Beyond Paradise

Barely controlling his rage, he twisted the doorknob and pulled the little door open wide. Across the opening stood a smooth brick wall, etched with age and weather. He turned frantically, looking toward the back of the house for another exit, but it appeared this was the only way out.

"Wait, Billie," spoke a gentle voice inside his head, and he blinked in surprise. "It isn't safe yet."

"Fuck safe," he muttered, and paced back into the sitting room, where Odette and Jabril still sat drinking their tea. "You can't keep me here, you know. I'm not a goddamned prisoner," he snarled. "Now undo whatever voodoo crap you're doing and just let me walk out of here, and I promise I won't bother you anymore."

Odette rose, and her childlike feet crossed the carpet to stand in front of him. Tears shimmered in her eyes, and when she opened her arms to him, she took a deep, quivering breath as though her heart were breaking. He stared at her in disbelief--she had trapped him, as surely as if he were a rabbit, and now she wanted a fucking hug?

She took another small step, and touched his upper arms as though he were made of the thinnest glass. He felt a wave of warmth wash through him, and when her thin fingers pulled him into her embrace in spite of his resistance, he began to feel the anger drain out of him like bathwater. He could actually sense it trickling through his feet, hot and acidic, and when he looked down, a puddle of electric green fluid surrounded his shoes.

Odette turned and picked up the damp towel from the coffee table, bending to wipe up the strange liquid. It smoked and hissed on the fabric, and she tossed it gingerly onto the tray, wiping her fingers on a napkin.

"You're not trapped, Billie," she said softly. "I have no desire to frighten you or hurt you. But you must understand that if you walk out now, with the bitterness and rage inside you, then none of us can protect you--not me, not Jabril, none of us. Let me help you fight it, won't you?"

His jaw sagged. What had she just done? His body was completely relaxed now, limp and at ease, and the jagged agony in his mind had given way to a peaceful calm. She took his hand and led him back to the couch, and he sank numbly down beside Jabril.

Odette moved the tea tray onto the floor, and opened the box with the eye medallion. Inside lay a deck of cards, backed with a black diamond pattern. She shook them out into her hand, and spread them out face down across the watery silk fabric.

"Choose," she said, moving her hand across the cards.

Billie's hand moved hesitantly toward the table, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Jabril nodding. He touched a card in the center of the deck, and slid it out, leaving it face down.

Odette gathered the rest of the cards, returning them to the box. She reverently lifted his card and turned it over, gazing at it for some time before she spoke.

The card bore the image of a man dressed in a long robe, seated on a throne, with a golden crown perched on his head. In one hand, he held a scepter, and in the other, a large chalice decorated with jewels. Behind his throne stretched a sparkling ocean, on which sailed a large ship, and a dolphin flung itself merrily out of the water.

"The King of Cups," she murmured. "Somehow I thought it might be that." Her papery hand reached up to wipe away the tear that trickled down her wrinkled cheek.

"What does it mean?" Jabril asked, peering intently over Billie's shoulder.

"Billie, there is someone you've lost, someone you've never stopped searching for, even though you know you may never find him. He was someone who meant love to you, and kindness, and strength. And you were beloved to him, perhaps more so than anyone else. But he is gone now, and all you have left is the memory of him. And the anger."

As he stared at the colorful image, it seemed to fade before his eyes, and his mind drifted back to a Christmas when he could have been no more than ten years old. His family, big, noisy and loving, were gathered in the den around a big Christmas tree, mother, father, brothers and sisters. He could hear their voices, but the words they were saying were overlaid in a crazy quilt of sound.

As the shreds of wrapping paper piled up in the floor, his father reached under the branches to retrieve a large, flat box in metallic green, with a huge red bow. "This is for you, Billie Joe," he said, a broad grin crinkling his green eyes.

The boy looked up adoringly at his father with those same green eyes, and the excitement on his face made him smile until his dimpled cheeks hurt. He slipped his fingers under the taped edges and ripped, arms flying to tear the paper away as fast as possible. He lifted the lid of the brown cardboard box, and inside was a pale blue guitar, not quite new, but polished to a mirror finish, with shiny new strings.

The boy stared at it, unable to speak, and then ran his fingers lovingly up the neck. He looked up at his father, and then set the guitar down very carefully. Pushing himself off the floor, he flung himself into the big man's lap, nearly choking him as he wrapped his arms around his dad's neck.

"Merry Christmas, Billie Joe," the man laughed merrily.

"Thank you, Dad! I love it so much! Merry Christmas!" the boy gasped.

The memory faded as quickly as it had come, and Billie sat staring at the card again, feeling the tears running down his cheeks. He wanted so much to hold on to that moment, to never leave it, that he would have given anything he had to stay there.

"It isn't real, Billie," Odette whispered very gently. "Don't let yourself get lost. Just remember, and then let it go."

"I don't want to let it--him--go," he choked. "It wasn't fair, I needed him so much. He wasn't just my dad, he was my best friend."

"Yes, that's right. And a boy needs his father, doesn't he?"