Floats the Dark Shadow (15 page)

The lamps were dimmed and they were in darkness. The air filled with quivering light and the screen with flickering images that cast a spell over the audience. Theo gasped and sighed with them, tingling with excitement at the visions unfolding before her. First there was a wonderfully sweet and silly moment of a woman feeding her baby daughter porridge. The baby was chubby cheeked and got the gooey stuff all over herself and her mother, who threw up her hands in dismay. Murmurs of awe wove with bursts of laughter. “It’s a miracle, a modern miracle!” was whispered all around. After the baby came a glorious scene of boys having a snowball fight, running, falling, and rising to send their missiles flying through the air. Theo wanted to be with them, to gather the white snow in her hands and hurl it with the same laughing abandon. Weaving through her enchantment were elusive distractions. The machine made a soft clattering as it ran the film, and a swish as the spools unwound and fell into a box beneath the projector. The booth had a curious smell, a dizzying hint of the ether used to lubricate the mechanism.

The last film was the most startling. Iron struts of a bridge framed train tracks that curved away out of sight. Suddenly, a train turned the bend. Like a black beast, it rushed toward them, spewing a cloud of white smoke. Theo was transfixed. There was no sound, but her mind filled with the grinding sound of steel wheels and piercing whistles. Her heart raced as the engine with its jutting grill charged forward. The next instant there was nothing but smoke and black iron as the train seemed to hurtle off the screen into the room. Frozen in place, Theo gasped in delighted terror. She gasped again when Mélanie clutched her arm as blackness swallowed them.

Almost instantly the lights came on. Everyone laughed with relief to find themselves still alive and filled with wonder at this joyful present the modern world had given them. They smiled at each other as their host hurried them out as quickly as the turnstile would let them pass. Outside the booth, the air buzzed with anticipation. Some of the waiting crowd tried to catch a glimpse inside while others studied their faces to see if it would be worth the long wait. Exhilarated, Theo grinned at them all. She wanted to see the films again—but the line was very long. At the end, she saw Paul and Jules patiently waiting their turn. She would have gone to speak to them, but Carmine declared herself famished. Theo waved and they bowed in return.

Theo felt hungry, too. She followed her friend to the buffet by the entrance. There she purchased and devoured a
croque monsieur
with such dry ham and greasy cheese she needed a second glass of cool fizzy cider. Carmine had a slice of berry
clafoutis
and Mélanie chose a
petite quiche
. When they were done, they all sat back with sighs of contentment.

“What next?” Theo asked. “A stroll among the boutiques?”

“Did you bring your Tarot cards, Carmine?” Mélanie asked. “You promised to tell my fortune.”

“You didn’t tell me you read Tarot cards.” Theo was bemused. Irreverent Carmine was interested in the occult?

“I didn’t tell Mélanie, either. The sneaky minx caught me working on a design.”

“We can’t let any of the organizers catch us,” Mélanie whispered. “The good Catholics would probably throw us all out as devil worshippers.”

The gleam in Carmine’s eyes suggested this was an exciting prospect, but she shook her head.
“This place is too noisy for a full reading,” she began, but at Mélanie’s stricken look, she relented. “I will do a simple three card spread for you.”

“Thank you.” Mélanie leaned forward eagerly.

“First clean the table and your hands, both of you.” Carmine frowned at Theo’s greasy fingers. The task was quickly accomplished with their handkerchiefs, then Carmine took an oblong bundle from her purse and unwrapped it. “I always keep the cards in silk for protection.” They were large and stiff, but she handled them with practiced ease. Theo watched the flow of colors and tantalizing glimpses of painted images. Carmine drew out a few and laid them face up on the table. There was a man in a belled cap with a little dog, a woman holding open a lion’s jaws, and a dashing knight on a white horse. “Here are the Fool, Fortitude, and the Knight of Swords.”

Theo was entranced. “You designed these yourself? They are beautiful, Carmine.”

“I am pleased with many of them, especially the ones with animals! But they are still too much like the usual decks. I want to use the traditional symbols, but in a more modern fashion. My father says he will print them if I do all the designs.”

“How exciting for you,” Mélanie said, restraining her impatience.

“I can design a deck now, when I’m young and inventive, and another when I’m a crone filled with wisdom.” Carmine laughed. “I expect it will take me a year or more to think it out and execute it.”

“So long?”

“Yes, I have a new teacher, Moina Mathers
. Her name is pronounced Mina, but she spells it with an O. She says the old Celtic form has greater power.” Carmine smiled fondly.
“She has already given me new insights. But the images themselves will be the challenge. I don’t want pictures just on the Major Arcana, but on the minor cards as well.”

“The Major Arcana?” Theo knew almost nothing about the Tarot.

“The ones you see here with the pictures, like The Fool on the edge of the cliff. There are twenty-two of them. They bring depth and power to a reading. Most of the Minor Arcana you know from a deck of playing cards. Only their court cards have pictures, like the Knight.”

“Can I look through them?” Theo held out her hand expectantly.

Carmine frowned. “I’d rather you touch them only if you are shuffling them to have your fortune told. I will show you the pictures, but each deck needs to preserve the connection with its owner.”

Theo wanted to see the images close up and feel the texture of the cards in her hands. “Well, I must have a reading too—but not in this madhouse!”

“I don’t care!” Mélanie insisted. “I’ve been wanting one ever since I saw your sketch!”

Carmine gathered the cards and handed them to Mélanie. “Then you shall have one.”

“What should I do?” Mélanie looked perplexed now that she actually held the Tarot in her hands.

“Frame a question in your mind and shuffle them. Don’t tell it to me until after I read them. Or never, if you prefer.” Mélanie began to shuffle very awkwardly and gazed at Carmine in dismay. “Do it slowly, until they feel right to you. Closing your eyes may help.”

Mélanie closed her eyes and shuffled the cards several times. At last she opened them. “And now?”

“Cut three times, from left to right,” Carmine instructed. Her demeanor was quieter and more serious than Theo had ever seen before. Art, politics, people, all were up for a tongue lashing, but Tarot cards were not to be mocked. When Mélanie cut the cards, Carmine chose one group and restacked the pack with it on top. Then she placed three cards face down in front of Mélanie. “This reading is a time progression. Sometimes it is past, present, and future. Sometimes it is the present moving into the future.”

Carmine turned over the first card and Theo drew in her breath sharply. Upside down, the image showed a stone tower struck by lightning, its jagged streak vivid against the black night sky. People fell from the ramparts, and huge stones plunged to earth as the high walls crumbled. Fire spouted from the cracked top and sent orange tongues licking around the windows.

“The Tower—reversed.” Carmine frowned fiercely. Mélanie said nothing.

“What is it?” Theo asked, not all that eager to know but hating the silence.

“Let me see the rest.” Carmine turned over the center card. “Next is the Ten of Staves.”

After the spectacle of The Tower, the simple staves looked both innocent and meaningless. “How would you paint this?” Theo asked.

Carmine thought for a moment, then answered, “The background, a wall of fire. Against it, a wall of interwoven staves.”

Mélanie looked pale. “Still—that is not as bad as the first card, is it?”

Carmine shook her head, but in a way that might mean “yes” as easily as “no.” Having begun, they had to finish, so Theo asked, “What is the last card?”

Carmine turned it over and Mélanie gave a small cry.

The card was Death—a dancing skeleton wielding his scythe. Heads lay scattered on the field in front of him…the head of a king stared blindly at the head of a peasant. Theo felt she was back in the catacombs.

“The Death card rarely means physical death,” Carmine said quickly. She looked at each of them and added, rather defiantly, “There is no card, however dark it looks, that cannot lead to brighter things.”

“You have to tell us what they mean,” Theo insisted. They could hardly pretend the cards were not there. Mélanie nodded mutely.

“First, there is something I must tell you…” Carmine stared at the Tower.

“What is it?” Theo asked, trying to restrain her impatience. Carmine loved to dramatize, but she seemed truly upset. She was as pale as Mélanie, her olive skin sickly.

Finally she looked up at them. “Every morning I draw out a card to contemplate. This morning I drew the Tower—reversed.”

“This morning?” For a second, Theo wondered if Carmine was making it up. But however much her friend might prod and provoke, she would not deceive any more than she would cover what she meant with pink sugar frosting.

Now Carmine said, “Drawing that card twice cannot be coincidence. Maybe the message is not for you. Maybe the cards are still trying to speak to me.”

“Do you think so?” Mélanie looked relieved then horrified at herself.

“I don’t know. But they are not happy cards, so I decided to tell you that before I do the reading. Let it be a buffer for you.”

Mélanie nodded. “But they may truly be for me. I understand.”

Carmine laid her hand down beside the first card. “The Tower signifies a great disruption. Suddenly, the world you know will be blasted as if by lightning. Where you expected safety and security, you will find nothing but upheaval and chaos. Sometimes the card means some literal catastrophe, a disaster that spares no one. Sometimes its meaning is personal, internal, and you will find it is your vision of the world that will tumble into ruin.”

“And what brighter thing awaits?” Theo couldn’t keep the anger from her voice. The Tarot was supposed to be a harmless diversion to please romantic Mélanie.

“After the Tower falls, you may find unexpected freedom.”

“What does it mean that the card is upside down?” Mélanie asked.

Carmine’s lips tightened, but she continued, “The fall of the Tower should be a blessing in disguise. It can mean the toppling of a despotic regime—or being broken loose from confining ways of thinking. But since it is reversed, you may find yourself imprisoned.”

“But you are warned now, Mélanie. You can cope with it better,” Theo knew she should hold her tongue, but the images throbbed before her. The longer she looked, the more alive they seemed.

Carmine didn’t chastise her but touched the middle card. “Next is the Ten of Staves. The element of Staves is fire. They are cards of action and creative energy, but here, under the weight of the ten and trapped between two grim and powerful Major Arcana, their energy becomes a terrible oppression, a blind cruelty. There are destructive influences at work that you cannot control. There is no escape. You must face whatever comes with all your courage until the energy has consumed itself.”

That left the last card, with its skeleton overlord. Carmine grazed it with a fingertip. “As I said, this card rarely means physical death.”

“But it can?” Mélanie asked, her voice wavering.

“Death finds everyone. But most often the card means the dying of an old way of life. A rebirth into light after the darkness of the scythe has cut the old bonds. The other cards cloud this, but Death also promises release.”

Carmine took up the Tower, and gave a bitter smile. “Until today, I’ve loved this card. For me it signified the forces of Revolution.”