Not on the Cards

A glimpse of the new story (first draft, so no high expectations, please):

Scene 1: Not on the Cards

Where was the paper? Chiri needed the newspaper. It was the first thing she looked for. It was how life went. Come in, sit down, open the paper, drink the coffee, wait.

Today, there was no paper. It would mess with the day. She sipped at the coffee, lifted it to see the label. It didn’t help. A change in routine always messed with the energy of the day to come.

And here was the first of her querents.

The woman blazed anger and hatred into the air surrounding her red and black aura. Chiri lowered her chin and raised her eyebrows – an invitation, if the woman wanted to see it that way. The cards in her hand buzzed. One card fell onto the purple silk square. Blank red. The face card for blood or war. The music rose in a wail of sound, a scream of pain and discordance. The woman tucked her scarf into her coat and glanced behind, left, right, before she changed direction. She touched the awning of the flimsy tent with the faded words, in red outlined by black on the white background, ‘Mistress Chiriositi Knows Your Future – Do You Want To See The Truth In Your Cards?’.

Murder. That’s what she had on her mind. Murder. And in the final stages of planning. The cards in Chiri’s hand raised the volume of their song and called the woman in.

Another one who required help before her life turned to the grey of the void.

It was early. Most of the market stall-holders were in the noisy process of setting up. Saturday. Camberwell car-park markets. The congruence of the power of the five-intersecting roads that hid the line of power directly beneath the earth. The lines that held Chiri in this place until she found the way out, or through, or between.

This woman wasn’t a stall-holder. Probably not even a local. Maybe wondering why she was here. The lilting melody of the siren-song of the cards called them to this place. Just like Chiri, they didn’t have the option of ignorance. Obey, or suffer.

So many needy people. Desperate people. Chiri couldn’t ignore them. The cards wouldn’t let her. They were the only link that held the connection to the thing Chiri needed most. She was a slave to the dictates of the cards until she found her daughter, Saffo, and brought her home.

Wherever that may be. Whenever that turned out to be.

“Hi,” the woman said as she ducked under the curtained doorway of the stall that contained Chiri, the small timber table, and two chairs.

“Come in, Sara,” Chiri said and nodded in the direction of the small black box. The white triangular paper in front of it read ‘donations’ and the slit in the top was wide enough to take a watch, but angled in such a way, and narrowed in the angle, to ensure no visitor ever saw what was within.

Sara slid a blue and silver note from her red leather wallet and folded it in four before she glanced behind and to each side. Seeming satisfied, she tapped it into the box. The slit closed as she looked back at Chiri.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” she said. She wiped her hand down the front of her coat, gripped her wallet so hard her nails gouged the leather.

“I’ll do a reading, shall I?” Chiri said as the first card fell vertically into the centre of purple.

Sara pulled the chair back and sat down. She slid the wallet into her bag, and folded her hands in her lap with the purse under them. Holding the secrets within the veil.

“Flames in five,” Chiri said. “Hot temper to worsen the will.” The next card spun through the air and settled horizontally over the first. “Wood in eight. Fuel to the flame in plenty.” The next card landed in the vertical position above the first two. “Fear of the weight of consequences.” The blank black card flashed with red in the centre.

Did Sara see it? Would she react? But Sara watched Chiri, not the cards.

Chiri nodded, but didn’t add more words. Not yet. Sara would understand or not. It wasn’t up to Chiri to explain. The cards did that.

The next card slithered into place below the first two. “Below,” Chiri said. “The season is one step behind.” She leaned in and wiped a leaf from the surface of the wild flower meadow that surrounded the almost leafless tree on the face of the Seasons card. Whatever this woman did would find its culmination in late Autumn.

Now for the real reason.

She lifted her hand from the deck, leaned in slightly, and laid it gently to the right of the main cards. “Behind,” she said. Her hand trembled as the blank red card revealed itself. “The power of might, of blood and war, has led you to this point.” Chiri gave a tiny shake of her head and turned to the card about to land on the left side of the main cards. Yellow. “Coin for service.”

Shit. It was a bad one.

The woman had the good grace to lower her eyes when Chiri glared.

“To even wish for the death of another is to bring it too close to your door,” she whispered into the cold air between them.

The next card flew to its designated place on the lower right. “A strong wind will ruin your life when you place the flame of passion too close to the fuel.” The Air eight card twisted to forty-five degrees. Chiri looked up at Sara’s face again. “I won’t continue with this reading. I don’t want to know what you decide, but hear my words, hear the warning laid out here before you, plain as the three dictums.” She put her right hand on the cards, palm up and waited until Sara placed her hand within the clasp. “If you hold your words of passion for a few months – months, you hear, not long – by mid-winter the problem will be one that doesn’t require intervention. It will be gone by the end of July. With no cost to you or your soul.” Chiri pulled Sara’s clammy cold hand close to her chest, felt the pound of the pulse against her bones.

“Will you wait?” Should she say the rest? Yes. “Or will you take the dark path and die in his place?”

Sara’s face went old-bone grey. Her lips quivered. A curl of hair slid across her now damp brow. She lifted her hand away and wiped down the side of her pants.

Chiri grimaced. What would she choose?

Sara stood, wide-eyed, stammering and stuttering. The chair fell as she spun around and almost tripped over it in her rush to get out; her hand gripped the loose door curtains and they held her for a moment. A cold draft of air entered as she tottered beyond the flimsy walls of sheer white light.

Chiri looked down at the cards, now all held safely within the fold of her hands.

She looked at the small box by the door. Still no newspaper.

A brown-eyed woman walked by, looked left, right, left, slipped inside the gauze of the curtained stall of the Card Reader.

Chiri nodded at the donation box and waited until she saw what went in. It was a note she didn’t recognise.

“I don’t really know why I’m here,” the woman said.

“I’ll do a reading, Sue, and you’ll know what choices will open.”

Would she get the newspaper when this one left, or would she have to search for it? It was unusual to not have it waiting for her on the box. It frightened her to not know why it wasn’t there. The one thing that made it clear when she was, even if she knew the where and the why.

Chiri didn’t want to think about the only other day in her constant stream of Saturday’s when the paper didn’t arrive on time.

That one lapse of judgement was what started it all. A slight trill in the breeze brought his scent to her nose and she shuddered. It wouldn’t happen again. She wouldn’t let it.

The Cards

The Cards that Represent the Way Of the Portal

Grouped to threes:

one – the number of things gives the power;

two – the sight of things as they come together;

three – what is the connection/connector that brings it to this now

Air: wind and breath

Fire: flame and passion

Wood: growth and stability

Stone: Size and density

Water: Fluidity and life

0-9: low number equals low effect; high number equals high effect.

Blank faced cards

Black: Unclear

White: Clear

Depth: black/white for clarity/lack of

Yellow: Coin/money

Luck: what surrounds the yellow card of wealth and business

Red: Blood/war

Danger: what surrounds the red card of blood and danger

Green: Sage

Safety: advice comes from the cards that surround the green

Brown: Shaman

Wisdom: what is missing from the surroundings of the brown card

Stages

Child: In the beginning stages, childish

Young/Adolescent: Learning the path of life, eager, thoughtless of danger

Adult: Strong and potentially militant in stance

Older: Life skills hard-earned

Elder: Wise enough to see beyond the immediate

Choice/Destiny: Single wheel on purple background (what led them to this point)

Season: Tree centred in field of wildflowers (the when)

Yes, I’m doing it now and not tomorrow, because I’ll be elsewhere tomorrow. Pics from Pixabay.