"Lives in the suburbs," Catherine added. "Paid me with a new fifty."

Esther smiled grimly. "Madame Marlena."

"She does readings?" cried Catherine, astonished. "Why'd she come here?"

"She's mad at you. You've been stealing her clients."

"I don't drag people in here," Catherine protested.

"She thinks you do."

Catherine thought a moment, then jumped up from the table. "Where does she work out of?"

"Collins Street. Near the place I got my gla.s.ses last Christmas."

Esther followed Catherine into the front room and helped her struggle into her stiff khaki overcoat.

"You're going over there?"

"Time I got my fortune told," Catherine said, smiling grimly.

"It'll do you good to get out," said Esther softly. "Just make sure you leave those things behind." She pointed to the cards on the table.

There were no cards on the table.

At the door, Catherine reached into the deep pocket of her jacket and pulled out the tarot deck.

"I can't leave them behind, Esther. They won't let me go."

Swish. Clang.

"Madame Marlena?" Catherine asked.

There had been no sign in the window of the storefront, which was even narrower than her own place, but Catherine had asked the receptionist in the eye doctor's office, and the young woman had pointed the place out.

No answer when she rang the bell, but the door had been unlocked.

Inside, the small rooma"even smaller than Catherine'sa"had been nearly stripped. Silver-framed posters of the zodiac leaned neatly against the bare walls. Cardboard boxes were tied, stacked, and labeled.

Three suitcases, each with a luggage tag, waited in ascending order of size by the door. A sheet had been thrown over a long sofa, and at one end of the sheeted sofa sat a woman in a black dress and a black turban.

Her hands were folded in her lap, and all the rings on her fingers were silver. Her face was turned away from Catherine.

"Marlene?" asked Catherine again, approaching the sofa.

The woman turned. "Yes," she replied. Despair and bitterness, Catherine thoughta"that was what was in Marlene's face.

"It was you," said Catherine.

"What are you doing here?" Marlene asked in a tone of voice suggesting she wasn't at all surprised that Catherine was here."

"I want a reading," said Catherine.

"There's no sign in the window. Everything's packed. I'm closed."

said Marlene, galled indifference in her voice.

"I've come such a long way, I'd hate to be disappointed," said Catherine. She went around the back of the sofa and leaned over Marlene's shoulder. "And I've heard such marvelous things about you, Marlene. Sorry, Madame Marlena." Catherine took the tarot deck from her pocket and thrust the cards before Marlene's face. "What did you want from me? What is this deck?"

Marlene didn't flinch. "You were a liar, Madame Catrina. You pretended to believe in the cards. You told people only what they wanted to hear."

"They paid mea"I put on a show. They gave me moneya"I made them feel good."

"You fed them lies."

Catherine went all the way around the sofa and seated herself at the opposite end from Marlene. She tossed the deck on the cushion that separated them. "What is this deck?" Where did it come from?"

"All the cards are one." Marlene smiled a sad, cold smile. "They come from the Hebrews . . . the Persians . . .the Egyptians. From Astaroth, the G.o.ddess of Fertility and Rottenness. From Shiva the Destroyer and Shiva the Resurrection. The cards have the power to dream. And the dreams of the tarot are more powerful than our reality.

You mocked them."

"I'm not going to do this work anymore. I don't want the cards," said Catherine.

"They won't leave you. But you know that already."

"There must be a way I can get rid of them."

"As far as I know, there's only one way. You pa.s.s them on . Not to just anyone, of coursea"but to someone who has mocked them. The way you did, and the way I did once."

"You palmed them off on me!"

"I had to get rid of them," said Marlene simply. "They tortured me .

. . for my disbelief. So I turned them overa"to another disbeliever.

That's what you'll have to do."

"Take them back!"

"I can't." Marlene laughed. "Don't you see? I believe in them now!"

The notice advertising the presence of Madame Catrina had been removed from the window, and for good measure the sign in the door had been turned to CLOSED. Inside, Catherine was struggling into her "Serious Audition" dress, which she hadn't worn in three years and ten pounds. It was tight and uncomfortable, but it put her in the mood for playing the part of a moderately repressed young woman who might, on impulse and on her birthday, visit a palm reader for the first time in her life. She wore a single strand of pearls and pulled off all her rings.

She savagely brushed her unruly hair and pulled it back hard. She checked her wallet for cash, then tossed it in her shoulder bag. Then she went to the tea table, where the tarot deck sat neatly in the middle, the Knight of Swords faceup. She picked it up, put it in her bag, and then started- --stopped.

She took the cards out again, spilled them on the table, and left, not bothering to lock the door behind her.

In the back of the taxi, after she'd given the driver an address in the very worst part of the city, Catherine checked her shoulder bag again.

The tarot deck was there, of course. The Fool was on the bottom, and the Knight of Swords on the top.

Swish. Clang.

Behind the three chains and the police lock, the fourth-floor room was like a jungle. Dark walls painted with black-trunked palms and vines with purple flowers. Real trees with black trunks in black pots, and real vines with purple flowers, dark red rugs, dark blue curtains to keep out the sunlight, black bird cages with yellow chattering birds, red screaming birds, and green silent birds that beat their wings against the painted bars.

"I've come for a reading," said Catherine.

Mrs. McNeil wore a long dark dress and a purple scarf painted with the images of yellow, red, and green birds.

"How do you come here?" asked Mrs. McNeill. Her voices lilted. She was West Indian.

"A friend of mine recommended you."

"What friend?"

"Well, not a friend, actually," said Catherine, looking around nervously. The nervousness wasn't all disguise. "A girl who works at the place where I always get my contact lenses. She gave me your address."

Mrs. McNeill considered this a moment. "You have money?"

"Certainly I can pay you."

"Then sit."

She pointed to a small tablea"round and the size of Catherine's own table, covered with a cloth that was black and purple.

Catherine sat nervously. Mrs. McNeill pushed aside the fronds of a palm Catherine had at first thought was only painted on the wall. From a wooden shelfa"perhaps it was even an altar of sortsa"Mrs.

McNeill unfolded a length of fringed silk from around the tarot deck.

She whispered words Catherine could scarcely hear and could not make out at all.

She brought the cards to the table, placed them in the exact center, and looked at Catherine.

"You have a question?"

Catherine paused a moment, as if unfamiliar with the ritual. "I do," she said at last.

"Ask your question in silence."

Catherine closed her eyes a moment, the way she had when she was a little girl, wishing on a dying star.

"Now touch the cards . . ."

Hesitantly Catherine pressed the deck with two fingers.

Mrs. McNeill shuffled the deck, many times, rhythmically, again murmuring so that Catherine could not quite hear, nor quite understand.

"Now cut," said Mrs. McNeill, pushing the deck across the table.

Catherine cut the deck, rearranged it neatly, and dropped it into Mrs.

McNeill's proffered hand.

Mrs. McNeill placed her other palm over the deck, closed her eyes, and tilted her head back. She raised the tarot to her lips.

More murmured words, unheard or unclear.

Mrs. McNeill lowered her head, opened her eyes, and started to turn over the first card.

Catherine placed her hand over the deck. "Wait."

"What is wrong?"

"It's too dark in here."

"This is my home. It is not too dark for me."

"I've been nervous lately. Upset. Darkness is part of it. That's why I came. Pleasea"could you just let in a little light?"

Mrs. McNeill looked doubtful. "You are frighteneda"but not of the dark."

"Pleasea"" Catherine begged. Her trembling wasn't feigned.Mrs. McNeill put down the cards, went to the window, and opened the blue drapes an inch or two.

A shaft of sunlight fell on Catherine's face as she took the deck from the table and replaced it with the cards from her shoulder bag.

Mrs. McNeill turned back to her. "Is that better?" she asked.

"Much, much better," said Catherine. "Thank you."

"Now we begin," said Mrs. McNeill, taking her place again, picking up the tarot deck and beginning to deal.

The Fool first.

But after that CAtherine breathed more easily. The cards were laid out, one by one. But they meant nothing to her. She couldn't read their pattern.

Seventeen was the Priestess.

Eighteen was the Lovers.

Nineteen was the Hanged Man.

Mrs. McNeill stopped. She looked at Catherine, almost angrily.

"What is it?" Catherine demanded.

"I have not seen such a thing as this . . ."

"Tell mea""