“The only thing left for me to do’, he finally replied. ‘Get my daughter back and save my family, or at least what’s left of it”.
Naomi chalked down some bolus of saliva with discomfort, while Muzin began to load the gun in his hand with bullets he had stored up in the same box from which they had been retrieved.
“Nobody else dies on my watch”, Muzin declared before getting to his feet.
CHAPTER NINE
The tender colored walls were nothing she had come across before. Nora figured her parents must have repainted but it still didn’t make sense enough for her, because they were absolutely lovely in comparison with what they had on their walls currently. The room felt homey and warm with love, while the fire place burned brightly with a large table some feet away from it.
Nora halted her walk to look at her mother again, almost as if she still wasn’t sure about what the woman intended to tell her. Her mother beckoned on her to go ahead and step closer to the fire place, as footsteps began approaching down the staircase.
“Laura, we cannot do it! The tradition is centuries old and it should not be followed!” Nora heard her mother mutter in a rather bothered tone.
Nora squinted, and strained her gaze as she caught sight of a really younger figure than the one she had left in her living room; her aunt Laura looked more beautiful and less haggard in comparison to the last time she saw her. Her dark hair ran and danced freely on her back, while her face held a rather warm smile across it.
In her hands was a child whose face Nora could not see, as she stepped closer to try and make it out, but felt her mother’s hand hold her back from doing so.
“You know you’re meant to own the card and all you need is some little blood from your own personal line to activate it”, Laura continued. “You cannot be this stubborn headed when you might be able to change a lot of things in this current world!”
Nora’ mother, much younger but with the same stern expression on her face as always, shook her head and closed her eyes.
“That card drives people nuts”, she replied. “You’ve heard the stories and I will not become another family story for the next generations to tell themselves”.
Laura chuckled while they settled around the table. The little child in Laura’s hands squirmed and purred softly, prompting Laura to pat him on the back gently until he fell asleep again.
“If you will not do it, then I will”, Laura warned her sister.
Nora’s mother laughed out loud and hard. “Muzin will be home any minute now and he wouldn’t like to see you defiling his home with dark magic”.
Laura hissed and shrugged. “Come on, where is your sense of adventure? More so, if this truly works as granny said it does, you can bring him back”.
The latter sentence seemed to have an effect on Nora’s mother, and the woman sat up in her seat, eyes fixated on Laura, and then on the deck of cards on the table. Nora looked at her mother and she could see the same emotions she had in her when she realized she could use the cards to bring back someone she loved.
“Sam is gone”, Laura’s mother tried to deflect the possibility.
Laura got to her feet with the baby still in her arms. “Is he? Will it hurt to give something as harmless as this a try?”
Nora felt her own breath begin to heighten as she watched the proceeding. She was scared stiff and the thought of things going wrong slowly began to cripple her spine. She could sense the air in the room had a dour feeling to it and everything that the smiles and laughter were about becoming nothing but memories.
“This is how it began for our family”, Nora whispered to herself.
Laura turned around and looked towards the fireplace where Nora stood, almost as if she had heard someone speak. Her gaze lingered on and fixated against Nora for a while before she looked away to her sister.
“What do you say we do this and we do it now?” Laura asked.
Her sister took a minute to maul through the idea, but eventually succumbed by nodding her head. “Yes… we can”.
Laura pumped her fist into the air and began to take out the cards, just after she handed Sam over to her sister.
“We draw once and if things don’t look good, we stop”, Nora’s mother insisted.
Laura bobbed her head and accepted, smiling all the way and seemingly happy by the decision.
“I’ll tuck little Sam into his cot and then we can begin”, Nora’s mother whispered, tickling the little boy who had just woken up and was now smiling wildly.
She returned within minutes and took her lace on the other end of the table while Laura lit the candles. It was no different from what and how Nora had carried out her own readings, but the fire burned brightly and wilder right from the start.
“Looks like we have ourselves some energy to burn”, Laura sounded excitedly.
Her sister began shuffling the cards until she felt the impulse to stop. One after the other, she began laying them on the table, looking nervous but with some good degree of bravery in her actions too.
“Cross”, Nora muttered.
Her aunt had lied about how their family never read the cards sing the cross method, and here they were; her mother doing the same thing. It was becoming even more apparent that her aunt Laura was nothing but a liar and a manipulator to say the least.
“Draw them open”, Laura mumbled.
One after the other, Nora’s mother began to open the cards, and with each one opened and laid bare with its face up,
