Eyes of the Tarot

by Bruce Coville

  #

  Madame LePanto was as mystified as Bonnie by the strange session, though she seemed far less shaken by all that had happened. She made a pot of tea and they sat for some time, trying to make sense of the strange events.

  Amazed by the old woman’s calmness, Bonnie finally asked, “Does this kind of thing happen to you often?”

  “Goodness, no! But in my line of work you have to be ready to deal with it when it comes.” She frowned. “I’m sorry, child. I’m being glib. Nothing like this has ever happened to me, and I do not know what it means, other than that you must be very careful. That figure you saw in the crystal—he worries me.”

  “But he’s so handsome,” said Bonnie dreamily. “And he spoke so gently to me. He can’t be an evil spirit.”

  Madame LePanto arched her eyebrow. “You are not that young, Bonnie, to be so easily taken in by external appearances.”

  “You mean he looks fair and feels foul?” asked Bonnie, dredging up a line of Shakespeare she had heard recently. She couldn’t remember where.

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, what should I do?”

  “Nothing,” said Madame LePanto firmly. “Nothing at all. Especially about the cards. I think you should not use them until we know more about what is happening here.”

  “Will you keep them for me?”

  Madame LePanto raised her eyebrow again and Bonnie was struck by how much the woman was able to express without using any words at all.

  “I don’t trust myself,” said Bonnie in answer to the unspoken question. “I’m afraid I might use them anyway. I… I can’t seem to keep away from them.”

  Madame LePanto frowned and her fingers began to drum the table again. “All right,” she said at last. “I will keep them, though I am not sure it’s a good idea. I do have a certain amount of power, and the power of the cards may clash with it. Or mesh with it, which might even be worse.”

  Bonnie looked at her questioningly.

  “Never mind. It does not concern you. I will keep the cards. I want to do a little research on them anyway. I have many books about the tarot.”

  “Thank you! I really appreciate it.”

  “You will come tomorrow?” Madame LePanto asked, her eyebrow drifting upward again.

  “Yes.”

  Bonnie rose to go. But when she reached the porch she found she was frightened to travel the isolated dirt road by herself. Before she could express her fear, Madame LePanto said, “Would you like me to walk with you?”

  “Yes,” whispered Bonnie. “That would be good.”

  The air was crisp and cool, the sky surprisingly blue after the terrible storm. Again, Bonnie had the feeling of being watched. When she asked Madame LePanto about it the old woman nodded, then pressed a withered finger to her lips and whispered, “Better not to speak of it.”

  Bonnie said no more. They walked on in silence, save for a bird that sang in the distance, and the clank of Madame LePanto’s bracelets.

  They parted with quiet good-byes at the main road. But rather than starting for home, Bonnie stood and watched Madame LePanto make her way back toward the cottage. Her eyes followed the old woman until she rounded a bend and was lost to sight.

  Even then Bonnie did not move, but continued to stare down the empty road, thinking about the royal path to knowledge, and wondering what lay at the end of it.

  “Bonnie! Bonnie!”

  She spun around. Eileen was running toward her, a smile on her face. The smile vanished when she realized where Bonnie was standing. “You haven’t been seeing that woman have you?” she asked sharply.

  “As a matter of fact, I have,” replied Bonnie defiantly, angered by the tone Eileen used when speaking of Madame LePanto. “Any reason why I shouldn’t?

  Eileen bit her lip. “Yes,” she said at last. “It’s not a good idea. She’s a phony.”

  “She is not!” snapped Bonnie, surprising herself with the fierceness in her voice.

  Eileen seemed taken aback by it as well. “Well, why are you seeing her?” she asked after a moment.

  It was Bonnie’s turn to hesitate. “She’s teaching me to read the tarot cards,” she said at last, deciding the truth was the simplest way to answer.

  Eileen’s face went white. “Oh, Bonnie. Stop seeing her. Please.”

  Bonnie, who had been glancing back down the road, turned and looked Eileen full in the face. She searched her eyes, then said, “You know something—something you’re not telling me.”

  Eileen looked away.

  “Eileen, I have to know. I have a right to know.”

  Eileen looked back. “I guess you do,” she said softly. “Come on, let’s head for home. I’ll tell you while we walk.”

  The two girls ambled down the road. Though she was dying of curiosity, Bonnie waited patiently for Eileen to begin, figuring it would be better not to rush her. She wondered what her cousin had been doing out walking anyway, given the weather. “Did you get caught in the storm?” she asked.

  “What storm?”

  “What do you mean, `What storm?’ That fantastic thunderstorm that roared through here a little while ago.”

  “Bonnie, what are you talking about?”

  Bonnie’s stomach lurched. Could the storm have occurred only at Madame LePanto’s little cottage? It didn’t seem possible. But nothing else that had happened there seemed possible, either.

  “Never mind,” she said gruffly. “I want to know what you’ve been hiding from me. I’ve known there was something since the night I came back from Boston and you acted so weird while we were all at Cosmo’s.”

  Eileen sighed. “I knew I had blown it then. All right, here it is: You have psychic powers, Bonnie.”

  Bonnie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “I’m beginning to be aware of that. But how do you know about them?

  “I heard our parents talking about it after a party at our house one night. They thought I was asleep, but something woke me up.”

  “Maybe you’re psychic, too.”

  “Maybe I am,” said Eileen. “I knew I could find you along this road today. I suppose it might run in the family. But believe me, I’m not psychic the way you are.”

  Bonnie looked at her uneasily. “What do you mean?

  “You used to demonstrate your power all the time.”

  “What are you talking about? I never demonstrated any power.”

  “Yes, you did. But you scared your mother and Gramma McBurnie so much that they tried to make you stop using it. For a long time it didn’t work. No matter what they did, your power kept showing itself. Then it just stopped cold. They didn’t know why, but they were awfully relieved. At least, that was the way it sounded when your mother was talking about it.”

  Suddenly Bonnie felt a sense of panic. Something was nagging at the back of her mind, something that wanted to break through and be remembered. But she didn’t want to remember it. She was fighting it, trying to keep it locked in. “Go on,” she said slowly.

  “Well, it started in Boston when we were kids.”

  Bonnie nodded. She and her mother had lived with Grandmother McBurnie while her father was in the navy. Her father’s sister, Doris McBurnie, had married a neighbor boy who also joined the navy. Like Bonnie’s mother, Doris lived with her husband’s family while he was off at sea. After the men left the Navy both families moved to Barker’s Cove, where they started their fishing businesses.

  “You used to find things,” said Eileen.

  Bonnie looked at her curiously. “What do you mean?”

  “Things that were lost. Things you would have no way of knowing where to find. Gramma lost a pendant once. It was something Grandfather had given her, and she was crushed. When you saw her crying you sat and stared at her for a while. Then you went upstairs and into her bedroom and right to the spot where it had gotten lost in her closet.”

  Bonnie could feel the awful thing scratching at the back of her mind where she had buried it.

 
“It was a coincidence,” she said uncomfortably. “Probably I had spotted it when I was playing around in there.”

  “Nope. It was under a sweater on her top shelf. You had to stand on a chair to get it. Besides, there were dozens of incidents like that. The neighbors got so they’d come over whenever something valuable was missing, hoping you’d be able to find it for them.”

  “Don’t!” said Bonnie.

  “All right,” said Eileen. “You were the one who wanted to know.”

  “I’m sorry.” Bonnie clutched her cousin’s arm. “Go on. Tell me the rest of it.”

  “Well, the incidents bothered Gramma and your mother, but they dealt with them pretty well. At least, that was what your father said when I heard them talking that night. But then something bigger happened—Ouch!”

  Bonnie looked down at her hand. Her fingers were digging into Eileen’s arm. She relaxed her grip. “Sorry,” she murmured. There was a pause. “What happened?”

  “Well, your mother had taken you to visit some friends—the McFiggans, I think… “

  #

  Eileen went on talking. But Bonnie wasn’t hearing her anymore. She was back in the past, seven years old again. It was a hot summer day. Her braids were sticking to her back, and she was feeling very cranky. Her mother was dragging her off to visit some friends, and she didn’t want to go.

  They pulled up in the driveway. “I don’t want to go in!” cried Bonnie. “I don’t like it here!”

  “Nonsense,” said Mrs. McBurnie. “Martha always has something good for you to eat. You like it here.”

  “I don’t,” said Bonnie. “I hate it. I don’t want to go in!”

  “Bonnie! Stop this nonsense and come along like a young lady.”

  Bonnie stopped fussing. But she hated the house, and she hated her mother for making her go in.

  Mrs. McFiggan met them at the door. “Hello, Kathleen. Hi, Bonnie. How are you, dear?”

  Bonnie looked up at Mrs. McFiggan and began to cry. “Don’t go,” she said desperately. “Don’t go!”

  Mrs. McFiggan looked at her curiously. “Don’t go where, Bonnie? What are you talking about?”

  Bonnie looked around. Her eyes grew wild and wide. “Don’t go!” she cried again. “Don’t go!”

  “Bonnie, stop that this instant!” said her mother. She grabbed her shoulders and began to shake her.

  Bonnie screamed. “The lights! The lights! The fire!”

  Her screams grew louder.

  #

  “Bonnie! Bonnie, stop it!”

  Bonnie felt a sharp slap on her face. Opening her eyes, she saw Eileen standing in front of her.

  “What happened?”

  “You blanked out,” said Eileen, her voice shaking. “I was terrified. I thought I’d lost you.”

  “Not that,” said Bonnie. “You know what I mean. What happened to the McFiggans?”

  Eileen turned her head away. “They went to a party that night. When they were driving home a drunk driver crossed into their lane and hit them head on. Their car exploded.” She paused. “They both burned to death.”

  Bonnie began to cry.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Bonnie was picking at her supper when the phone rang. She was still shaken by her sudden memory of the McFiggans’ deaths, and even more by her prediction of the tragedy.

  Worse still was the dread certainty that she had also predicted something else, something worse, something that had scared her into submerging her power for almost ten years.

  Something that had to do with the crystal ball in her grandmother’s attic. Something she might soon remember in her dreams, no matter how hard she tried to avoid it.

  “Bonnie, it’s for you.”

  She looked up, startled. “What?”

  “It’s for you,” repeated her mother. “It’s Alan.”

  “Oh, good!” She pushed herself away from the table and took the phone into the next room, stretching the cord around the corner to get as much privacy as possible.

  “Hi.” Alan’s voice was strained.

  “Hi. Are you still mad at me?”

  “Are you mad at me?

  “No.”

  He let out his breath. “Good. Listen, I’ve been working on Matilda and I’m going to take her out for spin. Want to come along? We can just relax and forget about all that other stuff.”

  Bonnie smiled. “I’d love to. Let me check with the parental units.”

  She returned to the phone in a moment. “It’s okay, as long as we’re back before dark. They don’t want me riding around in the dunes after sunset.”

  “Hmmm. They afraid of what might be out there—or of me?”

  “Both, probably. It’s a good thing they don’t know what a cad you are. They’d never let me alone with you.”

  “I’m not a cad, I’m a romantic fool. Anyway, come over as soon as you can. We don’t have much time before dark. I’d come and get you, but I’ve got just a little more tinkering to do before Matilda is ready to roll.”

  #

  Bonnie hummed to herself as she rode her bike to Alan’s. It was a pleasant spring evening, with still almost an hour before sunset. That was good: an hour was about all she could stand of bouncing around the beaches in Alan’s dune buggy.

  Alan’s mother was in the front yard, working on her rose garden, when Bonnie rolled in.

  “Hello, Mrs. Peterson!”

  “Hi, Bonnie. Alan’s around back, still tinkering with Matilda. If you’re lucky he may tinker away until it’s too late to go riding.”

  Bonnie laughed. Mrs. Peterson’s feelings about Matilda were well known. She had ridden with Alan once and immediately decided that dune buggies were not designed for normal people, even though Alan swore he had driven extra slowly just to make things easy for her.

  “I don’t mind it,” Bonnie said. “It’s kind of fun.”

  Mrs. Peterson grimaced. “It’s like surfing in a blender. Oh, well. It’s nice to be young… I suppose.”

  “Mom filling your head with the evils of dune buggies?” asked Alan when Bonnie came around the corner of the house.

  She smiled. “No. The evils of teenage boys.”

  “Rats. She blew my cover. Oh, well. Hop in. I think she’s ready to go.”

  “And how are you, Matilda?” Bonnie asked, patting the sleek hood as she walked to the passenger side. “Haven’t seen you in a few weeks.”

  “I think she missed you while you were at your grandmother’s. She’s been running poorly. Pouting, probably. We’ll see how she does now that you’re back.” He turned the key and fired the engine. It started instantly. “Well, that’s an improvement! Now, where to, milady? The charger is charged, and your knight in white is ready to roll.”

  “Let’s just ride. It’s a beautiful evening. As long as we’re near the water I’ll be happy.”

  “Your wish, etc.,” said Alan, and he stepped on the accelerator. With a roar Matilda shot toward the dunes behind Alan’s house.

  Bonnie sat back. She realized this was one of the few times she had really relaxed since she had come home from her grandmother’s. It felt good to let go.

  Alan headed west along the beach, toward a sunset that smeared the sky with vivid oranges and purples. Gulls took wing ahead of them, complaining bitterly at the intrusion. But the ocean itself paid no attention. It continued to roll slowly in to shore, vast and serene and lovely. Bonnie breathed the cool salt air deep into her lungs. She couldn’t imagine living inland. Lakes and rivers were pleasant, but for her it was the ocean or nothing.

  “Hey!” she cried as Alan took a dune at high speed, pitching the buggy into the air and breaking her reverie.

  “Hey, yourself. This is a dune buggy. So hold on!”

  Bonnie braced herself. A little high-speed dune-popping was part of the price paid for a ride in Matilda. Actually, she didn’t mind. It was fun, as long as it didn’t go on too long.

  “Yow!” cried Alan as they crested another dune. “Nice wor
k, Matilda!”

  The little buggy landed with a jolt and roared on, spraying sand behind it. They had moved away from the shore, into high dunes and shifting sands. Alan revved the engine, driving in a zigzag pattern between some of the larger dunes.

  They continued to zoom westward.

  “Look!” cried Bonnie. “There’s someone out horseback riding.”

  Alan looked up and cried out in terror. Ahead of them, silhouetted in the rays of the setting sun, a horse and rider stood on the crest of a high dune.

  And the rider’s name was Death.

  Bonnie recognized him in the same moment that Alan cried out. Dressed in silver armor, he was carrying a banner that whipped back and forth in the ocean breeze. The banner was black, blazoned with a mystic rose. The horse was white.

  Fire played about its hooves.

  “Alan!” The scream tore out of Bonnie as Alan wrenched the wheel sharply to the left. He hit the gas as he did. Matilda roared and spun, tilting up on two wheels, then shot straight ahead, toward the ocean.

  Death kicked his heels, and his horse began galloping toward the ocean too, keeping pace with the dune buggy even though it was moving at a fantastic speed. Suddenly the horse turned toward them.

  “Alan!” cried Bonnie. “He’s coming this way!”

  Alan spun the wheel and Matilda lurched left again. They had nearly left the dunes and were close to the beach itself. The dunes were lower here, and there was no need to go around them. Gripping the steering wheel like a drowning man grasping a life preserver Alan stared straight ahead. They crested a series of dunes, flying into the air, thudding down, roaring on. Bonnie clung to the seat, fearing she might be thrown from the bouncing, lurching vehicle at any moment. Overhead the gulls were screaming. To their right the ocean continued to roll calmly in. At the edge of the water raced Death, his horse easily keeping pace with the dune buggy, his banner streaming behind, snapping in the wind.