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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The Rejoining - Tarot: The Empress

  ISBN: 1-55410-720-2

  Copyright ã 2006 Jojo Brown

  Cover art and design by Martine Jardin

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by eXtasy Books 2006

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  The Rejoining - Tarot: The Empress

  By

  Jojo Brown

  The Empress

  In Tarot, The Empress represents everything that a mother does. She nurtures and cares for all around her. She strives to bring everything she comes into contact with to its fullest potential.

  In the negative, she can be rather overbearing and smother that which she so intently tries to protect.

  To anyone and everyone who has every looked at the stars and wondered…

  Prologue

  Have you ever noticed how odd it is that no two people remember things the same way?

  The participants can remember something as simple as a first date completely different. For example, he will say that her dress was blue, while she insists that it was green. She will remember the beautiful tie that he wore that night, while he is sure that he wore his collar open. No matter whether they remember the details in the same way, if you are talking to a couple that has been married for more than a few years, they will both tell you one important detail the same way … it was the beginning of a wonderful journey.

  Even important events, life-shattering moments in a person’s life, when witnessed by more than one person, can have as many versions of the facts as there are witnesses. Take a car accident for instance. While investigating the incident, the police might hear that the first car was blue, or black or green. One person will insist that the light was green. Another is certain that it was red. Some people will insist that there were no lights at that particular corner.

  The police will get overwhelming information like

  “The truck crossed the center line.”

  “The white car was turning right!”

  “No! The truck was white and it was turning left.”

  “There was no truck.”

  “Both cars were blue and the southbound one spun out and hit the other one.”

  The human mind is an amazing thing, but it is not a computer. Imagination influences all of us. Data is added as simple fact, but we bend it and mold it, until it becomes what we want it to be.

  With all of that said, I hope that you will understand and try to forgive any slight fact bending that may be contained within these pages. I will try to write this all down as true to what happened as I can; but while I may be using a computer to hold all of this information, keep in mind that I am human. It is all coming from my own experiences and memories. It may not be terribly important to most who read it, but hopefully it will touch and enlighten some of you.

  One

  March thirteenth was one of those life-changing days for many people. Most of them would tell you that it as a rather black day in the history of our town. Mr. Bob Davidson would tell you that it was the worst day of his life. The teachers from the school would undoubtedly tell you that it was one of the scariest days they had ever lived through. I am sure the students on the other hand, would say that it was a good day. Since the school was gone, they got some time off from their studies.

  At the time when it all happened, I am positive that the businessman’s association would have been angry and very concerned for the town, although after, they were all very glad that it happened. The revenue from the tourists was good for the whole town.

  For me, it was the greatest day of my life. It was the day that my life finally made sense. I finally fit in. I truly belonged somewhere.

  * * * *

  For as long as I can remember, I was different. I saw things and heard things that no one else seemed to be able to. I had never been comfortable in the dark. It was to the point that I would leave a light burning through the night. If I had to get up, I would turn lights on as I went through the house, even though I knew instinctively where every stick of furniture was located, with my eyes closed.

  I cannot remember exactly when this unforgiving fear of the dark began, but I do know when it ended. March 13th, 2010.

  Before I tell you about that day though, we need to go back further, in time. You need to understand how everything happened, how I ended up in that place at that time and why.

  I was born in a maternity hospital in London, England. My mother had been ill while she was carrying me, which caused me to enter the world a full month early. Back then, they kept mother and baby in the hospital a lot longer than they do now. I was a full two weeks old by the time my parents were able to bring me home to meet my big brother, Adam.

  I do not remember any of this, of course. I only know all of it, because I had heard the story of my mother going into labor as she was getting into a car to go out for dinner, many times. The early arrival and ruined dinner plans were not the only strange things about my entrance though, but I did not learn about the rest of it until I was an adult. In fact, I was thirty-six.

  * * * *

  Before my grandmother passed away, she felt that I needed to know the whole story. Lying on her hospital-style bed, in the nursing home, she should have been concentrating more on breathing with that damned tube in her nose. Instead, as soon as I got there for my regular weekly visit, she pulled it out and called me over to her side.

  Carefully placing the oxygen tube back into her nostrils, I told her that I would stay by her side and listen, as long as she kept it in. She pressed something into my hand and watched my face, seemingly looking for a reaction. It was some sort of off-white medallion or charm, on a long silver chain

  Examining it, I was amazed. At first, I thought it was made out of ivory, but on closer inspection, I was sure it was bone. It was about the size of a silver dollar, but not so symmetrical in shape. The edges were rougher, almost stretched. The surface facing me did not seem to have any markings; turning it over I was once again amazed.

  On the front of it, there were intricate engravings; a five point star over a separated circle, which I can only describe as a stylized, yin-yang, symbol, on the left of it was a capital ‘Z’ and on the right a matching ‘E’. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before.

  Without lifting my gaze to her, I asked quietly, “What is this, Nanny? Whose is it?”

  “I am not sure precisely what it is, my dear,” my sweet, tired grandmother whispered, “but it has been yours since before you were born.”

  “What are you talking about, Nan? I’ve never seen this necklace before. It’s so unusual that I am sure I would have remembered seeing it.”

  “Oh, my sweet girl, you don’t understand. Now, be still and I will try to explain it all as best I can.” Taking a deep shuddering breath, my grandmother launched into the strangest story I had ever heard.

  I knew that there was some sort of mystery surrounding my birth and m
y mother’s death, six years later, but everyone had always avoided the topic whenever I was around. Hoping that I was finally going to hear what had happened back then, I moved from the easy chair and sat carefully on the side of the bed. Taking Nanny’s fragile hand in my own, I tried to prepare myself for what I was about to hear.

  I failed!

  Two

  "First of all,” she began, “I have to go back to nearly a year before you were born. Your mother went missing. I mean, she just vanished off the face of the earth. She was gone for more than a month and when she showed up on my doorstep, she had absolutely NO memory of where she had been. She didn’t know who she had been with, either.

  “It was such a shock for all of us. She just walked through the door as if nothing was out of the ordinary. She was wearing the exact same clothes she’d had on the day she went away. The only thing different was that they were all backwards, her blouse was buttoned against her spine, her skirt was zipped in the front; even her bra and knickers were turned around. She didn’t seem to realize that anything was out of the ordinary or that she had been away at all.

  “She just walked in the door and said that she was there to pick up your brother, Adam. You see, I had been watching him for her the day she disappeared so she could go and see about a job. She never did make it to that interview.

  “Your father was frantic. He called the police as soon as we found out she was missing. It never even once crossed any of our minds that she could have left of her own free will; something had to be amiss. Everyone searched for any sign of her. They even went through the scrub in the countryside.

  “After a month, we were all just hoping to at least find a body, so that we would be able to put some sort of closure to it all. Adam had stopped crying for her constantly, except at night. He was still having terrible nightmares of her just fading away.

  “He had overheard the adults talking and envisioned his beloved mother simply evaporating the way a puddle does in the heat of the summer.

  “When I look back on it, I realize that we should have been a lot more careful with what we discussed in front of him. Maybe if we had, things would have turned out differently in his life.

  “But that day—when Sandra just walked back into our lives—the light came back on in that little boy’s eyes, as well as your father’s. He had been lost without his wife by his side. They were two halves of the same whole back then, from the moment they first met, they had spent every possible second together.

  “Back then things had been different … she had been different. I know you remember your mother as being cold and distant, but that is not how it always was. Before she disappeared, she was a very different kind of person.

  “Anyway, that was not what I want to tell you about; it’s your birth and the truth about what really happened.

  “It is true that you came early and that there was sadness mixed in with the joy everyone felt at your sudden arrival. It’s not because you were a girl, instead of another son for your father, the way you have been lead to believe.

  “You were born feet first. You have always landed on your feet ever since, just the way the superstition says.

  “You also had a veil over your face, which means that a part of the amniotic sac was over your face. No one knows quite how it happened though. It should have pulled off as you slid down the birth canal, backwards. If the old wives’ tale is true, you will never die by drowning.

  “I can tell by the look on your face that you’re thinking that this is the amazing part … well, it’s not!

  “As you were born, your hands were the last things to slip from the relative safety of your mother’s womb. One nurse fainted as your right hand fell loose and two others joined her on the floor as the left one finally broke free.”

  Looking down at my hands, I tried to see what could have been wrong with them at my birth that could have caused such a commotion in the delivery room. They looked perfectly fine to me. In stunned silence, I listened as my grandmother continued.

  “In the clenched fist of your right hand, you were holding that very same pendant. Of course, without the chain, I added that later, to keep it safe. If you look closely at the back of it, you should be able to see tiny imprints, where your fingers were pressed into it.”

  Turning the charm over, I could in fact see what now appeared to be tiny finger marks. I realized that I had been holding my breath for sometime, when my lungs began screaming for replenishment.

  As I pulled as much air inside of me as I could, pain seared through my chest.

  Tears spilled from both of my eyes to stream down my face, gathering at my chin before falling to be silently, absorbed by the material of my sleeve. I became aware that Nanny had stopped speaking.

  Turning to look at her softly wrinkled face, so peaceful in its repose, so still and quiet … an iron fist grabbed hold of my chest. Not yet. Please, not yet. Don’t die yet!

  Praying that she was not dead, I whispered hoarsely, “My left hand, Nanny. What was in my left hand?”

  “Amy,” Nanny breathed.

  Her hand slipped from mine, to rest lifelessly upon the starched white sheet. She was so small, I had never noticed before. Her skin looked as though it was made out of tissue paper, so thin that I could see the veins as they carried life-sustaining blood throughout her weary body.

  Nanny never woke up again. She had delivered her unbelievable story, leaving even more questions than it answered and then just faded away.

  For three days, she balanced precariously on the edge between this life and the next. Finally, just after midnight, with my father, my aunt, and me at her side, she quietly slipped away.

  Three

  I never mentioned Nanny’s last story, until a week or so after the funeral. With all of the heightened emotion as well as the necessary arrangements, it just never seemed like the right time.

  Then, one afternoon, I found my father sitting in front of the television, staring mindlessly at the images flickering across the screen.

  As usual, it was clear that his mind was elsewhere. So intent was his gaze that he appeared to be in some sort of a trance. I took the opportunity to just stand in the doorway and look at him.

  When had he gotten so old? How had his hair thinned out so much and grown so grey without my noticing? I was also quite certain that he had shrunk.

  He had always seemed to be so big, towering over me. Now, I knew that I stood at least an inch taller than he did. Seemingly overnight, he had transformed from a tower of steel, into an old man with no real power in his form.

  Maybe I could talk to him after all. My abject fear of his temper no longer seemed to make as much sense to me as it had in the past.

  Clearing my throat, I stepped into the room, darkened with tightly closed blinds.

  “Dad?” My voice sounded tiny, even to my own ears.

  Taking a deep breath, I tried again, a bit louder. “Dad! I need to talk to you.”

  Slowly, turning just his head in my direction, his eyes bored into me, “What is it girl? I am trying to watch the noon news.”

  I stood there, frozen to the spot, with the old fear rushing through me. I saw a single tear erupt from the corner of his pale eye to sit glistening on his crinkled, weathered cheekbone. It was like watching a cell door swing open.

  That tiny drop of salty liquid was my ticket out. This man, who had ruled over my every waking moment, was after all… just a man.

  My fingers and toes tingled; I felt the blood rushing through my veins, with newfound strength. My spine straightened. My shoulders pulled back, opening my chest to allow more air to rush in and out of my suddenly powerful lungs.

  As I spoke, with no tremor or apology in my voice, I strode into the room and stood in front of the television.

  “Dad, the news has been over for more than half an hour. You are sitting here in the dark, staring at nothing.”

  Pushing the button, I cut the senseless drivel being expelled by some simpering soap
opera actor and turned to face my father. “I need to talk to you.”

  “What the hell is this, Ella? Since when do you tell me what you do or do not need? I am your father. You will show me the respect that I demand!” His voice, in sudden anger, still held the old, remembered strength; the one that I would normally hide from or do whatever necessary to avoid invoking.

  I had not moved. I had not curled into a ball or run away. Even when he jumped to his feet right in front of me, I had not so much as flinched.

  I just quietly stated, “I need to talk to you. Nanny told me some things about my birth and I need you to clarify some of it for me. As you were there, I need you to tell me what happened.”

  Slowly sinking back into the chair he had so recently vacated, it was clear that my father had had the wind blown out of his sails.

  “What the hell did that old bat tell you?” His eyes were focused somewhere behind me, somewhere far beyond the four walls that surrounded us.

  “A crazy, unbelievable story. I am almost positive that she must have been hallucinating. But, Dad, who is Amy?”

  “Amy?”

  “Yes Dad, Amy. Who is she? It was the last thing Nanny said to me. The name Amy.”

  Kneeling in front of my father, I rested my hands on the dusty knees of his old farm pants. Looking up I saw an unrecognizable face. It was the face of confusion, or perhaps fear.

  “I know that I have heard that name mentioned before dad. Right here in this house. Always in hushed tones. Who is Amy, Dad? Please tell me.”

  “Your mother had a friend named Amy. She was a nurse at the hospital, where you were born. As far as I know, she was with her, when you came. At least, she is the one who came out to the waiting room to let me know we had you.