Aunt Sarah Arrives

“They’re tarot cards, not devil cards,” Bridget said as she opened the box and pulled the deck out. The Devil was the card on top.

“If they ain’t devil cards, how come that’s the devil himself right there on that card? He got horns and everything. And look, that next one’s Death!” Braxton was nearly jumping up and down with the excitement of something he didn’t have a name for.

Bridget showed him some of the other cards–minor arcana cards, and explained that while there was indeed a devil card, the cards themselves were not evil or of the devil.

“Okay, then. Show me the Jesus card.”

Bridget flipped the Hanged Man upside down and showed it to her brother.

“Hmmph. His cross upside down.” Mollified, Braxton handed the card back to Bridget and left the room.

Bridget sat there on the floor for the better part of an hour, looking at each card in the deck, some of which she immediately loved, like The Moon and The Empress, but others, like The Hierophant, repulsed her, so she turned them upside down in the deck, then slipped the cards back in the box and hid them under the false bottom in her bottom desk drawer. Mama didn’t know it had a false bottom–Bridget discovered it after Mama commented that she didn’t understand why they used such a thick piece of wood for the drawer, wasting space that could be used.

Bridget and Braxton turned fourteen when 1985 became 1986, roughly a month after finding the tarot cards. Aunt Sarah, it turned out, had not come to visit, she'd come to stay, and Bridget had never been happier. Aunt Sarah was as different from Mama as Bridget was from Braxton, if not more so. Aunt Sarah had long hair, didn't like shoes, called the bible "patriarchal nonsense," and she was teaching Bridget how to read the tarot cards--it turned out that the deck belonged to Aunt Sarah, not Mama.

"Where in the world did you find these?" Wonder lit up her face like downtown on Friday night. She tucked a strand of her long, dark blonde hair behind her ear and picked up the deck with unmanicured hands. Memories drifted across her face as she thumbed through the cards. When she came to The Hierophant, she paused and started to turn the card upright.

"No!" Bridget put her hand over Sarah's to stop her. "I don't like him. Leave him upside down."

Sarah put the deck down, took both of her niece's hands in her own, and looked into her eyes, looked so far into her eyes that it felt like she was reading Bridget's secrets, and Bridget blinked. "Tell me how you feel about Sunday school," Sarah whispered. "The truth."

Bridget inhaled all of the oxygen in the room, cast her eyes down onto the iron mark scorched into the heart pine floor and whispered, "I hate it," slowly raising her eyes until they blazed up and into her aunt's.

"You and me are going to get along just fine," Sarah wrapped her arms around her niece, and Bridget knew without knowing yet that she had found her first ally.

When Braxton trudged into the room with Sarah's belongings--a large suitcase on caster, a cedar chest, and two large plastic storage bins with lids, Sarah was explaining to Bridget that the cards themselves were not magical, but they had the power to open her up to the magic in her life. He gave them both a disapproving look as he pushed the cedar chest up against the footboard of the full-sized bed. When he returned with the suitcase, he spoke up. "Aunt Sarah, how come you looking at them devil cards? Mama says they're bad."

Sarah explained, as Bridget had but with the authority of age, experience, and wisdom that were visible in front of him. He stood in silence for a moment, staring at the map on the wall and finally said, "Okay, if you say so. But I don't want nothing to do with them. I get my answers from the bible, just like Mama."

After Braxton left the room, Sarah put an arm around her niece, and said, "It's hard to believe y'all are twins. I know girls mature faster than boys, but there's more to it than that. You and I have a depth that your brother and mother, with their simple, shallow minds, will never understand. I'm glad I'm here. You're going to need me. And I will teach you how to read these cards."

Bridget stayed in Sarah's room and helped her unpack, hitting a snag when Sarah opened the closet door and it was stacked with boxes blocking the clothes hanging bar. Sarah assessed the boxes, then pulled two out of the closet and placed them in front of the slipper chair, then pulled a small tapestry from one of the storage bins, wrapping and tucking it around the boxes so quickly and expertly that Bridget was astonished. Six more boxes and two more tapestries made mismatched nightstands on either side of the maple four-poster bed, and the closet was functional once more. Bridget hung Sarah's long, flowing skirts, dresses, and tunics in the closet while Sarah covered the walls with tapestries and placed photos and knickknacks on the tables they had just fashioned.

"I guess they'll do for now," Sarah touched the once-cheerful gingham curtains, "but I don't like yellow in the bedroom." She opened the last storage bin, and it was full of plants: ferns, ivy, hens and chickens, an aloe plant, a philodendron, and a few flat-leaved cacti. "Some floating shelves and a few hooks in the ceiling for hanging baskets, and it'll almost feel like home."

Bridget was speechless. The room had become the most beautiful one she had ever been in, including the fancy hotel in Atlanta where they had spent one magical night when Bridget and Braxton were seven. Aunt Sarah lit a stick of incense and stuck it in one of the plants Bridget couldn't identify.

Mama smelled the smoke and came running. "I knew you two would be thick as thieves before the sun set this evenin'. Sarah, you know I don't truck with smoking in the house."

"She's not smoking, Mama, see?" Bridget held the incense stick in the air for her mother to see. "It smells good."

"Sarah," Mama ignored Bridget, laser-focused on her sister, "what did we talk about before I agreed to give you houseroom? I ain't puttin' up with no foolishness, especially from you."

Sarah just laughed and said, “Mary, one of these days, you need to have some fun.”

“Joshua used to say that.”

“I know.” Sarah rose from the slipper chair and hugged her sister, who broke down in tears, sobbing on her shoulder. They clung to each other, Sarah soothing Mama and smoothing her hair. Sarah kept whispering, "I know. It's okay, just let it out."

Bridget and Braxton had never seen their mother break down and felt like they were observing something obscene and scandalous--raw emotional outpourings were foreign to them.

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