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Surely I don’t wear it all the time just because I think it’s pretty.
The Lovers.The Devil.The Tower.
The cards were lovely and unusual.I don’t know a lot about Tarot, but I’m familiar with the traditional Rider-Waite deck that most people think of when they think of the tarot—at least I’m familiar with what it looks like and the names of the Major Arcana, the twenty-two themed cards most people think of first.
And while this deck was clearly based upon that one with the same card names, it had a very different look.
They were so beautiful.They looked hand-painted.Such a tragedy for art like that to go up in flames—which is why I grabbed them.They’re still gripped tightly in my hand, and I’m not sure if I got them all.
I don’t know why I took them.I definitely didn’t want a trophy from tonight, but I just couldn’t let them burn.It all happened so fast.I don’t think Brian knows I have them.I unzip my duffle bag and slip the cards inside, hoping I’m not missing any and desperately wanting to look at them.But it’s too dark inside the car anyway.
The few cards I saw in the shop all had pale nude figures that looked as though they were carved from marble on a stark glossy black background.Simple.Elegant.Hyper-realistic.Both the lovers and the devil had highly erotic imagery but with opposite intentions: one of love and one of bondage.The tower was a glass reflective building, suspended in space, exploding into shards, a tiny nude figure falling off the top, plummeting to his doom.
I make a mental note to look up these cards and their meanings when I get home.Though their meanings seem pretty self-explanatory.I’m not sure that I’ll mine any new depths with an Internet search.
And then the death card—a skull with a black and silver snake slithering through the eye holes.I wonder if Benjamin would have died tonight if that card hadn’t been on top—if I might have been able to talk Brian out of it.I feel like there is some awful fate coming for us, and I can’t shake it.
Did this fate get set in motion by Brian’s actions tonight… or was it already in the cards?I think it’s strange that all the cards that came up both for Brian and for Benjamin were Major Arcana.None of the suits, and that’s the majority of the deck.What does that mean?Maybe it means he doesn’t shuffle his deck well enough.That’s what Brian would say about it, anyway.
I watch the scenery out the window, trying to clear my head of all of this morbidness.Christmas Eve is supposed to be a time of excitement and wonder and anticipation, a time to wait for Santa to deliver your presents, a time to leave out milk and cookies and maybe sneak a few yourself.
But tonight has been more macabre, morbid, and scary in its own way than Halloween, and as we’ve just moved past the solstice and are rushing headlong into a new year, I can’t help but wonder what the future holds for us.
I’m surprised when Brian doesn’t drive us back to the house but instead to a very nice suburban neighborhood—a wealthier neighborhood with large but not too ostentatious houses.Each house has tasteful white Christmas lights on the outside and electric candles in all the windows.There was obviously a meeting to determine how everyone would decorate.
And while it’s a little boring and anal retentive for every house to be exactly the same, it’s also pretty impressive—both because they got every owner of every house to participate, but also because this level of sameness on this scale is very appealing to the eye.
It’s such a huge shift from the costume shop and the Krampus run.
“Brian?Where are we going?”
“Just one more thing I’ve got to do,” he says cryptically.
It can’t be another job.He would have told me.Besides, it’s well after two a.m.on Christmas Eve.Surely even killers take Christmas off.
He parks the car and reaches into the back seat to retrieve a brightly wrapped package I hadn’t noticed.
“Brian?”
“It’s nothing.Stay in the car.”
I watch him break into the house.Nothing smashes or breaks.He’s got a key.Why does he have a key to this house?Howdoes he have a key to this house?I’m worried an alarm will go off, but nothing happens.This is the kind of neighborhood where every house has a home security system.
As if to put a fine point on this observation, I notice a small sign in the front yard with a spotlight on it announcing the company that protects the house.And yet… no alarm starts blaring.
Maybe it’s a silent alarm and the police will come to cart Brian off for...leaving someone a Christmas present?Maybe it’s a bomb.I’m honestly baffled.
Five minutes later he’s back in the car.
“That house has a security system,” I say.
“I know.I have the code,” he says as he backs out onto the main road.
“Are you going to tell me what all that was about?”
“Nope.”
I turn back to the house in time to see a small boy looking out the window into the night.He’s looking up at the sky like he thinks he’ll find Santa Claus up there, and that’s when I realize who it is.
