Free The Godforsaken Daughter by Christina McKenna Page A

brass clasp in the middle, shaped like a half-moon and secured with a small padlock. Fortunately, it didn’t look too strong. Two tugs with the pliers had it falling apart.
    She slid the clasp free of its leather loop and raised the lid.
    A cloth of blue velvet covered the contents, fastened at each corner with ribbons of the same shade, tied in neat bows. Ruby’s fingers hovered over the first bow. She hesitated. Grandma Edna had died thirty-two years before. Those bows had been tied by her way back then. Suddenly, Ruby felt the weight of her trespass and sat back on her heels, closed her eyes, heart hammering with indecision.
    “D ON ’ T BE AFRAID. L OOK INSIDE. ”
    The voice again: but this time, soft, assuring. She began to breathe more slowly, and soon felt calmer.
    Gently, she worked each bow loose, drew back the cover, and peered inside.
    She was confronted with an odd sight: a tier of rich blue satin, within which were embedded four objects: a crystal ball, a flat gold disk engraved with a five-pointed star, a knife with a curved blade like that of the crescent moon, and a small silver cup with three chains attached.
    Ruby ran her forefinger lightly over each object in turn, afraid to dislodge them. She knew what the crystal ball was for. In Donegal, a lady calling herself Madame Calinda used to do readings with one on the seafront. She’d heard her colleagues discuss how accurate her predictions were, but had been too afraid to venture into her tent. Life was horrible enough back then without hearing even more bad news.
    There were tabs either side of the tier. Carefully, she lifted the tray of objects out and set it aside.
    The second tier was just like the first, but instead of objects, it held two small books, placed either side of what looked like a length of silver cord wound tightly into a spiral shape. Curious, she pried it free, and was startled to find a very long belt unraveling across the floor. She gathered it up quickly, hoping the dust hadn’t soiled it. It had three knots tied at either end. She attempted to roll it back into its original shape, but the effort was too much. She bundled it on top of the first tier and gave her attention to the other two items.
    One, Ruby discovered, was not a book at all, but a pack of cards. The emblem on the front: an elaborate, monochrome drawing of what looked like a deer with the moon between its antlers; below it were the words The Rider Tarot .
    Tentatively, she drew out the cards and shuffled through them, turning each one face upward as she went. She counted twenty-two in all. They were numbered 0 to 21 in what Ruby recognized as old Irish lettering. Each card bore a full-color illustration, and each came complete with a title. She read each one in turn, intrigued and frightened by their strangeness.
    “Death” showed a skeleton in armor riding a horse.
    “The Lovers.” A naked boy and girl against a backdrop of what could have been the Garden of Eden. An angel hovering above them.
    “The Devil.” The same boy and girl, in chains in front of a throne. On the throne sat a huge, baleful entity. It had bat-like wings and horns growing from its head.
    Ruby’s hands shook as she quickly turned the card facedown, and returned it to the pack.
    The second item was, indeed, a book: a dream dictionary. Remembering her lucid dream about seeing herself in the coffin, she turned the pages with trepidation, until she reached the entry under the heading “Death.”
    Death dreams signify a desire in you to end or escape a current situation, which is causing you unhappiness. They also denote that you are on the brink of great changes in your life.
    She looked up from the page, stunned at the accuracy of that statement. She read on.
    Dreaming of your own death often occurs when you are facing a major life-altering change. Something has died within you to make way for a new beginning.
    There was the phrase she’d heard in her dream. The voice had said it twice.