with the tattoos, then you begin to see things too”, he mumbled while he continued to pace dramatically.
Muzin suddenly stopped to look at his daughter.
“Tell me this is a joke and you’re trying to get back at me”, he demanded.
Nora looked flabbergasted and gave no response. He marched over to her, held her hand tightly in his and began to rub hard against the incomplete tattoo, almost as if he wanted it to smear off.
“Papa!” she yelled and yanked her arm free from his. “You’re acting crazy!”
As much as whatever the tattoo stood for terrified her, she wasn’t willing to have bruises on her arm because her father wanted to simply wipe it off. She took another moment to stare at it, wishing for an answer and hoping it would come with a reasonable explanation.
“It is just a tattoo and maybe even some genetic mutation of some sorts”, Nora sounded ignorant but she wanted anything to desperately explain the conundrum.
Muzin shook his head and yanked at her arm as he led her to the door.
“I think you need to see things for yourself”, he said in frightened tone. “Maybe you’d understand my fears and all these nonsense will make some sense to you”.
He marched her down the stairs and towards his room. Lama had just sat up in bed and yawned aloud when they walked into the room. She stared blankly at the father and daughter with a sting of surprise in her eyes to see Nora willing to come into their bedroom.
“I was as naïve as you are right now too, but I knew better after some weeks of first seeing that thing”, he explained without looking at her.
He knelt by his bed and reached underneath the bed while Nora shared the uncomfortable moment with Lama staring awkwardly at her. There was without doubt no love lost between them, but being in her mother’s old room brought the bitter-sweet sting of memories coursing down her spine.
“Shit!” her father mumbled, yanking his arm out with a large metal box.
Nora frowned, sighting the padlocked box as her father struggled to unlock it with a key he picked from inside his drawer. She had never seen the box before or even known of its existence and it was obvious her father had kept it away from Lama too as she looked as lost as Nora.
“You have a floor safe?” Lama sounded out her confusion.
Muzin ignored his wife and began to search through the box carefully while blocking his daughter from having a direct line of sight into the box.
“Dad, you’re scaring me”, Nora informed her father.
‘Yes, Muzin, you’re scaring and worrying us both”, Lama seconded the girl’s words.
Muzin ignored both ladies, and like a deranged man, continued to search through the box until he came across what he searched for. He held out a dusty looking brown leather diary in his hand towards Nora, and right there and then, Nora knew her father was about to make the day a rather unforgettable one for her.
CHAPTER FOUR
Nobody seemed interested in saying a word to clear away the silence, but there were plenty not being said and it was pretty obvious. Muzin paced around the room and bit his lip every single time he stopped to look at his daughter. Nora had been provided some faction of the truth, and handling it whichever way positive was the test for the young girl.
She ground her teeth and looked up at her father for the umpteenth time but the man simply turned his gaze away.
“Are all these true?” she asked, fearing the worst and the possibility that the man would answer to attest to it.
In the diary provided to her and in her own mother’s handwriting were dated information about how whatever was wrong with her progressed, it had lists of doctors’ reports and psychiatric dealings which Nora had never managed to catch whim of through her mother’s life.
“All these things were happening and you decided I wasn’t a part of this family to know of it?” she asked.
Muzin looked at Lama who seemed to be in support of his daughter.
“We couldn’t tell you what we didn’t understand”, he replied. ‘More so, even your mother didn’t understand the workings of that damn… “.
Nora waited for the complete line, but like the other truth attached to everything bizarre going on in their home, he swallowed it fast and chalked it down so she wouldn’t ever have to find out.
“She has a right to know”, Lama said to her husband.
Muzin shook his head fervently and defiance. “No! I decide if or when she decides to know! I will not lay silent this time around and let that thing use her like it used her mother!”
Nora didn’t need further words; she had figured out what exactly seemed to be terrifying her father, even though it still didn’t make any sense.
“I lost her mother to that thing the first day I ever let her do a reading with it”, Muxin broke in loud tears without forewarning.
He clamped his hands over his face and struggled to hold back everything he had been keeping within.
“It ruined her, and it is about to ruin you too!” he noted.
Nora stepped towards her father, feeling her hand trembling and her eyes sweeping from him to his new wife. Lama drew closer too, consoling the man by placing her hand on his back and running it down slowly until he sniffed and gathered some strength to look back up.
“Whatever it is, whatever is going on, Papa, you need to tell me”, Nora pleaded.
Muzin held his daughter by her arms, visibly shaken and absolutely stricken with grief.
“The tarot cards you assumed you bought belonged to your mother”, he broke out the pretty baffling news. “it has always been in her family for generations and according to her, those handpicked to use it cannot escape its fate”.
It still sounded like a whole lot of gibberish to her, even while she wanted to believe her father. He yanked the diary out from her grasp and began to flip through pages until he found the one he wanted. Nora looked at him oddly, before slowly looking at the book and reading it to herself. Her mother had stated it clearly; the tarot card was theirs to possess and there would be no doing away with it.
“Are you sure this isn’t just some part to her illness?” Nora asked, sounding almost as though she had been won over on the idea of her mother being sick.
Muzin shook his head in show of defiance. He knew what he knew and there would be no altering his believes.
“What will you do with it?” Nora asked.
Muzin took a moment to think, snapped his fingers together and rushed out of the room to retrieve the cards from where he had hidden them. The dusty old deck looked as harmless as it had been from the moment she picked it up, and even while her father clutched tightly unto it, she felt the urge to rip it from his hand and keep it for herself.
“I’m going to do exactly what your mother wouldn’t do”, her father sneered.
His face bore nothing but frightening look, as his lips curled and his nostrils flared.
&
nbsp; “I will destroy the darn thing”, he grinned.
Nora was about speaking against the act when her father hurried past her and raced down the stairs. She followed suit without wasting any time while Lama dragged her feet after them.
“It took your mother”, he mumbled while he stoke the fireplace. “It isn’t taking anything from me again!”
Nora motioned to stop her father from dallying with something he obviously had no idea about, but Lama held her back. They bore witness to the man doing what he felt was needed to take charge and control of his life. It felt somewhat of an overreaction to Nora, but even while she had her reservations, her mother’s handwritten words only puzzled her badly.
Muzin sorted the fire and took one good look at the deck of cards with a wilder grin on his face.
“I hope you rot in hell and leave my family the hell alone”, he smiled, before tossing it into the blaring flames.
No sooner had he tossed it into the flames did Nora see her mother’s last written note.
“For all who touches the deck of truth, shall share in the gate it possesses for them… life or death may be thy fate, but beginning without ending is the doom you’d get”.
“I think we need to finish whatever mom started:, Nora whispered.
Her father turned around, wearing his smile and looking at his daughter like she was speaking absolute gibberish.
“It is done”, he whispered.
Nora stepped closer to the fire, as did Lama while the trio watched the deck of cards burn into crisp, and its flames soar into the chimney up above. It felt like the end to nothing; an exaggeration which everyone had taken up without needing to. Nora felt a tad disappointed, but some part to her felt relieved, even while there were many questions yet to be answered.
“What does the card have to do with mom’s death?” she asked herself. “How does it even translate to my generation?”
The questions continued to linger in her head, and the answers successfully continued to evade her as well.
“That’s the end to that episode”, Muzin seemed proud of himself while he slowly returned up the stairs.
