THE HANGED MAN

 

The orphan, Richard Blaine discovers that when things change inside you, things change around you.

THE HANGED MAN

“By the time Louisiana fell under American control, New Orleans had become a city of debauchery and corruption camouflaged by decadence.

In other words, my kind of city.” 

- Lamashtu Morton

 

It was All Saints Day, and you would think I could find a little peace in an empty library.

You would be wrong.

“I want my daughter out of this horrid place!”

I sighed and slipped the Tarot card of “The Hanged Man” in the book I was reading to mark the spot.

I made sure it was right-side up which signified wisdom, circumspection, discernment, trials, sacrifice, intuition, divination, and prophecy.

St. Marok’s had given me my share of trials and sacrifice. I could use the rest of the card’s attributes … in spades … to continue with the card analogy.

I fought another sigh. Just when I thought I had run out of new books to read in the orphanage’s library, I found this one:

Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.

I think I had instinctively stayed away from it due to its cumbersome title.

I had robbed myself. 

The words of the book were fascinating: their metaphorical verve, their self-satirizing charisma, and their lonely intimacy.

If a book was well written, I always found it too short.

Mrs. Mayfair tapped a long, red polished nail on the head of the card’s figure.

“This halo burning brightly around the hanged man's head signifies higher learning or enlightenment.”

She sniffed sharply. “Obviously, you have an inflated sense of your own importance.”

“Or a desire to be more than I presently am.”

She looked like she would have spat in my face if only she had not been so well bred.

Her two police bodyguards – Heckle and Jeckel I called them mentally – looked bored.

Guard duty for a supercilious woman must have been dreary for them. 

But having lost his first wife to a sloppy mob hitman, Commissioner Mayfair was not about to take any more chances with this wife’s safety.

“Frankly, I do not see what my daughter sees in you.”

“A diligent coworker, ma’am.”

“Oh, puh-lease! At home, it has been one long litany of ‘Richard this’ or ‘Richard that’ until I think I may lose ….”

“Your genteel sophistication?”

I earned the slap she gave me, but it was worth the look on her and the policemen’s faces. It looked as though one officer fought a cheer.

At that moment, the library door opened, and the feisty Miss Myers walked briskly in. “Ah, Mr. Blaine, I see you are having your customary effect on the female populace.”

“Yep. First, Marie Laveau. Now, Cassandra Mayfair.”

“Mrs., whelp!”

Then, my words hit her. “Helen was not exaggerating, then? You … you both met the legendary Voodoo Queen?”

I nodded, and her face became truly somber as if she might truly care for Helen, ah, Miss Mayfair.

Mrs. Mayfair rose elegantly with an air of true sadness descending upon her.

“Mr. Blaine, you may have a bit of the prophetic nature of the Hanged Man, after all.”

The cheek she so stingingly slapped, she now tenderly stroked.

“The Hanged Man, you so cavalierly use as a bookmark, is associated with sacrifice. Sometimes, for the greater good of all, you may have to sacrifice your own desires for the needs of someone else.”

She sighed and turned away calling back to me over her shoulder, “Think upon that.”

As the door closed upon her and her chuckling bodyguards, Miss Myers snorted, 

“Or not. Unlike her namesake, Cassandra Mayfair’s predictions are the opposite of true, Mr. Blaine. Much like the reading for the reversed Hanged Man card.”

I shrugged. “Sacrifice is what others ask of you but wouldn’t dream of doing themselves.”

“Exactly, Mr. Blaine. You are learning.”

“Not nearly fast enough.”

“No. Not at all.”

She smiled knowingly. “You will have to learn much faster to keep up with Miss Mayfair.”

“Why is everyone so interested in me and Miss Mayfair?”

Her chuckle deepened. “We old biddies are romantics at heart. 

Oh, by the by, you have a visitor of the female persuasion waiting for permission to enter the library.”

The way she said “female persuasion” raised the hackles at the back of my neck, and I said, “You mean not human female, right?”

“Yes, indeed. She said to tell you that she was the sister of Dapper Dan, and you would understand.”

“I don’t, but I will be happy to see her.”

“You would.”

Miss Myers turned to go, but I asked, “Why did this fall to you?”

“Ah, I am afraid Miss Tethers is taken with the vapors and is recuperating at her home. 

I fear she will not last long as headmistress here. She has not the substance for it.”

“She might grow that substance.”

“I have substance, Mr. Blaine. You have substance. All who would survive here must have substance. All she has is an aversion to uncertainty and challenge.”

“But that’s what all life is, ma’am.”

“Exactly, young sir, which is why I fear it is not in the cards, to keep with your Tarot analogy, for our Miss Tethers to long be tethered to this world.”

As she left the library, chuckling at her own joke, she called over her shoulder, “I will send the sister of your Dapper Dan in shortly.”

As it turned out, it was very shortly.

There was a rustle of a full Victorian skirt. I looked up and recognized the design from my reading of history books: an exquisite scarlet and gold Charles Worth dress.

I didn’t recognize who was wearing it … or I almost did and didn’t at the same time.

The face framed by long, luxuriant chestnut hair was almost a twin to Dapper Dan’s. Maybe the lips were fuller, more feminine .., the eyes more heavy lidded. But that was it.

I got up and pulled out the chair opposite me for the sister to sit. She stiffened for a moment, then sat down with a curious grace.

“That is a beautiful dress,” I said as I sat down.

“Sister Ameal gave it to me … as an insult and mockery.”

I sighed, “Sister Ameal is ….”

“What she is as I am what I am. But an insult only cuts if you perceive it as such. I chose to see it as a reflection of her own shortcomings not mine.”

I smiled. “Very wise … ah, what is your name?”

“My race distinguishes one another by scent. What would you call me, Richard Blaine?”

Without thinking about it, I said, “Deborah.”

“Why, might I ask?”

“Deborah was a prophet, poet, and the only female judge of Israel named in the Old Testament. The only woman to be called a prophet, and the only one described as performing a judicial function. Deborah is a decisive figure in the defeat of the Canaanites.”

“That name came to you without thought.”

I tapped the Hanged Man card I was using as a bookmark.

 “This card is supposed to indicate that the one for whom it is drawn has intuition, divination, and the gift of prophecy. Perhaps it is truer than I believed.”

“Perhaps. I will take your name as the honor you intended it to be not as a precursor of anything more than that.”

I nodded. “So, to what do I owe the honor you are paying me with this visit?”

Deborah shook her head. 

“No wonder my brother was taken aback by you. My species can smell if you humans tell the truth or not. You actually meant what you just said.”

“I would not insult his memory by telling his sister a lie. Besides, a lie leads a man from a grove into a jungle. Why would I do that to myself?”

Deborah purred deep in her throat. “I could wile away the morning conversing delightfully with you, but my time is not completely my own.”

I made a fist of my right hand. “I would break the chains of your race’s slavery if I could.”

“But you have. You and my brother have ended my species indentured captivity with your friendship and his translation.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Nor do I, but an angelic figure told me the moment you left, and from the way The Dark One hissed at him, I believed what I was told.”

My stomach grew cold, and Deborah sighed, “No, it was not The Mayfair. Her time is not yet come.”

“What time?”

“Do you truly wish to know?”

I didn’t have to ponder my answer. “No.”

“Wise. We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.”

Her head bowed then lifted, “The Angelic Figure said you and he would meet some time hence across the ocean.”

“I don’t intend on crossing any ocean.”

“Your fate and mine are not our own.”

I thought about the ongoing war and how soon I would reach draft age.

She kept on. “I came to give thanks for my People for acting as the catalyst for our freedom … though we must still run errands for The Dark One in return for our … room and board.”

I started to speak, but she held up a clawed hand. “Bide. The other reason I came was to invite you to his mansion for a series of chess games.”

She saw my face. “Your safety assured he promises.”

“Uh, huh.”

“I do not trust That One either. But if you refuse, I sense he would act against The Mayfair, for that is the way his mind works.”

“How can I refuse such a gracious invitation?”

“The first will be tomorrow at the Witching Hour.”

“Midnight?”

“No. When the Church worldwide has no services, and thus the gate to Hell is somewhat loosened: the time between 3:00 am and 4:00 am.”

I cocked an eyebrow. "Fun times await.”

“I think not.”