Page 52 of Throwing Shade
“I know how to play.” Sadie and I had engaged in endless rounds when she was little.
The first card I flipped over showed a diploma. The next was a painting of a blue house. I’d always liked blue houses. Still, this was the oddest card deck I’d ever seen. I reset them. “Your turn.”
They shook their head. “Again.”
Feathers tickled my throat more strongly. I sipped my cranberry and soda to clear the sensation. “Whatever you want.”
I flipped over two different cards. One showed a woman, her dark hair falling forward to hide her face as she looked down at the sleeping baby in her arms, and the other depicted the same woman in a wedding dress. She was only seen from the back, revealing a distinctive lace back that plunged low, with three chains of pearls strung across it.
Exactly like mine had been.
I snatched my hand away.
The dealer rubbed their hands together. “Again.”
Was this game of memory testing mine? Stealing them? Feathers choked me.
“No,” I coughed out.
“Again.” Their voice was a harsh caw.
Coughing, my hand shaking from trying to resist, I flipped over a card showing stars tumbling from the sky.
Mazel.
The bird shifter leaned over the card humming. “One more,” they said, greedily.
Icy tendrils hooked into me and I fought my turn, but it was hopeless. Other than my left arm, I was paralyzed, my vision narrowed down to the cards.
I turned over the final card.
A blond man resembling Alex stood over the bloodied body of the dark-haired woman.
I gasped. That hadn’t happened. Was it supposed to?
The card rippled and went blank.
The shifter grabbed my hand and slapped it down on the card. The instant I made contact, a cold wind blew under my palm, and I snatched my fingers away.
Darkness gusted across the card, portent with an ancient evil, and screams filled my ears. I clapped my hands over them but couldn’t shut out the cries.
The card went blank again before cycling back to the Alex image, and then displaying the darkness, which encompassed more and more of the card.
My scalp prickled.
The deck exploded into motion. Random cards flipped over, each revealing either a blank face, my corpse, or the darkness, while the last card that I’d played remained face up, cycling through all three images.
I froze at the chaos before me, my brain scrambling to make sense of it all.
The dealer shook themself and translucent feathers ruffled off their body in agitation, breaking my trance.
I snatched a paring knife from behind the bar and stabbed the card face.
The deck fell still and the darkness on the card faces blew away to reveal a summer’s day. Songbirds chirped.
“We need more information. Another.” They grabbed my hand.
“No.” I wrestled to get free.
The shifter’s nose transformed into a beak that they jabbed forward toward my eyes. I wrenched sideways, their beak scraping against my temple, and slammed my glass into the side of their head.
They screeched, glass and cranberry fizz dripping down.
“Oy vey. Such mishegoss.” The elderly artist had gone behind the bar and was examining gin bottles. Her voice was the dulcet tones of the New York Jew, braised in Manischewitz and Marlboros, just like my great-aunt Adele’s had been.
First the Big Bad Wolf, now Grandma. Note to self: stay out of the woods and avoid the color red.
