“Now, when you look at my three rounds, you see that in the first, and the last, I pulled both Death and the Devil. Other repeats, first and second rounds, the Hanged Man, and in all three rounds, I drew the Wheel of Fortune. Second and third, Strength.”
“All of us drew repeat cards.”
“That’s right, so those repetitions add weight to our individual columns. And, tellingly, each woman picked a queen, each man a king. Mine, Queen of Swords, represents someone on guard. An intelligent woman who uses that intellect to gain her own way. Which I’m certainly prone to do. This queen is usually seen as a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman. Ten of Rods, a burden, a determination to succeed. Four of Cauldrons, help from a positive source, new possibilities and/or relationships.”
She stepped back, frowned at the board. “My take here is, the cards from the Lesser Arcana represent not only who we are, but what we need to do individually to aid the whole. With the repeat cards representing what was set before us-individually again-what’s come to be or is coming, and the eventual outcome.”
“How about my king?”
“Again Swords. Represents a man of action who has an analytical mind. And though it might be seen more as Fox, as it’s often someone in the legal profession, it means this man is fair, a good judge and basically, nobody’s patsy. Next, you have the Six of Rods, triumph after a struggle. And last, Nine of Cauldrons. Someone who enjoys the good life, and has found material success.
“So…” She blew out a breath. “As Q and I are most familiar with the Tarot and its meanings, we’ll work this. Shuffle it around, analyze, dig into meanings in each subset and in the order of individual picks, repeats, and so on.”
“Which will tell us…?”
“Strengths and weaknesses-that’s a key, isn’t it? For each of us, for each subset, and for the whole. And speaking of Q,” Cybil continued when Quinn stepped to the doorway. “Did you get the thing from the place?” Cybil asked sweetly.
“What? Oh, that thing from that place. They were out. So, what are we up to?”
“You and I are on cards. Gage will be putting his analytical mind and his judgment into charts, maps, and graphs.”
“Cool. Isn’t it sweet how Cal and I picked King and Queen of Rods?” She beamed her smile at Gage. “Both prefer country living, are loyal with strong ties to family.”
“Handy.” With that, Gage decided the maps needed his attention.
He wondered how many hours they’d put into all this-their pushpins and computer printouts. He understood and valued the need for research and prep work, but honestly couldn’t see what help color-coded index cards were against the forces of evil.
As he studied the map of the Hollow, his mind automatically filled in houses, buildings, landmarks. How many times had he cruised those streets-on a bike, then in a car? There was the place where the dog had drowned at the dawn of the second Seven. But the summer before, he and Fox and Cal had snuck out and gone skinny-dipping in that pool one hot summer night.
The bank would be there, corner of Main and Antietam. He’d opened an account there when he’d been thirteen, to hoard money where the old man couldn’t find it. And that asshole Derrick Napper had jumped Fox there one night, just for the hell of it, as Fox cut through on his way from ball practice to the Bowl-a-Rama. The Foster house had been right about there, on Parkside, and in the basement family room, he’d lost his virginity and taken that of the pretty Jenny Foster one memorable night when her parents had been out celebrating their anniversary.
Less than eighteen months later, long after he and pretty Jenny had parted ways, her mother had set the bed on fire while her father slept. There had been many fires during that Seven, and Mr. Foster one of the lucky ones. He’d awakened, put the fire out, then managed to subdue his wife before she lit up their children.
There was the bar where he and Cal and Fox had all gotten ridiculously drunk when he’d come back to celebrate their twenty-first birthday. A few years before, he recalled Lisa Hodges had stumbled out of that same bar and shot at anything that moved-and some that didn’t. She’d put a bullet in his arm that Seven, Gage thought, then offered him a blow job.
Strange times.
He scanned the graphs, but as far as he could see, it didn’t appear that any one area, or sector, of the Hollow experienced more episodes of violence or paranormal activity. Main Street, of course, but you had to factor in that Main got more traffic, more people used it than any of the other streets or roads in and around town. It was the primary route, with the Square the hub.
He visualized it that way, as a wheel, then as a grid, with the Square as the central point. But no particular pattern emerged. Waste of time, he thought. They could play at this for weeks, and nothing could change. All it proved was that at one time or another, nearly every place within the town limits had been hit.
The park, the ball field, the school, the old library, bowling alley, bars, shops, private homes. Documenting wasn’t going to stop them from being hit again when…
He stepped back, used both his eyes and his memory to build Hawkins Hollow on its map. Maybe it meant nothing, but hell, the stupid pushpins were right there. Picking up the box, he began adding blue ones to the map.
“What are you doing?” Cybil demanded. “Why-”
He cut her off simply by holding up a finger as he shuffled through his memory, added more pins. There had to be more, he thought. How the hell was a man supposed to remember every applicable incident in some wild theory? And not all of them would involve him. He and Cal and Fox had been tight, but they hadn’t been joined at the hip.
“Those locations were already marked,” Cybil pointed out when he paused.
“Yeah, that would be the point. And these particular locations have all been hit more than once, some at each Seven. And some of those have already had an incident this time.”
“Multiple hits would be logical.” Quinn moved forward to study the map. “A town the size of Hawkins Hollow is limited. Other than Main Street, it’s fairly spread out, but that’s logical, too, as Main has more activity, more people per square foot.”
“Yeah, yeah. Interesting, isn’t it?”
“It might be, if we knew what the blue pins represented,” Cybil said.
“Places, memories, highlights, lowlights. The bowling center. The three of us spent a hell of a lot of time there as kids. I lived on the third floor, worked there-so did Cal and Fox-for spending money. The first violent incident, at least the first we know about, happened in the center on the night of our tenth birthday. At least one act of violence happened there every Seven. Already this time, you had the mess on Valentine’s Day, and Twisse shot me back to the apartment-illusion or not, it felt pretty damn real. I got the shit kicked out of me plenty of times up there.”
“Violence drawing violence,” Cybil murmured. “It returns to locations where you, or one of you, had a violent experience.”
“Not just. See this.” He tapped the map. “I had sex for the first time in the house that sits here. I was fifteen.”
“Precocious,” Quinn commented.
“The opportunity presented itself. Next Seven, the lady of the house tried to burn it down, with everyone in it. Didn’t work out for her, fortunately. By the next Seven, my first conquest had married her college sweetheart and moved away, and the rest of the family moved to a bigger house well out of town. But the guy who bought the place broke every mirror in the place-that would be July of ’01, and according to his wife, whom he attacked, started screaming about devils in the glass. The school-God knows we put in time at all three levels-we got in our share of fights there, copped our share of feels and long, wet kisses once we hit high school.”