Disharmony

from the cards themselves. She wanted to hurry now, learn what else they had to say.

She turned another card, placed it to the left of the first.

‘The past,’ she said. ‘This card tells where you’ve come from.’

The caravan was motionless as its occupants stared at the card. A study in blue: a beautiful woman draped in a deep-indigo dress stood, head bowed, in an inky ravine. The only other colour in the card glowed at the woman’s chest: a blood-red fabric heart formed the bodice of her dress, stitched up through the middle by the fasteners for the garment – a heart endlessly destined to be torn apart and constantly re-stitched.

An open wound.

‘Heartache and loss,’ she said. ‘Your history.’

The king’s fishy lips twisted into a sour, venomous smile. ‘Touche,’ he said.

What did that mean, she wondered. Does he think this is some kind of mental duel?

The card called her back.

‘You have suffered greatly in your past,’ she said. ‘And although you live now in a completely different world, this sorrow and disappointment still greets you every new day when you open your eyes. The love that you gave her is still inside you, available to heal you, to be given to another -’

This time the king made a hissing sound.

Samantha continued. ‘But you have kept the pain inside, fed and watered it daily. You’ve encouraged the toxins, nurtured them, sought them out and loved them. This agony is now a part of you. It is your closest friend and your most powerful, poisonous weapon.’

Suddenly, Lala heaved herself from her chair.

‘My King,’ Lala said, tottering over to stand between Samantha and her client, ‘I apologise. I tried to tell you that she is a mere baby. Sixty years I have been studying the tarot. I beg of you, please ignore this child and allow me to complete your reading. Or better yet, your Grace, let us leave this sweltering hotbox and find solace in some cold wine and fruit.’

‘Sit. Down,’ he said.

‘But, your Grace…’

‘You will sit down or I will make you,’ said the gypsy king.

The heat and the sounds of the caravan jerked Sam back into focus. She pushed her chair away, jumping to her feet. She felt violently ill with the fear emanating from Lala, but her anger overpowered it.

‘Don’t you dare speak to her like that!’ she yelled at the king.

A sizzle of filthy energy fizzed about the room. Samantha recognised it at once. Hate. It slicked her nostrils and tongue and she heaved and reached around for something to hang on to. The king laughed, a fractured, frightening sound, which opened in Samantha’s mind a sliver of a vision. Then, as suddenly as it had come, it was gone, and with it the foul energy. She could not understand what she had just glimpsed, but she sensed it slithering away – it felt like decay, dark magic, madness.

The king now smiled at her, a chalky offering of warmth.

‘Wait a moment, please, please,’ he said. He spread his fat fleshy hands before him and smiled meekly up at Samantha. ‘I’m sorry. I apologise for speaking so rudely. I will make it up to you and yours. And I promise you, good witch,’ he swivelled to face Lala, ‘no harm will befall anyone in this camp and only great goodness from me shall follow if you will peacefully allow your charge here to complete her reading. I see that you fear I am offended, but I assure you, my Romani sister, I am only charmed and delighted by her insight.’

Samantha swayed.

‘Sit down, my kitten,’ murmured Lala, turning towards her and cupping her face. The aged skin of her soft palm was a feather-stroke. ‘Sit down now, child.’

Samantha dropped back into the chair; she felt as though a blowfly batted about behind her eyes.

‘Certainly we will finish for you, your Grace,’ Lala continued. ‘There is but one card left to draw – your future – and I am certain that the child will be able to complete the reading quickly.’

Lala looked down at Samantha and gave her a meaningful stare.

Samantha stared back, dazed. What is going on here, Lala? she asked with her eyes.

Please, just finish. And do it quickly, Lala’s eyes answered.

Samantha reached for the deck; the king leaned back against the day bed, and the whispers began again. This time there was heat behind the hushed voices and she thought she heard a muffled shriek from the cards. She turned the top card and placed it to the right of the hourglass.

‘Your future,’ she said coldly. ‘What will be.’

The king stared bug-eyed at the card. Sucked in air. ‘What is that?’ he said. ‘What does it mean?’

The card was almost completely black. But forming the centre, staring up at each of them, was a man in pieces. His head, shoulders, stomach, loins and legs had all been dismembered – as though he’d been wrenched from the card and, like a photo, ripped and torn before being crudely pasted back onto the blackness. His face was terrified, his arms clenched across his disembodied chest as though he scrabbled to hold at least this piece of himself together.

Samantha lifted her eyes to the king’s. His jowl quivered.

‘A major Arcana card,’ she said. ‘Your destiny – the Falling Tower.’

Samantha felt Lala willing her to deliver to the king the vanilla-version of this card: that this was a chance for him to be forewarned against a major change that would soon befall his life, and to see this disruption as merely an opportunity to transform things for the better.

Instead, she told the truth.

‘The foundations of your power are weak and rotten,’ she said. ‘Your tower will crumble.’

The lamp on the table before her flickered. She continued. ‘The two choices you are now struggling with will determine whether or not you escape the fall of your empire with your life. Choose one way and you will live on. Select the other option and you will die in agony, with your last breath poisoned by regret.

‘Either way,’ Samantha said, ‘your tower will crumble.’

Dwight Juvenile Justice Detention Centre, Sydney, Australia

June 28, 2.21 p.m.

‘So that’s what makes all that noise,’ Zac shouted, on his knees in the mud next to Luke.

‘Yep, that’s the swamp rat,’ said Luke, lifting his eyes from the garden bed. ‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’

‘She stinks,’ said Zac.

Luke nodded. A sheen of fuel oil shimmered in the air. He’d never been able to figure out whether the 1980 Holden Commodore had originally been red or blue. The panels that remained were a mix of both. At the moment, he couldn’t see much of either colour – the swamp rat was caked in dried dirt and splattered all over with fresh mud. It had no boot, bonnet, rear windscreen or doors, and the swamp rat’s driver, Mad Mike, was also head-to-toe in mud.

Through the hole in the passenger side of the car, Luke watched Mad Mike rip the handbrake up. The engine cut out. The sudden absence of noise was almost as disturbing as the roar of sound had been.

‘Oh my God, how loud is that car?’ said Zac, poking a finger in his ear. ‘What is that anyway? Is it even a car?’

Mad Mike swung out of the driver’s side of the vehicle and crunched over the gravel driveway leading to the Dwight Administration Building. He stopped at the folding chair near the steps leading to the entrance.

‘Mike, can you not do something about the noise from that ridiculous vehicle?’ said Matron Cole, blinking up at him from the chair in which she watched Luke and Zac weeding and the rest of Section Six raking, sweeping mud from the paths and clipping plants. ‘I mean, have you purposely modified that thing to produce that deafening racket?’

Mad Mike scratched at the grey stubble on his cheek. A wad of something brown flicked off his face with the movement. God, I hope that’s mud, thought Luke, grimacing.