Casting of Cards
“Yeah, his status says ‘engaged.’ And get this: the time on his post was actually a couple of hours before he and I talked. I don’t know why he was acting so weird about it. Did he propose last night or this morning? It’s almost two-thirty in the morning here. What is it there? I’m talking too much, aren’t I?”
“Half seven,” I mumbled, giving the time Irish-style. My stomach flopped. Heat burned in my cheeks.
“Lilah, what’s happened? I can tell something’s wrong.”
“Charlie hasn’t popped the question yet. He brought the ring from home, and I know he has plans for me at the Cliffs. I mean, he did have plans.” My voice wavered. I couldn’t hide it, in spite of the façade of confidence I tried to present to my closest ally.
“Ohh. Um, okay. Maybe he jumped the gun and changed his status early. You know, since you’ll be gone a few days. He didn’t realize you would look at it. Or that I would look at it. Or that you’d have any idea yet.”
Emry was reaching, trying to make me feel better, and we both knew it. Charlie would never be that presumptuous or risk public humiliation by having to retract his relationship status if I said no.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Something feels really wrong.” Worse, now.
I refused to think about the things Raven had shown me. Emry had the gift of seeing the future, too. One of them had to be wrong.
“Don’t worry about it. Okay? Okay, Lilah? Are you listening? Don’t worry about it. I very plainly see him down on one knee with the Cliffs of Moher in the background. There’s wind in his hair like a storm is coming. There’s something a little bit wrong. He’s upset or scared or something. Yes, that’s it. He’s scared. He looks a little worried, like he’s afraid something will go wrong, or maybe you won’t say yes. It’s like I’m standing over him and looking down at him from your point of view, and he’s saying, ‘Will you marry me?’ Don’t worry, okay? It’s going to happen. Don’t worry.”
Normally I trusted Emry’s instincts. I wanted desperately to believe her.
“I… I don’t know. Something’s wrong. Charlie just hasn’t been himself this week, not since after… well, after the senator flung himself off that cliff. Even before that, he’s been distant, like he’s hiding something.”
I sat down on the low, stone bench with Celtic knots carved into it and gazed up at the dry dome of the cedar tree. Raven had given me the gift to see the truth, but I couldn’t bear to look. I needed to cling to anything I could justify, however ridiculous it was.
“Hang on a second, Lilah. It’s really late here, and I need to be in bed, but this won’t take too long.”
Kicking at rocks with the toe of my hiking boot, I waited. Fourth World wasn’t my favorite form of social media. Though I had an account back home at the library where Charlie had set up a virtual St. Augustine Special Collections Library inside the simulated reality, I didn’t have the app on my phone, only the messenger. There was no way I could check to see Charlie’s status.
He would’ve known that, too.
Charlie really wasn’t one to talk about personal relationships on Fourth World. He was there as a representative of the real St. Augustine Special Collections Library, and he’d always kept it professional, especially since he had created the redhaired Rune O’Maney avatar as the virtual librarian, based on Jakin’s stories of his bookish sister who had died in her teen years after Jakin, his sister, and Aoife had been struck by lightning in a forbidden Daeganean ritual. Charlie had never expressed any type of relationship at all on Fourth World. I’d asked him once, back in December, since technically he might have said he was in a relationship with me. Instead, he had shaken off my question, laughing at it and saying it was silly to publicize romantic relationships on social media, especially when its purpose was related to his work.
“I’m back.” Emry’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “I just had to grab my tarot cards, if that’s okay with you.”
I shrugged, and then remembered I was on the phone. “Sure.”
It seemed almost silly that Raven had given me the gift of seeing behind the veil and I refused to use it. I was chicken, yes. But whatever Emry saw, I knew she would phrase it in the best way possible if it was bad. Raven might be okay with knowing everything about the future, but I wanted to know that it was good or that I could somehow make it good. I didn’t often allow Emry to divine for me because I didn’t want her to see some of the things I had done, especially what the monster in the cellar had made me do as a kid. I didn’t have many friends, and I wasn’t sure Emry would still like me if she knew I’d killed someone before I’d reached puberty, regardless of the reason.
“You know how it is with visions,” Emry continued, her voice a little more distant as she put me on speaker phone to free her hands. “Sometimes, they’re an exact physical representation of what has happened, is happening, or will happen. Other times, they’re metaphorical, like a dream or a representation. Still, what I see feels more like it’s an actual event. I can even hear the wind on the Cliffs in my ears and feel the gusts on my cheeks and in my hair.”
I heard thump, thump, thump and then a flutter, then another thump, thump, thump and another flutter.
“Let me shuffle these and get the energy off them from my last readings. To tell you the truth, I’ve been a little worried about our Charlie these last few days. We can talk more about that when you return. I ought to warn you though that Drusilla’s going to want to know why you’re covering for him.”
“The missing books.”
“Yeaaah,” Emry drawled as she shuffled, “the missing books. Drusilla knows, but she’s waiting for the two of you to get back. Be prepared to explain yourself. God knows, I already have. What’s that saying that the old lady who volunteers downstairs is always saying about chickens coming home to roost?”
I nodded to myself. I had a sudden flash of thousands of chickens running in zigzags for the farm, mowing down Charlie in the barn doorway and leaving three-pronged chicken footprints on his forehead and cheeks. The prints were in the shape of the protection rune, Algiz, upside down. Hopefully, it was just a metaphor!
“Okay, I’m ready on this end. You ask your questions and I’ll use the cards as a launching point. And—whoa. Lilah, you’re going through another soul loss?”
I smiled patiently. Some people would say I have no soul, given things I’ve done in my past, but Emry always explained that bits and pieces of a person’s soul, when faced with tragedy or fear, might be sent elsewhere or be lost. She’d counseled me and had tried through shamanism to put me back together but even after six months, she was nowhere near done. She’d told me that when I was that little girl in a murderer’s cellar, I’d been so terrified that I’d somehow sent big chunks of my soul to my mother for safekeeping. All the sadder that Mommy died without ever coming back to rescue me or knowing how messed up I’d been in the years since. I was more whole now than I’d been since my tenth birthday, but that really wasn’t saying much.
“When you and Charlie get back home, I promise I’ll work more on your fragmentation with you, okay? One of the cards jumped out of the deck, the Queen of Swords, and it felt like a piece of your core had been cut out.”
That’s what it had felt like when Raven touched his Walking Lightning tattoo to my scar, like I’d lost a part of myself again. “I’m worried about Charlie. Why he’s distant.”
“Six of cups. There’s romance between the two of you, yes. Don’t despair. No matter what happens, you can’t doubt yourself.”
“Now you’re scaring me,” I joked. Except I wasn’t joking.
I knew that Emry drew cards that sometimes had nothing to do with what she saw. She was gifted with the sight, but she still needed the cards as a crutch. She could look at a tarot card that others interpreted as war and see peace, look at the death card and see life. The actual images meant nothing but to spur an entirely different vision.
“Don’t be scared. You’ll be fine. It’s Charlie I’m more concerned about. He’s going through a soul loss of his own. Like… right now. And—the Devil card—he’s in trouble. People are not what they seem to be. Someone making false promises to him. Lilah, you’ve got to find a way to pass this on to him. He needs to stay in the crossroads, not pass through it. Not yet. I… I see him doing it anyway. That’s the course he’s on now unless you can stop him. Not like weeks or months away but… days. Maybe hours away from everything in his life becoming more dire.”
I pressed the phone harder to my ear. My hand cramped and throbbed. “Does he know what he’s doing?” For a second, I wondered if Jakin had been brewing some magical trouble for my relationship.
“The Sun card. Some issue he’s following is causing interference in you getting through to him. Nine of Pentacles. Yes, he knows what he’s doing. He’s doing it willingly. Thinks he can help. Helping is important to him. Two of Swords. He’s been down this path before, a long time ago. It’s convoluted but not impossible. It’s… complex. He’s been having to really concentrate, really focus. If he doesn’t, he’ll lose control. He’ll be damned, he thinks, if he can’t pull this off. Wait. That’s what he was thinking up until this week. Now he thinks he’s too late.”
“Is he doing something illegal?”
“You mean other than stealing books from Drusilla? No. Not yet. But he could be soon. What he’s been doing this week isn’t illegal, but it does take a lot of focus. The complexity factor is high. He thought he could tiptoe his way through it. He thought he was smart enough to outsmart these other people who’ve come into his life. He isn’t. Not that he isn’t smart, but he needs something they give him. Not money. Something in his life that he’s missing, and they know how to manufacture it to gain his trust.”
“He’s been so distant.”
“This is weird, and it doesn’t really make sense but… there are things he can and cannot say. He can’t risk any misconception. Like there’s someone listening. The path he’s on is winding, like a mountain path on the edge of a cliff, and it keeps going up and toward a ledge, but there’s a way back down if he can find a way around it. He can still look away and be safe.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“Sorry. I can only tell you what I see, even if you don’t want to hear it. Now here’s the Star card. Inner conflict. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel for him if he can find it, but he’s… ouch… there’s reason for caution. Can you find a way to pass this on?”
“I’ll try.”
If I ever see Charlie again.
I stared back at the hotel. I had no idea where Charlie was, and he’d not answered any of my phone calls or messages.
“Good. Because he needs to be made aware of things not seen. Hidden? Aware?”
This was Emry’s way of asking for guidance from her spirit guides. She gave the spirit world a multiple-choice test and waited for answers. This? Or that? None of the above?
“Hidden. He needs to be made aware. Someone is manipulating him. More than one someone. These people are really focused on him and know how to push his buttons to get what they want. It’s because he’s a good guy that he’s gotten into the wrong crowd. I keep hearing him tell himself that. He wants to help. That’s all. He wants only to help. He needs to be a helper.”
“Is there… someone else?”
Emry laughed uneasily. “What kind of question is that? He’s about to put a ring on your finger.”
“It’s the kind of question I have to ask a psychic because I have no idea how to ask him.”
Because I was chicken. Because I was afraid of his answer.
Because I didn’t want him to be a mistake of the heart like every man in my past had been.
Because I wanted a good man to love me and a good man to love and that damned Law of Attraction artifact was toying with my deepest fears.
“Lilah, I, um, I know it’s none of my business, but have you straight up told Charlie how you feel?”
“Yes.” I’d stood emotionally naked in front of him on more than one occasion and he’d snickered nervously and never given a real answer. Anyone—not just an empath or a psychic witch—could’ve seen that he was hiding something.
“Have you asked him how he feels?”
I tried to answer but couldn’t find a good way to say no. I’d asked all around the question but never quite so plainly that I might get an answer that would bruise.
“Ha! I knew it. You can stand down the devil himself, but when it comes to asking a man if he thinks he has a future with you, you’d rather live in the dark than light the candle and find out he may or may not be there. You, Lilah, are the Schrödinger’s cat of relationships.”
I kicked at the rocks at my feet. I’d seen a woman in the vision Raven had given me, but her features weren’t clear. I supposed that when the pain of staying in the dark was greater than the pain of knowing the truth, I’d get some answers. Then again, the fact that I preferred the dark to the light of truth was probably a sign that I already knew the answer and didn’t want to admit it.
“The way he’s so distant… I just have to wonder if there’s someone else. If so, why did he bring a diamond ring on a romantic trip with me? It wasn’t even a cover story. I just don’t get it.”
And if it hurt, I didn’t want to.
“Wheel of Fortune card. Inverted. He’s still in his crossroads but starting to move out of it. There’s still time to change his course, and this could go one of two ways. Either a detour and then back to you or … or… or I see him losing everything. Like mental health everything. Job. Respect. You. Maybe prison. Jeez, Lilah, this is bad. These other people he’s involved with, do you know who they are?”
“No.”
“Several of them. He started out friendly, then advising and counseling them on something, trying to help the way Charlie always tries to help like he’s a big St. Bernard drooling all over you and up in your face trying to make everything better for you. But he’s not going to help in the way he thinks. I see him fragmented into about nine versions of himself, each one doing an about-face and bumping into each other. This person he’s helping, he won’t be helping her. She’s not going to be happy with the result.”
“Her?” A jealous heat rose in my cheeks at the same moment the bottom of my stomach dropped out.
“Yes, her. Sorry. The card is the Two of Pentacles. You need to have a face-to-face, heart-to-heart talk with him. Let him see all your vulnerabilities. He still has a chance to change directions, but it must be soon. He’s going to think you won’t want him after the mistakes he’s made, but you’ve made some, too, that hurt him even if you didn’t know how much he cared back then.”
Emry paused, then started again. “Ace of Pentacles. You need to have patience. It’s all an unfolding, like an old map in Drusilla’s Gate Three. It’s a very slow unfolding of the beauty and flaws in him if you’re willing to help him through this crossroads.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” But I already had my answer. Her. Whoever Her was.
“He’s really screwed up,” Emry continued. “He doesn’t know if he can recover. He thinks he’s already gone too far to come back from. You’ve got to sit him down and have that talk with him, even though you are terrified of it, aren’t you? You can get him back on course. Right now, he’s all alone and these other people are using his isolation to get him to do what they want. The Fool card. He’s on the precipice. He could go over at any second. Charlie’s always rescuing other people, but it’s you who has to rescue him. You don’t get to be the damsel in distress.”
I smirked. I would never be the damsel in distress. I was the monster in the cellar, doing whatever I had to in order to survive, even kill.
Emry sighed heavily. “I admit it: I’m conflicted. Oh, Charlie’s a nice enough guy, even if he can’t see past the end of his dick. I thought I might be interested in him when I first met him, but he only had eyes for you. He’s into the chase and he doesn’t know what to do with something once he catches it. The guy’s likable, and you’ve mistaken that for being a good guy, but he’s got big problems. You just can’t see them because of your own problems.”
I didn’t say anything. Charlie was normal, and I was anything but. At least, he was normal by comparison with me. If I knew better what normal looked like, maybe I would think differently of him.
“I’ll do some work for the two of you tomorrow. See if I can lend some support. But Lilah? Don’t wait too long to reach out to Charlie. His window of opportunity to change the path he’s turning to is extremely short. I’d say you have three days at most, but probably a lot less. It’s Charlie’s highest hopes and deepest fears that will destroy him.”
Highest hopes and deepest fears. I mulled Emry’s words as I headed back through the mist to the hotel. Highest hopes and deepest fears. That was simply another way of describing the benefits and dangers of the Law of Attraction lessons in The Lost Teachings of Dead Monks. The senator had used the book to amplify his highest hopes for leadership and public service, and he’d lived a full and extraordinary life. The dead monks had let their deepest fears destroy their life’s work and everything they loved.
And Charlie, I wondered as I strode through the warm lobby and up the richly ornamental woodwork of the staircase. What are Charlie’s highest hopes and deepest fears?
So much of who he was as a person depended on how much he could give to others. He was a giver, and that was rare enough, but Charlie could also be a martyr if it meant making life easier for someone else. His highest hopes and deepest fears were opposite sides of the same coin.
I’d watched him often enough with library patrons, the way he’d spend hours off the clock helping them to find the right passage for a term paper or proofreading a dissertation for a stranger instead of going to a football game he’d been excited about. His self-worth was tied up in sacrifice, and he’d patiently waited for me to figure out what I wanted in a man.
He was a people pleaser to the extreme, and that also meant that he hated to disappoint anyone. He would tell two warring friends kind words that had each believing he supported each wholeheartedly when in fact he didn’t want either to question his loyalty. He wanted—no, desperately needed—to make a difference in someone’s life in order to justify his existence. He had to be a hero, or at least the nicest guy anyone could ever meet, and because he wasn’t exactly an alpha male, he often manifested martyrdom rather than heroism.
A face-to-face, heart-to-heart conversation with him. That’s what I needed to do. No matter how raw or painful. Ugh!
I trudged down the hall toward my room, the same room where Charlie and I had made love a few nights ago after we’d come back to the hotel from Howth. So much had changed so quickly. Had my life gone to hell because I’d broken my word not to look at The Lost Teachings?
Everything had had such promise before Christmas, before Charlie had walled himself off from me. I’d thought after hearing Dru and Charlie talking about his plans to propose to me on the Cliffs of Moher that he’d just had cold feet and hadn’t gotten his act together, but maybe our relationship had jumped the shark and a ring was his way of trying desperately to breathe life back into it.
Whatever he’d done, he was still a good man, and I was still the slumbering monster looking for redemption before I could wake and destroy the next person I loved.
At the door to my room, I fumbled for the card key and managed to drop it. I could hear Charlie inside, bumping around, and a hint of joy surged inside me. He’d come back. Wherever he’d been and however much we’d fought this week, he’d come back!
I pushed the door and stepped inside, unable to hide the grin on my face at the thought of a reunion with Charlie, no matter how mad I was at him for staying out all night and not answering my messages. The room was still shadowy, but the curtains were open now and the soft glow of sunrise turned the grays to dim colors.
What? I stopped cold. The sheets and covers were off the bed, the mattress slanted on top of them. My backpack contents had been scattered across the floor. All the drawers and cabinetry doors stood wide open.
Sudden silence.
“Char—”
Something hit me from behind, hard, shoving me into the wall closest to me. I crumpled to the floor, flailing, grabbing at air, at… a bare ankle and white hem. The other foot, pink-painted toenails and all, kicked at me, hit me in the stomach, and knocked all the air out of me.
My jaws turned to steel against the pain. I grabbed the other foot, my fingers a vice around the ankle, not letting go. I heard the “oof!” and a woman’s weight crashed down on top of me.
With one arm, I shielded my face against the punches that came down on my head. I didn’t let go of her ankle. I couldn’t look up, but I could hold on.
The other foot pounded into my stomach and ribs, but I pulled my knee up to protect myself and caught her in the ribs with my free foot. She cried out and fell forward over me. My fingers tangled in fabric and hair, and she cursed me in a language even I didn’t know.
I normally carried a small knife on me, but I’d stupidly left it in the bathroom before heading down to breakfast. I had nothing but my muscles and speed to defend myself, and I couldn’t tell yet if she was armed. I couldn’t get a good look at her face. All I knew was the blast of white fabric in my face and an odd stench of… sex and wine.
Twisting to one side, I narrowly avoided a knee coming down in my face, but I was caught in some kind of white tunic over my face as she propelled herself forward, the distinct smell of vagina in my nostrils as she tumbled over my head to escape my grasping fingers.
Unintentionally flashing a purplish bruise on her outer thigh, she pushed to her knees, grabbing the open drawers of the bureau beside us and toppling it over me. The entire bureau came down, drawers falling out, one hitting me in the shoulder, lamps crashing to the floor. From underneath, I saw the bare feet running for the door, the torn white hem like a flag behind her. The door slammed behind her.
I extricated myself from the wrecked furniture and scrambled to my feet. I stepped over a card key on the floor—not the one that I’d just used—and bolted after her.
The hallway was empty. Completely empty. No one down the long hall in either direction.
Where did she go? It was almost as if she’d vanished into thin air. Like a ghost. She couldn’t have run that fast. I’d been right behind her.
I stopped in the middle of the hall, my breaths coming fast and ragged. How stupid that I’d let someone surprise me! All these worries about Charlie had me off my game.
I had no idea who it was or why they’d upturned my room while I was downstairs at breakfast. Or how they’d gotten a card key to my room.
But I intended to find out.
I stared down at my open palms and the gob of long, dyed-red hair still caught in my fingers.
The stairwell door at the end of the hall opened and Charlie stepped through, a plate of pastries in one hand. He froze when he saw me.
I’d never seen such panic in anyone’s eyes.
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