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Somewhere on the edge of twilight, where the dusk meets the dawn, sits a house. Under a purple and orange sky with a faint speckling of stars it sits, at the peak of an open hill that drops away into lightly-wooded forest and then darkness. It is quiet and still. There are no songbirds, only silent feathered creatures and small scuttling animals that move among the trees and their roots and the ground. Insects crawl and sometimes sing in the summer, but theirs are the only voices. It is a somber place, touched by a stillness unbroken. There is a single, lone pathway that leads to this house, a dirt track that weaves it way down the ridge of the hill until it disappears into the trees and goes someplace else. Though there are sometimes clouds or a moon overhead, everything else remains the same, unchanging.

Very rarely, some strange creature ventures up from the forest to the structure. If it is lucky, it learns it lesson and does not venture forth again. The unlucky ones do not survive their encounter. This is not just any house. Though it rises up three stories of Victorian styling to a peaked roof and spires, its walls are not walls at all. Its floors are not floors and the windows are gaping holes without any panes inside.

This house is a house of cards.

Thousands upon thousands of cards sling tightly together to make up its floors and walls and the shingles of its roots. Assembled from various decks, they use their faces and backs to form patterns: wallpaper, floorboards, and art upon the walls. They are paper-sharp at their edges, and quick. When a curious animal comes from the forest, they snap and attack it and it falls or is driven away. They have the ability to move and reassemble themselves, to flick away the carcasses of those unlucky animals, to swat at any insects that might want to bother them, to protect themselves from any threats in their quiet world.

This is where lost playing cards go, where unwanted decks have fled to elude their uninterested owners, where the cards are the game masters. Sitting on top of that hill, assembled into a house, they are alive and they are thinking.

They are thinking they might like to find themselves a few players. To that end, they have placed an order for a set of cabbages.

It was with considerable excitement and happiness that the cards viewed the rustling of the cabbage leaves as they unfurled. So happy were some of the sets, they shuffled themselves and flew ribbons over the heads of the cabbages, streams of cards stretching forth and over in joyful arcs.

They had, of course, decided to use the traditional order of selection. When the first of the cabbages opened, there were two children inside. A boy, dark and brooding, and a girl round and sleepy. The Spades, first among suits, took first pick among the first children. The boy lay there, breathing air for the first time in long, slow breaths, his arm around his sister, dark eyes picking out the shapes of the cards around him with the rigid discernment of a spade. He was theirs to claim.

The diamonds chose to wait for the opening of the next cabbage. The clubs objected; they wanted their turn. But it was not a long wait, and the clubs had to admit they were being over-hasty. The furry-armed boy with the wide eyes and little, nervous hands was the choice of the diamonds.

The clubs had mostly been antsy because they knew straight away that they had to have the second half of what Spades had chosen. The girl, adorably rotund, who grunted and seemed disinterested in it all. Even her roly poly shape appealed to the clubs and seemed well-suited.

The hearts had last pick. They were the suit which would have loved any child. But cards, who are very good at counting themselves, are not so good at counting other objects, such as players, before they are dealt, and it was with no small amount of confusion that the cards realized they were short one child. The diamonds had noticed, yes, but it took the other suits longer, clubs and hearts particularly, who were never the smartest of suits.

The diamonds only slipped across the hearts in consolation and shifted the lone boy in the cabbage to them. The hearts could not believe it. There was hesitation at this offering, but diamonds were smart and hearts were loving and to see the happiness at hearts for not being excluded was satisfaction enough. The hearts danced across the floor in joy and promised to keep and love their son always. The room prepared by the diamonds collapsed and the cards were redistributed.

As for the children, they emerged to the soft symphony of cards shuffling, a sound as familiar to them as the sound of a mother's voice at birth, and they opened their eyes to the sights and sounds of their parents without a single cry of upset or disturbance. Little hands reached out and were gently buffeted by the cards in parental affection. They were home and had arrived safely.

It was clear early on the Kepling and Parnell were in cahoots. Possibly it had started when they were in the cabbage or possibly it had simply been a result of the fact they seemed to be more on the same level intellectually than either was with their brother Frost. It could have been a result of their personalities: Frost was much more open and expressive and Kepling and Parnell were black pits in comparison, into which expressions flowed but never found their way out. Probably it was all these things in combination. Regardless of its origins, the result was the same: Frost was left out.

Parnell and Kepling sat there studying game lessons from their parents, studying a swirling pattern of cards on the floor, and Frost came to join them. "I play?"

"No," said Kepling,

"Your not unnerstan'," said Parnell. Neither of them so much as looked up.

Frost would not be so easily dissuaded. He plopped himself down between the two of them. "I wanna play!" In his mind, his happiness and sunniness would win through and save the day, like in the little stories hearts told him at bedtime where goodwill and friendliness triumphed.

In sitting down, Frost disrupted part of the card pattern, accidentally pinning a pair of nines under his leg. Kepling's dark expression, always so dour, took on an expression of anger. "No!" he said sharply.

"Your messin' it!" exclaimed Parnell, a whine creeping into her voice.

It there was anything likely to set Kepling off, it was something upsetting Parnell. He turned, grabbed Frost, and with a look of pure fury, shoved him. Frost let out a shriek as he skidded across the floor and thudded into a wall of cards. The cards were so surprised they did not properly catch him, a few skidding out of the way and a few staying much too hard and solidly-packed.

At once a wall of hearts and diamonds rose up between Kepling and Frost. The meaning was clear: break it up, and the diamonds were looking strict and fierce in warning, promising punishment.

Parnell wobbled to her feet. "He started it!" she shouted at Frost, pointing. But the diamonds were clear: it did not matter who started it, they were ending it now. The hearts were in too much worried disarray to participate in any discipline, fawning over Frost and checking him to be sure he was alright.

Kepling was breathing heavily as the adrenaline faded, drained so thoroughly his legs were shaky. Parnell's next shout was a damning accusation Frost would not forget for the rest of his life:

"You hurt Ace!"

Parnell's face still looked sleepy, but her eyebrows were twisted angrily. As he sat up, woozy from the impact, Frost's lip began to quiver and his eyes to fill with tears. Kepling had not spoken. He simply glared at Frost with all his terrifying might. When he finally did speak it was not apology or concern for his brother. Instead, he merely turned to Parnell and said, "Let's go." The pair of them walked off, Parnell shooting Frost one last angry glare. Frost cried, and try as the hearts and diamonds and even the clubs and spades did, they could not fill the hole in Frost's heart at his siblings' rejection.