The Janus Cycle

by Tej Turner

  I went through the whole pack several times, inventing narratives and scenarios in my mind for each image. The stories often changed a little between viewings, depending upon my mood, which I found fascinating. I began to build a relationship with them.

  The second thing happened a week later.

  I received a surprise personal message from someone on Trans-Connect.

  Hello,

  Feeling a bit shy? Sorry, I have just seen you online a few times, and realised you’ve never posted. I understand… it took me a while to open up on here as well. BTW I couldn’t help but notice on your details that you’re from the same town as me!

  PM me if you ever want to chat.

  I was wary at first. All these months of being harried at school had made me paranoid about everyone and everything. I worried that it was someone from school lining themselves up to make a cruel joke on me, but then I saw that his particular user was a frequent poster on the discussions, so it seemed to be legitimate.

  I replied and we ended up chatting all evening. His name was Ben; he was twenty-three, born female, at the end of his HRT program, and on a waiting list for state-funded surgery. It was a thrill to talk to somebody who was nearing the end of a long journey I had barely started, and it instilled me with hope.

  He asked me if I was being hassled at school so I told him about some of it but not the full extent because I was too ashamed.

  Eventually we ended up on the topic of the cards I found.

  Are you sure she never said anything to you that somehow led you to find that box?

  Not that I can remember, I typed back.

  Have you used them yet?

  I have been looking at them a lot, I replied. I think they are quite old… I wonder where she got them from…

  What I meant, is have you used them on someone yet? Like, predictions and stuff?

  No…

  Why not?

  I don’t have any friends.

  You could try them on me if you like?

  I don’t really believe in stuff like that… I said, making the first excuse I could find. The thought of testing myself on another person made me feel nervous.

  I’m not sure if I do either, he replied. But there is something… weird about your story that interests me. Go on, flip some cards over and let’s see what happens.

  I turned some cards over and put them in line. The Hierophant, The Fool, The Ten of Wands, The Chariot, and The Ace of Wands. The Hierophant bestows a hat upon someone who much resembles The Fool; who naively ventures off into the mountains. In the Ten of Wands someone was trapped between impending spears, struggling to maintain their ground. The Chariot, depicts someone being raised upon the shoulders of two strong women. The Ace of Wands, an empowering conclusion, presents the final prize: a glowing rod wrapped in cloth.

  I think someone has deceived you, and because of this you will soon find yourself in a difficult situation. You can trust in the aid of two women who will appear out of the woodwork. You will emerge from this challenge in a better position than you were before.

  My occasional exchanges with Ben in the evening made life a little more bearable and he soon managed to coax me into making posts on the forum, and other people on it began chatting to me. The next thing I knew I was an active member of an online community with people I shared an understanding with.

  School remained more or less the same but finally having a handful of people I could almost call friends, even if it was just over the internet, made me cope with it better.

  We all had to do a short presentation on an ethical issue a couple of weeks later. It was a task most of the students did half-heartedly but my confidence had recently been boosted by my contacts online so I was happy to have a chance to try and spread awareness about the hidden side to our meat industry.

  I was laughed at and people soon had another thing to tease me about. Kids who were not even in that lesson goaded me for weeks after with jokes about how far my love for animals extended.

  I got a message from Ben a while later. He was a bit freaked out because it appeared that everything I predicted for him in that tarot card reading had come true: an ambitious and sly colleague who had been jealous of his growing position in the office had been misleading him about his workload and then lying to the managers about it in an attempt to get him fired, but eventually two of his female peers had stepped in to help him expose the truth. The colleague was fired, which opened up an opportunity for Ben’s promotion.

  I was not quite sure what to make of all of that, but he eventually managed to convince me to offer readings to other people. I got more and more positive feedback and started giving readings to people online on a regular basis.

  This transitioned into the real life a couple of months later when a girl in the year above me caught me playing with my cards in a corner of the library. When I saw her coming over I made to hide them away because the last thing I wanted was to draw any more unwanted attention to myself, but she was surprisingly intrigued and not in a mean way. She begged me to try them out on her. I caved in, and two days later she returned, squealing about how some of the things I foretold had already come true. I soon had a hoard of her friends harassing me to have their futures’ told as well.

  Somehow, after only giving readings to a few kids in the senior years, word of my new found “hobby” spread across the school like wildfire, and a few days later it was a regular addition to the ever-growing list of things my classmates harassed me over. My change of gender, the animal rights presentation, and their reaction to this new one fell into an escalating pattern. It vexed me because any other kid who dabbled in Tarot or spoke out against animal cruelty would have received little heed but it seemed that being the only transgendered person in my school had imposed upon me the status of an infamous celebrity – I drew unwanted attention by just existing.

  I tried to keep my head down and even stopped bringing my cards to school but the ones who appreciated my readings nagged me and I soon realised that, no matter how hard I tried to fade into the background, they were now always finding something to talk about. My school year were fascinated by me, and activities which were fairly standard for a girl of my age, such as experimenting with makeup, getting my ears pierced, and even the slightest alterations to my hair, were immediately noticed and drew wolves who had heard the whispers to come and howl at me.

  One lunchtime, a boy called Jarvis blocked my path by slamming his arm against the wall. I tried to skirt around him but he just stood there, staring at me with a peculiar expression on his face.

  “Can you really do it?” he asked.

  “Do what?” I replied, guardedly. I looked around, realising that he was alone. Which was unusual; people usually only gave me bother when they had an audience to impress upon.

  “The cards,” he uttered. “The future stuff.”

  “Err, well I don’t really…” I began to make an excuse; something about the vibe I was getting from him was making me uneasy.

  “Can you read for me?” he asked.

  He pulled me into a classroom, and cast a wary glance down the corridor before shutting the door. I sensed his need for secrecy so I sat at a table in the far corner of the room.

  “So… what do I do?” he asked, uncharacteristically nervous as he ambled towards me.

  “Just split the pack,” I said, gesturing him to sit on the other side. He sat down and tepidly picked up half the cards, then turned to me questioningly.

  “Put them down,” I said.

  I shuffled the two halves together, and as soon as I turned them over I knew something was deeply wrong. A heavy silence hung between us for a few moments.

  “Something has upset the stability in your life at home,” I began, eyeing up The World card. It was upside down.

  He didn’t say anything but I took the way he shifted uncomfortably and looked down at the table as a confirmation.

  “I think it’s your parents… there is a… friction,” I said,
choosing my words carefully. The cards were hinting that there was much more than mere friction going on, but I could see that Jarvis was unsettled.

  “Is it going to get better?” he asked.

  I turned to the last few cards for the resolution. The Tower, The Lovers – also reversed –, the Hanged Man.

  “Only when your father leaves,” I said. “You need to help your mother get—”

  “No!” he exclaimed, shaking his head violently. “I asked if it is going to get better! The way it was before!”

  I paused, cautiously deliberating my next words.

  “It will get better,” I said. “But first he has to leave. He is what is wrong, Jarvis. Not you or—”

  He seemed close to tears.

  “Jarvis,” I whispered, not quite knowing how to respond to a boy who had spent the last year giving me regular bruises and was now sitting before me teary-eyed and looking so vulnerable. “What has your father been doing?”

  “What the hell do you know!” he snapped, jumping up from the table. His face turned red. “You’re just a freak! You don’t know shit!”

  “It’s the cards,” I whispered, suddenly feeling scared. “I can’t change them. Jarvis… you can talk to me. Or someone. You need help.”

  “No! Forget it!” he yelled, as he stomped towards the door. “If you tell anyone about this you’re dead!”

  The whole incident shook me a little, and a nervous feeling crept into my stomach when I remembered he was in the same class as me for my next lesson. After the bell rang I went to line up outside the classroom, trying to be inconspicuous. I thought that if I just did that then Jarvis would avoid me.

  I had never been so wrong in my life.

  He snatched my bag from my shoulder as he came up behind me. I tried to grab it back but one of the other boys pushed me away.

  “Oh, look what we have here…” Jarvis sneered as he reached into the opening. “What does the tranny carry with her?” He pulled out a stick of mascara and tossed it over his shoulder. “Makeup! Oh – that’s a pretty pencil case…”

  By now he had caught everyone’s attention and they were all laughing. “What’s this, Tilly?”

  He pulled out my tarot cards. They were wrapped in purple silk, but he soon had that unravelled and floating to the floor.

  “Nancyboy has decided he’s a gyppo now as well!” he exclaimed as he began to rifle through them.

  In desperation I tried to push my way past the boy who was holding me back but it was hopeless, he just shoved me aside.

  “Oh look,” he said. “Tilly’s fighting back. His balls must be growing.”

  He then kicked my bag, sending it skidding up the corridor. I barely noticed. I was more concerned with what Jarvis was doing to my mother’s tarot cards. He was now tossing them into the air, sending them drifting down like little white feathers.

  I ran over to catch them but the other boy just pushed me back again, this time so hard my head struck the wall and I cried out.

  “I shouldn’t fight you, really,” said the boy who had been landing me with punches for months. “You think you’re a girl now? Well, maybe you should fight one.” He turned to one of the girls standing a few yards away, Gemma. She was a quiet member of our year group, more like a timid sheep than a wolf – I had never really had much bother from her before.

  “Gemma,” he said. “I bet even you could beat up Tilly… go on.”

  “But…” she said, looking at me and then turning back to Jarvis, searching for an excuse. “I—”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” he grinned as he kicked my bag against the wall again. “He’s a wimp. Go on! Do it!”

  Jarvis had now finished scattering my cards and was now busy scuffing them against the murky floor with the soles of his shoes. I was almost blind with rage. My mother’s cards!

  I ran over to save them but Gemma kicked me. It appeared that even sheep had hooves when they were pressured by the herd. I tried to push her aside but she came bouncing back, kicking me in the shins over and over again. I just wanted my cards back. I kicked her back, to serve as a warning, but she wouldn’t stop. Jarvis was still stamping on my mother’s cards and she was in the way.

  I slapped her across the face and her head rolled to the side. She looked at me in shock and placed a hand to her reddening cheek. Suddenly the laughter stopped and the corridor went silent. Clarissa stepped between us, grabbing Gemma’s hand and pulling her away.

  Jarvis and the other boys must have realised that this time they had taken it way too far, because they cleared the area. I went down on my knees and began gathering my cards and everything else they had tipped from my bag.

  The headmaster was out that day, so it was Ms Hodgeson, the deputy headmistress, who I was sent to see. She was a broad woman with thick, sturdy legs like tree-trunks. I had never spoken to her before because she was primarily a PE teacher for the girls.

  “Sit down,” she said when I entered the room.

  It was a shock for me to be here; I wasn’t expecting the incident to be reported to the teachers at all – wouldn’t bringing it all out in the open, and get them in even more trouble than myself?

  In a way I was elated because I had never had the courage to come to the teachers about all the stuff that had been going on but now that it had been done for me, things could only change for the better. Maybe—

  “You are suspended for three days.”

  “Wh-at?!” I gasped.

  “You hit a girl, Tilly.”

  “But she was kicking me and—” I began to explain.

  She silenced me by shaking her head. “She and Clarissa have already told me what happened,” she said with finality.

  “She attacked me!” I exclaimed. “Jarvis and Gary stole my cards. They were my mother’s, and—”

  “I don’t want to hear any of it,” she said, calmly. “I have been teaching Gemma for two years, and she is a very sweet girl. She told me about how you got yourself into a disagreement with the other boys but, Tilly, she was only trying to intervene! I will have a word with them but—”

  I didn’t even listen to the rest of what she said because all I felt was shock coupled with despair. I had never felt so trapped and isolated in my whole entire life. I stared at the carpet and, in that moment, the last shred of any childish naïvety I had about the world being fair died.

  That incident taught me not to trust the system, and it taught the wolves that teachers were gullible and would side with the majority, no matter how implausible their story was, so they carried on testing my limits. I kept my head down and took it all without making a noise. I just didn’t care about anything anymore. My grades dropped. I never took my tarot cards or anything of value back to school. I withdrew more and more into myself.

  I squirmed through it all until the summer finally came, but it passed by way too fast. When I came back in September, the boys were wider of frame and the girls were fuller in the chest. The tablets I was taking were keeping my body in a developmental stasis while everyone else was going through puberty. Even though I had a prepubescent figure, I had learned ways of wearing clothes to disguise it; also, I had the high voice of a child while the boys were all beginning to sound like men. Reluctantly, they were finally starting to think of me as a girl, which is probably why they fought back so hard with verbal abuse and the fabrication of weekly rumours, mostly involving my penis.

  The truth is, I don’t need them to remind me of my penis. It is always there, waiting for me, every time I use the bathroom or take a shower, and in those unbearable moments when I wake up in the morning to it raising the bed sheets. I wear girls’ clothes, apply makeup, my hair is long now. All of these things make me feel happy and nearer to finding myself, but it also lures people around me into feeling like they should try to make my life miserable. I feel like Tilly in my heart, and I am adamant when it comes under discussion that I am a girl, but the truth is that I am deeply insecure about it. I always will be until the day that I am
old enough for them to cut that last piece of Charlie away…

  By Christmas I was in despair again. I needed something in life to look forward to.

  It was time to take matters into my own hands.

  “What have you been doing?” my grandmother asked me one day when I walked into the living room a few months later. She had just returned from church and was staring at me shrewdly, as if she had just noticed something.

  “What?” I asked, innocently. I was genuinely confused.

  “You’re changing,” she said, looking me up and down.

  “Changing?”

  “You… your… body,” she said.

  My stomach turned over and I knew that my face must have already given me away so there was no point in lying to her.

  “What have you been doing, Tilly?” she asked, her widened eyes looking me up and down. “You’ve been taking something else, haven’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “Hormones?” she exclaimed. “Where did you get them from, Tilly? You’re not supposed to have them for another two years yet!”

  “One year and nine months,” I corrected. “I ordered them online.”

  Her hand went to her chest and, for a horrible moment, I thought she was going to have a heart attack. I studied the carpet.

  “You must stop,” she said.

  “It doesn’t matter anyway!” I exclaimed. “It’s useless. I’ve been taking them for months, and look! Hardly anything has changed!”

  “Tilly,” my grandmother said, her voice now softer. “Come with me for a moment.”

  She got out her digital camera and told me to stand in the middle of the living room so she could take a photo. Afterwards she got me to help her upload the picture onto her computer and brought it up on the screen.