Chapter The Devil reversed

The Six of Cups, The Devil 15 reversed, the Page of Swords.

The Devil card isn't about the biblical devil, it is a consideration of temptations people face and how they deal with the temptations, the choices made, and the consequences afterward.

~~~~

Cassie spent the morning cooking Hjalm's Favorite cookies so when he arrived her little house smelled of his favorite thing. He arrived alone explaining that Nick and Erin had gone with Nick's grandfather to check a herd of cattle. Grinning happily. remarkable he offered her a heavy paper cup filled with her favorite coffee drink. as they sat outside in the birdsong filled morning, he told her about his life in Denmark, his internship and classes at the university.

"What happened with Elka?" Cassie asked politely.

Hjalm watch the bird with a yellow breast flitting from tree to tree, then he turned his head to watch a flight of hummingbirds zooming around her feeders. "elka and I had it falling out because she expected me to become a famous DJ and sound mixer and I wanted to become a conductor. I enjoy popular music but I love classical, and I love feeling the orchestra vibrating in my bones, or the song of min sangfugl caressing my skin."

"But she was so in love with you and you with her," Cassie pried. her fear had answered every hope she had for having a relationship with him and she needed to reassure herself that he felt the same way she did. Since her early crush bloomed in the first session she recorded with him, she felt something for him and now, she loved him because of his care and concern after she was attacked.

"She cared for me because I was a fellow Dane, and she thought someday I would be rich and famous. When I told her I preferred Symphony and Opera, she told me I was a fool because those things were dead." Hjalm set his cup down and pick up a cookie. "I was a fool to choose her over you. I was a fool to let her manipulate me into marrying her. Forgive me, min sangfugl, forgive me for not following my heart. You have always been a friend and so kind to me."

"I've always had a crush on you, I told you that," Cassie admitted as she ran her fingers over miss priss's ears.

"No, it was more than that," Hjalm refuted her. "You truly cared for me." he looked up as another flight of hummingbirds flew through the valley with their throwing wings and trilling song. "Where do they go? I have never seen so many hummingbirds in one place."

"Come with me, I'll show you where they nest."

Cassie led him around her house and down the well-worn path to the stone bench she had built below the seeping waterfall where are the hummingbirds nested. Holding hands, they sat watching the hummingbirds and butterflies for nearly an hour before either spoke.

"Your home is an enchanting place like something from a fairy tale," Hjalm murmured. "It is the perfect place for you."

"I love it here can I get so lonely," Cassie admitted, not looking at him, "especially in the winter when it's just me and the cats."

"Cats? I did not know you had another cat."

"Well, Niko isn't really a cat, she's a bobcat who wandered up to the cottage last winter during a blizzard. I don't know what happened to her mother, she was just a tiny starving kitten so I fed her. My only other visitor besides Miss Fern, is Audie."

"Who is Audie?" Hjalm worried who else would woo his songbird.

Looking down at him, Cassie giggled, "He's a bully from the rocking M ranch."

Startled and confused, Hjalm demanded, "Why would you allow a bully to come to your home? Does he threaten you?"

Cassie's laugh echoed musically around them, "No, Hjalm, he's a literal bull from the ranch. He comes up and spends the night in the garage sometimes."

"You let an animal sleep in the garage?"

"He is almost as big as my little jeep." Cassie shrugged with a joyful twinkle in her eyes. "And I couldn't bring him inside with the cats."

Enchanted, he gently cupped her cheek in his hand. "Cassandra, I want to kiss you."

"Okay," she murmured breathlessly.

The slow gently kiss soon became more. It was everything she had ever hope for in a kiss and nothing like those awkward high school or college after-date kisses.

"Oh, Hjalm. I love you," she whispered.

"Come, min sangfugl, let us make a picnic and we will have lunch in the meadow. I long to hear you sing again." He stood and held out his hand to her chivalrously.

They ate on the back deck overlooking the meadow, talking about all the projects they worked on together. Cassie enjoyed the nostalgia and even sang most of them. Hjalm laughed about the times he had to autotune the other singers in her classes, but that he never had to do that with her voice. She was shocked to learn that she was the only one who received perfect final marks and that her professors complained to him about all the other students relying on having their voices adjusted.

"It is so unfair that they blamed you." Cassie was offended for him.

"You saved me," he revealed, "They did not like that I spoke the truth. The others were not truly talented, they had learned the techniques to sing but no more. I played the unedited recordings of your voice with theirs and pointed out the flaws. The Professors were forced to concede that I was correct."

She smiled at him, asking, "And now?"

"The university has made me a junior conductor and I am in charge of matching singers to music for the fall concert programs." He gave her a fond grin. "But none have the purity of your voice."

They had talked all afternoon so she offered, "I can make dinner. I got some rainbow trout from the local river and pickled it so I can make stegte sild (fried fish) with carrots and shallots like last time."

His eyes seemed to glisten with tears as he agreed, "I would love that. Can I help with anything?"

She shook her head, longing to hear his voice, "Just tell me about Denmark and where you grew up while I cook."

He sat on the other side of the bar that served as her eating area, talking about his childhood as she cooked. He refilled her wine glass and explained about his uncle expanding his apple wine making business to grapes. "With the climate changing, there are vineyards on Lollen, Funen, and Zealand."

She set the last plate of fried fish on the bar next to a basket of fried sweet potato wedges which she loved with the vinegar, mustard, and dill seasonings of Hjalm's favorite dishes. She didn't tell him she cooked these dishes at least once a month. Giggling at the warm feeling the wine was giving her, Cassie sipped more then asked, "And this is the apple wine your uncle makes, aeblevin?"

"Yes," Hjalm laughed, then teased, "He would pay you to sing to his trees and vines. He thinks music makes the fruit fuller."

"Music makes everything better," Cassie repeated something he always said, then she blushed at the way he looked at her.

"You and your voice make everything better." His eyes traveled slowly up and down the fullness of her curves. Suddenly she wasn't shy about her body type and size. She was an opera singer; she was supposed to be full-figured and robust.

"We should eat before it gets cold. I think you will like the breaded and fried yams. The sweetness goes well with the stegte sild." Cassie set the sauce between their plates then came to sit beside him.

As she served more of the cream and berry velvet cake, she asked, "What are your plans, Hjalm?"

He looked at her in a sadly longing way. "I don't want to talk the future or the university anymore. I want to stay here in this moment with you tonight."

Her breath caught. She wasn't quite certain what he meant by his phrasing, but she decided she would be bold for the first time in her life, like the Page of Cups from her favorite tarot deck. Placing the cake in front of him, she responded calmly, "I would like you to stay the night too."

~~~~

Cassie woke slowly, the afterglow of the night mixing with the languid movements of morning. Hjalm was not in bed, but his pillow was still warm. Rising, she wrapped her silky, buttercream yellow robe around her and went to look for him. He didn't seem to be in the house then she noticed the door to her studio was closed. Turning the knob, she started to open it but froze when she heard him snarl Elka's name followed by a stream of angry Danish too fast for her to follow with the few words she knew. A baby cried in the background. A tear of brokenhearted worry leaked down her cheek as her paranoia whispered her worst fears to her. She eased the door closed on the internet call and Elka's shrill voice with the baby's wails.

Going into the bathroom, she stared at herself in the mirror. "I won't regret last night, and you can't make me." Then she washed her face and brushed her hair before going to the kitchen to make breakfast.

Setting out yogurt, Muslix, and starting the coffee and medisterpølse sausage, she waited for him to finish his call.

"Good morning, min sangfugl." He tried to sound happy but there was stress in his tone that she could hear like a note going sharp. He hugged her and she hugged him back.

"How did you sleep?" She asked, turning away to stir the sausage slices. "Do you want eggs too or just rye toast?"

He sighed heavily. "You listened?"

"Only for a moment. I did not want to eavesdrop on you. Your baby sounds sick." The tear she begged not to fall slid down her cheek like the water from the seeping spring.

"Don't cry. Please don't cry." He turned off the stove and held her hands. "Elka and I are divorced. The child... She said it wasn't mine and she says it is. I am waiting on the testing and then the court to decide."

Looking at his smaller hands in hers, their size difference suddenly seemed so pronounced, even more so that the few awkward moment they had last night. She was not a small woman, and he was a petite man. "Is it going to be okay?"

"It has caught a virus. You are so sweet to care about that whore's spawn."

"Don't call it that!" Cassie insisted sharply. "Don't ever call it that. It might be your child and you don't want to regret that you spoke about it with hate."

He looked at her with so much love and admiration, it felt like she was being stabbed as he said, "You are such an angel, Cassandra."

She pulled her hands away and poured him a mug of coffee then set it next to a plate. "I'll start the toast. We need to get you home, so she will never be able to tell the baby that its father did not care enough to come home when it was sick."

"Cassandra, Jurgen may not even be mine," Hjalm protested.

"But if it is... Please, Hjalm, please do this for me and for Jurgen, even if he isn't yours, it still shows that you are a good person who can look past his mother's manipulation to care about another human being." She begged thinking about all the time when she was a child and alone.

"I would rather stay another day with you," he revealed as he sat down, "But as usual, you are right and you make me a better person." After they ate in silence, he said, "I need to call your brother to take me to the airport."

"I'll take you," Cassie volunteered.

"But... all the people," he protested.

"For you, I can do it." She hoped she wasn't lying to both of them.

While he showered, she pulled her Crystal Visions Tarot Deck out of the box she kept it in and pulled three cards because she had not pulled any cards for almost two months because of the cards from the day of Shivonne's death showing up weekly and because according to her Tarot Journal for the day before Detective Stonewall died, her cards wanted her to call and warn him. The first card was the Six of Cups, the nostalgia card. The next card was The Devil in reverse, the temptation card in the position meant she was coming to s spiritual breakthrough, and finally the Page of Swords, the card she thought of last night. On a whim she pulled two more cards, turning over the Four of Wands reversed, a card for lovers who are facing a shakeup. Everything was exactly as the cards predicted but she tried to be hopeful as she turned a fifth card. It was the Seven of Swords, the deceiver's card. The card that always showed up when Shivonne's killer was close. Her chest clenched in fear as she stared at it.

"If anything happens to Hjalm, I am going to burn you!" She threatened the deck in a harsh whisper then stuffed them back in their wooden box. She pulled out a scarf that matched the floral shirt she chose, more determined than ever to get Hjalm safely to the airport. Her fear be dammed, she loved him, and she would save him even if it meant she lost him.

~~~~

Driving back to the ranch, Cassandra was grateful Hjalm filled up her jeep when they stopped at the gas station. She felt ashamed that she couldn't get out to hug him at the airport. He had managed to move his flights and would only been in Denver an hour before departing for the Iceland then connecting to Denmark. He hugged her through the window but did not kiss her again.

"I love you, min sangfugl."

"I love you too. Kiss your son for me."

"I will." The anguish in his Nordic blue eyes told her that he knew he would never see her again or at least, not for a long time.

She swallowed as she watched him walk inside then almost ran over another airport passenger trying to get away from the crowd. She sped all the way back to Pagosa County before she was pulled over. Sheriff Tanner walked cautiously to the side of her jeep and looked in at her. Recognition shown in his face as she wept helplessly.

"Stay here, I'm going to call the Rocking M."

"Please don't." She begged through the tiny crack of her slightly lowered window. "I know I shouldn't have left the ranch, but I had to."

"Okay. How about you follow me and I will lead you back to the ranch? That way you won't have to look around or at any of the people, you can just look at the back of my SUV. I'll even guide you on a route that keeps you away from town." His deep voice was so gentle and concerned that she wondered if he had been a veterinarian or doctor too.

She could only nod. When he pulled out, she followed carefully. After several turned on dirt roads, they turned onto the familiar county road leading to the Rocking M Ranch. Nick and Erin were waiting when she pulled in and parked in her open garage.

"Jeezus! Cass! What were you thinking?" Erin yelled at her in exasperation.

She broke down into sobs and ran inside with Erin following.

The tall sheriff pushed his Stetson and looked at Nick with worry. "She was coming back from Durango going ninety-eight. I didn't run her license and the plate came back as Erin's."

"Write the ticket for Erin, we'll pay for it," Nick promised.

"There's no ticket, vets and doctors get special considerations, but don't let her drive again," Tank warned.

"We won't. I don't even know how she managed to leave the Rocking M. She hasn't crossed the wire since she moved here." Nick looked back at the house. "Thanks for guiding her home."

The sheriff left so Nick went inside to find Cassie weeping in Erin's arms. After she cried herself to sleep, Erin slipped out of her bedroom and closed the door. "I need to go to the pharmacy and get a morning after pill for Cassie."

"What?" Nick blurted out. Suddenly, he looked ready to murder someone. "Where's Hjalm?"

"Calm down. It was consensual then she took him to the airport so he could fly back to Denmark, his son is sick with a virus. She drove him to the airport because she is convinced Shivonne's killer is after him." Erin shook his head, confessing, "I... I don't... I don't want to think she's crazy, but I don't know how to help her."

Nick hugged him tightly, resting his cheek against Erin's temple as he said, "We'll get the pill then we'll figure out what else she needs."

"I don't need help." Cassie interrupted as she stood bleary eyed, holding the door open. "I need you both to be safe. I need Hjalm to be safe. He's still out there." She glared at them then slammed the door.

"Fuuk." Erin groaned as Nick announced, "I'll call my grandmother."

An hour later, Fern came with a white bag from the pharmacy. "Go back to the Ranch, boys." She sent them away and then went into talk to Cassie. Cassie took the pill after she revealed to Fern that she couldn't get pregnant because she knew she needed to go back to the mental health hospital and that they couldn't medicate her properly without putting a baby at risk. Two of the medications she took required the patient be on birth control.

"I'll stay the night with you." Fern insisted then held up her hand when Cassie started to protest, "Don't argue with me Cassandra. You're family now."