Pax continues: “I have a business proposition for you.”
I snort. Whether it was atbusinessorproposition, I cannot say.
His eyes dance, as if he understands. “Business only. I promise.”
I’m clenching my teeth, knotting my fingers. There is a sense of urgency here that I can’t quite place. Like a runner just before the starting gun fires, a hound just as the rabbit is released, a flag just as the wind billows it, before it snaps at its seams.
It all leaves me deeply uneasy. He’ll expose me to these zealots. He’ll be the final grain of rice. I can’t go, can I?
Go.
I stand straight. Was that… Daisy?
It was one word. Two letters only. I can’t tell!
It sounded so much like her. But I want to hear her so desperately, I can’t trust myself to know for sure. Am I imposing my own will here? Surely I am. Grief, the seductress, luring me back.
My heart pounds in my ears. I’ve been trying to hear Daisy for months, and not once has she broken through. I can’t say that I blame her; I’d never speak to me again, were I her.
Go?Does that mean run away, or go with him?Daisy, go? What do you mean?
Questions. Spirit answers no questions.
My mouth dries, my palms sweat.Daisy?
Go. That’s what I heard.
I link my hand through his elbow. It is almost unbearable, touching him, like I can feel his shadows and mine join forces. I somehow know this is a clear, defining moment in my life: There wasbeforeI met Pax, andafter.
“Where are we going, Pax?”
THE TOWER
THE 16TH MAJOR ARCANA CARD
A tower perches on a rocky mountain. Lightning strikes, setting the building on fire. People leap from the windows to their deaths.
Upright: change, upheaval, chaos, revelation, awakening, disaster, desire
Reversed: personal transformation, fear of change, avoidance
The universe wrapped Stella in its infinite wisdom, kissing her on her delicate forehead, gifting her a deep understanding of the Other Side.
The universe dealt me the Tower.
I’ve known from an early age that the Tower was my destiny. When Stella was five and I, seven, our drunk landlord let himself into our room with his key and started yanking ourmamanaround. What happened next was an upheaval of our lives, and only after I died did I understand how young Stella experienced this scene:
Stella watched that creep roughhouse ourmaman, and her vision clouded deep red.
Stella, who had always chatted with imaginary friends, suddenly implored one of them for help. “Asomoday.” (I recall how, when she’d uttered the name, I’d shivered.) Shadows swarmed. Time slowed. Her veins throbbed with power. Her face warped, her heart blackened, and she loosed a primal, urgent scream. But her vision. That was the part that scared me the most. Like looking at the world through blood. I’ll never, ever forget what I saw through her eyes. Everyone looks like prey when you’re viewing them through blood.
Stella dug her fingernails into the landlord’s doughy flesh, and she pushed him with a force that a five-year-old should not have been capable of.
He tripped over a curtain cord. He fell, backward, through a window.
Eight stories. Neck snapped on impact.
Maman took one quick, queasy look out the window, then sprang into action. She moved us to the opposite side of the city and somehow procured new paperwork for us. She changed her name from Lily to Helen, but to us, she was always just Maman. Rose became Stella. And I, Daisy, was supposed to be Ruth, but young Stella could never remember to call me that. So I remained, effectively, Daisy. Her forever flower. And after Maman’s death, we still ran. Still hid. Still earned money any way we could.
