Significator: The King of Wands; Reversed.
(Card Number: 64)
‘As a significator, it indicates a man from the age of thirty onwards. Its reversal depicts their inability to understand or appreciate another’s viewpoint. They are narrow minded, intolerant and have a ruthless streak; caring little for the feelings of others. He is an opportunity for broken promises and argument.’
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The tax collectors stopped coming the year previous. The weight that hung in the air of the open fields reeked of misfortune, the staleness spreading to the remains of barley wheat that had grown and been left to rot after its missed harvest. A grey patching of cloud was smeared over an extensive sky, the plateau in which the house sat provided no backdrop of trees or mountains to relieve the emptiness of such a vast landscape. The air was dry and caught in your throat if you tried to inhale too deeply and all that accompanied the browns and greys was the slow repetitious squeaking of the nearby windmill, corroded to the point of no oil’s fixing.
Nestled in the middle, enclosed by broken barbed wire fencing, was a shack that looked, from the outside, virtually uninhabited. The maroon paint peeled from the timber, flaking as fast as it could to remove itself from the eerie presence that resonated from the walls. The scattered knots in the wood enhanced its unnatural state. The ones that had been smoothed over created dark, oval rings like eyes, tightened with suspicion. The only window that hadn’t been bordered over by scrap planks and mismatched nails was coated in a grime that would have taken years to develop; a whitish glaze over the glass making it difficult to see the interior. The only thing that seemed to be holding itself together on this house’s exterior was the firmly fixed grey door, currently ajar and revealing the legs of an obscured adult man.
He didn’t look so well.
Slumped against the doorframe, Nickόlaus could feel the indecision that had written itself onto his bones. The creaking of the wind against the veranda’s rotted pillars urged him to unearth the prize from beneath his feet, the moveable floorboard propped temptingly ajar. He could picture the ease with which he’d slip it open, freeing it gently but surely, and run his fingertips over the carvings of the box hidden beneath it. The glow of the jarrah wood illuminated the detail of the box. In the middle was engraved a picture of a man, with a foot bound that suspended him upside down from what looked like the branches of a tree. The image was delicate, and precise. As a boy, he had hidden it beneath the floorboards near his nightstand, and there it lay still, ever dormant and alluring, a secret from his father who called it the ‘devil’s work’. He swore to Anna that he could feel it under his feet; that he could hear it ‘whispering’ things to him as he tried to sleep.
A distant rumble could be heard from the sky as he scanned the ever dimming horizons through the grime-ridden window, Nickόlaus straightened himself out. His countenance reeked of a narrow faced precision, this reinforced suddenly by a tightening of lips, a split second decision bringing his insides to the boil. He was going to unearth the box that he had stolen from his father, the treasure an unopened gift from his mother. Each step toward the loose floorboard saw his heart inch further up his throat, nerves surpassing the anticipation, the latch of hands to wood seeing his heart nearly give way under the pressure, Nickόlaus flinching violently at the sound of a nearing wave of thunder.
Simply, there it sat. Lifting it from its resting place, he brought it to the hardwood table and laid it down gently.
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Her long fingers unlatched the copper hook. She drew the cards, explaining to Nickόlaus slowly, so he wouldn’t forget. “The significator card represents the person you’re dealing for, whether it’s yourself or a friend, although I wouldn’t recommend showing this to all your friends at school, okay?”
He nods. She deals. “The easiest of spreads, in my opinion, is the ‘three, three, three, one’ spread. Pretty self explanatory, I know,” his mother raising an eye comically.
“The last card is the final outcome,” she said.
For a second she looked scared.
Nickόlaus didn’t know why.
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