room,” said a distant voice she thought she could just make out behind the sound of the water rushing out of the tap into her bath that morning. This was more common: she often heard indistinct voices underneath rushing or mechanical sounds like running water or the vacuum; the chatter of elementals, she had often speculated, which was just as likely as her father’s explanation of such phenomena; that is, governmental telepathic experiments or neighbors talking behind their backs, their voices amplified by an inadvertent alignment of magnetic or atmospheric conditions. But this time it was recognizably Daisy’s voice, and it was Daisy’s scent blowing in through the window as well. There was another voice too, but it turned out to be the mom yelling “Two and ten o’clock!” which was her way of advising Andromeda not to fill the bathtub up quite so quickly and to use less hot water. She had drawn little arrows and x marks on the tiles by the taps.
Call the police? And tell them what, exactly? “Someone is burning down my dead friend’s room.” Andromeda listened below the water for the familiar Daisy refrain “Fucking with you, Klein,” but if it was there, she could not discern it.
One thing she knew: the deformed cards in the dream recalled a series of paintings that Daisy had done for an art-class exhibition her sophomore (Andromeda’s freshman) year; she had painted and pasted over enlarged color copies of the Pixie-Waite cards to include whimsical features from Clearview High School culture and society. Andromeda wished she could consult the paintings but was doubtful they still existed. At any rate, though she was not about to call the police, it was clear she was meant to rescue the tarot deck in the Eye of Horus bag in the blackened cedar box from whatever fate might be awaiting it. She imagined Mizmac cutting the cards into strips with scissors and burning them in the patio fireplace. It had to be prevented.
Now, in the library’s Temple of Mercury, as she was closing up the cartomancy books and sniffing the air to determine whether she could smell Daisy mingling with the book smell she loved, she noticed something. Why had she thought the blindfolded girl in the Two of Swords was kneeling? She had looked at the card hundreds of times, and the kneeling image was clear in her mind. But looking at it now, she saw that the girl was not kneeling at all. She was seated on a bench or box of some kind. Strange how Andromeda had never noticed that before. The girl also seemed to be peeking from behind her blindfold, and her hands were … not very feminine—they were huge, in fact. What would happen if the Two of Swords girl was actually a boy?
This question strengthened rather than diminished Andromeda’s sense of the card as her significator, as it pointed to one of the recurring anxieties in her action-populated head, one that had resulted in several attempts to charge sigils derived from the statement “This is my wish to become more feminine.” Boys tended to lack enthusiasm for aero dynamic bodies like hers, though some girls could make it work. Despite Bryce’s claims to be attracted to her during the brief time they had technically been boyfriend-girlfriend, he hadn’t seemed too interested in touching her, despite considerable encouragement. And St. Steve: she hated to admit it, but he had been the same way, the main difference being the intensity of her wishes. Bryce was sweet, and Daisy had averred that he was cute, even, but he was not the sort of person to inspire passion in anyone.
The number two—that is, Chokmah—lies on the masculine Pillar of Mercy; perhaps that was what A.E. and Pixie were getting at with their Two of Swords design.
At any rate, when she really looked at the Two of Swords, it was a totally different card. There were no shallow pools as she had thought, like on so many of the other Swords cards; rather, the aerodynamic girl-boy was in the foreground of a lake
Call the police? And tell them what, exactly? “Someone is burning down my dead friend’s room.” Andromeda listened below the water for the familiar Daisy refrain “Fucking with you, Klein,” but if it was there, she could not discern it.
One thing she knew: the deformed cards in the dream recalled a series of paintings that Daisy had done for an art-class exhibition her sophomore (Andromeda’s freshman) year; she had painted and pasted over enlarged color copies of the Pixie-Waite cards to include whimsical features from Clearview High School culture and society. Andromeda wished she could consult the paintings but was doubtful they still existed. At any rate, though she was not about to call the police, it was clear she was meant to rescue the tarot deck in the Eye of Horus bag in the blackened cedar box from whatever fate might be awaiting it. She imagined Mizmac cutting the cards into strips with scissors and burning them in the patio fireplace. It had to be prevented.
Now, in the library’s Temple of Mercury, as she was closing up the cartomancy books and sniffing the air to determine whether she could smell Daisy mingling with the book smell she loved, she noticed something. Why had she thought the blindfolded girl in the Two of Swords was kneeling? She had looked at the card hundreds of times, and the kneeling image was clear in her mind. But looking at it now, she saw that the girl was not kneeling at all. She was seated on a bench or box of some kind. Strange how Andromeda had never noticed that before. The girl also seemed to be peeking from behind her blindfold, and her hands were … not very feminine—they were huge, in fact. What would happen if the Two of Swords girl was actually a boy?
This question strengthened rather than diminished Andromeda’s sense of the card as her significator, as it pointed to one of the recurring anxieties in her action-populated head, one that had resulted in several attempts to charge sigils derived from the statement “This is my wish to become more feminine.” Boys tended to lack enthusiasm for aero dynamic bodies like hers, though some girls could make it work. Despite Bryce’s claims to be attracted to her during the brief time they had technically been boyfriend-girlfriend, he hadn’t seemed too interested in touching her, despite considerable encouragement. And St. Steve: she hated to admit it, but he had been the same way, the main difference being the intensity of her wishes. Bryce was sweet, and Daisy had averred that he was cute, even, but he was not the sort of person to inspire passion in anyone.
The number two—that is, Chokmah—lies on the masculine Pillar of Mercy; perhaps that was what A.E. and Pixie were getting at with their Two of Swords design.
At any rate, when she really looked at the Two of Swords, it was a totally different card. There were no shallow pools as she had thought, like on so many of the other Swords cards; rather, the aerodynamic girl-boy was in the foreground of a lake
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