Herculeah Jones Tarot Says Beware

Table of Contents

 

 

The room was round and stuck off the side of the house. It held only the black-covered table and two chairs.

Herculeah noticed now that one of the chairs—the velvet chair that Madame Rosa always sat in—had been overturned.

She turned to go. Glancing down, she saw something sticking out from under the black cloth that was draped over the table.

It was a black, booted foot—a small one. The frayed shoelaces were tied neatly at the ankle.

Madame Rosa wore boots like this.

A feeling of nausea washed over Herculeah like a wave. She could barely stand. Her knees began to tremble.

She reached out one unsteady hand and drew back the worn velvet cloth....

“Byars grips the reader from the first sentence and doesn't let go until Herculeah solves the case.”

—
The Horn Book

 

 

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Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

 

First published in the United States of America by Viking, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc., 1995

Published by Puffin Books, 1997

This edition published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2006

Copyright © Betsy Byars, 1995

All rights reserved

 

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE VIKING EDITION AS FOLLOWS:
Byars, Betsy Cromer.
Tarot says beware / by Betsy Byars. p. cm.—(A Herculeah Jones mystery)
Summary: Herculeah Jones and her bumbling pal, Meat,
investigate the murder of a palm reader.

eISBN : 978-1-101-07676-7

[1. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title. II. Series.
PZ7.B9836Tar 1995 [Fic]—dc20 95-12334 CIP AC

 

 

 

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

Herculeah Jones was restless. She went to the window and looked up and down the street. Everything seemed normal, but she could not shake the feeling that something was wrong.

She went to the phone on her mother's desk. She dialed her friend Meat's number. There was no answer. She went back to the window.

This time her eyes narrowed at something she saw down the street—a flicker of motion. The binoculars were on the end table. Herculeah picked them up and lifted them to her face. She adjusted the lens. She leaned forward in her intensity.

She noticed three things:

She thought, Now I know something's wrong. Her hair always did this when there was danger. Meat had once called it “radar hair,” and she had smiled. Herculeah wasn't smiling how.

She rushed into the hall, pulling on her sweater as she ran out the door. Pausing only to check for traffic, she crossed the street.

Madame Rosa's house was the fourth one down. There was a sign in front, in the shape of an open hand, that said:

Herculeah opened the gate and paused by the sign. She often came to Madame Rosa's to feed the parrot when Madame Rosa was out of town. It alarmed her to see the parrot loose, because Madame Rosa was very particular about him. Something had to be badly wrong.

“Tarot,” Herculeah said in a calm voice, not wanting to alarm the bird.

Tarot cocked his head and looked back with round eyes dulled slightly by the cold.

She glanced up at the house. “Madame Rosa, Tarot's out!” she called.

She waited, but Madame Rosa did not appear in the open doorway.

“Madame Rosa!”

Again no answer.

Slowly Herculeah started up the walk.

“It's just me, Herculeah,” she told the bird. “You want to go back inside, don't you, where it's warm? I'll even feed you.” The bird took a side step on the back of the rocker. “You want to go back to your perch? Then don't fly off, Tarot.”

The bird lifted his wings and flapped them but didn't go anywhere.

“That's right. Don't fly off. I'm taking you back in the house. Madame Rosa, your parrot's out on the porch!”

Herculeah slipped off her sweater as she climbed the stairs. The parrot lifted his wings in another feeble flutter.

“It's just me. I feed you, remember? I'm going to help you back in the house.”

In one lightning-fast move, Herculeah threw her sweater around the bird. “Gotcha,” she said. She felt a moment of relief because Tarot was easily startled and she could have ended up chasing him all over the neighborhood.

She carried him to the open door. She paused in the doorway.

There were no lights on inside the house. Herculeah's feeling of relief at catching the parrot so easily was replaced by a chill of dread.

“Madame Rosa?”

The parrot struggled in her arms. “It's all right, Tarot. I'll let you out in a minute.”

Herculeah entered and shoved the front door shut with her shoulder. She walked into the dark living room.

The huge pieces of furniture had been in place since the house had been built seventy years ago. The velvet drapes—almost as old—were drawn against the afternoon light. Herculeah clicked on a lamp as she passed the table.

The parrot's stand had been turned over and lay across the faded and worn Persian rug.

“You must have gotten scared when your stand tipped over, huh? That's why you flew out on the porch?” she said, though she had the feeling that that was not what had happened.

She picked up the parrot's stand. There was something else wrong about the room, but she couldn't place what it was.

She unwrapped the trembling bird and placed him on his perch. He took a few steps and began to swing his head from side to side.

“Something happened in this house,” Herculeah stated. “Madame Rosa would never let you go outside—not if she could have prevented it.”

She turned, slowly looking into the shadows of the room. She remembered that the last time she had been here, Madame Rosa had tried to pay her for looking after Tarot.

“No,” Herculeah had said. “I like feeding him. It's no trouble at all.”

“I want to pay. You do me a big favor. Here, take it. Go on. Take.” She held out some money.

“No. Oh, I have an idea,” Herculeah had said. “Give me a reading. I want to know if I'm going to get an A on my English test tomorrow.”

“I thought you didn't believe in readings,” Madame Rosa said with a smile that showed her long teeth. Her dark, gray-streaked hair was held back with golden combs.

“Well, I do and I don't,” Herculeah said.

“Which? You do? You don't?”

“Well, if you tell me I'm going to get an A, then I'll probably work real hard and I will get one. So go ahead. Read the future.”

She held out her hands, palms up. Madame Rosa leaned over them. Herculeah could smell the scent of herbs and foreign perfume.

Madame Rosa put her hands under Herculeah's. Her touch was light, but it seemed to offer strong support. Herculeah understood why people trusted Madame Rosa's advice.

“Ah,” she said.

“What?”

“I see a very long lifeline.”

“What else?”

“I see a boy who is in love with you—two boys, one dark, one fair.”