Page 54 of Beneath the Poet's House

“I think it’s safe to say that I’ll be calling a contractor come Monday. Someone who can tighten everything up as well as install a lock.” Mia, Lucretia, and Roberto all nod. Roberto raises the panel, takes the putty from Lucretia, and returns it beneath the overhang. The panel stays in place. Saoirse takes a deep breath and pulls up the trapdoor.

Downstairs, the air feels cooler than usual. They each go to the seat they sat in the previous week. Lucretia unpacks a few additional candles and a long wooden box with etchings of the moon phases carved into the top. The silver paint of the moons’ surfaces shimmers in the light from the candles Roberto’s lighting.

“So, we each get a turn and then”—Saoirse looks at Lucretia—“you do a reading for yourself?”

Lucretia chuckles. “I pull cards for myself three times a day. When I’m in Sarah’s house, I only do readings for others.”

“Was Sarah into tarot?” Saoirse asks.

Lucretia smiles. “She held weekly séances, wrote trance-inspired poetry, and published articles on spiritualism in theNew York Tribune. What do you think?”

Lucretia shuffles three different decks of cards, and they stare at one another, no one sure who should begin.

“Mia should go first,” Roberto says, turning to face her. “You’ve been trying to figure out whether it’s time to leave PETA.”

Saoirse has numerous follow-up questions. Why does Mia want to leave? What’s been going on with her work? She’s been so self-involved lately she’s made zero effort to reach out to Mia. Between coffee and writing dates, she’s strengthened her relationships with Roberto and Lucretia, but ever since Mia told her not to let down her guard with Emmit, Saoirse’s been cold toward the other woman.

Now, considering how Emmit’s been behaving, Saoirse feels guilty for discounting Mia’s warning, and Mia herself. She sits back, preparedto pay attention to whatever details are revealed through her reading. But Mia glances at Saoirse, then back at Roberto, and shakes her head.

“I don’t need a five of swords to tell me I’m stuck between two undesirable options and headed for conflict. No, Lucretia reads my cards all the time. I think Saoirse should go.” Her dark eyes flick toward Saoirse again. “Go ahead, Saoirse. Clear your mind. Focus your intentions. And ask Lucretia—or, really, Sarah—your most pressing question.”

Despite feeling, mere seconds earlier, that she’s been unfair to Mia, a jolt of annoyance pulses through Saoirse. Her most pressing question could only be one thing. Should she lie? Ask something more benign? Less intimate? A draft of cool air passes through the room and she shivers, resisting the urge to pull the sleeves of her sweater down.

Lucretia is staring at her expectantly. “Once you ask your question,” she says, “I’ll choose whether traditional tarot, oracle, or an animal deck is best for helping you with the answer.”

Saoirse nods. Even colder now, she does yank down the sleeves of her sweater. Avoiding Mia’s penetrating gaze, Saoirse forces a smile at Lucretia and says, “Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Great.”

Lucretia hesitates. “I’m ready when you are. Unless you need more time.” A pause. “Do you need more time?”

Saoirse grips her chair. “No. Sorry, I’m ready. My question is—” She sees Emmit’s charming half smile in her mind. She hopes she isn’t making a mistake. “My question is: Is Emmit Powell in love with me, or is he using me for some unknown—but potentially nefarious—purpose?”

She’s not sure why she added the “potentially nefarious” part, but it’s too late to take it back. To their credit, none of the others so much as raise an eyebrow, let alone gasp or comment on her question. Lucretia nods once and moves a hand to the tarot deck, but she doesn’t lift the cards. Rather, her tattooed, black-polished fingers hover there.

“You know,” she says, “I think I’m going to meet a loaded question such as this with an arsenal of tools rather than just one.” She lifts eachdeck and moves them by her left elbow. Then, she cuts each deck three times, restacks, and one by one, flips the top card of each deck face up in front of Saoirse. Saoirse stares at the cards, having no idea what to make of them.

“Okay,” Lucretia says a moment later, but stops when a noise comes from behind them. It sounds like a cough, and it repeats several times, but each time the noise comes, it changes location, like whatever’s making the sound is floating around the room. The candles flicker, but Saoirse tells herself it’s because all four of them are shifting in their seats, turning to look at the walls, the ceiling, one another.

“What is that?” Roberto whispers.

“Just the house settling,” Mia says. “Go on, Lucretia.”

“Right.” Lucretia smiles reassuringly and picks up the card on Saoirse’s right. A massive, menacing bird glares from its center. The gray wings extending from its body are so muscular and hulking, they appear concave, like twin, shallow parachutes. A slate-black double crest crowns its head, and its eyes are like two black marbles against the whitish-gray feathers of its face.

“The harpy eagle,” Lucretia says. “Signifying truth. Truth that just might swoop down like a giant bird and pluck you out of the river.” She glances at Saoirse, who nods at her to continue. “Like the harpy—the half-human and half-bird personification of storm winds in Greek and Roman mythology—the truth you’re seeking is frightening and painful, but it can also be glorious and liberating.” Lucretia catches Saoirse’s eyes. “If you let it.”

Before Saoirse can respond, the strange cough comes again. This time, it’s moved behind Mia, and a moment after it’s begun, the cough evolves into a scream. It’s a woman’s scream, but muffled and throaty, as if coming to them from beneath layers of dirt and silt and rock and as if the woman screaming has had her vocal cords cut. It’s eerie and unsettling, and chills shoot up Saoirse’s back and down her arms.

“Seriously,” Roberto says. “What the hellis that?”

“It sounds like it’s coming from the other side of the walls,” Lucretia whispers.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Mia hisses. “The only thing on the other side of walls in a basement is dirt.”

Saoirse thinks of the way the basement of the Shunned House extended beyond any perimeter that made sense. She thinks, too, of the alcove Emmit plummeted into—caught only by the wooden planks, or box, or whatever it had been—and wonders if there’d been even more traversable passage beyond it, but she doesn’t say anything.

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