The Hierophant (Book 1 in The Arcana Series) (4 page)

— 9 —

The Village of Williamsville—the tiny suburb of the City of Buffalo in which we live—is nestled inside one of the safest towns on the East Coast, so I’m not particularly worried about being in any danger when I walk home around midnight, well past my weeknight curfew. Main Street runs flat through the heart of the village, lined with quaint shops and restaurants, all gone quiet at this time of night. A church steeple rises black against the light-polluted sky; rows of street lamps mark a straight path down the road, bathing the sidewalks in lurid yellow light. The village smells like mud and wet cement, and fresh woodsmoke drifting into the night as embers die in someone’s fireplace.

I’ve walked the streets of this village alone at all hours, day and night. I like to think that maybe I’m the only one who has, since I never see anyone else out here past a certain hour—no one human, anyway. From time to time, I’ve spotted Sura wandering in the shadows, slinking around windows and crawling along rooftops. They don’t seem to do anything but look—inside houses, through windows, around corners, and at
me
, though I don’t let on that I’m looking, too.

I don’t understand what they want, what their purpose is. I seem to remember my mother telling me that they were always on the lookout for humans with a weakness, a darkness they could manipulate to make the Sura more powerful, to somehow feed them and make them more real, but I don’t know how any of that would actually work. It’s an unnerving mystery to be living with.

Tonight, alone, in the fresh chill of early spring, I feel my bones thrumming with that strange, sticky vibration—the electric pins and needles that have been haunting me for months. When I do spells with Kyla, it intensifies. Usually it’s awesome, like a sober high, but lately it keeps building until it feels like I’m about to burst. Right now, the voltage is running much higher than I’d like.

This is the second time in one day.

When I was younger, I thought this was what fear felt like—but then at other times, I thought it was excitement. The two seem inextricably confused inside my body, like a powerhouse of extremity—something all too eager to find out what’s going to happen, unable to sit still. Most days, I can ignore it. Other days, I channel it into tarot reading, or playing my violin. Lately, I’ve actually taken up running just to burn off some of the energy, to dull my senses through exhaustion.

I know I can’t go on like this forever, but for right now it has to be enough. I don’t have a solution and don’t know where to begin to look. So I just keep walking, dealing with the
brimming
in my bones, and almost don’t notice the man up ahead, striding towards me. Well, maybe not towards
me
, per se, but on the sidewalk, in my direction.

I straighten my posture to come to my full height, set my jaw, and look forward. Indirectly watching, I can see he’s dressed in dark denim and a hooded, black, wool coat. A familiar coat.

Is this him? Is this the man from the cemetery?

Of course not,
I scold myself as I press forward.
Hooded, black, wool coats are a dime a dozen in Buffalo three quarters of the year. Don’t be silly.

He’s closer now, but I can’t see his face—just a hint of lips and a chin slightly darkened by stubble. As he nears, he slows his pace all too obviously, making my heart rate jump. He’s just a few feet from me now, and I can see he’s at least as tall as me, maybe taller.

I turn my eyes away and move faster, longer strides pulling me past him on the narrow sidewalk.

His shoulder hits mine, and I think it’s intentional.

Shit
.

He stops.

I keep walking, look over my shoulder to see him openly staring in my direction. “Sorry,” I mutter, even as his shadow-blanketed stare cuts through me.

His eyes flash like an animal’s, reflecting the light from the streetlamps like two thin, gold coins. My foot loses direction mid-stride and I stumble—cover it by turning around completely—but I don’t take my eyes off of him.

I’m not afraid
, I tell myself, walking backwards, feeling quite the contrary. “I
said
sorry
.” My heart hammers despite the snarky confidence in my voice.

The man moves
just so
, as if to take a step towards me, making my heart leap—but then he decides against it. He nods instead.

“Sorry,” he says as he turns and walks away.

He isn’t looking when it happens, but his voice undoes something inside of me. My breath flies out in a silent gasp as if I’ve been punched in the gut, and I scarcely manage to turn and keep walking, all the while wondering how and why it is that my body has taken up this mission to betray me.

— 10 —

“Am I interrupting?” Kyla asks, pulling up a chair at my table in the cafeteria.

“Hmm? No.” I shake my head, pulling my eyes away from the spread of tarot cards before me. “I thought you had class first period?”

“And I thought you slept in every other day because you don’t?” Kyla smirks. “What’s up? Who you reading for?”

I frown. “Trying to read for myself, but, you know how that goes.” I sweep the cards up into a pile. They’re my mother’s old cards, a deck that was passed down to me from her, and to her from my grandmother. I can feel the weight of the years in them, as if the women who have touched them still possess the cards in some way, imbuing them with power.

“Oh!” Kyla grins and slaps a hand on mine. “Here they come.”

“What? Who?”

“Andy and the fresh meat!”

I turn to look behind me and see Andy walking towards us, looking confident and self-assured as usual. Trailing behind him is the new kid, olive-skinned and dark-featured, with roaming eyes that seem to take notice of every detail of the cafeteria as he moves through it, from the crack running through the middle of the flat tile floor they’re walking on, to the loose corner of the heating vent as they walk beneath it, to the names carved into the table they’re passing just now.

I can’t help but notice that he carries himself with incredible poise, as if he’s weightless in his own body. I also can’t help but notice that his wild, blackish hair shines the same blue-green color as dragon fly wings where it catches the light. And I also can’t help but notice the strong lines of his jaw, the dark lashes around his eyes, the vaguely Semitic, smooth planes and angles of his face. I can’t help but notice a lot of things about him.

But I do notice—much to my dismay—that my heartbeat has deepened, almost to a pound. Each pulse makes me feel light-headed, like the blood in my body is too distracted to care about reaching my extremities. And when I notice his eyes have settled on me, it’s a wonder my circulatory system doesn’t give up all together.

I turn my attention back to my cards and pretend not to have noticed, pretend that no wave of prickling warmth is fluttering through my mind and body at the mere sight of him. I pretend I’m not distraught by my own ridiculously girly and predictable reaction. He’s not even that good looking, just new. Different. And tall—tall always gets my attention.

“Hey, you two,” Andy says as he approaches.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Kyla greets him with a high-five. “What’s up, Prez?”

Tall-Dark-and-Handsome comes around the table from behind me and stands almost beside Andy, towering over Kyla. His eyes immediately fall to the cards spread across the table.

I try to look as if I don’t feel like a New Age hippy freak.
Own it, Ana
, I tell myself.
It’s not like
everyone else
doesn’t already know it.

“Guys, this is Trebor,” Andy introduces his shadow with a pleasant smile. “He’s in the process of transferring to good ol’ Williamsville South High School.”

“Trevor?” Kyla asks, reaching out to greet him.

He looks her in the eyes, takes her hand, shakes it. “
Treb
or, actually,” he corrects with a smile. “Nice to meet you.”

The sound of his voice jolts me. All the tiny hairs on my body rise to attention, as if they might catch the sound of him in the air.

“Woo, quite a handshake,” Kyla observes, flexing her hand after he releases it. “I’m Kyla. And this…” She puts an arm around me and squeezes both of my shoulders, drawing his gaze to me. “Is Anastasia.”

“Ana, actually,” I say, in more of a grumble than I mean to, praying that the warmth in my face is just a sign of the poor climate control in our school and not a sign that I’m blushing. I give him a small wave. “Hi.”

Trebor watches me for a second, uncertain, then returns my small wave. “Nice to meet you.” He shoves both hands into his jean pockets and looks back at my tarot deck.

“Sorry Ana,” Andy says. “Were you doing a reading? Did we interrupt?”

I pull my eyes away from Trebor’s newness and lean back in my chair, shaking my head, uncertain how to play it cool about something as odd as having my tarot deck spread out in the cafeteria, but trying anyway. “Nope. Just practicing.”

“Ana is a genuine fortune-teller,” Andy explains to Trebor in a conspiratorial tone that makes me both embarrassed and annoyed.

Trebor cocks his head in a strange way, absorbing that knowledge and storing it away somewhere. “Is that so?”

“Hey, Aaaaana,” Kyla begins in a singsong voice, and I know what she’s going to say. “How about…”

I stare daggers at her, thinking:
this is the least cool way to handle my freaky New Age behavior in front of a total stranger.

“…if you’re not busy, that is…” Kyla goes on, eyebrows raised. She grins.

I sigh. I’m not mad. I can’t be mad at her. Kyla is always trying to get me to break out of my shell, especially around new people. I only have myself to blame for it—I told Kyla one too many times that I wish I had half as much self-confidence as she does. Kyla always says the key is to “fake it till you make it!” And now, she’s made it her mission to make me feel as socially uncomfortable as possible, as often as possible, to prove there is nothing to fear about
being
uncomfortable.

So I smile, feeling
incredibly
uncomfortable with the idea of showing my “talent” to this virtual stranger. “Of course. Sure. Trebor, do you want a reading?” I have to force my eyes to stay settled on his face until he replies, my skin wanting to flush the whole time.

Trebor opens his mouth to respond, looks from Kyla to the cards, to Andy, to me. But then he gives me an absolutely roguish smile in return, and nods. He pulls out a chair to sit across from me. “I’d love a reading. Thank you.”

“No problem. It’ll be good to read for a stranger. Better practice.” I take a breath, stack the cards, and slide them over to Trebor. “Shuffle the cards, and while you do, think about a question, or something you want clarity on. Hand over the deck when you’re done.”

Trebor nods, focusing on the cards in his hands as he sifts them back and forth.

Kyla nudges me and whispers in my ear: “Hey, so, tell me: from a straight girl’s perspective, he’s pretty hot, right?”

The warmth of color rushes to my cheeks, and I shove Kyla away, trying to play it oh-so-cool. But she giggles, and Trebor cracks a smile, and I wish Kyla could understand for just a minute how terrifying social discomfort can actually be when you’re not universally loved like she is.

Andy waves to someone across the cafeteria. “Oh, there’s Stacey. Listen, I’ve got to talk to her about student council stuff—” he pauses, grins. “Will you two make sure this kid doesn’t get into trouble for a few minutes?”

“Of course!” Kyla agrees, over-enthusiastically.

“Thanks,” Andy says, and jogs over to a gaggle of seniors a few tables away.

“Although Ana here isn’t exactly the best role model,” Kyla confesses to Trebor on my behalf. “She tends to be a bit of a troublemaker. Has a bit of an authority problem.”

“Kyla…” I almost growl.

Trebor chuckles. “Is that so?” he asks, and his eyes—I think slightly larger than average, and a striking green unlike anything I’ve ever seen—wander to mine.

I give him a close-lipped smile, not amused by Kyla’s showcasing of my attributes. “That was a long time ago.”

Kyla snickers. She seems to think that my old reputation as a fight-picking, rule-breaking, semi-anarchist was when I was at my best. I might have been miserable with life and angry at the universe, but I never doubted myself. She told me once that the day I came to her house in the back of a police car, insisting Ms. Patel and Kyla were my only living relatives despite our obvious racial disparity, she knew that I would never buy into the blind respect for authority we children are trained to have. She said she’d never seen me so proud and defiant, even while her mother disciplined me by making me weed her garden all spring long, in exchange for not telling my father.

“Okay.” Trebor slides the deck back to me. “I think it’s ready.”

I cut it into two piles. “Pick one.”

“The left.”

“Mine or yours?”

“Yours.”

I slide the right deck to the side, and peel off the first card from the top of the remaining deck.

“Past affecting the present. Two of cups.” On the face of the card, a man and a woman stand across from one another, ready to exchange chalices. A lion’s head, flanked by angel’s wings, oversees the exchange. The caduceus hovers in the air between the man and woman—a symbol of Hermes, the god of messengers—but also the god of deceit. “A union—a deep, palpable connection. Something both blessed and cursed—I want to say, something destined. Or maybe, you
feel
it was destined.” I take a breath and look at Trebor. He’s watching me, eyes—God, those green eyes—searching my face as surely as I’m searching his. He’s blank, telling me nothing.

Am I not reading correctly?

I close my eyes for a moment, focus, and tap into the chaos in my veins, that unbridled energy always hovering in the back of my awareness, the thing I’m constantly trying to quell. My mind slips into a stream of consciousness just beyond waking, self-defenses toppling down to let the information in. Everything expands and as I take the world inside of me, and then allow it to distill itself down to the truths being shown in the cards.

“You have a secret, I think,” I continue with confidence. “Something you’ve carried around for a long time. And you’re not sure what it means about you. But you need to know: it means everything. It will come to define you.” The truth buzzes inside of me as I feel the certainty of my words.

I look up at Trebor, and he turns away, a flicker of shock and denial in his eyes.

Got him.

I pull the second card, confidence building. “Present circumstances affecting the outcome. The Fool.” The blissfully ignorant jester shines up at me, about to walk straight off a cliff.

“Right now, you’re blindly moving forward. You’re searching for things that you’re not sure you want to believe in, things outside of yourself that might make the path you’re on more defined. You want them to give you direction—maybe even a sign that you’re already on the right path. But you have to follow your heart, and have faith. There is always something bigger going on around us that we can’t see until we’ve passed through it, and turned around to see where we’ve come from, and how every decision has led us to this moment.”

When I look to see his reaction, Trebor’s staring at me.

“Interesting,” he murmurs.

Kyla smiles and snickers softly, proud of me in a weird way I’ve never fully understood.

I turn my eyes back to the cards. “Last card. Future outcome.” I pull the top card, revealing a man with a staff, fighting with six other staffs, their bearers out of sight. “Seven of wands. Standing up for what you believe in, in the face of adversity. Overcoming fear, and doubt—but be careful. There is a fine line between courage and martyrdom. It’s sometimes easier to die for what we believe in than to go on fighting. Safe decisions blamed on the courage of conviction are much less courageous than taking a risk, and admitting you don’t know what’s right.” My own words hit me hard in the stomach, and leave me breathless for a moment, even though I don’t really know what they would apply to. When my heart rolls out a strange drum beat, I’m almost tempted to believe the rhythm doesn’t belong to me.

“Over all, what I’m seeing is—whatever it is you had questions about—it’s been going on for a long time. And it’s coming to a head soon. You have a lot of concerns about what you think it will mean for you, but you have to keep an open mind. You should remember to follow your heart, not your head. And…also, remember: some things happen for a reason.”

I venture a glance across the table to see his expression. He’s considering it all, rather seriously.

“So, did I pass?” I wonder, smile curling at the corners of my mouth, because if I have confidence in myself about any one thing, it’s my ability to read the cards.

Trebor’s eyes meet mine. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.” He smiles a crooked smile that, for some reason, I feel is more of a personal declaration than punctuation to a smart remark.

“So what was your question?” Kyla asks.

“Kyla...” I raise my eyebrows at her. She knows better than to ask that—the querent’s question should only be revealed if he decides to share it.

Trebor shrugs, eyes unwavering, still smiling. “I was thinking about a rather important decision I made recently.”

“Wait,” Kyla says. “He still has to pick a significator card. You always have me pick one.” She looks at Trebor. “It represents you, the querent.”

Trebor raises an eyebrow, still watching me.

I realize I’ve been staring back. Should I look away? What’s weirder, to keep staring, or to admit how uncomfortable I am under his scrutiny?

Fake it till you make it
, I think, and refuse to back down.

“Of course. Kyla’s right,” I say. I reach blindly for the deck we pulled from and spread out the remaining cards. “Go ahead, pick one.”