Tarot

by Marissa Kennerson

  “James.”

  Anna ran a finger through the sand. “Oh, I’m not so sure about that.”

  “I’ve known him a long time.” Topper let out a long, deep sigh. “He loves you. He wouldn’t be so torn apart if he didn’t.”

  “And I love him,” Anna murmured. “I should have confided in him.”

  Topper shrugged. “Things might have not gone any differently if you had.”

  “But at least I would have given him a chance. A chance to trust me.” Anna reached for Topper’s hand. She paused and looked at him. “I know there’s something here”—she gestured between the two of them—“but I don’t know what it is, and right now, with everything going on, I can’t process it.”

  “Then it can stay on hold for now. We’ve got more important things to take care of anyway.” He leaned over and kissed the top of her head.

  She blinked up at him, and he returned her gaze for a moment before she stood up. “Help me roll out the unfinished tapestry? At least now I can put it back together.”

  They worked in the sand near the cottage’s front door, choosing the driest patch they could find. While huge chunks were cut from it, it was still a formidable piece of work, with its bright blue-green sea and massive swaying palms with their gold-tipped leaves, the sand stretching out like a big silvery-white blanket.

  “Wow!” Topper stared down at the tapestry. “You made this?”

  Anna smiled.

  “It’s so detailed.” He ran his fingers over the great black cliffs of the cove while Anna reached into her satchel, pulling out her tapestry squares.

  “We have to match these up with what’s missing here.”

  They sat on the porch and made five piles: Swords, Pentacles, Wands, the land of children, and another for all of the pieces Anna had woven since she’d arrived in Cups. Anna sorted through the pieces and handed them to Topper to place in each stack.

  “Ready?” he asked her.

  “I think so.” For a second the task seemed daunting. But Anna quickly realized that she still remembered exactly where the pieces belonged. Topper stepped back and watched as she began to piece the land back together.

  When Anna put the Queen in place and looked at her long, flowing strawberry-blond hair and green eyes the color of emeralds, she gasped.

  Lara.

  She laid down the King, with his long chocolate-brown hair and broad shoulders.

  Daniel.

  Anna added vibrant, youthful figures lounging in hammocks and swimming in the shimmering sea while Henry with his curling red hair stirred a large simmering pot.

  She held a final piece in her hand. Chestnut hair, light-green almond-shaped eyes. When she placed it onto the tapestry, she felt as if James himself were staring back at her.

  “Is it time to name it?” Topper peered at Anna with bright eyes.

  Anna cleared her throat. “This”—she swept her hand over the tapestry—“is the land of Cups.”

  A cold wind swept over the beach and Anna shuddered, her face draining of color. “I’ve created a world of children, completely defenseless against a king.”

  The Magician and the Hermit seemed to fall from the sky, landing with a loud thud in the clearing where they had crossed the bridge. The King, who was waiting with the others, snapped to attention and squinted, making sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.

  Barda was already moving. “Seize them!” he shouted. “Bind the woman’s arms so she can’t get to her wand,” Barda then whispered to a pair of foot soldiers, out of earshot of the King.

  “They just dropped from the sky!” the King exclaimed. The King was surprised to find that there was no bridge in sight. He was supposed to be able to walk his troops over the bridge so that they could storm whatever was waiting for them on the other side.

  “Don’t worry,” the Magician said to the Hermit under her breath. Just before they had entered Cups, she had ripped off a small remnant of Anna’s tapestry and shoved it into her pocket. She had considered it a failsafe of sorts, and now she was grateful for the forethought. She reached into her pocket, making sure the small piece of fabric had not been lost on the journey. It was there. She unclasped her hand and let it fall into her pocket as a tall guard rushed her and held back her arms. The Hermit gazed wild-eyed at the army winding out of the wood as far as the eye could see, and spotted Drake sitting upon a white horse, dressed in full battle regalia behind the King, his eyes blank.

  The Hermit narrowed his eyes. “When did Drake become a knight?” he muttered to himself.

  Within seconds the Hermit’s arms were bound too, and they were being shoved toward the King. Neither struggled, the Magician’s face alarmingly calm as she stared at the King in defiance. The Hermit shook with fear. He cast his eyes downward.

  “Welcome back. Did you have a nice trip?” the King asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Look, I don’t blame you. It’s my doing, really—I charged you with raising the girl. She’s like your child, and no parent wants harm to come to one of their own.”

  The Magician raised an eyebrow.

  “But Anna is a darkness in this world that needs to be destroyed.”

  “Your Majesty . . . ,” the Hermit began, the mention of Anna giving him courage. But the King held his hand up.

  He looked at the two empty-handed prisoners. “Where are the tapestries?” he asked.

  “We gave them to their rightful owner,” the Magician spat.

  The King huffed. “I don’t believe that you would leave Anna with no way to get back here, sealed in a strange land.”

  “Strange, yes, but one of her own making.” The Magician relished these words.

  “Is that supposed to intimidate me?” the King snapped. He walked toward the Magician, leaves crunching beneath his heavy boots, until they were inches apart.

  “You’d be a fool not to be intimidated.” Now the Magician was stalling. She knew how this would end, and she needed to give Anna as much time as she could.

  The King felt his cheeks redden. “You know how to get to her. What’s it going to take to get you to share that information?”

  The men on horseback watched the scene unfold, their breath tight in their chests. Their horses shuffled their hooves and whinnied, as anxious from waiting as the knights were.

  “I thought you’d never ask.” The Magician smiled wickedly. “The first thing you’re going to need to do is go get the Fool and bring him here—alive.”

  The King knew he had lost his leverage, and was now losing face in front of his army. He should have rushed in after these two imbeciles when he’d had the chance.

  “Bring the Fool,” he barked to one of his guards. “Quickly!” The guard took off at a run, his sword rattling at his side.

  “Once he is here, safe and sound, I’ll grant you entrance. At that point, we are free to go.”

  “Fine,” the King relented. It was a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things. “But tell me how you will do it. How will you get us there, to this other land? And tell me what I’m up against. I know you’ve warned her.”

  “An army of giants and monsters,” the Magician lied.

  The Hermit’s eyes flitted to the Magician.

  “The ground is made of hot lava, and most of your men will die trying to ride over it,” the Magician continued.

  The King swallowed hard, trying to keep his expression neutral. He glanced over his shoulder at the young boys on their horses, their faces growing wary, but the soldiers were still so eager to serve him. He felt a stab of worry.

  The Magician hoped she appeared calm on the outside as she tried to intimidate the King, but once again she felt for the piece of tapestry she’d taken before they left Cups. It still sat, soft and warm, in the pocket of her robe.

  “I need to get to my loom so I can bind these threads.�
�� Anna was still kneeling before her Cups tapestry in front of the cottage. She picked at an unraveling seam. “There’s been so much damage, and there are sections missing, pieces I trimmed.” She paused.

  “What?” Topper’s eyes narrowed.

  “You heard what the Magician said. I need to weave an army.” Anna ran her finger over the tapestry. “This is how you got to Pentacles,” Anna said, thinking out loud. “When I cut the tapestries apart, the borders opened up.”

  Topper came closer. “Do you think so? That is why I was able to sail to Pentacles?” He fingered one of the tattered spaces in the landscape of Cups.

  “I don’t have any proof, so I can’t know for sure. . . .”

  “But if you weave an army, it will come here, to Cups?” Topper scratched at his chin. “Can you do that?”

  “Changes to the tapestries change the world,” Anna repeated.

  The sun was shining brightly now and a cool breeze danced off the water, carrying the scent of a nearby jasmine bush into the air.

  Topper stretched his arms out wide. “Let’s weave an army!” He laughed. “As crazy as that sounds. I’ll start figuring out how we’re going to sneak you back into your old room.”

  She grinned at him. “Thank you, Topper. Thank you for believing in me.”

  * * *

  Anna cleared a space on James’s worktable, knowing she had very little time. The stains from their stamping project spilled across the table in deep gashes of color that made her heart catch in her chest. She began by working out her thoughts in sketches.

  She did not want any ordinary army. There was enough violence in the King’s infantry for the entire world as far as she was concerned.

  No, this army would embody the most powerful parts of being. Each might stand alone—she thought of her illustrations of Strength and Death—but together they would make up a sort of counsel for the soul. She would imbue them with great wisdom and great power, and they would be the protectors of her worlds.

  The Magician, the Hermit, the Fool, Strength, the Hanged Man, and Death. She thought of their offerings: creativity, quiet contemplation, innocence, spontaneity, fortitude, and rebirth. It was a strong start.

  If only she were weaving as she went instead of sketching. Her loom was like an extension of her hands and her mind.

  The High Priestess was next, a strong feminine figure who, to Anna, depicted the idea of knowing one’s own voice and not having it clouded by the opinions of others. Next came the Empress, representing nature, beauty, and fruitfulness, and with her, the Emperor, an icon of wisdom and power. Anna drew them while thinking of the tales she had heard of her own parents, a similarly strong pair.

  It felt like building a staircase, each figure a step toward truth. The figures were representative of all she knew. There was the surface knowledge—information from books that she had gleaned during her imprisonment, and everything she’d learned from her time with her advisors. There was her personal history, because there were important lessons there. From it, she drew the Tower and the Hierophant King.

  She was culling from every emotion she’d ever experienced and those she had witnessed in others. All the parts of her that had developed since she had arrived in Cups. The pain she had caused, the joy she had known. She accessed all of it, and in turn she was also scratching beneath the surface for the wisdom that was pooling there. Because weren’t these the things that made everyone human? Daniel’s anger, her anger, the King’s anger—was it all that different in the end? When one thing died within and another sprouted there, hopefully something good, but sometimes something evil. She wove an image of the Devil.

  She paused and tapped her pencil to her forehead. All the experiences she had had since she’d arrived in Cups. She began to sketch them, too. The bonds of friendship and what happened when those bonds were threatened. How did people heal from pain?

  Anna thought of James and how it felt to explore another person, body and mind. Her feelings for Topper, strange and confusing, and how talking to him seemed to stretch her consciousness—she sketched that, too. The Lovers.

  She drew the darker side of things. The look on Daniel’s face when he sent her away. The King’s fear of losing control.

  Back in the Tower, she had wanted to weave things, concepts that were not quite ripened enough to manifest, and now she was able to pluck them, utilize them to protect the people of Cups. The Wheel of Fortune. The Star.

  Perhaps one day they would be called upon to protect the people of Wands and Swords and Pentacles, too. Justice.

  The sun was rising by the time she stepped back, surveying her work. Finished.

  An army of twenty-one.

  For Anna, it was a physical representation of everything she had learned, as well as all that was on offer for her to learn in the future. On offer for every human being to learn. But today it was an army she hoped would be more powerful than any the world had ever known.

  Exhausted, Anna put the heels of her hands to her eyes and studied the sketches. “Are these just mad ravings?” she whispered aloud.

  “For all our sakes, I sure hope not.”

  James.

  Anna spun around.

  “Hello,” he said.

  Anna froze. “Hi,” she croaked, her voice rusty from hours of disuse.

  “Can you ever forgive me?” he asked quietly.

  Relief flooded through Anna’s tired body and, without thinking, she ran into his arms and held on, tight.

  “You?” Anna cried into his chest. “Can you ever forgive me? I lied to you.”

  He took her hands in his. “Topper told me everything, showed me the tapestries.”

  Anna realized she hadn’t seen Topper all night and hadn’t even thought of where he might be. While she’d frantically sketched, Topper had gone to find James and had convinced him to come back to her. Her face flushed.

  James studied her sketches. “It’s like nothing I have ever seen. It makes me feel so small.” He leaned in, meeting Anna’s eyes. “I hate that we turned you away like that. I hate myself for it. I’m ashamed of the way I acted.”

  “I understand why you did it,” she reassured him, placing one hand on his chest and the other through his hair, making sure he was real. She had lied, she hadn’t trusted James enough to tell him the truth, and she was confused about her feelings for Topper. Things just didn’t seem so black and white anymore. She gestured toward the pages on the table. “We’re complicated beings. We have many layers.”

  James surveyed her work. “I’m a little scared of you, Anna,” he said.

  A flicker of worry crossed her features, and she let her hands drop to her sides.

  James smiled at her, but his eyes were serious. “You wove all of us before you even met us. It explains things—like why we have no past, no parents.” He took her hand again. “If I hadn’t seen your friends disappear like that on the beach yesterday, I might not have believed it. The night you arrived makes sense now. You really did come out of nowhere.”

  He kissed her, the gentle softness of his lips quelling her anxieties. When he pulled away, Anna felt dazed.

  She rolled her shoulders and leaned forward to collect her sketches from the worktable, and James bent down to help her.

  “I’ve created an army to protect Cups from the King,” Anna explained. “But I have to get to my loom to weave them into the tapestry.”

  James picked up the sketch of the Tower. “Is there where you were held prisoner?” Anna nodded as she shuffled the rest of the sketches into a stack she could manage, preparing to sneak back to the villa.

  “I asked the Magician to level it before we left the Hierophant’s Kingdom,” she said somberly. She felt a pang of guilt for the guards who had lost their lives.

  James let out a low whistle. “Now I really am scared of you.”

  * * *

&nb
sp; The three of them let the horses free on the beach once they reached the villa. James assured Anna and Topper that they would make it back to the stables on their own.

  They crept up the stairs and onto Anna’s patio. James went first in case they ran into anyone, but when he tried to open the door, it was locked.

  He scrunched up his face and tugged harder on the knob. “Damn it,” James said. “Why would they do this?”

  In a place where doors were never locked, they had barred Anna’s to make sure she couldn’t try to come back.

  “We’ll have to break the glass,” said Topper.

  “Won’t it make too much noise?” Anna whispered.

  Before Topper could answer, James had taken off his shirt and wrapped his hand in it. He punched his fist through the window next to the door.

  Topper and Anna jumped back.

  James unwrapped his hand, shook it out, and then put his knuckles in his mouth.

  He leaned over the patio to see if the noise had awakened anyone, but the rest of the windows on the villa’s face remained dark. James waved for them to go inside.

  Anna scrambled through the window, careful to avoid broken glass.

  It was gone.

  Anna grabbed at the air with her hands and pulled them into tight fists, shaking them in front of her chest.

  “This is ridiculous!” she hissed. “How am I supposed to help them if they keep stopping me at every turn?”

  James and Topper came up behind her in the darkness and glared at the piles of yarn and fabric where Anna’s loom used to be.

  “I told you not to come back.” Anna jumped at the sound of Daniel’s voice behind them, Dragon at his side, a low growl moving through his throat. He held up a bright lantern in front of his face, nearly blinding them.

  “Where is the loom?” Anna demanded, panic rising in her chest. She didn’t know if they had hours or minutes before the King and his army arrived.

  “I burned it,” Daniel said, lowering the lantern so that it lit his face in eerie shadows.