Cassandra

by Kathryn Gossow

  ‘What I don’t understand is, not much of this is about my actual future.’

  Cassie sighs. ‘I have been thinking about it a lot. I think it is like, the future is not random. We make the future by who we are and what is important to us.’

  ‘So we control our fate?’ Athena sits up straighter and claps her hands. ‘Yes, I knew it.’

  ‘We do and we don’t,’ Cassie replies. ‘It’s like who we are makes us do what we do, and so makes our future. The cards talk about your personality because your personality is the reason for what happens to you in the future.’

  ‘Reason,’ Athena smiles and crosses her arms over her chest, ‘reason.’

  ‘It’s more than reason. It’s also …’ Cassie searches for a word that Athena would accept, ‘kind of intuition as well. Intuition has the final word.’

  ‘You still said reason.’

  Cassie shrugs. ‘Do you want to finish this?’

  ‘Go on. So far I’m on an intellectual quest. Next.’

  ‘And you are bossy. Don’t forget the bossy.’

  ‘The cards lie.’ Athena laughs.

  Cassie smiles at her and turns the next card. ‘The Magician. This one is about the ideal outcome. See that?’ She points to the Magician’s belt buckle. ‘It’s the ouroboros—the snake eating its own tail—it’s so cool.’

  ‘I know that, Plato spoke of it. The tail devourer. He is eternal and whole. And that is the infinity sign floating above his head. Am I going to live forever?’

  ‘No one lives forever, I don’t know, unless they’re God or something. Everything dies.’ Cassie laughs. ‘That is for sure, the only thing we all know for sure.’

  ‘So you believe in God?’ Athena asks.

  ‘I don’t know, maybe,’ Cassie says.

  ‘Doesn’t God think fortune-telling is the devil’s work?’ Athena grins.

  Cassie laughs. ‘Probably, I’ll ask Ida. I think for you the Magician is about wanting to change the world, that is what you really want, but it is a warning too, about tricking people and using people—like how a magician has stuff up his sleeve he doesn’t tell people about.’

  Athena nods and Cassie turns to the card on the left. ‘This one is about the past.’ She turns the over the High Priestess. ‘Mmm, see the scroll hidden under her cloak? There are secrets—not all the truth being told.

  ‘I’m not keeping secrets.’

  ‘No.’ Cassie’s closes her eyes. ‘It is a secret being kept from you … you know the secret but you have forgotten it.’

  ‘That makes no sense.’ Athena swishes the incense smoke away from her face. ‘Must you burn this stuff?’

  ‘Shush, there’s more.’ She screws up her eyes. Tenacity.’

  ‘What? Tenacity?’

  ‘I don’t know. The word tenacity just flashed into my mind. I don’t even know what it means.’

  ‘It is like … determined, never giving up,’ Athena says.

  ‘Well, that sounds like you. It has something to do with the secret too. Something you won’t give up on,’ Cassie says.

  ‘I am determined to do something … but I don’t know what it is because it is a secret from me. That’s crap.’ Athena leans back on her elbows.

  ‘Do you want me to keep reading?’ Cassie flicks her hands across the cards.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, sorry.’

  ‘No more interruptions,’ Cassie says.

  ‘I am just seeking some clarification.’ Athena sits forward again.

  ‘Then don’t.’ Cassie reaches for the next card.

  ‘I will if I have to,’ Athena replies.

  Cassie sighs and turns the next card. ‘The Empress. Fertility, life, motherhood. Mothers. For you this card is about a mother.’

  ‘I don’t have a mother.’

  ‘It is the future card. You might get one.’

  ‘Might?’ Athena grunts.

  ‘May I continue?’ Cassie crosses her arms over her chest.

  ‘Yes, continue.’ Athena waves her hand dismissively.

  Cassie turns the next card. She closes her eyes and lifts her head to the sky. ‘The Four of Pentacles,’ she muses. ‘I see a single-minded obsession causing you trouble. Your intellectual quest.’

  ‘What sort of trouble? Is it a difficult quest?’

  ‘It’s a quest, of course it’s difficult,’ Cassie says, opening her eyes.

  ‘Then the card says nothing.’

  ‘It doesn’t say the quest is trouble, it says it will cause you trouble—cause you problems, like a curse,’ Cassie says.

  Athena huffs.

  ‘There’s more.’ She closes her eyes and puts both hands over them, as if answers hide in the darkness, if she could make it dark enough. ‘You see yourself as earthly, of this earth, and you are guarding that belief.’

  ‘What else would I be, of the sky?’

  Cassie opens her eyes again. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’ Cassie laughs. ‘You’re pretty out there.’

  Athena slaps Cassie’s leg light-heartedly.

  Cassie turns over another card. ‘Okay, this is about how others see you. The King of Pentacles—the protector. A big responsibility.’

  Only two cards remain. Cassie’s shoulders slump with exhaustion and a dull ache rises up her neck. ‘Your dreams,’ she says and turns the card. ‘Queen of Pentacles. Oh wow, this card is about motherhood too. The Queen is loving, sweet, helpful. The perfect mother. That is your dream.’ Cassie looks up at Athena and beams.

  ‘I …’ Athena frowns, her face reddening.

  Cassie turns away, her smile gone.

  The last card. ‘This one is about what will happen,’ she says, lifting the card. ‘The most likely outcome. The Chariot—change …’ she falters. ‘The chariot driver knows the riddle of the sphinx. The reading is about your mind. You will change your mind. The riddle of the sphinx will change your mind.’

  Cassie peruses the upturned cards spread out in a cross. ‘The Chariot is a powerful card in combination with the High Priestess. Your past,’ she pauses and scrunches her eyes in thought, ‘your past secrets lead you on a quest. You will have to stick up for what you believe. But …’ She bites her lip and shakes her head. ‘But … I think in the end you will have to decide to change your mind. That’s all, I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s rather convenient, isn’t it?’ Athena stands up abruptly and shakes out her rug.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re trying to prove the future can be told. I am … let’s say, sceptical. You read my cards and tell me I am going to change my mind. Are you sure you’re not projecting yourself into this too much? Maybe it is really about what you want the future to be.’

  Cassie gathers the cards back into a pile. ‘Do you think? I don’t know. Maybe you’re right.’ Steaming tears burn the corners of her eyes. ‘Shit.’ She wipes them away before they can escape. She rips the corner of the scarf and the cards fly into the dirt and the grass. ‘Damn.’ She stands up and shoves the olives and her maths book into her bag.

  ‘Wait.’ Athena kneels on the ground and gathers up the cards.

  Cassie throws the bag over her shoulder and heads off down the hill. The sun burns the ache in her neck, the sky cloudless, empty.

  ‘Wait.’ Athena steps in front of her and pushes the bundled up scarf towards her. ‘I’m sorry. I speak my mind. I have a sharp tongue. I need to be careful. The cards told me so.’

  Cassie reaches out and takes the parcel. ‘Sometimes I don’t know what’s real.’

  ‘I know.’ Athena’s hands rattle at her sides, like she might reach out and touch Cassie. But Athena doesn’t touch people, Cassie suddenly realises. Athena is caged inside her head. Athena’s hair burns, red and blazing.

  ‘You know,’ says Cassie, ‘sometimes your hair changes colour.’ The nerves of her spine
tingle like piano strings.

  ‘Like magic.’ Athena laughs and turns away towards her house. ‘I’ll see you next Sunday? At your house?’

  Cassie hugs the scarf to her chest. ‘At my house?’ The sun flows over her face like a warm shower. ‘My house,’ she repeats, a statement to seal the promise.

  ‘Your house,’ Athena replies.

  ‘It’s a deal,’ Cassie says and turns and walks on light feet towards home.

  * * *

  Cassie wakes with a start, a heavy weight crushing her chest. The weak dawn light trickles through her window. The crushing dream. There is never any context, people or place, just the crushing weight on her chest. She can’t even think how to put it in her notebooks and Athena has never heard of it. She twists herself up in the sheet, cold fright prickling her. Sleep, sleep, sleep, she chants in her head, while her body shoots with electric adrenalin. Impossible. She struggles from bed thinking perhaps a drink of water will flush out the prickles.

  The dim hallway is lost between night time and the coming day. She runs her fingers over the grooves in the walls.

  ‘What did you think marrying me would be like? Becoming landed gentry? I’m a farmer, that’s all.’ Her father’s voice startles her and she can’t immediately decide if it is real or one of her visions.

  ‘I didn’t think it would be like this.’ Her mother’s voice is quieter than her father’s.

  The walls are thin in the silent dawn.

  ‘Like what?’

  She hears the wardrobe door slam.

  ‘Boring, so bloody boring.’

  ‘Boring! What did you expect out here—art galleries and fancy restaurants?’

  ‘Better than cent sales and show balls.’

  ‘What’s wrong with dances?’

  ‘They’re great: men at the bar or outside getting drunk, women inside talking about sewing and children and tapping their toes waiting for someone to dance a bloody waltz with them. There’s a whole world going on out there.’ Her mother’s voice rises with anger.

  ‘Christ woman, go and find it then. I got work to do. A family to support.’

  Cassie ducks back into her room and under her covers. She hears her father’s retreat along the hall. Cassie pulls the tarot from beneath her pillow. The tips of her fingers sting with cold as she flicks her fingers along the sharp edges and focuses on something other than the real argument she just heard. Paulo. What is the future for her and Paulo? The Empress emerges, her pretty dress bulging beneath her pregnant stomach. Cassie slots the card back in the deck and slides it under her pillow. She pulls the blanket over her shoulder. She imagines a mist devours her father as his work boots crunch on the gravel path.

  ~ 17 ~

  Shadows

  Out of the corner of her eye, Cassie sees someone creeping alongside the garage wall. She turns abruptly and there are only the tangoing shadows of trees. She leans on the veranda rail. The breeze is like a cool cotton sheet on a summer night.

  ‘Hey.’

  Cassie jumps.

  ‘Alex, you gave me a fright.’ Cassie lays her hand on her chest to settle her thumping heart. ‘You shouldn’t sneak up on people.’

  ‘I’ve been here the whole time,’ Alex says.

  ‘I thought you were in bed.’

  ‘Everyone thinks I’m in bed. I went to bed. I just didn’t go to bed.’

  ‘I’ll never trust you again.’ Cassie slouches in the cane chair on the other side of the table from where Alex sits. ‘What are you doing?’ she asks.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Me too.’

  In the distance, thunder rumbles.

  ‘There’s a storm somewhere.’ An unexpected breeze blows Cassie’s hair onto her face.

  Alex shrugs.

  ‘I don’t believe it.’ Cassie sits forward in her chair and claps her hands together. ‘You didn’t see it coming!’

  ‘Maybe I saw it coming. Maybe I just didn’t say anything.’

  ‘What? And ruin your unbroken record?’

  ‘Maybe I don’t want to always get it right.’

  ‘Of course you do. You never get it wrong.’

  ‘I’m not allowed to.’

  ‘You poor thing. You’ve got it so hard,’ Cassie simpers sarcastically.

  ‘I know it’s harder for you. No one believes you,’ Alex replies.

  The shadows on the garage wall curl in Cassie’s peripheral vision, and again she thinks it is someone and turns. Shadows playing games with her again. She rests her elbow on the table, places her head in her hand and sighs.

  Alex fidgets with the splintered cane on the chair’s armrest. ‘I think it was just an accident. Predicting the drought that came. I don’t even remember doing it.’

  ‘We were at the show. About to buy our tickets.’

  ‘You remember?’

  ‘Yes. Aunty Ida won a prize for her grape jam …’ Cassie thinks about the lady and the tea leaves. She had a vision when she looked in the teacup, but she can’t remember it now. Just the jam. She would have to tell Athena about the jam. She got that one right.

  ‘I don’t remember.’ Alex rips a slice of the cane from the chair and tosses it on the ground.

  ‘What do you need to remember for? You said there would be a big drought. Poppy said you were a prodigy. We sold most of the cattle, didn’t plant any sorghum, and built chook sheds big enough to block out the sun. Everyone lived happily ever after.’

  ‘I want to know how I did it.’

  ‘You just did it. It doesn’t matter how.’

  ‘It’s just …’ Alex picks up a notebook from the table and holds it to his chest, chewing absently on the cardboard cover. ‘What if I get it wrong next time?’ His too-long fringe falls over his eye.

  Cassie recalls a day when they were both little, carting buckets of water from the water tank, the water slopping out of the buckets onto their feet and shorts. They poured the water into trenches they had dug under the house. They were trying to make a river from front to back so it would flow like a pretty creek through the front garden. Cassie hoped the frogs would come live in it. Hopelessly the trenches turned to muddy sludge, then gleefully into a mud fight. Alex’s hair had stuck together as if it had been dipped in chocolate.

  ‘Do you remember the day we had a mud fight? We wasted all that water. I thought Mum was going to kill me when she found us.’

  ‘That was the day you told me about finding the snake.’

  ‘How it bit me.’

  ‘No, how you think it made you see things. Things in the future.’

  Cassie sits up; her heart flashing like lightning.

  ‘I told you that?’

  ‘You used to tell me lots of things. That’s how I thought you would know what it’s like. What it’s like to be scared about getting it wrong.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about me.’ Cassie leans back in the chair and crosses her arms.

  ‘I’ve seen you, go off, like all spacey, you’re here but you’re somewhere else. No one else notices. Is that when you see things?’

  Cassie says nothing. Her heart thumps in her chest, the wind rattles the windows, the screen door blows open and closed again. The shadows punch the garage wall in soundless futility.

  ‘It’s easier for me.’ Alex’s voice is quiet like a dawn breeze, almost drowned out by the rumbling thunder. ‘There’s all Poppy’s notes. He has years of weather records.’

  ‘I know,’ Cassie whispers.

  ‘Sometimes the more I look at it, the less I see. Sometimes I knew more when I knew nothing,’ Alex says.

  ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Cassie says. One of the shadows thumps at the chest of another shadow like quarrelling parents.

  ‘I know the feeling you get when you disappear. I get it too sometimes. When I see some weather coming, t
he more I think about it the less it happens, and the more I have to try and read Poppy’s records and the forecasting books.’ Alex swipes the hair away from his face.

  A tear grows in the corner of Cassie’s eye. She wipes it away and slaps her hand on the table. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Alex stands up, his voice shaking. ‘I’m going to bed.’ He pulls open the screen door and stops, leaning against the door, his face half inside half outside. ‘Athena …’ he begins.

  Cassie rises from the chair like a black cloud storming over the horizon. ‘Athena has nothing to do with you. You’ve never even met her.’

  Alex disappears inside, the screen door closing behind him. A gust of wind pulls the door open again and slams against the outside wall.

  Lightning blanks out the shadows on the garage wall with a glare of white light.

  ~ 18 ~

  Tarot Courage

  To help herself sleep, Cassie sometimes fantasises. She imagines a story where she is the star, with a new haircut, her ears pierced a second time (as her mother would never allow). She’s grown taller, her bra size has increased, her school skirt is shorter. She would step off the school bus after the school holidays. Heads would turn and the boys would wonder why they had never noticed her before. The fantasies calm her, she feels still and optimistic in her bed, thinking of the people she would smile at, the people she would snub. But she knows her thoughts are fanciful. It is a dream. A dream she can control because she is awake and aware. What she really needs, she knows, is not a new image, she needs courage.

  She knows courage is the key to her future because her tarot just told her so. She drew a card. The question on her mind—will I be friends with Natalie again?

  The woman on the card, frail, ordinary, her hands wrapped around the jaws of the lion. Cassie closes her eyes and lays her hand across the card. The sun drapes across her shoulder, her bed still warm with her dreams, she becomes the woman on the card. Above her soars the castle; it’s not her home, she is a maiden from the village. She is the girl who nobody notices, but between her hands she has the knotted, gnarly fur of the lion, his battle scars scratched across his face, his nose. Cool as a cat. The lion huffs and hot air explodes from its nostrils, a growl rumbles deep in its chest. The maiden’s heart quickens and Cassie feels her fear, feels her determination, and together they whisper between clenched teeth, ‘Hush, your strength is mine now.’