A quincunx and elements of ghosts

The antagonist of this piece is a lady novelist, while the protagonist is a man missing his left eye. Neither of them are motivated because they are diverting attention from something else. The plot begins with a quincunx in an island paradise. The ending includes elements of ghosts and following someone through the end of the world.

We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges. – Gene Wolfe

“What do you think,” asked Dr. Theobald, “Will this suffice?”

Elizabeth paused and gazed about the clearing, one hand resting on the smooth bole of a palm tree. A wild effusion of grass sprang riot up the gentle slope, and it was enclosed on all sides by Bermuda’s dense jungle. “Yes,” she said, “It will do.”

Dr. Theobald nodded, passed his handkerchief once more over his forehead, adjusted the patch of his left eye, and then stepped off the path to ford his way to the center where he deposited the picnic basket. “Well, if we’re not eaten by an army of ants or carried away by jaguars, this may prove a very pleasant spot indeed.”

Elizabeth laughed, a low, throaty sound, and followed him into the sunlight, the long, slender blades of grass whisking past the blue skirt of her sundress. She stood still and watched as her husband drew out a blanket and cast it out over the grass like a fisherman seeking to net some earthen catch. He then shucked his shoes and stepped onto it, bringing the basket with him.

“An excellent idea, Elizabeth,” he said, lowering himself carefully onto his knees. “A trifle warm, to be sure, but that’s the tropics for you.” He opened the basket and began to draw forth glasses, a bottle of wine, a bottle opener, plates and tupperware. “To think of Bertrand slaving away on the Upper Eastside, inhaling exhaust and fumes of uric acid. Positively delightful.”

Elizabeth nodded, but didn’t answer. She reached into her purse, and drew forth a deck of cards.

“It is important to get away,” continued Dr. Theobald, pausing to run his hand through his illustrious silver beard, “To regroup, as it were. One can grow lost in the very bustle of one’s life, lose one’s way, as Dante said. One often needs perspective, distance. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth, her voice soft. She began to walk towards the edge of the clearing, shuffling slowly through the deck of oversized cards.

“Of course,” continued the Doctor, “It’s times like these that one feels one’s greatest losses the most.” He took up the bottle of white wine, considered it. “I often find that at my happiest I am struck by a tinge of melancholy. Do you feel it now?”

“You mean Marcus,” said Elizabeth, pausing before a broad tree. She took a pin from her hair, and skewered one of the large cards at face level onto the trunk.

“Indeed,” said Dr. Theobald, and then more quietly, “Indeed. He would have been how old, today? Four years old. Four years. How time does pass.”

“Four and a half,” said Elizabeth, drawing forth a second card as she resumed walking around the clearing.

“Yes, well.” The Doctor tore the lead cap off the bottle’s neck, unwinding it like gauze from a mummified limb, and then dug the tip of the bottle opener’s screw into the cork. “We shouldn’t forget victories, successes. Causes for mirth and joy.” He began to twist the screw. “Your Circe and Medea. If you give a moment we’ll toast to it. To your success, and our third year of marriage.” He looked up then with a tentative smile as she pinned the second card to another tree. “What are you doing, my dear?”

“I’ll tell you soon, Theo. Just one moment.”

Dr. Theobald poured golden wine into one glass, and then a second, and for awhile the clearing was filled with the clarion call of a distant bird. Lowering himself to sit with his legs awkwardly extended before him, he watched his wife pin a third card to a tree, directly opposite the first. “You know, I don’t think you’ve ever looked so beautiful.”

Elizabeth turned to gaze at him, a fond, tolerating smile on her lips. “Your eyesight must be finally going.”

“No,” said the Doctor, “You would send Rossetti into paroxysms of ecstasy. As it is, I can barely refrain from ravishing you right now.”

Elizabeth paused before the fourth tree, and pinned a card to its trunk. Turning, she faced her husband, and gazed indulgently at where he sat, marooned on his island of cloth.

“Now, what are those cards you’ve pinned to those trees? Is this some sort of ritual we’re enacting?”

“Of sorts, Theo.” Elizabeth began to walk towards him. The air had begun to grow charged, as if a storm were approaching. “A ritual of my own devising, if you will, but one who’s efficacy, or potency, should not be diminished due to my own innovations.”

She slipped out of her sandals and stepped onto the blanket, and knelt down to take the glass of wine from him. As she did so, she extended a final card to him, which he took.

“What’s this then?” Dr. Theobald examined the colorful image on the card, holding it away from his face so as to focus on it. A man sat in full regalia on a throne, flanked by twin fluted columns. He wore red robes and a golden miter, and held one hand raised in benediction. “A tarot card?”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth, making herself comfortable. “Commonly known as the Pope, the fifth card in the Major Arcana.”

Dr. Theobald took another sip from his wine, and then looked at his glass with a frown. “I think this wine might be off.”

“I don’t think it’s the wine,” said Elizabeth, though she set her glass down on one of the plates. “You’ll observe the four other cards I’ve set around the clearing. Each is the fifth of each suit from the Minor Arcana. With your holding the fifth, I’ve formed a quincunx, centered on you.”

“A quincunx, hmm?” Dr. Theo gazed at his card once more, and then turned his attention to his wife.

“Yes. Five represents the essence of things as they are, the qualia of the world, if you will. Think of the word quintessence, for example. It also evokes the five senses. I’ve sought to pin the essence of who you are to this very moment, this very place.”

Dr. Theo lowered his brows. “To what end, dear?” He raised his handkerchief once more to mop at his brow. He was beginning to sweat profusely.

“The Pope is commonly known as ‘the Pontiff’,” she continued, ignoring his question, “Which translates into ‘the bridge’. He connects Heaven and Earth, a bridge between the deity and the human. But he is also known by another name, an older name: the Hierophant.”

“I’m not feeling well at all,” said Dr. Theobald. He slipped a finger under his collar, and pulled so as to loosen it. “Damn it. I’m afraid we may have to return to the hotel.”

“One moment, dear.” Elizabeth smiled at him, and he relaxed fractionally, returning his weight to one outstretched arm. “The Hierophant means literally ‘he who teaches holy things’, and is a complex symbol, one with many interpretations. One of its main associations is with the Deceiver, and is strongly connected with the card of Temperance, which guides the souls to the underworld.”

Dr. Theobald blinked several times, and in seeking to adjust his position knocked over his glass of wine. He ignored it. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but just what are you seeking to imply here? Is this meant to be some sort of attack?”

“Not an attack, but a description, a prescription if you will. As a therapist, you seek to be your patient’s guide between their conscious and subconscious. It is in that role that we met, and it was through that power that you sought to assuage me of my grief. You seek to bring individuation, to help others distinguish the boundaries between themselves and the world around them. You sought to console me, but in doing so attempted to part me from Marcus, my son.”

Dr. Theobald’s face began to darken. Sweat was pouring down his face, drenching his shirt.

“What I learned in my studies, Theo, is that certain rituals have power. That power stems from desire and belief. There are patterns in the world that affect us, whether we are aware of them or not, resonances that we feel even if we do not understand them. What I have sought to do here today is amplify them to the point of climax, to bring the moment to a crisis.”

Dr. Theobald pushed himself to his feet. He swayed in the bright sunlight, face lowered, and seemed suddenly taller, his shoulders broader. He reached out, as if seeking a staff, a spear on which to rest his weight, but found none.

“That is why I suggested this island. Bermuda, Theo, is believed to be the inspiration for Shakespeare’s Tempest.”

“My Prospero to your Sycorax,” said Theo, and his voice was harder now, tinged with dark amusement. Utterly unlike his normal tone. Still he stared down, seeking to gain his footing.

“Yes…” said Elizabeth, momentarily discomfited by his sudden assurance. “Yes, that’s right. But the patterns go back further than that.” She looked up at him, and brushed a strand of black hair from her face. “There are other patterns.”

Dr. Theobald slowed, stopped swaying. He reached up, and ran a claw of hand through his white hair. Lifted his face, and stared at Elizabeth with his one good eye. “Other patterns, yes. I feel them now.”

Elizabeth shifted back, raised her chin. The sky above was still a sterling blue, but here in the clearing it had grown murkier, as if they were at the bottom of a pond or well. She could no longer hear the sounds of birds calling to each other. No longer hear anything but a distant thrum that seemed to grow louder. The cards, where they were pinned, writhed.

“On the Viking version of the Tarot,” she continued, “The Hierophant is represented by Odin.”

“Wotan,” said Dr. Theobald, and he smiled, smiled and his teeth were yellowed, longer and sharper than they had been. He reached up then, took hold of his eye patch, and tore it free. It fluttered from his hand, torn away by a sudden wind. “Known as Yggr, Sigfodr, the All-Father.”

Elizabeth scrambled to her feet, drew back from the lean and angular figure that Theobald had begun. His one eye stared at her, but it was from the withered cavity that she felt piercing strength flow and skewer her. “Sycorax to Prospero, the Norns to Odin,” she said, the wind stealing the words from her mouth. But she felt none of the power she had hoped for, no apotheosis, no certainty.

“Theobald to Prospero, Prospero to Odin, Odin to Lugus, Lugus to Mercury, Mercury to Hermes.” His voice echoed within her. Reverberated within the deepest vaults of her mind. The grass was flattened all about her, radiating out in concentric circles from where Theobald stood, though she felt not a push of wind. The resonances were cascading into each other now, collapsing into this symbolic singularity. Soon it would tear itself apart. The moment was now.

“Take me to Marcus,” she cried, leaning forward into the force that the thing that had once been Theobald exuded, “You are psychopomp, carrier of souls, guide to the underworld, liminal and messenger, knower and deceiver, take me to my son!”

The trees had blurred around them, had been leached of all color and hue, turned ashen and gray. The sky above them had darkened so night seemed to have fallen across the island, and rank, bitter terror throbbed in Elizabeth’s stuttering heart. But she held to the one solid spar that had guided her since she had first learned of this possibility, held to her sunquenching desire for her son, stared the old god right in the eye.

“So be it,” said its voice, discarnate and complete, and around her were whipping faces and the ghosts of faces, translucent limbs more real now then the grass and trees, eyes hollowed and mouths gaping. A cold began to pierce her, a blanket of enervating ice that sank through her skin and extinguished the heat at the core of her being. Elizabeth sank to her knees, and saw a eidolon approach her, familiar in form, known from her dreams, her most fervent wishes.

“Marcus…” she whispered, and it drew closer, closer yet, and almost she could distinguish his features, read the smile on his blue lips. “Marcus she whispered, and then keeled forward, face digging into the grass, heart quelled, blood stopped, as her soul was torn free by the summoned god, and sent winging into the dark.