The Moonlit Mind: A Tale of Suspense

15

Sunday, the fourth of December, on the evening of Crispin’s thirteenth birthday …

Snow fell through the previous night and all morning, but in the afternoon the storm relented.

They sit across from each other in the same booth in Eleanor’s, though this time Harley lies on Amity’s bench, his head in her lap. Dinner is done, and the dog is dozing.

She sings the birthday song softly, sweetly. It’s corny, but he doesn’t stop her. Her singing voice is lovely.

After the song, she says, “Tell me again about the cards.”

“I told you the first time I was here. There’s not much to it, really.”

“I want to understand better.”

“There’s no understanding it.”

“Try me.”

Her face is lovely in the candlelight. There is nothing of Nanny Sayo in this girl and never could be. Nothing of Clarette, either, or of Proserpina.

Crispin taps the deck, which lies on the table, in its box. “The shop sold magic tricks and games. The old man, the owner, said dogs were welcome.”

“This was the night of the day you first met the dog.”

“Yeah. I hadn’t named him yet. After I bought the cards, me and Harley sneaked down to the shop’s basement to stay the night.”

“The owner didn’t know you were down there.”

“Nope. He closed us in when he closed the shop.”

“Why did you buy the cards?”

“I don’t know. It just seemed …”

“What?”

“Something I needed to do. That was my second day on the run, so the feast of the archangels … that was still so fresh with me. Middle of the night, I woke up from a bad dream about my brother, woke up saying his name. That’s when I named the dog Harley. When and why.”

The sleeping dog snores softly in Amity’s lap.

“That’s when you opened the deck the first time,” she presses, for she knows this story well.

“We had a light down there in the storeroom. The cards were something to do, to take my mind off … whatever. It was a brand-new pack. I know it had to be new because I broke the seal, stripped off the cellophane.”

He opens the box now, removes the cards, but leaves them stacked facedown.

“I shuffled them,” he remembers, “I don’t know … maybe five or six times. I was nine, the only card game I could play was five-hundred rummy, but I couldn’t even do that because I didn’t have anyone to play with but the dog.”

“So you just dealt two hands faceup, so you could play against yourself.”

“Stupid kid idea, playing against yourself. Anyway, the first four cards I deal are the sixes.”

The memory still disturbs him, and he pauses.

She can read him better than anyone has. She gives him time, but then nudges with three words: “Four moldy sixes.”

“A brand-new deck, but the sixes are dirty, creased, and moldy.”

“Like the sixes on the warehouse floor.”

“Exactly like. There were other cards scattered on the warehouse floor when the dog led me in there to the dead junkie and his money, but the sixes were all together, faceup.”

“All together when you went in.”

“Yeah. But when we came out, only one six was on the floor. All the other cards seemed to be scattered where they had been, but three of the sixes were missing.”

“Someone took them.”

“No one was there. And who would want some moldy old cards?”

In the basement storeroom of the magic-and-game shop, he had sat staring at the filthy cards for a long time, afraid to touch them.

“What I finally did was go through the rest of the deck to make sure there wasn’t a completely different set of sixes, clean ones, but there wasn’t.”

“And none of the other cards were dirty or creased, or moldy.”

“None,” he confirms. “I just didn’t want to touch those four, like there was a curse on them or something. But Harley kept sniffing them and looking at me. So I decided if they didn’t scare him, they shouldn’t scare me.”

Harley sighs and shudders, still asleep but evidently dreaming of something that pleases him.

“I put the moldy sixes on top of the deck and reached for the box to stow them away. But Harley slaps one paw down hard on the box before I can pick it up.”

“Good old Harley.”

“He gives me this stare that seems to say, What are you doing, boy? You’re not done with this yet.”

“The hairs were up on the back of your neck.”

“They were,” Crispin agrees, “but in a kind of good way. I don’t know what the dog wants me to do, so I shuffle several times and deal out four cards again.”

“The four sixes, but not the moldy ones.”

“You might as well tell it, since you know it so well.”

“I’d love to tell it if I knew anyone to trust with the story. But I like to hear you tell it.”

“With your editorial assistance.”

“No charge,” she says, and grins.

Her smile reminds him of Mirabell’s, and he loves her like a sister.

“I shuffle, deal, and right away turn up four sixes, but not moldy now. As crisp and clean as all the other cards. I go through the deck, looking for the damaged sixes, but there aren’t any.”

“Harley still has one paw on the card box.”

“He does. And for maybe an hour I keep shuffling and dealing, trying to turn up four moldy sixes again, or even four clean new ones, all in a row.”

“But it doesn’t happen.”

“It doesn’t,” Crispin agrees. “And then I hear myself say what I never thought to say. I mean, it all comes out of me like someone’s speaking through me. ‘Harley,’ I say, ‘when those four ugly ones come up again in a row, if they ever do, it’ll be time for us to go back to Theron Hall.’ ”

“So then he takes his paw off the box.”

“He does.”

“And you put the cards away.”

“I do.”

Amity leans back in the booth and crosses her arms over her chest, hugging herself. “Now comes the part I like best.”

Harley snorts, wakes, yawns, and sits up on the bench beside the Phantom of Broderick’s.