“Anastasia,” a voice slithers out from the dark and the rain, like a bar dropping down in the middle of my path.
I stop short and turn, spinning on the ball of my bare foot, pavement grinding under my skin. It’s hard to see through the rain, but I can make out a silhouette beneath the streetlamp. That’s all it seems to be: just shape and shadow, and the white embers of its eyes, and then the gleaming, pointed teeth, too large for its grin.
A demon. One of the Sura. Watching me.
Speaking to me.
Saying my name.
My heart knocks at the back of my throat, rising on a wave of adrenaline, and I remember my mother saying once, If you ever come across a demon lurking in the dark, just tell it to leave, and it will. It has to obey you, because without you, it isn’t real.
“Go away,” I mutter and close my eyes. My insides shiver, suddenly hyper-aware of the damp cold. “Go away, go away, go away…” When I open my eyes, it’s gone.
My heart races, horrified and excited. What does this mean? They know who I am, that I can see them—they know my name. Is this what I’ve felt coming? And if it is, what do I—
“Anastasia!”
I yelp involuntarily and spin around to see the thing that has hissed in my ear. The shadow creature is there, inches from me, impossibly tall and endlessly dark, an outline of horns curving away from its head and up to the sky. It’s eyes burn bright with laughter.
“Go away!” I shout. When it does not, I bolt in the direction of home.
My feet are suddenly leaden, like in a bad dream. Home is only a block away, but it feels like it might as well be miles. All down the street I think I see the creature’s face among the shadows, lurching towards me from the darkness, laughing, grinning as it watches me flee.
I’m not afraid, I think. I can out run them, I can use the protection spell. They can’t touch me.
“Shama Irin,” I whisper, voice shaking with each step pounding against pavement. “Shama Iritz. Shama Naghim. Shama Irin. Shama Iritz. Shama Naghim…” The words fill me, their ancient magic fighting against my fear.
Finally, my driveway in sight, I turn to see if the demon has followed me—
“Oomph!”
I impact, full force, with something hard and broad, but with the warm, natural give of flesh—a body—and bounce backwards. A dark figure catches my arms and holds fast, hauling me upright.
Lightning splinters the sky overhead, and in the shadows of the hooded face before me, eyes flash golden, like a cat’s.
My heart hammers into my throat, and I open my mouth to scream.
— 12 —
“Ana, it’s me!” Trebor throws back his hood, letting the rain pelt him.
I freeze, holding my breath. Is this for real?
“Are you okay?” He asks. He realizes he’s still holding my arm, and drops it.
I surprise myself by laughing a full-body laugh, some kind of hysterical catharsis moving through me from my face to my feet. “Oh my god,” I manage to say between breaths. “I thought you were…and then…but…oh. God.” But I keep laughing, doubled over, hands on my knees, horrified and relieved all at once.
The rain slides off of my skin in rivulets, tickling me, sending shivers down my spine. It makes me aware of just how cold it really is outside, and just how crazy I must be, or at least seem to be. I straighten after a moment, no longer smiling, and run my hands through the tangled mess of my wet hair as if I might pull away the shadows from inside my head.
I look at Trebor, openly stare at him, at his hooded black jacket, thinking about the flash of his eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“I was out,” he tries to explain again, shifting uncomfortably, gesturing behind him to a figure coming towards us, also in a hooded black jacket. “Andy—”
“Andy?” I wonder.
He inclines his head towards me, genuinely concerned. “Are you sure you’re okay? You looked terrified.”
I hesitate, swallow my nerves. “Um, I…I’m fine, I was just—”
“Ana!” Andy waves and jogs towards us. “Ana, are you okay?” he asks, taking in the very damp sight of me. His tone is half concerned, half amused.
I’m suddenly more embarrassed than afraid, but I mask it with a sharp laugh. Andy Pavlovic is not exactly someone to be afraid of—whether or not Trebor is has yet to be seen. “Yeah, of course. I was just getting some exercise.”
“Barefoot? In the rain?” Andy wonders, cocking an eyebrow.
“Well, you know us gypsy folk,” I give him a tight smile, summoning the slur used most often to tease me. “We like to stay close to the earth. What are you two doing out this way?” I look around for more friends to suddenly appear and ask questions.
Andy laughs and points to his car a little farther up the street, a red mustang his parents bought him for his eighteenth birthday as a gift for being an ideal son—class president, valedictorian, going to an ivy league school in the fall, and making it this far without knocking up a cheerleader, being gay, or turning out to be controversial in any way. “I was taking Trebor to meet my cousins down the street. I’m parked just over there.”
“Your cousins?” I had no idea he had family on my street.
“The Richmonds, blue house on the left. They just moved in.”
“Oh.” Duh. I feel stupid for being suspicious. “Sorry.”
“No worries. Hey, listen, don’t let us stop you—you look cold.”
“Right,” I nod, smile curtly at both of them, and start to walk past them, towards my porch.
“Oh, hey, Ana, one thing,” Andy says.
My shoulders tighten before I turn back to Andy and Trebor, pushing the wet mop of my hair out of my face.
“Are you coming to Kyla’s party tomorrow?”
What, to my best friend’s house party? I have to stop myself from scoffing. “Hmm, yeah, I think I’ll stop by.”
Andy half smiles, and glances at Trebor for an instant. “Bringing your tarot deck?”
I clench my jaw, and also glance at Trebor, wondering if it had been such a good idea to showcase my abilities at school this morning. But Trebor’s face is neutral, observing us as if he’s not even a part of the conversation anymore. I know that kind of expression. I practice it often.
“Wasn’t planning on it, no.” It almost comes out as a sneer.
“Oh, hey, I didn’t mean it like a joke,” Andy insists, apologetic. “I was actually wondering if you would give me a reading some time. My aunt was just telling us about a reading she got from a Spiritualist in Lily Dale, and Trebor said you were pretty remarkable.” He gives me a good-natured, if crooked, smile and lets the potential double meaning sink in. “So, I was kind of intrigued.”
I blink at him, trying to keep my face expressionless. “Sure. Maybe during study hall or something.”
“Awesome. Well, see you tomorrow then!” Andy says, and turns to head back to his car.
“Goodnight, Anastasia,” Trebor says, drawing my eyes back to him. His voice penetrates, wraps around me, a gentle grip teasing warmth from my belly.
It is him—the flashing eyes, the voice like a spell—Trebor is the man I saw last night. But was that—and is he—also the man from the cemetery? And should I say something?
Should he?
Momentarily lost in the sound of his voice and the spiral of questions in my head, it takes just long enough for me to respond for it to be too long. I feel awkward when I finally say something.
“Goodnight,” I almost whisper.
But he hears me, and he nods, once, before he turns to follow Andy back to the car.
— 13 —
Saturday evening, I park my ‘92 ice blue Dodge Dynasty (which Kyla has dubbed The Nasty since the “Dy” fell off) in the Patel’s busted cement driveway. Locking my doors against the mischief of soon-to-be-arriving party-goers, I jog up the steps to the front door and let myself in.
The Patel’s house is the same house that Kyla’s mother has live
d in since Kyla was born, the same year Amrita and Karanina became best friends and neighbors, when my family briefly lived next door. It’s a rundown split-level, barely hanging on to the escarpment it was built into. From the outside, it looks like a dump. The siding is peeling and sloughing off; the window shutters haven’t been painted in over a decade; the chimney is crumbling. Seemingly, the only decent thing about the Patel’s property is the fact that Ellicott Creek winds its way through the picturesque backyard.
The inside of the house is completely incongruent with the exterior: it’s furnished with dark hardwood floors and thick, ivory shag rugs, sturdy furniture with jacquard upholstery and silk throw pillows, a flat-panel hi-definition television, and a massive entertainment system stocked with every gaming console to emerge in the last two decades. The kitchen alone is a work of art, with sparkling black granite countertops, oak cupboards, a hammered steel double sink, two ovens, an indoor grill. Whenever I enter Kyla’s house, I imagine this is what it would feel like to step inside of an issue of Pottery Barn or Better Homes and Gardens.
“Hello?” I call out as I enter. As usual, the scent of fennel and spices wafts from the kitchen, clean and sweet, the perfume of the Patel’s home for as long as I can remember.
“Whaddup, A?” Kyla shouts from the stairwell on the right, out of sight.
“Hey. I brought some fancy wine from my Dad’s stash!”
“Sweet! Hey, come up here, help me with the—” Crash. “Ladder.”
I set my things on the couch and dash upstairs, where Kyla is struggling to reattach the hall light to its mount on the wall. The drop-down ladder to the attic is unfolded, a crimped steel stairway beckoning into the shadows.
“There we go,” Kyla says, snapping the fixture into place. She dusts off her hands and turns her gaze on me, smiling one of her infectious smiles.
“What’s going on?” I ask, incapable of not smiling back.
“I want to show you something.” Kyla hands me a flashlight. “Ladies first.”
I raise my eyebrows, curiosity piqued, and grab onto the hand rail. But the ascent into the attic is not as simple as a few steps into the dark. The higher we climb, the more nostalgic I feel—the more my memories begin to take over. We spent a great deal of time in this attic as kids; it was our sanctuary when the world had seemed poised to attack.
Reaching the top of the ladder, I flick on my flashlight, boxing the dark into corners. Kyla comes up behind me and the two of us pause, breathing in our ghosts.
The musty smell of the unfinished wood reminds me of so much, all at once. Over there, by the caving-in stack of cardboard boxes, Kyla and I used to talk about crushes of the worst kind, unrequited love, and the inability to tuck our hearts back under our sleeves. And over here, by the stack of board games, I told Kyla about my first kiss. And over there, by the metal milk crates, that’s where Kyla told me she was pretty sure that she was gay, and I had been selfishly relieved that we would never end up fighting over the same guy, because, for as long as it had even been a consideration, I knew she would always win.
Behind a pile of old toys, mostly hidden by a stack of boxes, is the nook where Kyla used to hide after explosive fights with her mother, and Amrita’s refusal to discuss the topic of Kyla’s father. I had often been sent by Amrita to calm her daughter, to ply her with warm coconut milk and honey, but I always found that imagination was the key to soothing Kyla’s wild temper. Together, we would fantasize the myriad ways Kyla would one day discover the truth about her father—her father the pirate, the king of a tropical island, the prince of a lost kingdom. We schemed and plotted and imagined until, eventually, Kyla just stopped asking about him at all, happier to imagine than to face the reality that she might never know.
And over there, by the stuffed animal collection Kyla gathered in her childhood and abandoned with the onset of puberty: that’s where I used to curl up on a heap of old blankets and cry until I was certain I would die from it. That’s where I told Kyla about false remission, and gamma knife radiosurgery, and how my mother hadn’t recognized me sometimes because of the pressure the tumor put on her temporal lobe.
“Wow,” I sigh, feeling our past all around us for the first time in a long time. I shine my light on a chalk-drawn séance circle on the floorboards. “How long has it been since we’ve been up here?”
Kyla makes a thoughtful noise. “A while.” She hunches and moves forward, shining her light on the ground as she heads towards the far side of the attic. “So, listen. I remembered seeing this a few years ago when your mom was…well, when she knew she wasn’t going to make it. Remember she asked my mother to hold onto some things for your family? Like, photo albums she didn’t want around the house. Heirlooms. Stuff that might be an unnecessary reminder.”
“Yeah. I remember.” I also remember finding a sketch my father had made of my mother when they were first dating, hidden away in his desk before Karanina and Amrita could pack it away, to protect him.
“Well, there was also this thing for you.” Kyla reaches behind a stack of books.
“What thing?” I duck to avoid the low angle of the ceiling and come up behind Kyla.
“This.” Kyla turns around and hands me a box.
It’s about the size of a lunch box, rectangular, made of some kind of dark red hard wood that’s been polished and oiled to a low sheen. There’s an engraving on the lid: a labyrinth, with two keys crossed at the center.
“I thought of the box when you pulled The Hierophant card the other day, and then again for Trebor yesterday,” Kyla tells me. “On the card, there are two keys crossed over each other between the two monks by the foot of the throne. I don’t know what’s in it, but I figured I might as well give it to you now.”
I study the box with my hands, testing the surprisingly slight weight of it, tracing its contours, the deep grooves of the winding path around the labyrinth. I slide my fingernail along the sides to find a lip, an edge, some way of opening the box. There is only the smallest of seams. I manage to get my thumbnail into it, but there’s no leverage for pulling.
“I’m not gonna lie, I’ve tried to get inside that thing like a million times,” Kyla says. “I have no idea how to open it.”
I give the box a gentle shake and hear something move inside, just enough to rattle against the interior. “My mom asked you to hold onto this?”
“Yeah. Well, specifically, she asked my mom to. And, specifically, she asked her to hold onto it until you finished school. But I figure the box is way more yours than ours, so if you want it now…”
I frown, looking at the gift with a strange feeling in my heart. What on earth could it possibly hold that my mother had wanted the Patels to hold onto it for the last three years? And would it be wrong to ignore my mother’s wishes, or to take a hammer and wedge to the box and force it open?
“Thanks,” I say, and press the box to my chest. “I guess I’ll take it, I mean, so long as your mom won’t be mad or anything.”
“Nah,” Kyla assures me with a dismissive wave of her hand. “She never liked having it here anyway. She says… well.”
“What?” I’m curious. “What does she say?”
Kyla shrugs. “She says it’s bad luck to hold things for the dead. It’s like you’re waiting for them to come back.”
I consider that, holding my mother’s gift to me from beyond the grave against my heart, and feel the strangest of stirrings inside.
— 14 —
Later, when the party is in full swing, I get a few drinks in me and manage to forget about hooded men and heirloom boxes. Instead, I think about how much I hate going to parties at all.
“Where the hell is Kyla,” I mutter to myself, taking advantage of my height to scan the crowd. As usual, I feel like a giantess, a freak among humans, leaning against the wall while the other kids mingle and dance. If being a girl who is over six feet tall isn't enough to make it hard for me to fit in, my bright red hair is usually a beacon for rude stares. Since I
didn’t have my first big growth spurt until middle school, I've spent the last twelve years in public school being identified by this mop. Sometimes I want to cut it all off, or dye it black—but my mother had this same hair. Somehow, it feels like a betrayal to get rid of it.
No one is staring tonight, under dim lights over a crowd much more interested in itself than the girl against the wall—but everyone who passes and bumps into me inevitably does a double-take.
I don't know why I even bothered coming.
But, actually, I do. I came because, no matter how much of an outsider I feel like I am, some part of me craves the feeling of belonging, of being just a normal kid, of being someone accepted and thought fondly of by more than just my best friend.
“Hey, where's Kyla?” Andy asks, sidling up to me and shouting in my ear. I can't blame him though, it's loud in here. He looks me in the eye—he's one of the few guys I know who is tall enough to do that—waiting patiently and pleasantly for an answer.
I shrug. “I don't know, I've been looking for her myself.” I look past him, around us. “Where’s your shadow?”
He smiles. “He said he’d be coming around later.”
Andy’s eye contact unnerves me, and I look away as if searching again. When I glance back at him, he's still staring at me. He looks me up and down—not leering, but studious, as if searching for something.
“Hey, you don't have a drink. Let's remedy that!” He gives me a charming half smile and puts a hand behind my arm, giving just enough of a suggestion of a pull that I find myself detaching from the wall without meaning to.
Andy is sly like that. He'll probably be a politician someday.
“I'm fine,” I insist, thinking of the wine bottle I left with my coat in Kyla’s closet, but since I've already started to follow him he hooks my arm around his and leads me through the crowd. The physicality of it—of him—feels weird. Not forward, not frightening—just casual. I don't understand how it can feel so innocent when I know he's using all his charms.
The Hierophant (Book 1 in The Arcana Series) Page 5