Arcanum (Tales from the Tarot)

4. Greyson

Chapter four

Greyson

A s soon as Chris closed the door, I exhaled a shaky breath and let my shoulders droop. Remnants of the vision lingered in my mind, flashes of him in a dozen scenarios I couldn’t possibly know. Visions of the past? His future? It wasn’t clear, though the answer was probably “both.”

Normally I only got feelings or impressions about people… but not that time. That time was like a series of movie clips running together in a blur that left sweat clinging to my collar. Chris at the gym, his large, bare arms flexing as he worked out on a bench press. At home, repairing the picket fence between our yards, extra nails clenched between his teeth. At work, gun drawn, a lethal expression on his face. In bed, his naked body awash in candlelight. As much as I appreciated that vision and the way the warm yellow light further enhanced his impressive physique, it was the black sigil on his tan skin that my mind kept returning to. It was a sigil I was intimately familiar with because it was mine , my creation, my magic… on Chris’s body. A design so random that not even another witch could recreate it without referencing my own.

Ignoring the humming in my blood, I forced Chris out of my thoughts for the time being and attempted to focus on more important matters. I picked up the letter from Nemo, hoping to tease out some hidden meaning during a second read-through while I wasn’t so flustered.

G—

I hope you are settling into your new life. New beginnings are not always easy. You know this. Change is painful. Growth is painful. In order for the phoenix to rise, she must first burn.

Every time I do a reading for you, no matter the spread or the question I pose, these are the two cards that keep appearing and in the same order. The goal? The Lovers. The obstacle? Temperance. The message is clear. You need to restore the balance in your life if you wish to live it to its fullest, to truly find peace and happiness. You and I know not everything is a sign, but this is your sign if ever there was one.

I know you wish for anonymity after everything that has happened but you cannot hide from the world. You were born to teach, to guide, to help. You know that does not always happen inside a classroom. There are many in Mapleton who need you, even if they do not realize it. Allow them to see the real you and to explore the mysteries of life as you and I know them to be. Do not be afraid. I see a shield in front of you, guarding you, keeping you safe.

The darkness may be where you thrive, but the moon needs sunlight to shine. Let it in.

—N.

I set the letter down, flicking my gaze to the twin tarot spreads. Chris’s and mine. Temperance and the Lovers—the Lovers and Temperance. Images of Chris’s candlelit skin flashed through my mind again, the sigil for serenity and protection drawn on his forearm.

Exhaling another slow breath, I pushed the sleeve off my left wrist, revealing the sigil I’d re-drawn that morning, the black marker in question lying on the table next to Nemo’s letter.

I am safe and protected, the flowing shape whispered, echoing the magic I’d imbued it with. The same sigil I would, at some point, draw for Chris, though I didn’t know when—or why. There was only one reason I could think of that someone like him would need the kind of protection someone like me could offer.

Yanking my sleeve down before the answer had fully formed, I covered the mark and took my laptop out from inside the center drawer of the coffee table. As desperate as I was to call Owen or hear Beatrice’s voice, to pour my heart out to my friends and see what they had to say about all of this, I needed a distraction from Chris. There was no better way to do that than with the sharp slap of reality.

Pulling up my new email server, I held my breath and hit enter, waiting for the inbox to load.

The only thing waiting for me was a bill from the virtual mailbox I’d registered for a year ago. I’d been so preoccupied with moving that I hadn’t realized it was that time of the month again, time to sort through all of the mail and save what needed to be saved, only forwarding the most important items through the regular post.

More than two dozen greeting cards were waiting for my attention in the virtual mailbox, complete with the images scanned by the poor employees at the mailbox service. They all featured a cat in one way or another. Some were cartoonish cats with chunky glitter and badly written messages. Others were photos of real cats, usually in some anthropomorphic pose or costume, with something a little wittier for the greeting card connoisseur.

Regardless of the occasion the card was supposed to be celebrating, I knew the contents would all be a variation of the same theme.

run run you fucking coward i’ll always find you

your not safe anywhere

too bad you didn’t have a funeral for them

could have tossed you in with them you

fucking freak

your going to pay for everything you did,

you little bitch

i’ll never stop

not until your the one whose dead

you think you can escape justice? just wait

these fucking pigs can’t help you

no one is going to help a faggot

no one

your alone

I stopped reading but downloaded the files all the same, saving them to the cloud. Since I was living in a new jurisdiction, a part of me felt like I should take everything that I had to the police department—to Chris’s department—and dump my tragic backstory in their laps, hoping that maybe, just maybe, something could be done about it this time.

But I knew better. All it would do was put me on their radar in a way I didn’t want. The boy who cried wolf. A pain in their collective asses. A new “problem” to deal with in their otherwise idyllic town, as hated as the criminals.

I logged into my old email address and sucked in a breath as hundreds of new emails loaded on the screen. Unlike the handful of cards, I didn’t want to download them. I didn’t want anything to do with them. Just knowing they were there was enough to make my skin crawl, a testament to Don Nielsen’s pure hatred of me in black and white, in case I could somehow forget.

Switching back to the new email address, I typed out a quick message to Beatrice.

Bea,

I’m safe. I’ll return the car as soon as I can.

There are new emails in my old account and new images from the virtual mailbox. I updated the password for the cloud.

I cut and copied the lengthy, computer-generated password into the email for her.

I’ll let you know as soon as I get a new cell phone account set up and you can deactivate the number Patrick got for me.

I can never thank you enough. I’m sorry I’ve been such a burden.

I left it unsigned, just in case.

Owen got an even briefer email, though it wasn’t for a lack of caring. I simply preferred not to lie to people I loved.

You’ve been on my mind. I hope you’re safe, wherever you are. If you miss me, just look at the moon.

A reply flew into my inbox right before I logged out, chiming softly.

It was Bea.

OMG I WAS SO WORRIED!! Keep the car! Keep the phone! Whatever you need. I’m serious. WHATEVER YOU NEED! Call me when you can. I miss you. And I’m SO sorry for all of this. This is all MY fault! You are NOT a burden!

My fingers hovered over the keyboard as I debated whether or not I should answer. What good would it do? Really? We’d discussed this problem ad nauseam and there remained absolutely zero solutions. Sure, there were the fantastical ones—the ones where Don was arrested, finally , or I became some caricature of a vigilante, getting justice for my murdered family on my own since the courts were of no help.

No, running and hiding were the only sensible things I could do.

Sighing, I exited the email server and closed the web browser as well.

Even though she wasn’t responsible, I knew Beatrice blamed herself for everything that led up to my current predicament. It didn’t matter how many times I tried to absolve her of guilt or remind her that she couldn’t have known what would happen when she came to The Magic Shop that day. No one could have. Not me, with whatever abilities I had; not her with her gift for tarot; not even Nemo with all of his magic.

Short of fleeing to whatever war-torn African country Owen had lost himself in this time, the only thing I could do was try and wait Don out. Maybe one day he would grow tired of me. Maybe one day he would move on.

In the meantime, I hoped no one else I cared about died along the way.

When night fell, I moved up to the bedroom with my laptop, continuing to work on my new business venture. As much as I wanted to stay holed up in the house forever, it wasn’t financially feasible in the long term. It wasn’t even financially feasible in the short term. Hiding, unfortunately, cost money. Hotels, rental cars, burner phones, lawyers, VPNs, mail-forwarding services—everything took its toll and the comfortable savings cushion I once had was down to a few meager months.

Shortly before my parents died, they’d been kind enough to bankroll my career change so I was fortunate to have some capital set aside and most of the inventory already waiting for me in Chicago. All I needed to do was look into Mapleton’s requirements for whatever permits I would need and find a place to set up shop. I’d had the actual plans and proposals drawn up for years, ever since I got fired from my first teaching job. The first of many such occurrences, sadly.

Thanks to Don’s various antics, school board after school board deemed that my continued employment posed a risk to the students’ safety. For two years, he’d vandalized school properties, emailed photoshopped pictures of me in a variety of lewd acts to my coworkers, phoned in false allegations of inappropriate behavior with minors, and the one that convinced me to quit teaching altogether—placed a call to 911 claiming I, of all people, was going to shoot my students. I didn’t even own a gun at the time, which I’d tried to explain to the responding officers right after a group of them tackled me to the ground and wrestled me into handcuffs in front of my AP English Lit class.

After a thorough search of my classroom, car, and person yielded nothing, the officers apologized and let me go. I tendered my resignation immediately, unable to face my students or their parents and the barrage of questions that I knew would be coming.

I’d certainly never had any interest in owning a gun before Don entered my life. I’d only purchased a silver revolver after one too many sleepless nights following the 911 ordeal. Each creak in the dark, each scratch, each distant sigh was him coming to kill me, I knew it. And I knew that police response times were never in my favor, no matter how dire the circumstances. What was that slogan I used to scoff at? When seconds count, help is minutes away?

Even with an officer right next door, the silver revolver lived in my nightstand where I hoped I would never have to use it.

Laughter from outside drew my attention to the heavily-curtained window. Genuine laughter where people doubled over and slapped their knees, not the quiet, polite kind I’d been forcing since this ordeal began. Happiness itself had been such a rare emotion over the past several years that the sound actually startled me. Then I remembered.

Chris. The bonfire.

His invitation had been a kind—if uncertain—offer, but ultimately it was one I couldn’t accept. Despite our awkward exchange over the tarot cards earlier, I wasn’t ready to socialize with anyone yet. I had neither the energy nor the appropriate story in place to explain my family’s absence or my sudden arrival to a new town. The last thing Chris needed was for me to show up, baggage and trauma in hand, and ruin his time with his friends. His job was stressful enough. You didn’t need to be a witch to see that. There was no way I was going to add to his stress and tip the scales, so to speak, when the man was trying to find his own balance, whether consciously or not.

What had he said earlier? The world already sucks. Three years ago, I would have disagreed, challenged him to rethink his perspective, pointed out all of the good things he had going for him. But that was the old Greyson. The new Greyson had a much harder time finding the bright side, even if I could fake it for a while. That’s why I preferred the dark—and my solitude.

From my bedroom window, I could see down into Chris’s yard as I’m sure he could see into mine from his. Outwardly, our houses looked like a mirrored reflection of each other: twin Tudor cottages, with a smattering of red brick typical of the 1920s. I’m sure the layouts were identical too, just reversed. The houses themselves were separated by a small patch of grass and an old picket fence lined with lilac bushes, the same fence I had a vision of Chris repairing. Why? Again, I had no clue. The information given to me simply was without any further explanations or contexts.

Pushing the heavy drape to the side, enough to peek out the window, I spied Chris by the bonfire, as he’d said. It was only him and one other guy, talking and laughing the way close friends do. From the bits and pieces I could overhear, it seemed like his friend was recounting something to do with cows. Perhaps horses. Maybe both? He wheezed out every other word in an attempt to continue the story while Chris laughed uncontrollably, trying not to spill the drink in his hand as his broad shoulders shook.

It reminded me of the way I used to interact with my family and my friends. Most of them had become a fleeting memory over the years, except Owen and Bea. Traveling the world, covering one atrocity after another for various media outlets, Owen was completely unaware of my situation and I hoped that was how it would remain. Knowing he had his own trials ahead of him, he didn’t need to be burdened with my mundane troubles.

Bea, on the other hand, refused to let me forsake her, even if it continued to paint a target on her back. But I hadn’t seen her in… months? I couldn’t remember. My memory, once a prized aspect of my personhood, had turned to shit as of late. Truth be told, most everything in my life had been a blur of restlessness and growing paranoia until the worst occurred in August. Even then, I didn’t let Bea come see me for fear Don would follow her home and murder her too.

Instead of wallowing in my own misery, I returned my attention to Chris. I liked seeing him laugh. In the weeks that I’d lived next door to him, it was the first time I’d ever seen him so relaxed. It didn’t hurt that laughing brought out the dimples in his cheeks, either. I caught a fleeting glimpse of them when he’d smirked earlier, but that was the only time they’d been directed at me. Until then, his expressions had been more guarded, even if, internally, he fluctuated between annoyance and suspicion, with a fleeting touch of concern right before he left.

Other than his friend at the bonfire, the only one who seemed to bring out a real smile in my deceptively complex neighbor was the German Shepherd he cohabitated with. Shameful as it was, watching their backyard antics had turned into something of a pastime. An obstacle course took up one corner of the yard and if they weren’t working on that then they were playing fetch, or tug-of-war, or wrestling. I swear… if Chris ever smiled at me the way he smiled at his dog, all white teeth and tan skin, dimples dotting his cheeks, I might faint.

A car drove down the street at an absurdly slow rate, heading toward the house, like they were looking for something. Or someone.

I yanked the drapes closed as quickly as I could and pressed myself against the wall, closing my eyes. My heart hammered in my chest and my shirt collar squeezed my throat. Did they see me? Was it him? Was it Don? Did he find me? Why the fuck did I have to open the curtain?! I knew better! After two years, I fucking knew better!

Before my frazzled nerves exploded into a full-blown panic attack, Selene appeared. Rubbing against my legs and purring loudly, she grounded me in reality as only a cat can, not letting me get lost in the spiraling fear inside my head. She wrapped her fluffy white tail around my calf comfortingly, lending me her love and strength while I had none.

Forcing my eyes open, I found her gazing up at me with luminous green eyes. She made a soft chirping sound and stood on her back legs, stretching upward and needling my thigh gently. The tiny sparks of pain from her claws chased away the agitated tingling in the rest of my body, coaxing me out of fight or flight mode. Once I could finally move, I peeled myself off of the wall and scooped her up in my arms. Cradling her against my chest, I bolted to the bed and jumped the last two feet, as if Don was lurking underneath like a childhood monster, ready to grab my ankles.

Safe in bed, I held onto my cat and buried my nose in her soft fur, letting the soothing vibrations of her purr rumble through me.

Chris’s laughter snuck in through the old windows again.

Closing my eyes, I pretended I could smell the bonfire, feel its warmth, and that all was well with the world. Within that circle of orange light, with Chris beside me, I was safe for the first time in years. Don couldn’t hurt me, or anyone else, ever again.

One day, I hoped I had the power to manifest that into reality.