“Tarot cards?” Alessandra raises an eyebrow as I grab three empty mugs and guide her into the living room.
“Yeah, my stepmom is obsessed, and Izzy has just discovered them.” I gather up the spread on the floor and gesture for Alessandra to sit on the sofa. She looks around, taking in the shelves of books, the plants that bloom from every surface. “Have you been here before?” I ask.
“No, but it is very welcoming. I can tell your stepmother is in charge of the decorating, and the tidying. You have seen your father’s desk, yes?”
“I have. He’s always been messy.” I chuckle as Izzy comes in and sets the teapot on the table. She’s magicked up some chocolate biscuits and a small matching jug of milk and bowl of sugar. “How is everything at the gallery now?”
“It is mostly normal again. The staff locker room has only just been reopened,” Alessandra says, watching Izzy pour the tea and accepting a mug. “But I cannot go in there anymore. It is too…sad, I think. But it is in use again.”
“Did the police ever come back to talk to you?” I ask, the words out of my mouth before I can help it. Izzy serves me a mug of tea and a look that says “You’re on thin ice, Keller,” and my face heats up.
“I spoke to the detectives again, yes. They told me about the suspect they had in custody but after what happened to that poor girl on Friday, I think he has been released.”
Interesting. They would only have released the unhoused man if they thought the murders were linked—if he was in custody,then he couldn’t have killed Jen, could he? Maybe my intuition was right after all.
Alessandra adds just enough milk to tint the dark amber liquid in her cup and picks up a teaspoon to stir it in. “It is terrible that they were allowed to print those awful photographs online. I hope you did not see them.”
“Photos?” I glance at Izzy, who looks away, and remember the news channel on the TV when I first came into the living room. “Photos of what?”
“The girl from Friday. Jennifer, I think her name was? A reporter got there before the police and put the pictures online.” Alessandra shudders. “Please, do not look. They are so upsetting.”
“No, I won’t,” I say, and I kind of mean it. I don’t want to see those pictures.
But they might help me prove that The Four and the recent murders are linked…
We sit in silence for a few minutes as Izzy moves the tarot cards around and Alessandra flicks through one of Kim’s witchy books that Izzy must have left out. I blow on my tea, hoping I’ve not made it too strong.
Alessandra eventually changes the subject. “Tell me about the cards.”
Izzy, who is sitting on the floor at the opposite side of the table, kneels up, her eyes twinkling. “Do you read tarot?” sheasks.
“No.” Alessandra shakes her head as Izzy tidies the deck and starts to shuffle. “But we hosted an exhibition on them for a few months. There were some very old pieces, including Italian tarocchi cards.”
“What are they?” Izzy replies, placing a now neat deck on the coffee table.
“The original tarot. It began as a card game that the Italian nobility played.” She takes a sip of tea, and a smile crosses her lips. “Over the centuries people ascribed more and more meaning to the cards, until they became tools of divination.”
“You don’t believe in it, then?” I ask her, relieved I’m not the only one.
“Not really. I do find it interesting that others do, though, and I love to see the variations on design that people come up with.” Alessandra taps the deck. “This set, for instance—the pattern tells me it is a Rider-Waite-Smith deck, which was developed in 1909.”
“I knew that!” Izzy waves a little book in the air. “I’ve been doing some research on Pamela Colman Smith, the artist. Did you know that her name wasn’t even on a deck until 2009? And that was just a commemorative edition. Even though she drew the artwork on the cards, it was named after the men who funded and published the deck for over a hundred years!”
“I did know that,” Alessandra says, laughing softly. “She was quite a character, from what I remember. I am sure we still have some of the exhibition booklets at the gallery. There was an entire section on her letters and sketches. I will dig one out if you would like to come by and get it?”
“I’d love that, thank you,” Izzy says. She pushes the deck in Alessandra’s direction. “Would you like to choose one?”
“Why not.” Alessandra finishes her tea and pulls the card on the top of the deck, holding it face down for a second as she looksat each of us in turn. “And then I will go and let you eat, if you promise to text me before bed and again in the morning.”
“I promise,” I say, cradling my mug. “We really didn’t mean to worry you.”
“I know.” Satisfied, Alessandra turns the card and places it face up on the table. It’s upside down, the picture facing Izzy, who thumbs through the little booklet.
“The Two of Swords,” she mumbles, still flicking pages as I tilt my head to study the card.
A figure sits on a stone plinth in front of a rocky ocean backdrop and a crescent moon. Their hair is short, they’re wearing a flowing white gown not unlike an old-fashioned nightdress and hold a longsword in each hand. These are crossed over each other to form an X. Izzy finally stops on a page and reads aloud.
“Here we go. It’s upside down, or reversed, which means something different, so…” She skims the page. “According to this, it means falsehood, duplicity and disloyalty.” She glances at Alessandra and grimaces, baring her teeth. “Erm, sorry aboutthat.”
