Cobb stared at his ceiling for months, trying to think of what to do next. It took him a simple change of terminology, and the turn of the country to a mental state as paranoid as his own to succeed. He learned in his escapade, chatting with a man on the bus, about the investigations of the Communists within the US, and his fear muddled mind quickly assumed this threat was really Martians in disguise, shifting his ravings to berate Communism and finding Bolsheviks hiding around every corner. Simultaneously, the hospital began a trial of new medications for mania on him, with some success in calming his anxiety and helping his remarks to be more focused and lucid.
Over time, he began to make sense to the doctors, who slowly came to the conclusion he was healing. After all, surprising people were being found out to be Communist sympathizers, and who else but a man who spent time overseas fighting them would know what they looked like and what they were like. They felt his paranoia about the "red threat" gradually seem normal, completely unaware their own attitudes had changed with the atmosphere of the day.
Two years after his exploration of the priesthood, Cobb was declared incompetent but safe, and released to Helga's care. It didn't take long for the ghosts of the battlefield to rise again, and once more Helga was the center of the battleground. Horrified as she found herself living with a man she no longer knew, no longer loved, she tried to find a way to love this stranger, but failed.
On the night he shoved her through the screen door, tumbling her down the porch steps and accusing her of conspiracy, she appealed to her sister-in-law for help, believing he would be safe enough as long as he was not with her to remind him of his guilts and fears. She agonized over blame for an action she did not do, frustrated at having no means by which to undo it. It became plain to her that she was the trigger for his illness, and for him to heal she had to set him free.
Victory answered Helga's appeal out of a sense of family obligation. Jedd was amused, curious as to actually spending some time with this man whom he had only briefly met and whom now seemed much calmer and speaking in sane sentences, was delighted to learn Cobb was a genius too, and the two men spent hours discussing rocket theory and pyrotechnics. The lights burned late in the little wood house as visions of flaming trajectories and space travel streamed along the pressboard ceiling. Jedd, too, believing there were aliens in space, unwittingly fed into Cobb's madness with his simple belief there had to be life forms greater than flawed and fragile man.
Dinah was frankly afraid of Cobb, and shied clear of him whenever he was near, seeing in him the anti-Christ, his madness a sure sign of possession and his visage one of evil and guile. Dixie had a very literal faith, believing every word of the bible, imagining a heaven paved in gold and equally certain that evil spirits did exist and hell was a fiery cauldron. She was very well behaved, terrified of doing wrong and ending up called to account for her errors. In the same way she agreed with the proscribed purpose of women as described by the good book, wrestling with the dichotomy of Cobb being patently evil but male, therefore someone who rules over her, but at the same time an evil soul who cannot direct her, for she was a believer under the protection of Christ. Initially she tried to pray to cast the spirit out of him, but seeing no response or change, chose to avoid him.
Sunny reveled in the eccentric white-haired man, spending long afternoons discussing rambling philosophy and inventing new ways to solve all the problems of the world with him. Sunny and Cobb had the common belief of an ultimate greater power, that expected the lesser gods of humans - the living angels - to be His voice and His hands for his actions. Dinah simply felt he was possessed and took to wearing the largest cross she could find.
Victory amused herself by delving into the psychic fad of the day, learning to do palm reading and regaling the men with predictions. Cobb took to this fad avidly, imploring her to read his palms several times a day. Usually the readings were fluff about finding pots of gold and great success in business, but one day, the planets moved together and spoke in real tongues, dancing through reality and visions like spirits of the ancestors, bringing to the surface a light too blinding to directly confront, giving Victory a voice she'd never before held in her mouth, the taste of which was bitter and sound foreign to her ears.
Victory mixed her readings with prophecies of the American Indians, using old medicine cards she'd purchased from a reservation in her travels, which brought to them a dimension of reality based on ancient human history and of the flux of change as each reading brought out different insights. This time the drums could be heard in her voice, and the calling of the ancients echoed in her words. Cobb had great respect for the American Indians, believing they were messengers of benevolent angels more ancient than the Martians, who were to come to fight the dark aliens who taunted his sleep. Jedd and Sunny too had a fascination for the Indian culture, and listened to Victory's readings with interest.
Dinah found it all to be a terrible sacrilege, having been more influenced by Mrs. Stuart and faithfully attending her church, and the nine-year-old read her children's bible just loud enough to be heard as a distracting murmur above the sound of the readings.
On a quiet summer night graced by heat lightning leaping across the horizons, Victory held Cobb's left hand and turned the first card.
Dinah quickly referred to her concordance, found what she wanted and read, carefully pronouncing the more unfamiliar terms, "the seers shall be disgraced and the diviners put to shame," she paused to look directly at her mother, who rolled her eyes, used to her child trying to convert her and already weary of it, wondering how many references to fortune telling the child could possibly find in the bible, having heard similar phrases in readings before, "they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer from God."
Disregarding Dinah, Victory began, "Cobb, you have the hand of Saturn. Your hand is thin but not firm. The thumb is very long and your palm very flat and angular. Your middle finger is your leading finger, being the longest of all. This hand is your passive hand, telling what your abilities are and what traits you have inherited, what your basic constitution is like. This is the sweat lodge, reversed. It corresponds with your palm as a whole, showing you have discovered in your life a need to purify yourself from what you have inherited, and that you are in the process of accomplishing this."
Dinah read on, skipping through her bible for her favorite phrases, "those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance..."
Victory indicated a cross in the center of his palm, extending from his wrist to the joint of his middle finger with the crossing line running from his first finger to the outside edge of his palm. "This cross indicates you will be surprised with your gifts, that you have a genius that you have not yet explored. It is complemented by the Give-Away Ceremony card, showing release. I would read that as meaning you have to let go of something that is holding you back before your inherent talent can be released for you to discover and use."
Dinah's voice emerged in the pause, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Victory suppressed an amused chuckle as the child fell back on her favorite cant from the services she attended, taking up Cobb's hand again to continue.
"This cross-hatching here in the base of your thumb is very typically Saturn, indicating you will have a profound influence on your parents, either supporting them or teaching them in a way no other person on earth could do. The Rites of Passage crosses this, a card of change reversed here. You have already traveled a long road that will take you to this end, your parents unwitting and perhaps unwilling participants in the journey. The warning here is that the change will not be effective if you pay attention only to the riches at the end and not the beauty you truly are seeking."
The child continued as well, "He will give his angels charge of you, on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone."
Cobb smiled and remarked, "I live with angels, Dinah, and they take me by the hand. I am my own parent, my own child, and they are the catalyst of my passage. You, Jedd, Victory, Sunny, yes even you Dinah, all of you in taking me in when I was naked and without knowledge of the world, even when my angel could not bear the light of my visage, you eternally have my love and you lead me in this land you call real life. Jedd, you believe me that we do not walk this earth alone. Victory, you love me whoever I am. Sunny, you teach me faith. Dinah, even as a child you show me restraint. I learned a lot in the hospital, but what you teach me cannot be contained by four white walls."
Dinah spoke softly, "I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken."
"Ah, right, Cobb, Dinah." Victory went on, embarrassed by his confession and her child's quiet agreement. "This is the old man," indicating a deep crease where his thumb bends across the palm. "He is protection from yourself, both the man you will become and the man who has brought you up. This is your father and your future self. The shawl, reversed, crosses it. It means you can never go home again. You are whom you will become and there is no turning back to the boy you once were. It fits very nicely with the rites of passage card. Whatever you were in the past is gone, and you have now the person you have become to learn and know."
Not to be outdone, Dinah remarked, "Happy is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God."
With Jedd smiling at Dinah's parallel to Victory's father, Victory turned another card. "This is the Wheel of Fortune," she traced her finger along two lines crossing a triangle in his palm. "For you it is long and makes many turns before reaching its end. You have and will make many self-discoveries before you find yourself. The Power Place crosses it, the card of Empowerment and your connection with the land." Victory took a deep breath and paused to consider before continuing. "I read this as you needing to deal with your feelings about Helga, who represents land in your life, before your luck will turn."
Dinah added, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
"How am I to do that if she will not see me?" Cobb spoke quietly.
Dinah looked up and closed her bible for a moment, aware that the conversation had turned to something more serious, beyond what her simple quotes could encompass.
The family was well aware of Cobb's nightmares, having been briefed by the hospital and talked with Helga about her experiences with him. Victory mentally crossed her fingers and went on. "You haven't resolved the war, Cobb. As long as she's your nightmare and savior, she cannot see you."
"But she is. She is. She rose from the ranks and walked to me and condemned my friends and saved my life. I can't resolve that." Cobb was unusually calm as Victory delicately approached the one topic they had agreed to avoid while he lived with them. The cards seemed to provide a safe distance for both of them, and Cobb was able to talk in a more lucid light.
"I can't." Cobb slapped his hand face down on the table. Victory gently turned it up, held it in both hands and looked her brother in the eye.
"You can. One day you will." She turned another card and noted the cross hatching in his palm that traced into a line extending to his middle finger. "This is the return of luck. What more can I say? It is crossed by the Hour of Power, the Ritual of Joy. The cards are telling you Cobb that the only way you will have the joy you seek in your life is to come to terms with Helga. She is your source of joy, don't make her your icon of despair."
"You don't understand. See?" He turned both hands up to face Victory, tracing the lifelines in both, "they are both broken. I was not meant to live. I am now living beyond my time, beyond what is due me. She did this to me and I will pay for it when I die. They do not like us to counter their wishes. They've made that plain to me. I am broken and they will not take me in now. What is a future to me when what I face at the end is nothing?"
Dinah piped up in her child's voice, "God loves you Uncle Cobb. He will save you if you believe in him."
"There is no God, Dinah. You are too young to know. We were put here by aliens and they will come back to take us one day. And those of us that die before then go to nothing, if we don't die when they want us to. They wanted to take me during the war, and I survived. Now, I've missed the door, I've missed the chance I had. They won't want me now. I'm broken."
"You're not making sense Cobb," Jedd remarked, always brutally honest with him, often calling him back from the madness when it seeped into Cobb's thinking.
"No! I admit at times I rant, I rave, I rage for no reason even I understand. My heart and mind fight wars between themselves, and then, yes, I am insane and I understand that now. But I see this very clearly and I am not wrong. They came to take me in the South Pacific and I spit in their faces and lived. My angel was stronger and won, but they took a price I can't afford to pay. They won't forget that and they won't take me again. I have no future because of my past. My hands are broken now." He wrung his hands then swept the cards aside and rose from the table, looking beyond them out the window to the sky, "I am broken, and there is no way to put me together again," he cried to the outside air and retreated to his room.
Quietly, Dinah reopened her bible and read into the ensuing silence, "For the arms of the wicked shall be broken; but the Lord upholds the righteous."
This frightened Victory, concerned she had renewed his earlier madness, and spooked by Dinah's choice of verses, dropping the cards as if the palmistry deck had burned her palms. She refused to read his palm ever again, Dinah's voice repeating in her mind when the days were slow and time too open to crowd the memory out.