Pop’s cards sparkled in the lantern light. I was beginning to see the stories in the cards, the way the pictures whispered their tales to me, they seemed to glisten with their own secret life. I wanted to stare at those cards for hours, to hold them and whisper to them and hear them whisper back, I wanted to know their stories and for them to know mine. I wanted to disappear inside of them, wander around for a while and see what I found. I wanted to walk the Staggerly Road, nothing but a jug and a mangy dog at my side. I wanted the company of the Dolly Witch, to let her scatter her bones and tell my stories and see what the starshine showed in her scrying crystal. I wanted to nap in the Bramble with a fox at my side, protected deep in the warm grass, surrounded by a tangle of thorny vines. I wanted to watch the Skeleton Dance, the skeletons all tucked away behind a tombstone as they mocked death and the end, how you could never tell if they were smiling or if that was just their faces. It was true that the skeletons in the Skeleton Dance were supposed to be exactly alike, but that wasn’t the case, not when I peered close. Some were taller and some shorter and some had bigger skulls and longer arms. We were all still different in death, I decided. Life never really ended.

I shook myself awake then, wondered how long I’d been staring so deep into those cards. Across from me Granddad smiled, like he knew. His long fingernails scraped the surface of the cards, tracing all the mysteries hidden with them.

“Quality deck of cards, yes sir,” said Granddad. “Made by the finest hand, sewn by deep magic.”

“Magic?” I said.

“Surely my boy you know how a Parnsit deck is made.”

“Well, not exactly,” I admitted. “I do know a witch has to make them, but I don’t know how.”

“There ain’t any one way of course,” said Granddad. “Every witch has their own particular Parsnit brew, that’s a fact. Some use fungus and cat’s fur to conjure the pictures. Some mix sticks and twigs and a saint’s pinky finger and watch the images appear. Every witch puts a little of herself—a little of her soul—into a Parsnit deck. That’s why they’re so rare, and so valuable.”

Tally sat slumped in the corner, a big old frown on her face. What was the matter with her?

Granddad cracked his long knuckles, and it gave me shivers.

“There is one thing, however, that all Parsnit decks do require. You know what that is, boy?”

“No sir,” I said.

Granddad’s pipe had gone out, and he laid it now on the kitchen table.

I was feeling the creepers just about then, like something was sneaking up on me. I looked around the room. It was nothing but shadows and old junk. Tally’s sad little pallet on the floor, Granddad’s musty tangled bedsheets. What was I so worried about just now? A spider scuttled across the floor by my boot. It was a big sucker and I wanted to stomp it, but I found I couldn’t, not in a million years. My leg frankly did not want to lift.