By the time I woke up, it was around midday, and I groaned internally at the hours I had lost. Yes, I needed sleep, but I also needed to do things - things that wouldn’t happen if I remained asleep. I was so hot, and so uncomfortable - my fluffy winter pyjamas were sticking to me. A shower, that’s what would fix this. I marched towards the shower, feeling lighter for having connected with Isis the night before. And there, waiting to greet me, were the burned down candles. Two were on the mirror, the wax had bled into one another and slithered off the mirror and onto the shower floor. May chaos reign. I shuddered, glancing over at the other two candles on their own individual plates. Dimitri’s candle wax had dripped angelic tears - as if they mourned for him. Troubled, that voice whispered to me. And Arlo’s candle had melted in a perfectly, precise circle. Weird. I grabbed my phone and snapped a few pictures of the wax and sent them off to Zoey - we all had our strengths, and reading candle wax was definitely one of hers. What would take me hours to read, would take here a mere glance.
Everything I did seemed to be on autopilot, my mind slow and sluggish, struggling to make sense of the occurrences of everything that happened the previous night. Despite Dimitri’s difficult demeanor, and constant scowl, he cared for me. He stayed with me during all my spellwork, making me warm milk when I was coming down from the connection. The trip had been intense, and I shivered at the memory of Isis’ presence, how her warmth had lingered on my cheek before she fled. Whispers of encouragement and strength imbued into my soul. I didn’t choose Isis as a deity so much as she chose me. I knew that it wasn’t the same for some of the others in the Club, many had an array of choices to choose from. Those choices were never presented to me - there was always only one.
Working with a deity wasn’t a necessity in being able to read and connect with Tarot effectively. In fact, a few of the Club members simply chose to not use a deity, working solely with the earth and energy itself. I liked to use a combination, so when it came time to reach out to a deity, to sit in the quiet solitude of my mind and see what reached out to me, there wasn’t really another choice.
The notebook’s pages before me flipped as a wind blew through the house, even though all the doors and windows had been tightly shut. Images appeared in my mind’s eye, unbidden - but not unwanted. I had opened myself up to this - I had opened myself up to connecting with a higher being - a deity, and one had arrived. The energy was feminine and powerful. Joy and creation rumbled through her. Wings stretching across a slim back. Whispered prayers within a stone chamber, praising her for being the goddess of creation itself. A shining orb above her brow. Plants growing. A pregnant belly. A deer walking delicately in the woods. A splash of paint. Laughter, bubbling up, warm and true. Home. Family. Belonging. Connection. The images crashed into me one-by-one, never once giving me a glimpse of her face. Just warm and inviting light.
When I opened my eyes once more, the room was silent - still and peaceful in the quiet solitude of that cavernous kitchen. I exhaled softly - almost fearful to unsettle the room - the very energy, with my mere presence. And then I began writing. I wrote down all the images that had flooded me. I wrote down their descriptions, their colours. I tried to describe the sounds some of the settings made - all of it. And once I had purged myself of all those memories and visions, I began Googling. Because she did not introduce herself, rather it was a seduction - one that was filled with glimpses of possibility, if I so chose to grab hold and follow her. And once my online searches confirmed that it was indeed Isis - mother of creation - that had paid me a visit, I set about my own creation, beckoning her towards me, seducing her with my loyalty - for I had little else to offer a goddess of another realm. I set my makeshift altar up, lighting a candle for her. A shot of whiskey as an offering as I offered her my loyalty and commitment in exchange for assistance and guidance in all of my Magick. It did not take long for the tingles at the base of my spine to indicate that she was indeed present. The flame burnt brighter in her presence. The warmth of the room, enigmatic in its own right. Everything about her was enticing. In that ceremony, we became bound. And thereafter, every time I called upon her, she came. Every single time.
Last night, she had lingered far longer than I was accustomed to, and I took comfort in the fact that I had her by my side whilst dealing with the Voodoo Priestess. We needed to find out more about her - her agenda - and why she had a knife in for our Club. I towel dried my hair, dressed in a navy shift dress and decided to brave the household in search of food.
The kitchen was eerily quiet. With a house this large, I had been expecting more movement - bustling staff, people in and out, that sort of thing. At least that was what I was accustomed to at home. My mother ran the household like the captain of a ship, never once relaxing the reins. I glared at the large coffee machine with its multiple contraptions and levers. Henry at home always made my coffee in the morning, and when he wasn’t around, I simply hightailed it to starbucks. I didn’t want to admit to anyone that I didn’t know how to operate a damn coffee maker. In all the skillsets my parents had sought fit to bestow upon me, and even the Magickal skillsets I had sought for myself, cooking and cleaning simply never factored.
That was how Dimitri found me, barefoot, damp hair, and glaring at the coffee machine. He looked far better than I did, a black shirt clung to his chest with low gray tracksuit pants. I had seen the memes about those pants on men, and so I kept my gaze averted - strictly at chest and face level. He seemed to cope far better than I did with such little sleep. He shook his head, stepping around me to switch the coffee machine on with one press of a button - the power button. I was a moron. Heat flooded my cheeks as he handed me my cup of coffee, sliding the sugar bowl down the counter, towards me.
We stood in silence, as we both sipped that liquid motivation. I wondered what he thought of everything that had happened the night before. Peeking up at him over the rim of my mug, I realised how much bigger than me he actually was. He towered over me, and I couldn’t help but berate myself for not noticing the night before - but then, I had been lost to the Magick.
“Arlo wants to introduce you to Jeanette - let you see the car wash for yourself to see if you can pick up on anything else.” Dimitri’s tone left no room for argument.
“It doesn’t work that way,” I muttered.
His eyes flashed with irritation, “Well, we are going to try it, so get ready, we’re leaving here in thirty minutes.”
“You can’t just drag me to some place you own and expect me to ‘pick up’ on something,” I bit back, “I’m not a machine Dimitri, you can’t simply switch my Magick on and off at will - and besides, I don’t particularly want to meet the person I may have condemned to death.”
He glared at me. Hard anger glinted across the sharp angles and planes of his face. It wasn’t fair that he was so breathtakingly beautiful.
Finally, his scowl turned into a smirk and I didn’t know that it was possible to hate someone more than I already despised Dimitri.
“I didn’t take you to be a coward Bambi,” he taunts.
Fuck him and his ridiculous mind-games. Because that is exactly how I fell into the damn trap of rising to the challenge of visiting the car wash. What am I? Five? Why did I feel the need to prove myself to this guy? To grab the bait he dangled before me?
I shouldn’t have to prove anything to Dimitri - after last night he knew that my Magick was real. So why then did my body flush in rage and embarrassment when he called me a coward? Why did I have this need to prove to him that I wasn’t afraid of his world?
I should be afraid! He is the Bratva for god's sake.
I ground my teeth - an old habit that saw me wearing a retainer as a child at night when I slept, and marched towards my bedroom to ready myself.
Exhaling, I grabbed my phone as I trudged to my room, my fingers flying fast as I typed out a message to Charl about what an incorrigible client he had found. I may have used the term ass-hat to describe Dimitri.
And to my chagrin, Charl only responded with laughing emojis.
Fucking men.
I slid my trusty wedges on, pinned my hair into a low bun, and pinned in my pearl earrings. Staring at my reflection, I looked exactly the same as I always had. I looked pale and somewhat ordinary. My blonde hair and grey-blue eyes - along with my outfit - seemed at odds with all the feelings that were bubbling up inside me. I looked… boring. As if I was attending a business meeting, or worse still a womens’ luncheon.
I wanted to clench my fist and smash something - just to feel. I wanted to scream and rage to the world about the unfairness of it all - about the unfairness that I couldn’t be who I chose to - even if I didn’t even really know who that was. I wanted to rave at Dimitri and his lunacy - his uncompromising demeanor. I wanted to tear into Charl for believing in me all those years ago. Because despite everything I had done last night, I felt like a fraud. I was living a double life and I didn’t even fully belong in either. The only thing I knew that belonged to me, and I to it, was the Magick - the rest seemed inconsequential.
And now, because of my own lunacy, I needed to go and look at their damn car wash to determine if I could pick up anything that they hadn’t - if any additional messages or information could be scoured that I hadn't already seen through the cards. I’d have to meet Jeanette. Unease settled in the pit of my stomach at the thought of seeing her in person. It was one thing to issue information about a person you had seen in a vision - it was something else entirely meeting the person from the vision. Worse still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had signed her life away in relaying what I had seen to Dmitri. Even if they didn’t kill her, her life would never be the same again.
The taste of change lingered in the air, heavy and full - it emitted a scent that was fruitfully tangy and I knew that the change that I could taste wasn’t solely focussed on Jeanette, it seemed to encompass all of us.
I plucked the two bracelets off the mirror, picking off pieces of hardened wax that had run over them. Steeling my spine, I walked out of my room towards an awaiting Dimitri. Arlo was the picture of the perfect elederly gentleman, his grey suit tailored to perfection. I marvelled at the notion that before this trip, I could have seen him seated with my father discussing business and I would have been none the wiser. That’s not true. The little voice in the back of my mind whispered, you would know.
Swallowing, I handed each of them their bracelets. Arlo slid his on easily without complaint, whilst Dimitri scowled at the thing before sighing loudly and finally putting it on his wrist. This man was absolutely infuriating.
The driver idled next to the curb. I sat next to Dimitri in the back of the Cadillac, shifting so that there was some semblance of space between us. His thigh pressed against mine as Arlo slid into the vehicle, and I had to suppress my shiver of rage.