Of all the evil machinations to which I was subject in that accursed courtroom, to be hung upside down was without doubt the most infuriating. Hoisted by a single leg, my groin threatened to tear apart as I strained to reach the thread from which I was suspended.
"Let me down!" I yelled, but my futile flailing only made for a pitiful spectacle. The Gallery jeered beneath me, and one by one they pulled off their masks as though disgusted to wear my face. I swore at them. Spat at them. But soon my head throbbed so badly that I felt it would explode.
"Out of the way, whore," came a squawk, and I saw that Yidoni had materialised. He exchanged unpleasantries with Desiree who eventually relented, stepping down from the witness stand in all her malglamorous grandeur. "Bon chance, mon cherie," she called, blowing me a kiss.
"You won't get away with this," I said. "I swear I'll make you pay."
The Judge brought down his stethoscope but his authority had been frayed by Desiree's testimony, and only by threat of the Imbecile did he manage to restore order. Re-adjusting his wig, he ordered Yidoni to dispose of the dirty old skull. "That eyesore has no place in my courtroom."
"Eyesore?!" wailed Yidoni. "I'd be very careful what you say about Lugubrio Guster lest the prognosticator of prognosticators decide to peer into Your Honour's fortune."
The White Ram approached and Yidoni uttered the oath in some eldritch language that only the Jewry seemed to understand. In fact, the ten chassidic men seemed rather ill at ease with the tattooed soothsayer.
"Mr. Yidoni," said the Professor. "How do you know the accused?"
"—the accused. Yes, I was just getting to that. I'm his advisor."
"Liar!" I shouted. "He's nothing but a charlatan whose parlour tricks have you all fooled."
"Is that so?" snapped Yidoni, his green and purple eyes flashing. "Because to me, boy, it seems I had your fortune pegged quite precisely."
From his black sackcloth he drew his Tarot deck, dealing out the same seven-card spread with which he'd foretold my damnation. Holding up the first card, he took great delight in showing the Court the image of The Hanged Man.
"Don't listen to him!" I yelled, trying in vein to snatch the card from him. Yidoni went on to reveal the other six cards, insinuating the most condemnatory meanings from their depictions and order. The Moon, he told the Court, was a portent for delusion. The Tower was an obviously phallic symbol whose flames represented my destructive desires. When he turned over The Lovers, he simply pointed to the lewd photograph hanging beside me.
"No!" I shouted, swiping madly at the photograph. It tumbled to the floor, landing face-up—and lo! it now bore the same image as the tarot card.
My mind reeled, but the more I despaired into abject outcry the more credence did Yidoni's charlatanry take on. The Gallery drank in his words thirstily, and my protestations became childish against his use of hindsight. Even his first cryptic warning 'rams do not these pastures frolic,' now rang true (for when I pointed to the White Ram, Yidoni only chuckled and said: "You see him frolicking?").
Next came the card of The High Priestess.
"Oh goodness!" gasped my stepmother, shocked to see her own voluptuous image.
"I told you," said Winston Lane. "That lunatic is depraved."
"WE DON'T USE THAT WORD," everyone shouted, and when the Gallery stood back from them, Lydia began to cry. "Please," she said. "You must forgive him. The poor babe's just confused."
"Confused nothing," hissed Lane. "How long will you refuse to see the truth?" He implored her to abandon me but Lydia cried only louder. Her pained wails struck my very guts and from that rupture burst forth a terrible questioning.
"It's just an act," I told myself, but the words came thick in face of her seeming inconsolability.
"Zer zer," cooed Desiree, slipping her arm around Lydia, who collapsed into her chest.
"What the hell do you want from me?" I cried. "What is this?"
The answer came readily when Yidoni flipped the penultimate card: Judgement.
It was the terrifying painting from my father's attic—the very nightmare scene I saw now below me.
The White Ram blew his horn and the Gallery surged upward like a mob, reaching to drag me down. The Judge banged his stethoscope so hard that his wig dislodged, bearing his ginger hair and leaving no doubt he was indeed Doctor Lawrence Wheeler.
"I've heard enough," he bellowed. "Let the final card be revealed and we shall move to verdict."
Yidoni gleefully obliged him, turning over the final card from which the Reaper emerged in a shriek. There was a flash of red eyes beneath straw blonde hair and with one swoop of its dread scythe, Death cut the spider thread which held me, and I plummeted to the floor.