and dogs and naked women on them.
“What are those?”
“Your future,” she said. She shuffled them in her hands, her fingers oddly graceful while the rest of her body was limp.
“Mine or everyone’s?” he asked.
She stopped and looked at him, her septic eye burning in her face. “Ask me not to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Ask me not to. Tell me to stop. Don’t tell me anything. You can move away. You have that option and you should choose it soon.”
“What are you saying I should do?”
“Anything but this. Just go and leave what is dead dead and look at what is alive.”
“What’s dead?”
Sibyl did not answer. Connelly looked at her, thinking. He said, “How do you know?”
“I just have to look at you. Anyone can. Simply by looking you over I can see.”
Connelly bowed his head. “I can’t. I can’t stop.”
“I know,” she said. Then she shuffled the cards and took one out and tossed it on the table.
He looked at it. It was a small painting of a crude-looking man with a wide, frowning mouth. He was riding in a chariot being pulled by two horses wearing blinders. On his head he wore a crown of pearl and in his hand he held a plain scepter, varnished with age. His free hand was lifted as though he was trying to both balance himself and acknowledge those he passed by, much as a king would.
“The chariot,” said Sibyl.
“What’s that?”
“The chariot,” she said again. “He rides out, eager to conquer, willing to ride down what obstacles come before him. To conquer and kill and reach down into the earth and pick up what meets his disfavor and rearrange it in the way that he deems fit. But he forgets that he is being pulled not by his own strength but instead is at the mercy of beasts that he himself has chosen to blind. So you must remember that even though you burn bright and hard with belief, you believe more in your goal than the manner of arriving there.”
“So?” said Connelly.
“What do you mean, so?”
“I mean, what does that matter?”
She held the card up to her face, then shut her eyes and took a deep breath through her nose, drawing in its scent. Then she opened her eyes, the fouled one first, then the clean one. “It means there will be a long road. Long and winding. Most will not wish to travel it. You will prevail upon it, and force your journey. But you may not like what you find upon it, or perhaps in yourself.”
The cards shuffled in the darkness. Another one fell to the table. On it was the night sky and at the top was the moon, great and sick and pregnant. In its center was a formless face, its eyes and lips runny and its nose askew. Below it two dogs raised their heads and howled, their bodies long and slender with starvation, and they thrashed in the moon’s hollow glow as it stared dumbly down.
“The moon,” said Sibyl. “We are drawn to the moon. Aren’t you?”
“I don’t know. I guess.”
“Yes. At night it occupies the mind, for we are drawn to the moon in dark times. It’s said that when dogs howl at the moon they believe it to be a way out from this earth, that it is some exit set in the sky by an entity that even their minds recognize but cannot acknowledge. You seek an exit, Connelly. You seek a way out. Deliverance and purpose and meaning. It will find you, Connelly, and you will find it. But it will be a thing dark and forgotten and it will not be set in the sky. And I dread to think of the face you will find there.” She leaned forward. “You will be offered the way three times. Beyond that I cannot see, nor do I wish to.”
“No?”
“No.”
Again the shuffling. The candle flame fluttered and as Sibyl breathed out the third card fell. On it was a woman dressed in ornate robes so thick they hid every inch of her frame. In her hand she held a scepter and on her head was a shining crown, set with either pearls or stars. Grass reached up and coiled about her feet and far behind were trees stretching to the dusky sky. A stream curled through the trees and gently fell into a cliffside pool. Connelly felt he could almost smell the fresh sting of fir-green air and the rich promise of dark earth.
“The empress,” said Sibyl.
“The empress,” repeated Connelly.
“Yes. The queen of rebirth. Quietly she slumbers in the forest heart, and when she wakes all that has passed from this earth comes again. Black and red succumbs to a cover of green. You can bring this, Connelly.”
“I can?”
“Yes. Your heart has died within you, and you are not alone. Were you to step outside you would see that perhaps the heart of this place has died as well. A directionless land with no center. A people wandering and hollow. Can you not see that some great wound has pierced the very heart of all these lives? Yet that can be changed. You can change this, Connelly. You do not know how and you may not know until the very end. But you can bring rebirth.”
“Can…”
“Can what?”
“Will I ever go home? Do you see that?”
“You can go home now.”
“No. There’s no home there now. Not yet. Not really.”
“Do you mean peace?”
“I don’t know what I mean.”
She looked at him, the foul eye burning fiercely. “You may find peace, one day. You will have a great choice, Connelly. You carry rebirth in the palm of your hand, and it is your decisions that govern it, though you do not know it. Few are given such a choice. Between justice and contentment. Between home and the road. Neither will be easy, nor will either one fully satisfy you. It will depend on what you find in the west, and what you choose to do with it.”
Connelly thought hard about this and nodded.
“But remember,” she said, “birth and death have more in common than you think. Neither is dignified. We enter this world violently and we leave it the same way. Each is marked by terrible suffering. You will bring this as well, or you will allow it to continue.”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“You might. You might not. The shape of your life speaks of violence, though you may change its nature.”
She took a breath in, shut her eyes, and shuffled once more. She drew the card and somehow Connelly knew it was the last one. His eyes found it in the dark, yet as it fell a wind blew through the cart and the light in the room died. He heard the card clatter to the tabletop but saw nothing but stars where the light had been.
“Where is it?” he said. “What happened?”
Sibyl said nothing. Then another match flared before him. Again he was stunned by the change and he blinked to get his eyes to function.
He looked at the card on the table. There on the small, weathered scrap of cardboard an ancient corpse danced and sang, grinning up eyelessly. In its ruined hands it held a scythe that it twirled overhead as though to rend the sky itself. Half-fleshed limbs and heads littered the ground at its feet like windfallen fruit and browning vines rose from the baking earth to claim these gifts as their own. Connelly stared at the grin, its mouth and teeth enormous in his mind, the black eyes looking at him but not looking at once.
“Death?” said Connelly.
She didn’t answer.
“I’m going to die? Is that what you’re saying? Is that it?”
Sibyl had not moved. The match was still in her hand and her eyes were still on the card.
“You’re a damn liar,” said Connelly. “A goddamn liar. To hell with you.” He stood to leave.
“You won’t die, Connelly,” she whispered. “You won’t.”
