by JB Caine
The end result sounded good, but I had learned a little something about messing with free will. “I just am not sure if taking away people’s free will is right. It doesn’t seem right.”
“What if we could have taken away Hitler’s free will? How many people would be alive now?”
“Yeah, but…”
“Listen to me, Lia,” she said quietly. She sipped her coffee and licked her lips. “You are a reasonable and rational person. You can see the good in the future I’m describing, I know you can.”
“I do. I really do. But I’m not sure the ends justify the means.”
“You’ll come around. In time.” She was still smiling as her eyes met mine, and though her voice was still pleasant and friendly, her eyes were cold and determined. She stood, squeezing my shoulder with alarming strength as she walked past me, followed by her silent brother.
I didn’t turn around until I heard the jingle bell on the door handle tinkling.
Chapter 18
It took me another 15 minutes before I felt calm enough to make the relatively short drive home. There was so much I didn’t know, and I felt completely out of my depth. These factions seemed to have a long history, maybe even a rivalry, maybe worse. And I felt like it was only a matter of time before the magical sharks started circling.
I was disturbed at how easy it had been for Claudia to manipulate me, just by touching my hand. I was enraged that she would even try. And I was afraid of what else she could do if she felt like I was in opposition to her point of view. And what if she was only the first? What if other people came to find me, too? How could I ever trust what any of these people said? I was desperately hoping Aunt Kitty would have answers to some of my questions.
I texted her as soon as I pulled into the driveway to tell her I was safe, and to come to the house instead of the cafe. I imagined she was less than twenty minutes away by this time, so hopefully she’d come to a stop light and check the message.
I went upstairs, put on my softest pajamas, and wrapped myself in the fluffiest afghan I could find in the linen closet. For some reason, surrounding myself with softness seemed awfully important. Mom got home before Aunt Kitty arrived, and came in to find me on the couch, a fluffy burrito.
“Bad day?”
I nodded.
She set down her purse and came to sit beside me. “What do you need?”
“I don’t even know, Mom. It’s been a heck of a day. Oh, and Aunt Kitty will be here any minute.”
“Aunt Kitty? Did she call?”
“Well, I kind of called her.”
I felt my mother stiffen in alarm. “Lia, is there something going on that I should know about?”
“Probably. Can we wait till she gets here to talk about it? I’m feeling a little overwhelmed right now.”
“I was afraid this would happen. It’s starting all over again. I knew I shouldn’t have told you about her being a witch, but I wanted to help you with your play…” I couldn’t tell if she felt guilty or angry. Maybe both. I wasn’t sure how to respond, but I was saved from the necessity by a knock at the door.
My mother got up and whipped the door open. She stared at Aunt Kitty, and I could tell she wasn’t sure how she should feel.
“Before you get too upset with me,” my aunt began, “you should know that this came completely out of the blue. Lia didn’t go looking for it, and I didn’t encourage her. The magic found her, not the other way around.”
Mom was too emotional to find words, so she just opened the door wider and waved in my direction. My aunt came in and was visibly relieved to find me safe and sound. We all hung there in an uncomfortable silence.
“Well,” my mother said at last, “I guess I’d better get the ice cream. I think it’s going to be a long night.”
About an hour into the conversation, I felt like my head was going to explode. I had heard of tarot cards, of course. But here I was in a crash course about the Major Arcana, their meanings, their reverse meanings, their positions on the Tree of Life… my brain was seriously turning to tapioca.
“Okay, so, I get what the meanings of all the cards are, but how does that align with this specific set of cards?” I asked.
Aunt Kitty had spread a colorful set of cards out on the coffee table, with the 21 Major Arcana cards lying in numerical order. “Let’s start with the one we know,” she began, “the Moon. Each card, as we’ve discussed, is bound to a specific deity energy. This one is bound to the energy known as Selene.”
“What do you mean, ‘the energy known as Selene?’ Is that like ‘the artist formerly known as Prince?’” Mom was trying to be funny, but the anachronistic joke elicited little more than groans.
“Deities are thought of as separate entities, but truly they are something beyond our understanding. They are manifestations of a very specific combination of energies, which each represent a different facet of the divine in the Universe. Humans have only a limited understanding of other planes of existence, and so deities are one way of relating to the Universe as a whole in convenient snippets, if you will.”
”Uhhhh…” I groaned, rubbing my temples.
“I know, it’s a lot to try and wrap your head around. But Selene represents one interpretation of divine energy.”
“So why does she seem to have her own personality, with sort of human-like qualities?”
“Because our energy, those of us who perceive and believe in Selene, adds to hers, making her aspect stronger. Because our belief, our attention, feeds her strength, she also takes on some human characteristics and often appears to us in human form. It’s a symbiotic relationship, really, because she gives us energy in the form of abilities and powers, and we give her energy in the form of faith.”
“Okay, so it is beneficial to everyone, right?”
“Ideally, yes. As long as it stays in balance. And Selene represents, as I said, a very specific facet of divine energy, so the abilities and powers she can share are closely tied to what she herself represents. The card and its meaning are a depiction of that.
“The Moon as a tarot card communicates the balance between illusion and faith. If you got the card in a reading, it would be warning you about something being false or misleading. It would be a reminder to trust your intuition rather than what appears to be true. The Moon is also tied to the tides and the Earth’s pull on us. Those are the powers Selene can share.”
“So that’s why Alex was influenced by what I wanted, even though I didn’t mean to?”
”Exactly. Your force of will can influence, though not fully control, others’ opinions, particularly if they are already inclined to be in agreement or if they are neutral. Selene is mistress of illusion as well, and as such, her strongest skill is that of glamour. She can give you the ability to make yourself, or other parts of reality, to be different than they really are. You’ve already learned some simple applications of that, I think, but the possibilities for someone skilled at illusion creation are quite complex indeed. That skill, in the wrong hands, could be unbelievably dangerous.”
“If someone got really good at it,” Mom wondered aloud, “she could literally make people believe almost anything was real. Cause them to do things or make decisions based on a false reality.” The implications began to sink in, and I was having trouble processing the kind of responsibility that kind of power would carry with it.
“No wonder those two people wanted to try and snatch me up and ‘help’ with my training!”
“Just so. I don’t know who the players are anymore, because it all got too much for me years ago. I just wanted a simple life.”
“How many of the others have you met?” I asked.
“Four in total. I had a brief meeting with the holder of The Fool card about thirty years ago, I knew the couple who held The Lovers card and a man who held the Hermit, and for a time, I was good friends with the woman who held The Empress. She was quite a bit older than I was, and looked out for me while I learned to navigate my way through
an understanding of my abilities. Usually the card holders refer to each other by the name of the card rather than given names. I think it’s a way of trying to create some sense of anonymity.”
“Are you still in touch with any of them?”
“No, I’m afraid not. When I buried that card years ago, I cut off all contact with the other holders.”
“Even the Empress?”
Aunt Kitty’s eyes were far away with regret. “That one was hard. She was a very dear friend, and I owed her quite a lot. But it was actually her suggestion, to keep me safe. If I wanted to distance myself from some of what the Arcana were doing, I had to distance myself from all of it. There was no in-between.”
“What was so bad that you had to cut it all off like that?” My mother asked, her eyes filled with concern, and maybe also a little guilt, because it appeared that her sister had been through something pretty traumatic, and had had to go it alone.
“It’s not so much that it was bad,” my aunt replied, giving my mother’s hand a comforting pat. “It’s just that it was constant. There was no day off. And that’s not the life I wanted to live.”
“Is that what I should do?” I asked.
“I can’t tell you what you should do, Lia. No one can, when it comes to this. Not only does it have to be your decision, it has to be one you believe in with your whole heart. If you made a decision because you thought it was what someone else wanted you to do, the card would just keep finding its way back to you. I’m pretty sure of that.”
“I feel like I have very little actual information about what these people want. I don’t know how I feel about what they were saying...I mean, my gut tells me I shouldn’t interfere with other people’s decisions, but I can also see situations in which it might be good to push someone to make the right choice. I don’t know if their goals were really noble or not; I only know that I didn’t like the way they made me feel.”
“Sometimes that’s the very best guide, Lia. You have always had good instincts about right and wrong, but Selene’s presence in your life enhances that skill. Still, you’re right about needing more information about what is going on. I am quite sure that Claudia and her brother are only the first people to find you. We need to find out what card they represent. And maybe I can reach out through my old connections to see if I can find out what their true agenda is.”
“Do you think Lia is in any danger?”
“No, I suspect not, Maddy. The house is pretty well warded, and even if one of the other Arcana came looking for her, they would be far more interested in recruiting her allegiance than they would in hurting her.”
“What do you mean, the house is warded?” Mom asked.
“Oh, I’ve been casting protection spells on this house since the day you moved in,” my aunt said casually, winking. “I’ve got to take care of my family.”
Chapter 19
I debated with myself about whether I should tell Treigh about everything I’d been learning about the Arcana factions and their potential designs on me, and the temptation to share everything was really strong. It occurred to me, though, that I’d probably be putting him in danger. He might be tempted to confront people who seemed to be threatening or watching me, and I also didn’t want him worrying about something he couldn’t prevent or protect me from. So against my inclinations, I kept my mouth shut about the whole thing.
But I had to do something. I couldn’t just sit around waiting for the next card to drop, so to speak. So I got a library pass from Mrs. West and decided to” kick it old school” and check out a book or two. Surprisingly, our library did have a couple of books on my subject of choice: the tarot. I found that the interpretations of various cards seemed to vary a little bit, depending on which deck you were using, and it was clear that the tarot which most concerned me wasn’t going to be found in any high school library. While there was some variation in both the card names and their meanings, there were always certain elements of each card that were the same. I scribbled notes in my journal:
0. The Fool (innocence, vulnerability, openness, recklessness)
The Magician (power, strength of will, control)
The High Priestess (intuition, wisdom, creativity, independence)
The Empress (abundance, nature, compassion, creation)
The Emperor (authority, structure, reason, discipline)
The Hierophant (wisdom, tradition, rules)
The Lovers (relationships, values, choices, harmony)
The Chariot (determination, victory, honor, control)
Strength (courage, fortitude, persuasion)
The Hermit (introspection, solitude, independence, enlightenment)
The Wheel of Fortune (luck, karma, destiny, chance)
Justice (fairness, truth, karma, judgement)
The Hanged Man (limbo, letting go, change)
Death (transition, transformation, endings, renewal)
Temperance (balance, patience, moderation, self-control)
The Devil (temptation, loss of control, feelings of hopelessness, greed)
The Tower (upheaval, inevitable change, chaos)
The Star (faith, healing, hope, inspiration)
The Moon (illusion, intuition, emotion, subconscious)
The Sun (joy, vitality, freedom, optimism)
Judgement (accountability, absolution, realism, correctness)
The World (accomplishment, fulfillment, completion, liberation)
If the abilities and attitudes of the card-holders mirrored the cards themselves, this might give me some idea of what each of the people involved believed in and stood for. Knowing which card someone held might give me an idea of their agenda.
I was stirred from my concentration by a thunk of a bag hitting the table next to the stack of books I’d been poring through.
“Hey, girl, you inspired me. I couldn’t stand sitting in that class today. Usually West is cool, but today, all I wanted to do was escape!” Gemma slid into the seat across from me. “Whatcha reading?” She started rifling through the tarot books and then looked at me with a mix of confusion and amusement.
“Well, um, I don’t know, you know how I like sort of witchy stuff...I was thinking I might learn to read cards. That probably seems pretty weird.” Truthfully, I’d never been more grateful for my stereotype than I was right at this moment. Goth chick and tarot cards wasn’t a combination that was terribly hard to explain.
“Oooh, do you have any? Will you read mine?”
“I, uh, I don’t have a deck yet.” Well, that was true, for what it was worth. “I just wanted to read about it. There are lots of different decks, and I don’t know which one I want.” Again, not actually a lie. More like a misdirection.
“That is just so YOU! I love it! You have to do a reading for me when you get some. You can, like, practice on me. That would be awesome!” She picked up the newest-looking book on the pile (a relative term, because I’m pretty sure our library hadn’t gotten any new print books in at least a decade). “Which card is your favorite so far?”
I couldn’t help but appreciate her exuberance. Even though I couldn’t talk to her about why I was really studying the cards, it felt good to at least talk about tarot cards generally. It made me feel less secretive, less alone.
“I don’t know, I like several of them, I guess. Mostly, I like the ones that represent celestial bodies, I guess. The Star, The Moon, The Sun…
“Mmhmm…” she agreed, looking at the artwork in the book she held. “I kind of like this one.” She held up a picture of The Magician from the New Age deck. “He can cast a spell on me anytime.” I laughed.
“I don’t think you’d be quite as attracted to The Magician in this book.” I pointed to one of the books displaying the Rider Waite deck on the cover. She picked up the book and studied the picture.
“Oh, I don’t know, he’s still kinda cute.”
“Yeah, okay,” I chuckled. There was no way I was getting any work done with Gemma sitting here, so I grabbed up
the two books I found most useful. “Hold on a sec; I want to check these out before the bell rings.” I carried them up to the circulation desk and had the student assistant boop them before returning to the table.
“So…” she began, “what’s going on with you and Alex? Are y’all broken up?”
“I don’t know, I think so. I think he’s not really all that interested. Maybe he got bored.” I wasn’t really sure I wanted to talk about this, but there was no avoiding it forever.
“Really? I just can’t believe that! He was so obsessed with you just a week ago!”
I sighed. “Don’t remind me.”
“Aw, I’m sorry. You never know with boys. Give him a few days; I bet he’ll come around.”
Except I knew he wouldn’t. I’d have gone my whole life without any meaningful attention from him had it not been for my stupid magical interference.
The bell rang, and Gemma and I stood up to go. I was headed for Spanish, and she was off to Law Studies, but we walked part of the way together.
“So you’re really into this witchy stuff, huh?” she asked. “All the tarot cards and ghosts and all that?”
“Well,” I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. “I guess. I find it interesting. This,” I shook my bookbag filled with all the library books I’d checked out. “is research for a project I’m working on.”
“Ooh, are you writing something new?”
“No, well, maybe. It’s just research and ideas right now. I don’t really know what direction I’m going to go with it yet.”
“Oh, well, I think it’s really interesting. Maybe we can talk about it more sometime?”
“Um, yeah, anytime. Have fun in Law.”
“Yeah, right, thanks,” she laughed. “I’m going to go impale myself on a quiz.”
In my neighborhood, there’s a median at the end of my street, and on that small, grassy median, there’s a random stone bench. That bench had been home to many of my deep thoughts over the years. Treigh and I sat on the bench indulging in Drumstick ice cream cones that I had discovered deep in my freezer. The early-November chill had finally arrived in northern Florida, but that wasn’t enough to keep us from bundling up in hoodies and eating ice cream.
