Allegories of the Tarot (22 page)

Even better the first time she answered it.
Opened her eyes in the deep of the night to that glittering blue
gaze.
“You’re so beautiful,” Jane said, stroking the mermaid’s perfect
hair, the ceramic warm to the touch. “I wish I looked like you.”

It was easy then to tell the aquatic maid everything, to
let go of all of her hopes and fears and dreams and old pains, to weep at last
for the loss of her marriage and the pathetic hopelessness of Jane’s existence.

“Until I found you.”
She kissed
the mermaid’s little head and hugged her close.

And the mermaid whispered happily back.

Annie wasn’t welcome any longer. Not after the disgusted
look on her face, the snide comments about how hard it was to walk down the
hall. Her realization Jane slept in her chair. Jane put a stop to her visits
right then and there, using some of her newfound passion to muscle her normally
dominating sister out the front door.

It was with great satisfaction Jane slammed it in Annie’s
shocked face.

The statuette
approved,
the
whispering congratulatory. Jane beamed in joy as she pulled herself over the
piles of wrapping paper, blankets, a toy house, scrapbooking supplies and
tupperware dishes, into the kitchen for a celebratory snack.

Jane rifled through the plastic bags full of new
groceries she’d set on top of the old, deciding on a chocolate bar, nose
wrinkling slightly at the scent of rotting food, quickly gone from her mind as
she returned to her chair and held the statuette while her mouth tingled, full
of yummy sweetness.

Work fell to the wayside. How could she focus on other
people’s problems when she had the statuette to talk to? Bills piled up, her
phone cut off, internet. There, she couldn’t work anymore anyway. She just
managed to keep the lights on by applying for social assistance, meals in her
stomach from the food bank. The part of her cringing in shame over using such
services wasn’t nearly as loud as the thrill she felt buying more things.

Jane ignored the ringing of the doorbell, never
answering, knowing it was Annie or one of the nosy neighbors who complained all
the time about the stuff piling up in the front yard. They needed to mind their
own business. Until she heard a man’s voice telling her it was the police
knocking. Jane blinked into the sunlight, scowling at the two young officers.

“We’ve had calls,” the first said, while the other
looked over her shoulder into the house. His face judged her, raised her anger
while his partner went on.
“From the neighbors.”

About the smell, he said.
And the
condition of her property.
Jane turned and, for a brief heartbeat,
everything stopped for her. She saw the mess.
But not for
long enough.
Not with the mermaid tucked carefully against her chest in
one protective hand.

Jane made empty promises to the officers, about cleanups
and garbage bins, before closing and locking the door on them.
Returning to her chair and the statuette.

Always the statuette.

Jane was sleeping when someone broke the door down. She
pushed her way through the piles near the entry and found Annie, backed by a
crew in masks and gloves.

“We’re here to clean this up,” Annie said, hand over her
nose, horror on her face. “Jane, you have to or the city will make you move.”

No, no.
Never.
The phone was in
her hands, 9-1-1 called, the police summoned.

Trespassers.
Defilers.
The cops came, Annie fought,
Annie
pleaded.

Annie left.

Just how Jane wanted it.

As Jane turned in triumph, shimmied her way back to her
chair, her arm bumped the wobbling stack of magazines she’d placed on top of
the old books she piled on the six bags of curtains she rescued from
destruction. The mermaid fell from her grip while Jane reached for her, terror
seizing her heart, the statuette bouncing over the heaped-up garbage, coming to
land against the bones of a small animal.

She had a...dog? Jane’s mind snapped open. No, no dog. A
raccoon, it looked like. Jane tipped her head back, looked up. A gaping hole in
her ceiling disgorged insulation from the blackness. When had that happened?
She staggered back, eyes going wider and wider as she stumbled away from the
horror before her.

And saw.
For the first time.
All of it.
Smelled, tasted the rot in the air, the heavy
pall of waste and decay. Looked down at herself, her unwashed body, the stringy
length of her hair falling over a filthy sweatshirt she’d never seen before.
Fell to her knees and sobbed into her hands, barely able to stand the stench of
herself as the piles and heaps and stacks closed in around her.

Jane stumbled to her feet, heading for the door,
reaching for the distant knob, Annie’s name on her lips.

Stop.

The whisper.
A
voice now.
Jane paused, heart pounding in her chest.

Don’t.

“I can’t live like this.” Her hands shook, mind reeling
as she understood she’d been talking to a statuette, she’d most likely gone
insane and, instantly, blamed Bob automatically before the voice spoke again.

More.

Jane’s mouth gaped open, the reek of her own breath
making her dizzy as she ran her tongue over teeth fuzzy with plaque and worse
things.

“No more.” She hugged herself. “I’m done.”

More.

Jane took a step toward the statuette the smiling face
of the mermaid now somehow changed, bitter, angry.
Morphing
into evil.
Jane crouched to touch it.

Yes.

She fell back, panting, grasping desperately about her
as the voice, clear now, demanding, pulled her in to madness. Jane felt some
fabric, jerked free a rotting t-shirt, wrapped it around her hand and lifted
the statue. The draw of the siren’s call through the flimsy material wasn’t
reaching her anymore.

Her awakened horror was stronger.

“Enough.” Jane turned toward the door again, heading
down the hall. “Enough.” As she climbed over piles, panting, tears now
trickling down her face, her true strength finally won, and she screamed at the
statuette, “ENOUGH!”

The door was so close. Outside beckoned.
Fresh air, a new life.
Leaving this behind...Jane found
herself smiling through her tears. Yes, she’d lost it for a while. But she
could start again.

And this time would be different.

No. No. No. The statue almost burned in her hand, the
heat reaching her through the worn fabric. Jane clutched it close, stumbled
over a collection of Barbie dolls missing parts and hair and fell hard in a
crumpled heap of garbage. Something broke under her knee, wetness staining her
pants, the reek of rotting citrus filling her nostrils. Jane reached out with
her free hand for support as she struggled to rise.

Felt the pile beside her shift.

Slide.

Fall.

She purchased the six bowling balls only two days
before, stacking them on top of the old bookshelf she filled with baby clothes
and the comic-book collection she meant to catalog. The shelf was weaker than
she thought, gave way as her grasping fingers used it to steady her.

And it all
came
tumbling down.

Jane landed on her belly, the first ball crushing the
small of her back and severing her spinal cord just before the pain came. The
second, an instant after the first, took out her right arm, at the elbow, bone
powdering under the twenty pounds of falling resin. But Jane barely registered
it.

Not when the third struck her in the back of the head.

Darkness closing in, Jane’s eyes locked on the mermaid,
sitting pretty and perfect, upright, looking down at her.

Smiling again.

Annie broke through the front door a week later. A kind
young officer comforted her as the firemen pulled the body out of the front
hall, after first unloading a dumpster full of garbage in order to reach Jane’s
decaying body.

“It’s my fault,” she sobbed on his blue shoulder. “I
should have tried harder.”

Annie had to force herself to enter the house after the
funeral, but it needed to be done and there was no one else. She rescued the
sweet mermaid statuette from the floor before one of the crew could trample it,
stuffing it in a bag. Jane loved that statuette. It was the least Annie could
do to save it.

The cleansing of the house took four full days, leaving
behind a home that would never smell fresh again. Still, the For Sale sign
swung at the end of the driveway the day Annie had the yard sale. Most of what
Jane brought into the house was garbage, but some of it could be salvaged and
Annie wasn’t beyond making a little money on the whole thing, considering how
much Jane’s death and debt already cost her.

A young woman with a sad expression stood back, hands
clutching her purse. Annie watched her with the shrewd attention of a true saleswoman,
noticing where the woman focused. The mermaid statuette sat, shining and
lovely, front and center and the buyer couldn’t seem to keep her eyes off it.

“Only ten dollars,” Annie said.

The woman smiled, hesitated. “Will you take five?”

“Seven.” Annie slid the mermaid into a plastic bag, but
the woman shook her head and stepped forward, hands sliding around it as she
lifted it and met Annie’s eyes.

“Sold.”

The mermaid smiled.

***

Patti Larsen is an
award-winning young adult writer with a passion for the paranormal. Now with
multiple series in happy publication, she lives on beautiful Prince Edward
Island, Canada, with her very patient husband and five massive cats.

Find Patti at
about.me/pattilarsen
.

***

THE TOWER

After the
Fall

By Jordan L. Hawk

The medals tumbled from my hand into the trashcan,
glinting with silver, bronze, and gold on their way down. One by one, they hit
the bottom with a loud clang, to nestle amidst shards of broken glass and
frame, and crumpled paper.

There.
The last of it.
Gone.

Maybe now the nightmares would end.

The doorbell
rang,
its cheery
tone jarring. I turned from the trashcan in what had been a home office, but
was now just another room to collect dust and unwanted memories. Too fast: my
leg trembled, and only my cane kept me from hitting the floor.

I hesitated at the door. What would happen if I
pretended I wasn’t there?

And I wasn’t, not really. W.D. McConnel died months ago.
Nothing remained but a ghost, still clinging to flesh.

They’d ship me back to psych, though. Where doctors
would prod and pry, nurses watching to make sure I swallowed the mountain of
pills. They’d ask questions and try to slide their feelers into my brain, just
like Hayden had—

I opened the door.

A man stood on the other side, his hand raised to knock.
Honey-brown hair, drawn back in a ponytail, a long nose.
Eyes blue as the sea off the Arabian Peninsula, clear and calm.

Gorgeous.

“Raphael Jones, with AJ Home Care Services,” he said,
tapping the little badge clipped to his t-shirt. A canister vacuum hung on his
back, and he wore a belt with dusters and spray bottles clipped to it. “They
told you I was coming?”

“Yes.” Had his bosses given him my name, or just my
address? I watched his face, but as far as I could tell, he thought I was just
another soldier. Someone who’d protected others, but now couldn’t even take
care of himself.

That was bad enough.

“May I come in?” he asked.

“Sorry.” I stepped back, leaning on the cane. “I’m
Darin
,” I added, and held out my right hand from the force
of long habit. It twitched spasmodically, and I hastily let it drop again.

“Call me Raph,” he replied. His glance at my hand
acknowledged the twitching, but his gaze didn’t linger. I couldn’t decide if
that was better or worse than pretending he hadn’t seen at all.

What was he thinking? What was I supposed to do? Make
small talk? Get out of his way so he could get the job done?

I would have known, once upon a time, his emotions as
easy to hear as a radio broadcast.

Gone now.
All gone, just like
the medals.

Embarrassed, I turned to hobble back into the living
room. “I’ll just let you get to work,” I mumbled.

“Sure, but if you have a minute, I’d like to make sure
the work order is right. Sometimes the lines get crossed, so I always like to
check.”

“Oh.” I stopped and looked back at him. “I see.”

His smile warmed his features and made me ache in places
I thought had died along with everything else. “The work order says minor
maintenance and janitorial duties: dusting, vacuuming, emptying the trash, and
cleaning the bathroom. Is that right?”

I fixed my gaze on his sneakers. Acid chewed a hole in
my gut, and my face burned. I wanted to tell him no, it was all a mistake.
Leave, get out. I don’t need you. I can empty my own fucking trash.

My hand
spasmed,
and the right
side of my face twitched.

“That’s right,” I said.

“Great.” His smile looked sincere, but I was sure if I
could just hear his thoughts, it would be a different story. Pity, maybe.
Or a healthy man’s contempt for a broken one.
“I’ll get
started, then.”

I retreated to the living room and sat in the recliner
where I spent most of every day. The curtains were drawn tight, but I heard the
tap of rain against the glass of the windows. I didn’t bother turning on the
light, and the TV remote had an inch of dust on it.