Judith Goodhope || Mother's House of Horrors

Goodhope in Carsden

Judith shut her door in the well-wishing face of the boarding house host and hefted her suitcase onto the bed, its springs crying out in a voice that might be a century old. She sliced open the zipper and plunged a hand into the case's innards, extracting her box of tarot cards, several shirt sleeves pulling out along with it, like intestines trailing.

She went to a small marble-topped table by the window and swiped a dry decorative potpourri basket and doily off it onto the floor. She put the box of cards down in the center of the table and held a hand over it, closing her eyes and allowing herself a deep breath. The agitated potpourri fought back in the only way it knew how. She breathed in an aggressive musk of rosemary, myrtle, and something darker... wolfsbane?

She opened her eyes, opened the box, and withdrew a card.

The Five of Cups. 

"Hm."

Gain would come with loss. She'd been studying the cards obsessively, and by now knew most of their meanings by heart. She wanted to believe the card was open to some interpretation, but the message was clear.

She put the card back on top, cut the deck, and returned it to the box. She looked down at the box, not an ornate wooden curio inlaid with dark stones as it should be, but the branded, ISBN-ed, still-price-tagged cardboard box she had purchased at a library gift shop. The deck deserved better, but she was no crafter, and the original inferior vessel would disturb the deck less than a new inferior vessel.

She lifted her eyes to look out the window. Dying leaves. Strange clouds. Carsden. Her answers had to be here. The trip had drained the last of her savings. She had only the cash in her pocket. It probably wouldn't even cover her room, even if she only stayed a few days. But she'd deal with that later.

She shouldn't have been rude to the house host. She was going to need information and help. But she hadn't consulted the deck in days, and she had needed a card as soon as possible. 

Gain would come with loss. A mixed blessing. A complicated gift. As in information that gave her closure but also caused more pain. She'd expected something like this.

Her daughter had been missing for ten years. Ten. When people talked to her about it - when she used to have people in her life to talk to - she knew she was supposed to say things like, "I can't believe it's been [x] years," "It feels like yesterday," "Sometimes I feel she's still here with me," but Judith could believe it. She felt every second of the last ten years. Always she felt Abigail's absence.

Normal means of investigation had run out long ago. Police, private investigators, retracing steps, foolish small-minded things like that. After all of those had failed, Judith suffered a long period of darkness. There was no giving up, no acceptance of helplessness, just a profound not knowing what to do. Until the day she went to a cheap psychic in desperation. The woman had been a powerless pretender, attempting to placate what she thought was some normal grieving parent. But the experience reminded Judith that there were other ways to search, darker and more powerful options.

She had always felt something was off about Abigail's disappearance, that something darker was at work, something beyond what some local cop could even conceive of. Judith began her study of the occult and only then believed she had put a foot on her destined path.

She stopped teaching. Her marriage - at long last - fell apart. One by one, friends deserted. But that was good. It gave her more time to learn. 

At a tiny old library in another weird historic tourist town like this one, a woman on the other side of the stacks had introduced herself - strange she couldn't remember the name she had given, even immediately after the conversation. They spoke quietly through an opening on an eye-level shelf. The woman's face slid around a bit when she spoke, like a mask would. She had blue hair. She mentioned Carsden, and the name had landed on Judith's mind like a raven.

The library gift shop had a tarot deck, and Judith grabbed it up. She wouldn't buy occult items from the internet; you really had to feel a thing in your hands to know it was for you. This deck was hers. She pulled her first card standing right there at the library desk after she had paid. The Six of Swords.

The librarian shrugged. "Well, I don't read tarot myself, but it looks to me like you're going on a trip!"

Judith Goodhope had no sane or logical reason to believe she would find information about her daughter here, but the cards had been clear every step of the way. She would continue to trust them.

Even if gain would come with some kind of loss.