Floats the Dark Shadow (21 page)

Moina Mathers came to greet them. Her voice had a beautiful resonance, and Theo relaxed in her presence immediately. She had a warmth, a glow that both brightened and soothed. Willful brown hair framed her face. Her eyes were vivid cobalt, her skin a warm olive. Moss green, her flowing dress was in the Arts and Crafts style fashionable a while ago. On her it seemed timeless. Since Carmine used Moina’s given name, Theo suggested the same. She preferred informal manners.

Gesturing to the sketches, she asked, “Are these for a play? They are evocative.”

Moina tilted her head and smiled. “We plan to give performances of ancient Egyptian dances—as we envision them.”

Theo wondered just what
envision
meant.

“Carmine said that you wanted her to read the Tarot for you.” Moina held up a hand. “I know. That was before the fire. All the more reason to carry through. Questioning will open paths for you. Trust will come in time.”

“I don’t know if I could ever trust the Tarot.” Since Mélanie’s reading had come so devastatingly true, Theo was wary. Could such a sinister coincidence be mere chance?

“The Tarot did not cause the fire,” Moina said, as if she could read Theo’s mind.

“No, of course not,” Theo answered, but realized that was part of her fear, however irrational. She thought of Mélanie’s Cassandra, doomed to see the future and not prevent it. She thought of Mélanie’s charred corpse, wearing the Wedgewood cameo that Inspecteur Devaux had cleaned. Yet, Carmine survived because of the cards. Mélanie might have too, had she not misunderstood the falling Tower for the École des Beaux-Arts. The cards were not a trap, but they could mislead as easily as reveal.

“You can say no, Theo.” Carmine looked at her directly.

“No, I can’t.” She could not walk away. She needed to prove to herself that the foretelling of the fire was only a terrifying fluke. “Let’s begin.”

“Usually I consult the Tarot only for our students,” Moina told her. “But what happened at the charity bazaar was quite extraordinary. My husband agrees with me that it is appropriate to read for you.”

With a prickling along her spine, the conversation with Carmine and Mélanie returned. She disliked Moina’s dependence on her husband’s approval.

Moina smiled serenely. “MacGregor is my husband, my friend, and my teacher.”

Once again, Theo had the disconcerting feeling that Moina could read her mind. Though more likely, her thoughts were plain on her face.

Moina tilted her head. “Carmine thought it would be better if I read the cards, Theodora. But if you prefer, Carmine could do it.”

“Moina could watch and comment,” Carmine added.

Theo was curious about Moina, but she had to admit to herself the offer relieved her.

They went into a pleasant little alcove where afternoon sun filtered hazily through embroidered curtains of red gauze. The rosy light edged the black-on-black design of Carmine’s cut velvet jacket, an array of poppies. Theo could imagine Carmine dressed in perfect Gypsy regalia, a silk scarf bright with scarlet flowers wrapped around her hair, kohl painted around her eyes, and a multitude of gold chains draped about her neck. Theo felt another surge of gratitude. It was the first image she’d had in days that did not conjure the fire.

Carmine unfolded the silk protecting her Tarot deck. Despite her uneasiness, Theo wanted to see the images close up and feel the textures of the cards in her hands. “Three cards?”

“Too few,” Carmine said. “I only did a brief reading for Mélanie because it was so crowded and noisy in the bazaar. My grandmother first taught me the Tarot. I will use her special six card layout.”

Theo nodded. She could hardly refuse Carmine’s almost mythical grandmother.

Carmine handed her the deck. “Remember to pose a question in your mind as you shuffle them.”

“Can’t they just tell me whatever I need to know?”

“If you prefer.”

Theo began shuffling the cards. They felt large and awkward, difficult to manipulate. Part of her still insisted the whole thing was silly. Yet over and over she saw the images of the flaming Tower and of Death. Theo pushed those images away and tried to look into the future without asking anything specific. She painted a lazy question mark in her mind as she shuffled, a stroke of mental calligraphy. The cards felt cool and smooth in her hands, yet warm and alive, too. She had not expected that. Then they seemed to fall into place smoothly, and she felt a quiet descend. How strange.

“I think that must be right.” She set them down, remembering to cut three times.

Carmine’s hand hovered over the piles. She chose the center one and placed it atop the others, a different order than she had chosen for Mélanie. She put one face down on the table. “My grandmother always laid them out one at a time
, so I will too.”

Theo was holding her breath. She let it out in a shaky sigh. “Show me the first.”

“This represents the past,” Carmine said at last, and turned over the first card. “The Seven of Staves.”

It looked like an ordinary playing card to Theo. She felt nothing. “Before you tell me what this card means, Carmine, tell me the image you will paint for it.”

Carmine looked up at Theo. “I see a wounded Amazon. She holds a long stave to support herself. Behind her the other staves stand like a fragile fence. Beyond them, fire and smoke on a hillside with an army approaching.” The image came alive in Theo’s mind, and she nodded for Carmine to continue. “You are in the midst of a monumental battle, Theo, a battle that will call for all your strength.”

“A battle?”

“You have achieved a victory, but it is not the end. The respite may even be an illusion. Another ordeal lies ahead.”

Memory pierced Theo. Her courage had been tested in the fire. She’d won a great victory, but at a terrible cost. “Mélanie had a card with Staves. She was trapped in the fire.”

“Fire is the element of that suit, but Mélanie’s card wasn’t the seven. Your card says you can win the battle, but you must keep fighting no matter what the odds.”

“I don’t give up.” She nodded for Carmine to go on.

“The present—the heart of the matter.” Carmine turned over a new card and drew a sharp breath. “The Devil.”

“The Devil,” Theo repeated, frowning at the ugly, looming goatish figure and the chained minions at its feet…its hooves. The figure of the Devil had horns. The male and female figures below did too, and tails, but otherwise were human, even attractive. Incubus and succubus? “At least it’s not Death.”

Carmine looked at Moina but neither of them spoke. The silence was palpable. “What?” Theo demanded. “It’s bad enough when you talk, saying nothing is worse.”

“There is a malign force at work—a power both seductive and repugnant.” Carmine met her hostile look. “You may be chained by your own passions.”

Theo felt perplexed, then relieved. The cards must be wrong. But even as she shook her head, Moina added, “You may be ensnared in a maze of evil instigated by another. Theodora, is there anyone in your life that you see as destructive—perhaps even evil?”

“Evil?” The idea of a devil running around was ridiculous, but not all evil decked itself out in horns and pitchforks. People committed evil acts. Robbery. Murder. Children were abducted and tortured. She heard less certainty in her voice. “I don’t know anyone evil.”

Carmine was watching her sharply. “Not even a forbidden temptation that threatens to take hold?”

Theo began a denial, then bit her lip. Falling in love with your cousin was forbidden by the Catholic Church. It also wasn’t wise. Her heart might be broken. But a big looming Devil with scaly skin and hairy goat legs? Averill with cloven hooves peeking out below his elegant but often rumpled suit? She swallowed a laugh. “Not really.”

“The Devil can be a figure of anarchy,” Carmine suggested, rather reluctantly.

“Anarchy?”
Paul?
Theo’s thoughts jumbled together. Paul’s violence was all talk, an idea he played with to vent his frustrations. Wasn’t it?

Moina leaned closer. “Sometimes this card means addiction to a substance, or bondage to a person.” She touched the man and woman on the card. “See how the chains only drape them? They enslave themselves, from lust, or from fear.”

Hot tears pricked Theo’s eyes. What if Averill could not escape the clutches of absinthe? He did not heed her warnings, or Casimir’s. As for his parents—“Oh.”

“Oh, what?” Carmine asked immediately.

“I do know someone who might be as terrible as that Devil.” How could she have forgotten for an instant? “My evil unc…” Theo bit back the word.

Carmine gave her a knowing look. Her friend had certainly untangled the polite sham knitted over Theo’s parentage. “Urbain Charron is my guardian’s brother. He’s a horrible, domineering man. I even think of him as evil Urbain.”

“What does he do that is so evil?” Moina asked.

“He’s a doctor. He treats women, though I can’t understand how any woman could trust him. Fine ladies consult him at his office, but he also performs surgeries at the asylum. He cuts out their wombs to make them more docile. And he does hideous experiments on animals. Vivisection.” Theo’s stomach lurched at the thought of their torment.

“That is truly evil,” Moina agreed. “Yet it took long for you to think of him. He does not have you in thrall.”

“No.” But he did seem to have Averill in thrall.

“Might it be anyone else?” Carmine asked. “Even someone you do not know well but have glimpsed?”

Vipèrine came into Theo’s mind like a fairy tale villain, evil eyes glittering above his fantastical blue beard. That reminded her of Gilles de Rais, of Averill and Casimir whispering his words as if it were a game. Gilles de Rais—there was true evil. But he was long dead. She shrugged. “Let me see the next card.”

“Your future.” Carmine placed another card opposite the first, making a V with the Devil at the bottom. She turned it over and frowned. “The Moon.”

Theo glared at the new image, disliking it on sight. High in its center, the profile face of a quarter moon was drawn within a full round. Its pearly whiteness was the only brightness and was hypnotic. The thickly clouded sky and the barren grey land below were glum and dismal. Two forbidding stone towers glowered in the background. In the center of the landscape, a wolf and a dog howled up at the hovering moon. They crouched on either side of a murky pool, where a black scorpion crawled out of the polluted water.

“Truth is hidden within illusion and deception,” Carmine told her. “I think this weaves together with The Devil. The Moon can be the card of the inspired genius, but it can also be the card of the lunatic, the drug addict—the tortured soul.”

“Beware when crossing the landscape of The Moon,” Moina warned. “You may feel trapped within a nightmare. Yet night’s darkness promises a new dawn.”

Carmine laid two more above the others. “These are your choices—paths you might follow. They may be what you hope for or what you fear, but each is linked to the cards beneath. When Theo nodded, she turned one over. “The Page of Cups, reversed.”

Theo saw a charming and elegant young man in a medieval tunic. Rich, vibrant, the colors evoked the glow of satin, the lushness of velvet. One hand was at his hip, a rose dangling from his fingers. The other held a jeweled goblet.

Carmine began, “The Page is a romantic soul. Imaginative, poetic, even visionary….”

Averill
. Hope and fear wove together inside Theo, pulled taut.

Carmine hesitated, perhaps reading Theo’s face. Moina spoke softly. “This card is ill-aspected. Water follows fire, an element hostile to it. This person is beset by turbulence and troubles, perhaps even violence.”