Chapter Fourteen - When All the Black Cards Come You Cannot Barter
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APOV
How had this all gone so catastrophically wrong? Panic tightened in my chest and I actually brought my hand up to clutch at my heart, the constriction making my breathing difficult as I inhaled through my nose to try to abate the fear. I wiped the tears from my eyes with the back of my hand, the mascara running into them and burning, making it impossible to see anything. I swiped my hand through the fucking cards for the fourth time, knocking some of them to the floor in my frustration.
What the fuck was happening here? I had done four different spreads four different times and still kept getting the same shit, the same fucking shit! And the charts! I had checked all the charts, over and over, looking for any clues, any sign that any one of them were in danger, but I couldn't see anything, I just couldn't see. I pulled at my hair, sitting crossed legged on Edward's bed and rocking slightly, trying to ease the worry and anxiety that was now festering in my brain. The short tufts were sticking out all over, I'm sure. I'd been pulling my hair all night.
This was supposed to be relaxing and reassuring as I tried to make sense of the evening. Edward knew about Jasper now and although I was partially relieved, Edward had reacted exactly as I thought he would, with venom and violence. I knew he would be fucking pissed and try to kick Jasper's ass. That's why I had kept him hidden for so long in the first place. But the look in Edward's eyes when he pounced was wild and feral, and I knew he was not cognitive of what he was doing. His behavior frightened me to my very core and reminded me of a time when I had felt fear like that, when I had seen that fear destroy, and conquer and I was scared shitless it could happen again.
As I had laid the cards the first time I saw Edward, the splitting image of my father, and the images flashed to when we first arrived here, when he was thin and pale, his face and body mangled from whatever method of self abuse he had chosen for the night, unaffected by fear and dangerous to himself and to others as he yearned to be catatonic and rotting in a hospital somewhere. I heaved at the thought of his soul blackened by the disease that had destroyed my family, my body literally nauseated at the thought of accepting that Edward could develop schizophrenia. I couldn't let myself believe that if I had any chance of staying sane in this world. I knew that, if provoked, Edward would revert back to that time, when he could solve everything with a fight, reassuring himself that he could feel pain, he wasn't numb, and in this regard reassuring himself that he might one day feel good.
And he does feel good, he does! I can see it in the way he looks at her, the way he talks about her, Edward loves Bella. And Bella, she loves him too, but she's sick. She is trying to be brave, to be a big girl and take care of business on her own, but fuck, she needs help. She is so fucking skinny, like maybe a hundred pounds…maybe. She always claims to be one ten and size four, but that is a load of bullshit. She doesn't see herself clearly or maybe she just doesn't see herself at all, avoiding mirrors so she can avoid the truth. My heart aches for her, my memory of the last time we hugged causing a sob in my chest and fresh tears to fall. There was not substance in it, no warmth or comfort of fatty tissue, just the cold hard bite of her bones. And Edward needs to know. He needs to know because he can help her and that is the ultimate goal, for Bella to get help. We already love her and want to her to be a part of our family, a part of us, and if something were to happen to her, it would crush us all. It would devastate Edward. I don't know if he would be able to recover from losing Bella and I don't want chance to find out.
The second time I laid the cards I had visions of Bella, skeletal and weak, her body not even functioning on its own, a hospital gown covering her emaciated frame and her scalp visible from the loss of hair, her large eyes hollow and sunken in, a ghost in life. I saw her hooked up to machines, her straining heart barely able to function on its own, tubes and needles and tethered and bound. Or worse. Blue gaping lips, large vacant eyes, a grave site, fresh dirt and misty Washington rain, her tiny casket trimmed with pink roses and purple lavender while my brother crumbled.
I pulled Bella's chart again, examining her horoscope, searching for clues of early demise or injury, any hint in the stars that she was who these damn cards were pointing at. Nothing. Nothing outright, just like the cards were declaring. The cards, the fucking cards, had never been this persistent before. Sure, they had predicted Jasper in a three card spread; Queen of Cups, the Moon, and the Knight of Cups - my past, present and future, but it all made sense in Jasper.
Jasper! My heart plummeted, his outright reckless behavior now cause for concern and grief. The drugs, the alcohol, sure they had abated, but what if I wasn't enough to keep him from using? What if he wanted that life back, crazy nights of partying followed by stunts to get attention from his parents, stunts he hoped would land him in the hospital or in prison because maybe there he could finally get noticed by his arrogant as shit and neglectful socialite parents. He hated them and craved them all at once. The third spread brought visions of Jasper in an alleyway, his veins bruised and broken, eyes red and bloodshot and bloated, void of life, and I brought my hands to my hair again, sobbing and falling into the bed, muffling my cries with Edward's comforter as I let the grief consume me.
I had known Jasper would come find me that day at the diner. The cards had predicted it. They had predicted Bella, that sweeping change, the day before she got here I had done a random reading and she was in the Lovers and the Star, hope arriving the next day. Hope for my brother, but my brother serving as hope for her too. My conviction in the cards was not unfounded but solidified in my notebook, pages and pages of proof that the cards speak the truth. But I had never experienced this before. The same five cards kept coming up, even when I used a spread with more cards, like the cross or the horse-shoe, they always made their way into it.
I had even tried changing the scenery, like maybe the cards were too acclimated to my bedroom. I brought everything, all the charts and cards to Edward's room, setting up camp on his bed, which brought me to the reading I had just done. It just didn't make sense.
Until I realized it makes perfect sense. Everyone around me is trying to destroy themselves.
I wiped my eyes, my sobs easing into slight hiccups, and I frantically gathered the entire deck with shaking hands. One more. One more time I would lay these cards, just to be sure, just to see. I inhaled deeply, trying to calm my nerves, petrified at what I might see in front of me. I shuffled the cards again and again, the task difficult because of my trembling fingers.
The star. I would do the star. A symbol of hope, it had to shine through somehow, it just had too! Focus Alice, focus like everything depends on it. I pulled the first card and placed it in the first spot.
I gasped, my breath caught in that card, Justice; the courtroom, where judgments and decisions are made, a past mistake in the position of what I can see. Yes, what I have already seen four times tonight. Silent tears rolled down my cheeks in acceptance. I already knew what I would find when I lay the remaining cards, I could even almost predict their positions. I followed through, not to discover now, but to confirm.
My breathing slowed as I laid the second card, what I can't see, the three of swords; heartbreak, betrayal, sudden pain, terrifying curve balls that life throws at us, an open wound, sharps and shards jabbed through the heart, hitting you when you least expect it. It was going to be sudden.
The third card, what I could change, Temperance; quiet composure, temperance is comforting and centered, a need for moderation, balance, self-restraint.
My fear lay in the fourth, the worst I was sure, what I cannot change, The Tower; fire, lightning, falling on jagged rocks, sudden change, having a revelation and realizing the truth, falling down, experiencing a crash. I thought of every single person in my life and how this card could be for them, could be their downfall, could be my downfall.
The fifth card in my hand, I was completely blank. I threw it to the bed, five of cups, exactly what I was expecting, ironic in the place of expectation. Bereavement, loss, draped in black and bathed in grief. Defeat, regret, sorrow. My whole body froze as the last tone of hope and peace drained from it. I rolled over onto the cards and charts, gently rocking my legs in a soothing rhythm, clutching at the hole in my chest and folding into a ball.
There was nothing I could do, the finality of the statement wallowing in my heart, sealing itself in my brain. Something was happening, something dark and threatening to our whole way of life, something that none of us could control. I couldn't even warn them because they wouldn't believe me. They'd laugh in my face, or worse, they'd lock me up in that hospital, all my charts and notes proof that it was I who followed in my father's footsteps, not Edward. Realization dawned on me that it very well could be my own demise the cards were predicting. Whatever it was, the cards had predicted it and it was coming. And someone wasn't going to make it out alive.
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