February Thaw (11 page)

Amazed she was actually going through with it, actually giving implied approval to occult psychology, Cynthia shuffled and split the deck as instructed.

Madame Zora laid out cards with firm, no nonsense movements of her hands, the rings flashing in the light. "Oh my. Four of the Major Arcana. There are powerful outside forces at work here. Look at the pattern please and tell me what you see."

"Words," Cynthia muttered. "Words. Words. Words."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Polonius asked Hamlet what he was reading and Hamlet answered, Words." She waved a hand over the cards. "In this instance, however,
pictures
, might be more appropriate."

Cocking her head slightly, Madame Zora kept her gaze on the cards. "That's all that you see?" she asked, her tone so explicitly neutral it lifted David's brows. "Pictures?"

Cynthia studied the pattern for a moment before she answered. "There isn't anything else," she said at last. "Pretty pictures that don't symbolize anything but a way for you to make a living which, I assure you, I'm not against, but I believe in what I can see and..."

The phone cut her off.

"Cynthia!" David could've managed more outrage if he hadn't been so relieved to have the impending rant cut short.

"Augustine Textiles, Cynthia Augustine speaking. What's that? I'm sorry, could you hang on a moment until I get outside?" Scrabbling to her feet she headed for the tent flap. "I'm sorry, but I've got to take this call."

David closed his eyes in embarrassment. When he opened them again, Madame Zora was watching him, her expression unreadable.

"I'm so sorry," he began but she cut him off.

"No need. I am sorry for your friend." Her gesture bracketed the pattern. "I see transformation in these cards."

"By powerful outside forces?"

"By, because of, for; who can say. If they feel it necessary, certain things will go to extremes to attract attention."

"But you said they were just symbols."

"Symbols," said Madame Zora with ponderous emphasis, "are shortcuts to more complicated meanings."

*

"I can not believe you did that!"

Looking like the cat who swallowed the canary, Cynthia slipped her phone back in its pouch. "Did what?"

"Broke our agreement, went through my stuff, stole your battery back, and interrupted the reading!"

"We got the hotel job."

David choked as he attempted to change responses in mid word. Cheerfully thumping him on the back, Cynthia reassured a number of anxious bystanders that he was fine, just a little overcome with the afternoon's excitement. Several mothers of small children nodded in weary understanding.

"This is just like Madame Zora said," he gasped, grabbing Cynthia's arm. "Victory will be achieved and success will be obtained through labour."

"Co-incidence." She tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow and half-dragged him toward the parking lot. "Come on, we've got a lot to do."

"I think you ought to go back and let her interpret your cards." He repeated his final conversation with the fortune teller. It had, as he'd expected, no effect.

"David, there's nothing to interpret."

"You've got to admit she did a pretty good reading on me."

Cynthia threw a grin toward her companion. "Considering she started with a knight instead of a queen."

*

Just outside the parking lot, in front of a small pond artistically pierced with jagged rock, two men, in a mix of medieval armour and hockey equipment, were beating on each other with rattan swords. On a bench to one side sat a young woman, blindfolded and holding a pair of swords aloft.

Separated from David and caught up in the watching crowd, Cynthia found herself beside the bench without really understanding how she got there. She staggered, stretched out a hand, and managed to stop herself at the last minute from grabbing one of the two swords.

"You may have a well-developed sense of balance, but you're definitely in need of direction."

"I beg your pardon."

"No need. I'm here to help." Lifting the blindfold with an extended thumb, the girl peered up at Cynthia with dark eyes. "Would you mind holding one of these for a moment?"

There didn't seem to be a polite way to refuse so Cynthia gingerly took the closer of the two swords. It was much heavier than she expected.

"Thanks." Reaching into a side pocket, the girl pulled out a familiar white rectangle. "My card. For later."

"For later," Cynthia repeated, habit extending her free hand. She'd barely returned the sword when the crowd surged past, caught her up again, and deposited her back by David's side. "Is there a reason you've got your mouth open?" she wondered.

"That girl!"

"What about her?" She shoved the business card in her back pocket without looking at it.

"Two swords! The pond! The rocks! The bench! The moon!"

Cynthia glanced up at the crescent moon barely visible in the afternoon sky and shrugged. "So?"

"The tarot!"

"A verb, David. Try a verb."

He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. "That's the second card in your tarot reading! The Two of Swords!"

"Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?"

"Yes!" He paused. His cheeks flushed as he released her. "Really ridiculous. I think, I think I got too much sun."

"I think you're right." She tucked her arm into the bend of his elbow. "Come on. Let's go home."

*

Augustine Textiles was in the lower, not quite basement level of an old red brick building on King Street West, a neighbourhood working toward trendy – by the time the higher rents arrived, Cynthia planned on being able to afford them. Over the years they'd seen a number of spectacular accidents from their vantage point a sidewalk's width from the street, but nothing like the accident the morning after the trip to the fair.

"I didn't know there was a circus in town," David declared, his ears ringing in the post-crash quiet.

"I don't think there is." Cynthia found it impossible not to tilt her head to try to bring the view into a normal perspective.

A tractor trailer, its sides open ironwork, had jackknifed making the turn off Spadina. When the far wheels hit the curb, it had flipped over onto its back.

"Maybe it's a publicity stunt for Beauty and the Beast."

In the trailer, a woman in a long white dress with flowers in her hair and around her waist held closed the mouth of a male lion. Both woman and lion were, at the moment, suspended upside down.

The moment ended. Neither appeared too badly hurt by the fall.

Using language totally at odds with her appearance, the woman untangled herself from her skirts and got, somewhat shakily, to her feet. The lion shook itself, squeezed between two twisted bars and took off down the street. Approaching sirens became quickly overlaid with startled screaming.

Fully aware that the most helpful thing she could do was to stay put, Cynthia yanked open the door and raced out onto street. "Are you all right?" She rocked to a halt when she saw that the woman, taking the lion's route out of the destroyed truck, was fine – which left her nothing to do but stand on the road and feel embarrassed.

The woman reached back through the hole to pick up a bronze figure eight then turned and smiled kindly at her. "Never fear passion," she said. "Now, if you'll excuse me." Pushing a crushed bloom up off her face, she strode purposefully toward the corner where half a dozen police officers had the lion more-or-less cornered. "Here, let me. Brute force will get you nowhere with him."

"Well?" David demanded when Cynthia came back inside.

"She's fine. And, although several members of Toronto's finest are going to need to have their trousers dry cleaned, the lion's fine. Let's get back to work."

"That's it?"

"There's nothing we can do out there and there's plenty we can do in here."

David stood a while longer, staring out the window, watching a pair of tow trucks try and pull the trailer away. All at once, he paled. "Cyn?"

"Um."

"What did she say to you?"

Deep in a new sample book, it took Cynthia a moment to realize what David was talking about. "Something about never fearing passion. Why?"

"That was the third card in your reading. Strength, reversed."

"Strength reversed?" Both brows lifted. "You're out of your mind."

"Oh yeah? How many times have you seen a woman and a lion upside down in the fashion district? Remember what Madame Zora said, certain things will go to extremes to attract attention."

"What things?"

"Well, we'd know if you'd finished the reading, wouldn't we!"

"David, you're getting hysterical."

"No, not yet." He crossed the room and leaned over her desk. "You haven't seen hysterical yet. The tarot is coming to life, forcing you to recognize it the only way it can. Do you remember what your last card was?"

"Of course I don't. And neither do you."

"Oh yes, I do. I may not remember the middle of the pattern, but I remember that last card. It was a Ten of Swords, Cynthia. And you know what that means!"

She rolled her eyes and sat back. "No, David, what does that mean?"

"It means that sooner or later you're going to be explaining a dead body with ten swords in it to the police."

"If you don't go back to your desk," she reminded him pointedly, "we're going to lose the best contract we've ever had and it's going to be your body."

"Cynthia, please. You know I'm right."

"And what am I, chopped liver?"

"Well, no, you're right too but..."

"Then please, get back to work." She watched him cross back to his desk and shook her head. His sudden obsession with a not terribly successful midway attraction was beginning to worry her.

Out on the street, the lion roared.

*

"David? Cynthia. Sorry I woke you, but I've got a problem."

"Problem. Right. It's two in the morning. It'll keep."

"David, don't hang up!" Pulling back her kitchen curtains, she took another look out the window. "What was the next card in that tarot reading?" The silence on the other end of the phone was so complete she figured he'd gone back to sleep. "David?"

He hadn't. "The next card?"

"Did it look like a dog and a wolf – although it's probably a coyote – bracketed by a pair of upright things – in this particular case the old bridge abutments – howling at a full moon with some real weird shadow patterns on it while a lobster crawls up out of the water?"

"Uh, hang on a minute."

She flinched as the howling began again. "Don't take too long." One of the Garibaldis in the apartment upstairs yelled for quiet and threw a boot out the window towards the river. The lobster turned toward the noise, but the howling continued.

"Cyn? The card's called The Moon. It stands for the influence just passed away. And Cyn, it's the card of the psychic."

Madame Zora. Damn. "How the hell do you know?"

"I bought a book on the way home. You'd better come over." Sleepy protests in the background were quickly hushed. "Just out of curiosity, what convinced you I was right?"

Sighing, she let the curtain drop. "David, I can rationalize upside down lions, but, trust me, there's no way a lobster could survive in the Humber."

*

David answered the door to the condo with a slim paperback in one hand and a finger over his lips. "Shhh. Drew's gone back to sleep. We can talk in the den." Ushering her in front of him, he closed the door and relaxed. "How was the trip over?"

Cynthia snorted. "Weird. I stopped at the bottom of the Casa Loma hill to untie a young woman standing blindfolded surrounded by eight swords. She thanked me, picked up her swords, and said she'd have done it herself except she was afraid of moving out of a situation of bondage." The leather couch creaked as she dropped onto one end of it. "They, whoever they are, are not very subtle."

"We knew that; they dropped a lion on its head to make a point." Sinking down onto the other end of the couch, David flipped through the book. "The Eight of Swords. Your fifth card. Something that may happen in the future."

"David, pay attention please. It already happened."

"It symbolizes what may happen to you."

Her lips pressed into a thin line. "If somebody tries that on me..."

David sighed. "Symbolizes. You may be bound by indecision."

"The only thing I can't decide is whether or not I should look up Madame Zora and slap her with a lawsuit."

"For what?"

It was Cynthia's turn to sigh. "Good point. So what comes next?"

"I don't remember."

"You're a lot of help." He looked so hurt she flushed and gripped his shoulder. "I'm sorry I'm being such a bitch. This has got me a little shaken."

One corner of his mouth hooked up. "Cyn, you're always a bitch, I've gotten used to it. Now, let's go over what we know. Madame Zora said it was a pattern of transformation and, counting the significator, you've seen the first five cards. You've got four to go and then the Ten of Swords – the Final Outcome."

"I wish you wouldn't say it like that," Cynthia muttered, sinking down into the cushions. "It makes me think that I might be the body under the swords – my reading, my Final Outcome."

"We're not even going to think that." But they both were. "Don't put your feet on the coffee table."

"Sorry."

"According to this book, the Ten of Swords symbolizes sudden misfortune..."

"Well, duh."

"...and in spiritual matters, the end of delusion."

She straightened. "I am not deluded. I'm practical. I've kept a small business afloat in a lingering recession and... business..." Reaching into her back pocket, she pulled out a creased card. "The girl with the swords said she was here to help and gave me this for later."

The card was blank except for a phone number; a 555 number, an exchange used only by long distance directory assistance and the screen writers' guild. After two rings, an answering machine clicked on and a familiar voice declared, "A changed concept of self automatically alters our future. All outer change takes place in consciousness. If you leave a message after the tone, you'll be wasting your time."