The Empress (The Tarot Club 1)

Sleep beckoned me, promising me silence from my own inner-turmoil, and I would have been an idiot to turn down such an offer. And so, I negated dinner and conversation, avoiding Dimitri entirely. He managed to get under my skin, bringing forth a rage - along with a bevy of other emotions - that I hadn’t felt since I was a tantruming child.

Shifting beneath the covers, I was dressed far more appropriately for the New Orleans heat than I had been the night before, opting for a silk night slip rather than my warm, bulky pyjamas. I did not fight my wandering mind - I couldn’t really, not when my thoughts kept pebbling back to Olek. Those thoughts did not wash over me, rather, they settled deep, sinking into the essence of who I was, no doubt playing a role in shaping who I was becoming.

My eyelids were heavy, fatigue pulling me under with each breath I took. I slipped into a deep sleep without remembering it. One minute I was awake, and the next I simply wasn’t. The sleep was deep and enthralling, pulling me further and further into the darkness of my very soul. Messages rubbed up against me whilst I slept, whispering a million different conflicting truths - most I wouldn’t even remember upon waking.

Those sleep induced dreams felt like I was floating - gliding really, dipping in and out of different experiences and lives. My chest constricted with pain as an unbearable weight crushed upon me, tiny stones pebbling on top of me, one after another, until there was only the crushing weight and this unending darkness. My body reacted, attempting to curl in upon itself, but with that weight bearing down on me, it was impossible. I shut my eyes against the rising fear - panic really, that was clawing its way up my throat. Panic wouldn’t do. Panic wouldn’t help me breathe - even now, I felt my chest tighten, knowing that this was how I was going to go. Alone and blanketed in heaps of grain. There was an irony to that - the very thing that fed us, sustained us, would be the thing that suffocated me, ridding me from this world. And it would be a riddance, I knew myself for the vermin that I was. I had committed unspeakable acts, betrayed countless people, offered up innocent souls time and time again to simply keep existing. I knew that this would be the ultimate outcome - I knew that I would not live a full, long, and happy life. But fuck if it wasn’t worth the ride. It wasn’t so much about my loyalties to Arlo and Dimitri, or even Sergei for that matter, it had always been about progress. About obtaining things for myself and my family that I never could have dreamed of. And if that made me a bastard - vermin filth left to rot at the bottom of this grain silo - then I would pay my dues. My soul had always been offered up to the highest bidder, and the reaper would be no different. I willed my body to still, feeling the muscles in my legs clench and spasm as my breath became more and more restricted. Dizziness. It was a strange sensation to feel dizzy when you were already lying down - when you already had nowhere else to move. My arm groaned under the weight, pieces of grain dribbling into my ears. I shut my eyes as the smaller granules crushed against me, seeking every crevice to slip into. When they dragged my body from this tin structure, I wouldn’t be surprised if they found granules of grain in my asshole at this point. Jeanette knew what to do. She knew that this was the risk and that she needed to run. I could only hope that she would actually listen and follow the damn plan. My father knew the plan too, had cautioned me against my antics. His packed bag seated at the doorway of our apartment did not go unnoticed. He had been planning for the worst case scenario - the one where his only son was buried, forcing him to flee from the life we had built here. Guilt rose up, swift and quick, forcing my shallow breaths to quicken. There were few things in life that I felt truly guilty about - uprooting my father through my death was one of them. At least I didn’t have to live with that guilt for much longer. I knew my father would deem this as a bad death - an omen of sorts. One that would only be compounded by the lack of a funeral. He still followed the old ways. I would not be washed down and dressed in white. There would be no one to walk anticlockwise around my grave-site. My body would not be laid before our home altar, and there would be no flowers. Would the lack of ritual make it easier for my father to accept what was always inevitable? I didn’t think so, but then I also opposed the old traditions. I didn’t think that it was healthy to lay the body of your loved one out in your house for three solid days, simply so that you could look over him and pray. It had always reeked of self-inflicted pain to me - I mean, who the fuck wanted to look at their deceased loved ones body for three whole days?

I knew my fate. I knew that once my last breath had shuddered its way out of my body they would dump me in the lake in the reserve. I knew my fate because I had inflicted it upon so many before me. It was probably why Dimitri had chosen this method for me. He was a twisted fucker like that. Dimitri thought he was so clever when he came up with that plan - because a lake in a reserve could never be drained because it was protected - upheld as a piece of nature worth defending. My breathing became even more labored, and I tried to take short breaths, measuring them apart. I don’t even know why, not when I was mentally welcoming death - delighted in the very idea of my body being released back into the wild - even if it was at the bottom of a lake. But my body still fought, my survival instinct warring with my mental bravery, doing everything in its power to ensure that I lived - even if it was only for a minute longer.

Pain banded across my chest, constricting and crushing my body’s fight for survival. Not much longer now.

My mind reeled at the inpouring of thoughts as even in my sleep addled state I knew that this wasn’t me. These thoughts were not mine. I backpedaled, pulling my own thoughts - my own energy - towards myself. It was a repieceing of sorts - I was coming home to myself. I sat up, the sheets still pulled perfectly in order as if I had not just experienced the inner monologue of a dying man. My hands shook as I took deep, easing breaths to calm down. Olek. I had just channeled Olek because I had been so exhausted - so fatigued - that I had forgotten to close my third eye before I went to sleep. With all the Magick and death in the air, I had channeled Olek’s last thoughts, and that understanding left me shivering, and cold.

The third eye was your source of connection to everything other. It was where I received my guided messages from. It was where, possibly even, my Magick was drawn from. And if you knew what you were doing, you could tap into alternate realms with it. It wasn’t obvious. You couldn’t see it, but in the same way we associated the heart with love, and the brain with thoughts and intellect, the third eye could be associated with our sixth sense - our Magickal or instinctual ability. I still hadn’t made up my mind how to exactly classify it, but I knew that when I was deeply surrounded by Magick, casting spells and conducting readings daily, the Magick seemed closer somehow - as if it were only a breath away. It meant that I didn’t have to reach quite so hard to find it, rather it remained just below the surface, almost waiting for me. But with this came the added messages - the added contact and abilities, and when my defences were down and I was unguarded due to either sleep or downright distraction, I became a conduit of sorts for all kinds of messages - even if I did not want them. For the most part, my anklet curbed this, and I always understood that it could be much worse - that messages from those seeing me harm or beings who did not operate within the same moral framework as I did were kept at bay. But messages from ‘friendly’ entities or the ability to channel thoughts and feelings from people I know? Those came through despite my anklet, and so I had to cast a simple incantation before bed. I had to speak and feel my Magick closing - dimming to a light hum in the background - always present, but not active. The intention was always more powerful than the actual words spoken, but the spoken word was just as important in this realm - it was why prayer was so powerful because it often combined both.

Grabbing my deck of cards, I slid out of my room, seeking movement - life - to shake the thoughts of death from my mind. My bare feet found their way to the kitchen, the silence of the space surprisingly inviting. This time, I found the milk unassisted and proceeded to heat it up as I unravelled my deck of cards from my silk cloth. I had chosen the silk scarf because my mother had hated it. She had argued that the colour would give my already pale features a washed out appearance and - what was wrong with me? Did I not want to stand out in the crowd?

But the wrap had been gifted to me by Zoey’s grandmother, and I knew how much it cost them to even afford such a gift. I had invited Zoey to my sixteenth birthday. Paid for her flights and hotel. I gave her everything she needed to feel like she could fit in at that awful brunch my mother had insisted on.

The dinner had been a disaster. My mother had nit-picked on every possible thing tonight. In her own underhanded, subtle way, she had mentioned that Megan had been accepted into the Ballet Academy of New York as if to throw in my face that I hadn’t been accepted to the School of Music. Yet another disappointment. My dad had taken the news well - had argued that there was no money in music anyway and I was going to join his firm one day, so really, it was no loss.

It hadn’t stopped the ache from spreading through my limbs, crippling me with the core understanding that I was inadequate.

I clenched and unclenched my fists, willing myself to calm down - to not have a damn panic attack in the middle of my birthday party because this is what it had resorted to - me hiding out in the bathroom to avoid all the people my mother had invited to this stupid function - and, my mother herself.

Emily Rand was at her finest when hosting a function, and heaven help anyone who cast her in a bad light - even if it was her daughter.

I hand’t missed the look of disgust on her face when I had introduced her to Zoey, my “summer camp” friend. It was the type of look that not even Zoey could ignore. She came up with a quip about this not being her usual function, just to ease the tension. And, true to Emily Rand’s style, she ignored Zoey thereafter.

My mother had gone to great lengths to push myself and Thomas Hastings towards one another. She obviously hadn’t heard that he had been caught snorting coke off Candice Wayland’s chest last weekend, because if she had, he wouldn’t have made the invite list. She would be appalled, but honestly - what did anyone expect when dealing with the kids of the rich and famous.

A knock sounded on the bathroom door, jolting me from my reverie.

“If you’re hiding, can we hide together?” Zoey’s voice floated under the doorway.

I answered with a half-sob, half-laugh. What did she think about my family? My face grew hot with shame. I knew Zoey was used to this sort of treatment, but it didn’t make it right.

Making up my mind, I flung open the door to find a grinning Zoey staring back at me.

“You ready to ditch this party?” I asked.

“You want to leave your own party? The same one you invited me to?” Zoey’s smile faltered.

But I had to leave - I couldn’t be here around my mother and all these fake people who were being so goddamn patronizing to my friend.

“Yeah,” I shrugged, “I mean, we can’t leave the house because the doorman will call my mother, but that doesn’t mean that we have to stay here with them,” I jutted my chin out towards the noise from the function around the corner.

“Okay,” Zoey’s grin lit up her whole face, “but then I think I need to inform you that we need to go some place where we can drink this uninterrupted.”

Zoey pulled a bottle of Jack from behind her back, grinning at me like the cat who got the damn cream.

“Where did you get that?”

My smile was so broad, my cheeks ached.

“I may have wrangled it off your catering staff.”

“You mean Emily Rand’s catering staff,” I quickly corrected her.

She shrugged, “So do you have somewhere we can get wasted and not get caught?”

“Follow me,” I whispered with a smile as I pushed past her.

We went up to the garden rooftop where Zoey slid on her cracked leather jacket and popped open the bottle of jack. We laughed and gossiped until sunrise, and I think it took all of my sixteen years of life to fully understand what true friendship was. Zoey was magnificent with her take-no-shit attitude, and I had celebrated each time she shut down one of the boys at dinner, putting them firmly in their place. In the end, she didn’t fit in - her knowledge of dinner etiquette was lacking - which my mother pointed out at every opportunity, but she passed it off as if she were too cool for such trivialities. Despite my mother’s appalling behaviour, that was one of the best birthdays I had ever had, and the silk wrap that Zoey had so lovingly gifted me, seemed fitting for my deck of cards.

I sat at the kitchen island, sipping my warm milk, and shuffling my deck. The monotony of the movement provided comfort, leaving my mind to wander as I created mental lists of everything I still needed to do. Those lists - even if they were simply categorized in my mind - brought comfort. I still needed to complete Dimitri and Arlo’s home protection. I had done a good job the previous night, but there was still more that could be done. Deciding that that course of action was at least useful, I began creating a separate list of what needed to be done. I needed to plant a crystal grid in the yard, ensuring that the very ground the house was built upon was protected, and I had to charm all the mirrors in the house to deflect any negative energy. In the same way a military base shored up it’s defenses, never solely relying on one form of protection, so too was the protection that was placed on a home. It should be layered, nuanced, even. A skilled Witch would even work different protections into one another, leveraging off of existing spellwork.

I rinsed my glass out in the sink and tiptoed back to my room, shutting down my third eye as I walked. Tomorrow would be another long day filled with Magick, and I still had my charity event I needed to attend.