Here in Avalon by Tara Isabella Burton

Author:Tara Isabella Burton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2024-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

The second letter from the Avalon came on a Tuesday afternoon. Paul brought it to their bench in DUMBO.

“On the bright side,” Paul said dryly, “at least this one has pictures.”

Rose’s second cabaret was scheduled for Thursday night.

The clue was even more perplexing than the first.

It was a series of cards—a little larger than playing cards—with images drawn in, so dark and delicately rendered that they looked as though they’d been assembled from stained glass.

The first was a shipwreck. In the background, the ship’s mast reared up as the stern began to shatter into a whirlpool. In the foreground, a desperate sailor—submerged from the shoulders down—clutched at the air.

The second was a beautiful woman, in queenly raiment, sitting on a seaside promontory at the onset of a storm. Her hair was dark, her expression severe.

The third was a middle-aged man with a mustache, grimacing under the weight of three beams of wood.

The fourth was the prow of an old-fashioned ship. There were no figures in this one, but rather a wooden steering wheel.

The fifth was a tall, stout man, richly dressed in a Renaissance doublet and oxblood hose, with an eye patch over his left eye and jewels on his fingers.

The sixth was blank.

Paul looked up at her. “Tarot cards?”

“They’re not tarot cards,” Rose said. Lydia had read her fortune enough times for her to know that. “At least, I don’t think they are. For starters, tarot doesn’t have blank cards.”

Rose turned the cards over. They had identical backing: calligraphed gold, in a paisley pattern, surrounding a single apple tree.

“Great. Helpful,” she sighed. “How are we supposed to figure this one out, in two days?” She looked at the cards again. “Maybe it’s them somehow?” The woman on the rocks looked a little like Morgan; she could see Thomas in the man with the mustache. “Or we’re meant to find what the blank card is supposed to be? Maybe that’s the answer? Like—if there’s a pattern.”

Paul didn’t say anything. He took the cards. He held them to the waning light.

“God,” he said. “A man feels useless sometimes.”

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