The Impossible Cube

an illusion created by our own limited senses, and that as many as eleven other dimensions exist beyond our ability to see, but they still affect what happens to us. Everything is connected in one way or another, and once you accept that idea, the possibility that three tarot cards could fall out of Linda’s deck and my electrical systems could play ‘Camptown Ladies’ at the very moment you had a conversation with a man named Nicolas Adames doesn’t seem very far-fetched.”

Linda, who had been waiting near the table all this time with her hands folded, said, “Honey, let me tell you what the cards mean and then you can decide what to do about it, all right?”

“Very well.” Alice sighed, clearly not convinced. She took up a stool next to the table and Gavin stood behind her. Strangely, he didn’t share her skepticism. In the long moments when he watched over Alice, he sometimes found himself drawn into deep places, places where things could exist everywhere and nowhere all at once, where tiny, graceful objects appeared and disappeared so quickly, it was difficult to say they had hardly existed at all, where almost everything was vast, empty space that threatened to swallow him up, where matter was made of an infinity of tiny, delicate strings that vibrated and sang with a wonderful perfection that made him weep with joy and envy. And just as he was reaching out to touch them and change their song, alter matter itself, Alice murmured in her sleep, and the sound snatched him backward and upward into a bumbling world of impossible hugeness that could only be manipulated by tearing it apart by fire or grinding it around gears. It was maddening. If there were a way to better understand how it all fit together, he wanted to hear about it.

Linda took up a stool opposite Alice while Charlie watched from his booth. Tiny jolts of electricity arced across his brain.

“Normally, honey, I’d dim the lights and burn some incense and have Charlie make some whoosh-whoosh noises,” Linda said, “but you aren’t flatties, so I’ll give it to you without the show.”

“We appreciate that,” Alice said.

“How do you tell fortunes to people who don’t speak English?” Gavin asked.

“I speak more than just English, honey, and Charlie speaks what I don’t. The pictures on the cards tell the rest. Most of my business is actually from women who are expecting.”

“Why them?” Gavin said.

“They want to know if it’s a boy or a girl. I dangle her wedding ring on a string over her middle and tell her what the baby will be based on which way the ring moves. Then I write it down in my book.” She gestured to a leather-bound diary on a high shelf. “I have predictions going back twenty years.”

Alice leaned forward, interested despite herself. “And how many come out right?”

“Lord, honey, I have no idea. Probably half. I can’t tell a thing from a wedding ring. I just tell them what they want to hear. Part of the show.”

“So what happens when you’re wrong?” Gavin wanted to know.

“Usually we’re long gone by the time the baby’s born, dear. But sometimes when we come back to a city, I’ll get an annoyed mother who shows up with a daughter, ready to fight because I told her she’d have a son. I tell her that I didn’t get the prediction wrong. She heard me wrong. Then I get my book down and show her where I wrote she’d have a daughter, and I’m off the hook.”

“Because you write the opposite of what you say,” Alice supplied.

Linda nodded with a smile. “There you have it, honey. It won’t do to have the fortune-teller come out wrong.”

“So why should we believe you now?” Alice demanded.

“Do or don’t.” Linda shrugged. “But you aren’t paying me and I like you both, so I have no reason to make anything up.”

Alice didn’t look convinced, but Gavin said, “Fair enough. Tell us what the cards mean, Linda.”

“Sure, honey. Look closely.” She gestured at the cards on the tiny table in front of her. “All three cards come from the trumps. They indicate large, important events that are difficult to control or change. The first card that fell out of the deck was the mystery trump, which everyone calls Death. Before you panic, let me tell you that it doesn’t mean someone’s going to die. It means one thing will end so something else can begin. You can’t stop the end from coming, but you can decide which direction the new thing will take. Since it fell out first, I assume that’s what’s coming first.”

“All right,” Alice said.

“The second trump card is the House of God. It’s as bad as it looks—utter destruction. Unlike the Death card, this is an end out of which nothing new can begin. It doesn’t mean someone will die, but it might. It’s not a good omen, honey.”

Linda’s words sent a chill over Gavin’s skin, and her cheerful tone only made the dreadful prediction worse. Alice, however, remained unmoved.

“I see,” was all she said.

“The third card landed across the House,” Linda continued, seemingly oblivious to Alice’s attitude. “This is why I called you in to talk to you. Charlie told me what the priest said to you, and this card is the Hierophant or Pope. He symbolizes religious leadership, power, and discipline. When one card lands across another, the crossing card is interfering with the card beneath. In this case, we have a religious leader who is interfering with total destruction. And just as these cards landed on the floor, Charlie told me what your priest said.”

“That flood and plague will destroy us all if I fail,” Alice murmured.

“No.” Gavin put his hand on her shoulder. “He said flood and plague will destroy us all if I fail. He said that I can cure the world, but you have to let go.”

“Let what go?” Alice growled. She held up her spider hand. “This? I wish I could.”

“He said that you have to let him go,” Charlie said gently.

Alice rounded on him. “How do you know that?”