Nine of Swords

The Nine of Swords is the three-in-the-morning card. A woman sits up in bed with her face in her hands. Nine swords hang in a row on the black wall behind her. Nothing on the card is actually attacking her. The swords are on the wall, and the terror is in her.

Nomada bees look like little wasps, red and yellow and black, and nearly hairless. There are nearly eight hundred species, on every continent but Antarctica, and every one of them is a cuckoo. A female waits until a mining bee leaves her nest. Then she slips in, cuts a slit in the wall of a brood cell that's still open, and hides a tiny egg inside the wall. The owner comes home, finishes stocking the cell with pollen, lays her own egg, and seals it, never knowing. When the Nomada larva hatches, its head is hard and its jaws are long and sharp. It kills the host's egg or young larva and eats the pollen that was meant for it. Some Nomada males even smell like the females of their host, carrying the same scent compounds in their heads.

They're quiet. Unlike the bumblebee cuckoos of the Hierophant, Nomada never fight their way in. Their whole method is patience, disguise, and a small, very sharp first act.

Here's the riddle. The nine swords are on the wall, and so is the egg. What keeps you up at night is often hidden in the walls of your own room, laid there quietly while you were out, and it does nothing until the moment it hatches. The understudy in the title is the one waiting in the wings to take over the role, and in the cell, she does.

When the Nine appears, take your fears seriously, but look at where they actually are. Most of the swords are on the wall, not in you. And if something really has been hidden in your walls, it's better to find it while it's still an egg. Turn on the light. Then try to sleep.