The Sacrifice Box by Martin Stewart

Author:Martin Stewart
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141371627
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2017-10-26T04:00:00+00:00

33

Tarot

The old lady known locally as Christine the Psychic stirred her soup, pausing every once in a while to rattle a box of cat treats at the back door.

‘Puss, puss, puss,’ she called in her sing-song voice. ‘Here, puss!’

In her distraction she spilled some of the bright liquid on the linoleum, and left it there as a further incentive for the cat.

But by the time her soup began to bubble, the animal still had not come, and she took her lunch into the sitting room, arranging the buttered bread and the tea things on her tray.

Her house was old and small, a post-war wooden three-room that smelled of nutmeg and cloves. Its walls were hung with dreamcatchers and feather wards, and the surfaces were piled with the occult bric-a-brac of a thousand yard sales. Everything in the room had some connection to the world that existed beyond human sight, except one: the stag’s head her father had mounted before he died. It remained, glass-eyed and mighty, on the back wall above the settee – its antlers hung with the chiming silver of charms and totems.

Christine turned on the TV and sat below the stag, lifting the tray on to her lap.

‘Oh, this again,’ she said as static filled the screen.

She rose and crossed the room, clicking the off switch with a thunk. Then she sat on the settee once more and blew on her soup.

‘What on earth –’

There was something on her seat. She cocked her leg, patting her buttocks and the fabric of the settee.

It felt damp – but so did everything. The whole town seemed to be sweating in the heat.

She took a spoonful of soup, slurping a little from the deep spoon. The silver above her head chimed as the breeze moved playfully through the room.

Christine reached to her side and lifted a Tarot card from the top of the deck on the table, flipped it over dramatically.

‘The World Reversed,’ she said. ‘Feeling stuck. Nearly at the finishing line.’

She flipped the next card and looked at the skeletal figure.

‘Death,’ she said, sticking out her tongue. ‘Sucks to you, boyo.’

She took some more soup, this time dipping her bread and letting it soak.

A petrol lawnmower started outside – the Brodys’ boy, next door, earning his allowance. Christine rolled her eyes, set down her tray and crossed to the window.

‘I’ll pay you twice as much to shut up!’ she shouted as she slid the glass closed, trapping the sound outside and the heat in the room.

She sat back down, lifted her tray. And felt the seat wet again below her legs.

She hopped up, feeling embarrassed although there was no one there.

‘What on earth is –’

A drop fell into the hollow worn by her body, at the centre of a little damp patch that was forming there.

Christine looked up – and screamed.

Spit was running from the dead black mouth of the stag’s head and pooling on the edge of its lips.

‘No!’ she cried, backing away as the antlers began to swing, filling the room with the clang of metal.

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