Arcanum (Tales from the Tarot)

32. Greyson

Chapter thirty-two

Greyson

S ometime after midnight, I woke in Beatrice’s guest room with a splitting headache. If we’d done a couple of rounds of shots or killed a bottle of wine or two, I could see it. But all we’d done was have a quiet dinner at her house, courtesy of Lombardi’s. Nothing that should trigger a migraine.

I stumbled to the kitchen for a glass of water and some over-the-counter meds, but even as I crawled back into bed, I couldn’t shake the feeling something else was at work.

Even though I texted him earlier, letting him know I was driving out to see Beatrice for a belated birthday dinner, I hadn’t heard from Chris all night. I hadn’t expected a reply, though. I never did when he was at work. It was one of those things I had to silently accept if we were going to be together long-term. I had to share him with the rest of the community, not just the citizens in Mapleton, but the entire county. As one of only three K9 officers in Belmont County, he did just as much work outside his city limits as he did within them and he needed to focus on that instead of answering random text messages from me.

I checked my phone again anyway, in case I somehow missed his reply. The screen stayed black. It was dead.

“Shit.” I knew I had a charger in the car, but no way to plug it in in the house. Suddenly my debates with Bea over Android vs iPhone didn’t seem so funny.

Tossing my useless phone onto the nightstand, I crawled back into bed and tried to get some sleep.

I was still trying by the time a tea kettle screamed downstairs the following morning.

I freshened up as best I could in the guest bathroom and remade the bed before dipping downstairs. Beatrice stood at the kitchen sink, rinsing out a bowl. Her husband was heading out the door, briefcase in hand.

“Text me what I need to pick up later,” Patrick said, kissing Beatrice quickly and throwing me a wave. “Good seeing you, man.”

“Take care.” I waved in return, sliding onto a barstool at the kitchen island.

“You look awful,” Beatrice said after the door closed, setting a cup of black tea in front of me. “Not sleep well?”

Wrapping my hands around the mug, I shook my head. “It’s a feeling I can’t shake.”

“What do the cards say?”

“I didn’t bring any.”

“Mhmm.” She arched a pointed eyebrow and crossed over to the large hutch in the corner, retrieving a purple velvet bag from the top drawer. Shuffling the tarot cards quickly, she kept glancing between me and the deck before ultimately laying out three cards, one by one.

The Sun appeared, but it was upside down. My stomach clenched. I didn’t typically read tarot cards in “reverse,” but when it was the major arcana, I paid a little more attention. Besides, it was the card I’d come to associate with Chris and being upside down meant he was distressed, which was never a good thing.

The Tower came next, a sign of sudden upheaval or disaster.

My breath caught. Nausea twisted inside of me as Beatrice flipped the last card.

The Ten of Swords. The image of a man was drawn on the bottom of a card, ten swords stuck into his back. Defeated. Like I had been the day I tried to kill myself.

I jumped off the stool so fast it toppled to the floor behind me. “I have to go.”

“What is it?”

“It’s Chris.”

She reached for me, catching my forearm and dragging me back a step. “Drive carefully , Greyson. I mean it! You’re no good to him if you end up in a hospital yourself. Are you listening?”

I nodded, in too much of a hurry for actual words.

We pressed a quick kiss to each other’s cheek before I bolted out the door.

As soon as I was in the car, I plugged my phone in and floored it for Mapleton.

When I saw the screen light up, I hit the button on the steering wheel and ordered the phone to call Chris.

It rang. And rang. Finally, it clicked over to an automated voicemail.

I tried again. Again, there was no answer.

Snatching my phone out of the cup holder, I swerved around a car like it was standing still, and opened my messages.

Underneath my text to him, the one letting him know I wasn’t going to be home, were two little red words: Not Delivered.

There was a message from him, however, timestamped at four o’clock in the morning.

Chris: Call me

“Fuck!” I tried dialing his number again, to no avail.

An hour later, I finally unclenched my white-knuckled hands from the steering wheel as I screeched onto Spicewood Lane. Slamming the car to a halt in the driveway, I threw the door open and ran to the broken fence line between our houses. A sickening wave of deja vu hit me and my relief ebbed away to dread.

Chris knelt on the other side of the fence, extra nails clamped between his teeth, as he hammered a new slat into place. His plaid sleeves were pushed up on his forearms, the muscles flexing in the warm sunlight. A nasty scratch cut along his cheek, under his left eye, which carried a darkening bruise.

Nitro was with him, as always. The dog stood when he saw me, his hackles raising.

“What happened?” I asked, stopping short when Nitro growled, his lip curling.

“Section of the fence fell,” Chris replied around the nails, slipping another out and hammering it into the wood with more force than I suspected a task like that actually required.

The lie burned brightly around him, singeing the air like sulfur. That, combined with the fact he didn’t call Nitro back immediately, made the nausea return tenfold.

“Chris,” I said softly, willing him to look at me.

He continued to avoid my gaze. Turning, he reached for a new slat and I couldn’t help the gasp that came out. A line of stitches ran along the side of his temple, holding together skin that was mottled with red and purple. From what, I had no idea.

“What happened?” I repeated slowly.

He spit out the final nail and slammed it into the top of the new slat before looking up at me, his dark eyes narrowed. It could have conceivably been against the sunlight, but I had a feeling there was much more to it. Whatever it was.

“Who’s Duane Horton?” he asked, all but growling the name.

I furrowed my brows at him, completely taken aback. “Who?”

“Did I stutter? Sorry. Must be the concussion. Let’s try that again.” He stood slowly, his jaw flexing. “Duane Horton. Big guy. My height and about fifty pounds heavier. Said he was here by invitation. That was after he tried to bludgeon me to death with a piece of firewood and tried to kill my fucking dog!”

“I don’t know anyone with that name.”

“K. Good to know. Because we’re prosecuting his ass for a few felonies and you’re definitely getting called as a witness.”

“A witness to what? I wasn’t even here!”

Chris didn’t answer. Instead, he motioned with the hammer toward his garage and took off toward it, Nitro trotting beside him.

I followed, warily.

Practically throwing the hammer into his toolbox, he snatched his phone off the workbench. A flicker of surprise danced through him, but it disappeared with another flash of anger. Holding his phone out to me, the corners of his eyes tightened again. “Swipe right. You should be familiar with that.”

I bristled at the accusation in his tone and ripped the phone out of his hand to see for myself what had him so pissed.

It was a picture of another cell phone and a conversation between GreyWitch13 and DurrrtyBear6769.

GreyWitch13: how dirty are you?

DurrrtyBear6769: how dirty do u want it?

GreyWitch13: the dirtiest

DurrrtyBear6769: gonna have 2 b specific

GreyWitch13: I want you to break into my house, tie me up, fuck me, and film it all. Its my bday and your my present

DurrrtyBear6769: wut? is this a joke?

GreyWitch13: No I’m serious. I wanna be used like a little bitch by a strong man. Its a fantasy I’ve always had and your perfect

DurrrtyBear6769: U want me to break in and rape u?

GreyWitch13: Yes

GreyWitch13: The rougher the better. Make sure you tape it though. I want a copy. Idc if you wear a mask. That’s even hotter

DurrrtyBear6769: When?

GreyWitch13: Tonight. I live alone but I want to be surprised.

GreyWitch13: Here’s my address

GreyWitch13: 107 Spicewood Ln Mapleton, IL

DurrrtyBear6769: Pic?

GreyWitch13 happily provided a picture of me from college, one of me from a weekend my family spent in the Dells. Young, smiling, shirtless, and zero indication to a predator that I was anything but an easy target.

“You sincerely believe this was me?” I asked, my voice as shaky as my hand as I held the phone out to Chris.

“It doesn’t matter what I believe.”

“It matters to me!”

“Fine.” He threw his hands up. “I don’t know what to believe when it comes to you. Everything’s a giant fucking mystery. You pretend you’re an open book, but you’re not. You know things you can’t know, you do things normal people don’t do. And when I ask, I get the runaround.”

The air left my lungs in a rush, trying to process the inferno of betrayal roiling around him. Anger and sadness came next, along with a healthy heaping of self-blame. He’d let his guard down, he’d let me in, and in his eyes, it backfired. I betrayed him, just like Monica did, thus proving his point that there was something inherently wrong with him. He was mad at me, without a doubt, but he was equally furious with himself.

“Your house is secure, by the way. He didn’t actually get in,” Chris continued, shoving the phone back into his pocket. “But now that there’s an active case, we probably shouldn’t hang out anymore. I don’t want the defense to have anything they can use to their advantage.”

“Like the fact you’re fucking the guy who lives next door?”

His dark eyes cut back to me. Surprisingly, he didn’t say anything. He knew he struck a nerve, but his anger was bigger than his guilt.

“That picture is from three years ago, before I got my tattoo and before I deleted all of my social media,” I said, trying and failing to keep a level head. “And for your information, I’m not on any apps. Even if I were, I certainly wouldn’t arrange to have myself raped by a complete stranger! This is Don! Can’t you see that?!”

“Where were you last night?” he shot back, the muscles in his neck tightening, as if he was refraining from asking anything else.

“With Beatrice. I tried to text you but the message didn’t go through. And before you call me a liar, my phone is in the car, so I’ll happily prove it to you. I spent the night there. My phone died. I tried calling you first thing this morning, which I know you know because of that fucking look on your face when you picked up your phone a minute ago.” The air around him shifted, his simmering anger dulling to a cloud of confusion and sadness, so I softened my tone to accompany the change. “I would never cheat on you, Chris. I haven’t cheated on you. I might not have told you about Don in the beginning, but that doesn’t mean all I’m doing is lying to you. I’m not Monica, so stop comparing me to her!”

The air between us burned with renewed anger. But as I suspected, his anger was a mask for something deeper, something that didn’t have anything to do with me specifically. Or even Monica. It was fear—and like the good officer he was, it was better to mask it with rage than admit it existed.

“You weren’t there,” Chris said at last, his gaze falling to the cement floor, fixated on an old oil stain. “You’re always there. You always… know . But this time, you weren’t there.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, taking a small step forward. When he didn’t object and Nitro didn’t growl, I closed the rest of the distance and slipped my arms around him. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you like you were there for me. I wish I could go back and fix it but my magic doesn’t work like that.”

He wrapped his arms around me, burying his face into the side of my neck. “I needed you. I needed to know you were safe but I didn’t. I didn’t know where you were. I didn’t know if he—”

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, trying to shut down his train of thought. Saddled with the guilt of knowing I’d let him down, it was all I could say.

He picked his head up, the shadows under his eyes as dark as the bruises on the left side of his face. “Why didn’t you know? You always know.”

“I did,” I admitted weakly. “I felt something last night but I didn’t know it was you. I came as soon as I could, as soon as I knew you’d been hurt. I’m sorry that I don’t have any control over when I get feelings or what information the universe shares. I felt sick last night and I had an awful headache.” I lifted my hand to the stitches in his temple, tracing the cut gently. “Now I know why. But I didn’t know it was you until Bea did a reading. I came back as fast as I could.”

“I didn’t know what happened to you. First, this asshole is creeping around your house and you’re nowhere to be found. Then during the interrogation, he says this whole thing was your idea. I didn’t know what to think. If you just left or if you were—” He cut himself off before he said the word “dead,” looking like he wanted to throw up as he grimaced and swallowed hard, trying to forget my suicide attempt not so long ago. “I’m sorry.”

“This is what he does. This is why I didn’t want to involve you,” I said softly, touching Chris’s cheek, mindful of the deep scratch. “I’m sorry you got hurt in the process.”

“I’ll live.”

“I’m not talking about your head, although I’m sorry for that too.”

When his gaze lifted to mine, his dark eyes were wary. He wanted to believe me, he wanted to trust me, but he couldn’t shake his inherent skepticism or the betrayal he’d faced before. The solution, then, was obvious. One hundred percent transparency. About everything. So he’d never have reason to doubt me again.

“I think it’s time we talked,” I said softly, choosing my words with care. “About my magic.”

He furrowed his brows but let me lead him into his house. I sat him on the couch and stood in front of him, feeling even more vulnerable than the first time he saw me naked in the backyard.

“I’m what you’d call an empath,” I said slowly, assessing every single one of his feelings as they came up. So far, it was a mix of confusion and skepticism, as always. “I can feel what other people are feeling. On occasion, I’ve had visions, glimpses of the future. I had one the day you handed me those purple tarot cards. I saw you—I saw us. Together. I knew it was only a matter of time.”

“You can feel… what other people are feeling?” His confusion deepened.

“Yes. And sometimes, when the connection is strong, or the emotion is overwhelming, it’s like… a mirror. If you’re angry, I reflect that anger back at you. If you’re horny…” I spread my hands, giving a little shrug. “Well, you know.”

He wasn’t convinced.

“There’s more,” I continued cautiously.

His eyebrows lifted, waiting.

“I can manifest things.”

That eliminated his confusion. Cynicism was the only emotion I felt as he made a face, not even bothering to try and hide his real feelings. “Uh-huh. Monica claimed she could, too. Vision boards and meditation and shit.”

I shook my head. “No. I mean, I can make something appear out of thin air. I can call it from one place to another. The groceries. The candles. You’ve seen it, you just didn’t know that’s what I’d done. And yes, I lied. Technically. I gave you a logical explanation because it’s easier that way. You weren’t ready.”

“You expect me to believe any of that?” He scrubbed a hand over his face before looking up at me again. “Look, I tried, ok? I tried to get on board with the witch stuff and be supportive, even if I don’t understand a damn thing that you do. But it’s time to cut the bullshit. You can’t make things magically appear. No one can. That’s Hollywood, not real life.”

“Please, don’t freak out.”

“I’m not, because what you’re claiming is impossible.”

Ignoring his doubt, I closed my eyes, concentrating as hard as I could while I cradled my empty arms in front of me.

“What are you doing?” Chris sighed.

I didn’t answer him. I kept my focus on the magic, holding tight to the mental image I was trying to summon.

His overwhelming surprise hit me a moment before I felt Selene’s silky fur in my hands.

By the time I opened my eyes, hugging my cat to my chest, Chris was on his feet and across the living room, his dark eyes as wide as saucers.

“What the fuck?! Wha—how?!”

Selene meowed and head-butted my chin. I scratched behind her ear, looking at Chris patiently while he tried to sort out everything in his head. Gradually, his confusion and the twinge of fear subsided, replaced by fascination and wonder. He stepped forward, a little at a time, closing the gap until he could reach out and touch Selene’s fur. He jerked his hand away and danced back a step with a “Holy shit!” under his breath.

“Would you like to sit?” I asked quietly.

He shook his head, back to being speechless.

“I always intended to tell you. I was just waiting for the right moment. When you weren’t so… cynical toward magic. Nemo’s gift helped open your mind, but after what happened last night, I don’t want you to have any more doubts. I love you and I’m sorry I lied initially, but this is it. This was the last secret I had and now I’m asking you to please keep it, no matter what happens with us.”

“Us?” He blinked out of his reverie, apprehension twisting through him.

I set Selene on the floor and walked over to him slowly, spreading my hands to show I wasn’t a threat. “I know what a shock this is. On top of everything else, I understand if it’s the final straw. You thought you fell for the weird gay guy next door and that would be the extent of your problems—trying to navigate a relationship in public with another man. But then it turns out I have a stalker intent on ruining my life, who could possibly kill you one day, or me, and now you learn magic is absolutely real in a world where it hadn’t previously existed outside of fiction. I understand if you need space. I understand if you don’t want to continue seeing me, whether it’s because of the legal case you mentioned or because you don’t want anything to do with someone like me. Regardless of your decision, all I ask is that you please not tell anyone about me and what I can do.”

“Who’d believe me, anyway?” He took a small step forward and reached for my hand, hesitating for a moment, before curling his fingers around mine. “It’s crazy talk. Feeling other people’s feelings and manifesting stuff out of thin air? People would think I lost it. It’s nuts.”

“Absolutely insane,” I concurred as he pulled me closer, practically floating as the final weight lifted from my shoulders, relieved that all of the negative emotions between us were gone. He truly believed in me, in magic. And while that belief, that knowledge, was admittedly scary, a sense of wonder and admiration filled him to the brim.

“I’d lose my job. Probably be run out of Mapleton.”

“We can’t have that. One of us needs a steady income.”

“And health insurance.”

I grinned at him, shaking my head. “Always so practical.”

“It’s easier on my small brain.”

“I love your brain.”

“I love you.” He pressed his lips to mine without a trace of hesitation. I kissed him back until he pulled away with a frown. “You can’t turn people into frogs, right?”

Laughing, I shook my head. “No. Sadly.”

“Damn. Just thought I’d check.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him again, grateful that I could finally share the truest part of myself. Admittedly, it wasn’t under the best of circumstances and I hadn’t known how he would take it. I’d hoped, of course, that it would end happily. But I’d also prepared for the worst, especially given how upset he’d been when I first arrived.

Chiding myself for ever doubting him, I held onto him tighter. The love radiating from him was as blinding as the sun, as warm and comforting as it was on a winter’s day. He tried to hide it, to keep his heart safe, but when he let it out? He simply shined.

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

Nemo’s words flashed in my mind, along with the image of the obsidian carving from The Magic Shop. A sun and a moon. I’d associated Chris with the Sun in tarot because of his personality, just as I’d always associated myself with the Moon, but until that very moment, I hadn’t put it together.

All those months ago, Nemo’d said he was sending me the key to my future, Chris was the one who’d brought the letter with the tarot cards—the key. Chris was the answer to achieving perfect balance. Temperance . And once I’d accomplished that, true love and lasting union awaited me.

The same could be said for Chris. By falling in love with me, he’d slowly started to bring balance back into his life by working less and opening himself up to love again.

Each of us achieved what the cards had said.

Which meant Nemo’s last reading would also come true. Of that, I had no doubt. Don’s hatred would be his undoing. His own fire will consume him , the letter said.

As hard as it was, Chris and I just had to wait. After that? We’d be free to live out our happily ever after.