“I burnt the damn thing! I burnt it! This shouldn’t be happening!” he muttered in worried tone.
Nora hurried to meet with her friends.
“What are you guys doing here?’ she asked.
Naomi held out her cellphone with a text message clearly stating from Nora that read, “It is urgent… come over!!”
“I burned it!” her father raged while Lama attempted to keep him calm but to no avail.
Nora took out her cellphone and toggled through her messages, trying to ascertain when she had sent such message but there was no record of it on her phone.
“That’s odd”, she noted. “I could have sworn I didn’t send that message”.
Naomi and Daren shared a brief look before Daren took out his cell phone and drew up the same and exact message he had received from her.
“I swear, I did not send those messages”, Nora remained defiant.
Naomi sighed, placed her hand on her friend’s shoulder and walked into the house while they watched their friend’s father threaten to have a meltdown.
“First it finds her, then the darn tattoo, and now, time”, he whispered and demonstrated with his hands in dramatic fashion.
“Am I in the right house?” Daren looked around.
Naomi shot him a rather glum look.
“What? I’m hearing tattoo and this has to be the freakiest way to begin the day in your house, considering your parents are who they are and all”, he teased.
Nora kicked him in the ankle before leading them to the couch to sit. The smoke from the burnt deck of tarot cards had slowly begun to dissipate, but it left a stinging and rather odd taste in their throats as they sucked in the remnant.
“What is that”, Naomi asked.
Muzin hurried over in dramatic manner. “That is meant to be the smell of freedom for my family! Yet, it doesn’t feel like it!”
Nora had witnessed such bizarre occurrence about time jumping past what she had expected it to be, but her father’s drama only made it more baffling for her. More, so, the other two before her had witnessed it too.
“Papa is just worried because we totally missed out on time and realized it was morning before we could blink twice:, she tried to cast off his actions as nothing major.
Muzin shot his daughter and unappreciated look, and slot himself into an empty seat. “What brings you guys here?”
Naomi thought of replying with the only reason she knew of, but even after telling it to Nora, it had brought a weird reaction so she remained silent.
“Well, for starters, I was hoping on returning this… to Nora”, Daren began searching through his backpack.
Nora looked at Naomi who shot her a bewildered look, before the room fell ominously silent. Daren slid his hand further into his backpack, keeping everyone in silence without realizing the amount of suspense he was creating in the room. He finally took out a large Algebra textbook and placed it on the couch’s arm rest.
Muzin sighed in relief and Naomi caught the odd reaction duly. Nora turned around to head to the kitchen and get her friends some drink, while Lama decided it was time she returned to bed and sleep the remaining of the bizarre day off.
“I also might have taken this with me by mistake, but I cannot recall handling the odd thing or even being there when they delivered it to your place”, Daren added.
He held out the same tarot card Muzin had burnt to crisp in the fireplace earlier in his hand, and Nora slowly turned around with her breath ceasing, and her father’s eyes bulging from their sockets.
“Where did you get that thing!?” Muzin shot to his feet and turned red all over as he hurriedly got himself well distanced from Daren.
Her father had asked the exact question Nora was about pelting out of her mouth too.
Muzin motioned towards Daren with an angry looking expression, but his daughter stepped in and stopped him from collecting the tarot cards from her friend.
“Obviously this is freaky, but can we just for a moment, access things and be sure we know what we are dealing with?’ Nora asked.
Naomi bore a lost expression on her face while she shared it with Lama. The air had gone pretty eerie within seconds, and everyone seemed more agitated than they were some minutes ago.
“The tarot cards”, Nora snapped her fingers and demanded them from Daren.
Daren let go of the old looking thing and seemed gladdened at heart that it was no longer in his possession. Muzin eyed his daughter awkwardly and bit his lip as she kept her distance from him.
“Whatever this thing is, we need to find out more about it”, Nora explained.
She gently began opening the deck to see the cards firsthand. Old and dingy it was, but it held enough beauty in it for her to want to take the whole thing out. On the edges were blood smears, which made her stomach crawl, but Nora could not help but continue to feel fascinated by the different cards and the possibility of using them in ways she had never envisaged before.
Just in the nick of time, while they all waited for Nora to take out all the cards, a loud knock hammered into the front door and caused everyone to almost jump out of their skin. One of the cards fell to the ground face down, but Nora looked to the door and ignored it momentarily while her father walked over to see who was on the other side.
He walked over without much purpose in his steps, and leaned closer to the door to view through the peep hole before mumbling in disheartened tone. “You have got to be kidding me!”
Nora asked. “What?”
Muzin shook his head and waved her question away. It felt odd, and it was without doubt something everyone in the room could notice. The man began walking away from the door, but the person on the other side had no intent on leaving.
“Muzin! Muzin! Muzin!” the feminine voice cried aloud.
