Never Fear - The Tarot: Do You Really Want To Know?

by Heather Graham

  “Yes, sir,” Alan answered, hope lifting a thousand-pound weight from his shoulders. At least someone was listening. “Thank you, sir.”

  Alan read commiseration in Mr. Strickland’s gaze. “I was like you, Alan. I know how it feels. I’ll get to the bottom of this. I promise.”

  *

  A week went by. Then two. Alan struggled to get back into some kind of routine. But coming back to an empty room each day after class served as a grim reminder that Ollie was still missing. And that he might be dead.

  The police questioned him again, their questions growing more desperate. They searched for clues, tearing his room apart, even brought in dogs to search the grounds. All the while, Alan waited for Mr. Strickland’s promise to be fulfilled.

  He heard nothing. The police found nothing.

  Life went on. Weekends were the hardest. Without Ollie, time dragged. Alan spent most of his time in the library to avoid the Triumvirate and prayed Mr. Strickland would use his discretion.

  Alas, that was not to be. Very late on Saturday night, Alan awoke to rough hands, a piece of duct tape being slapped over his mouth. He watched them shake out a pillowcase that served as a hood as it shut him in darkness. Shards of terror slithered through his veins, his heart pounded so hard he could feel the beat in his ears, the roar drowning out everything else.

  They’d been drinking. Alan could smell the sour staleness of beer.

  Oh God! Oh God! What were they going to do to him?

  He found out soon enough. They carried him, kicking and trying to scream, up to the third floor music room. There, they yanked off his hood.

  Devlin paced, nearly beside himself as he hissed, “Rat on us, will you?”

  The blade of a pocket knife glinted eerily in the light of the candles in the room. “You little prick!” Chadwick added.

  Niebold simply pulled the tape off his mouth with a malicious grin.

  “You’re bullies, all of you!” Alan cried. Anger pushed away his stuttering. “Damn you all.”

  They laughed.

  “Gentlemen. Court is in session. Roman court. What say you?”

  They all called out, “Aye!”

  Forcing Alan to sit in a chair, Chadwick asked, “So, Augustus?”

  Devlin smiled. A shiver ran down Alan’s back. “Let’s begin, Vespasian.”

  Smack! Pain radiated through his cheek.

  Bam! Niebold’s backhand sent shards of glass through his face and made his head spin. They fired questions at him, yet Alan refused to answer. All the while, he heard a strange creaking behind him. Finally Augustus asked, “Hadrian. Are you ready?”

  “Yes, Augustus.”

  They yanked him out of the seat. Shaking, eyes wide as fear skittered through him, Alan turned. A slow hollow began to build in his stomach. The riser floorboards had been removed. Just enough room to…

  The room tilted then Alan screamed. A hand clamped over his mouth as he began fighting back. Buried Alive!

  Heart pounding, nostrils flared, he kicked and flailed to no avail. Tape replaced the fingers that crushed his cheeks and Alan fought and fought until exhaustion set in. Then they lifted him and pushed him into the tiny crawlspace. The first outer plank was nailed in. Hadrian laughed, enjoying each pound of the hammer on another nail. Alan whimpered, begging for mercy. They showed none.

  “You see, Trembles, we weren’t kidding,” Augustus told him.

  “No one rats on us,” Vespasian added.

  “Little coward.” Alan could hear the sneer in Hadrian’s tone.

  The last two floorboards were screwed in place. Alan kicked and pounded on them to loosen them. But he was too small, too weak to get them to budge. The walls began to close in. His heartbeat raced, his head pounded. He cried. He begged some more. Darkness descended. They were gone.

  Not the light. Oh, God, don’t take away the light!

  Alan shut his eyes, breathing deeply, trying to slow his heart. He couldn’t. All a bad dream. All a bad dream. The floorboard was an inch away from his nose. He felt it. Terror slithered through his veins. He kicked. He pounded.

  Then the sobs came.

  The walls continued to shrink. His throat closed. Mummified. Entombed. He was going to die. Encased in a coffin. Time passed without meaning.

  What was that? Alan strained to see. A glimmer of light? Yes! Yes! Light. Just a flicker.

  The creak of a floorboard. Oh joyous sound! Alan began to scream beneath the tape. “Help me! Help me!”

  All of a sudden another sound. The screech of a screw being turned. Relief flooded his being. Alan sobbed like a baby when the first board was lifted, sobbed even harder as she ripped off the tape. “Christine!”

  “Oh my God, Alan! What? Are all right? Who?” Her gaze hardened. “Those bastards! Those filthy, dirty bastards!”

  She helped him sit up and get out. He sat on the edge of the stage shaking while she replaced the floorboards. Cool air washed over him. He gulped it in as if he’d never be able to breathe again. “H-how did you find me?”

  “A bunch of laughter woke me up. I followed it to Devlin’s door. They were boasting about what they’d done.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We’ll get them for this,” she promised.

  “No!” he cried. He gripped her hands and begged. “No. Please. No. They’ll do it again. No more! Do you hear me? No more!”

  “All right, Alan,” she soothed. “All right. Take it easy.”

  “I-I told Mr. Strickland. Even he won’t help. He’s too afraid of what they’ll do to his precious school. No one will help.”

  “What about Mr. Pickering?”

  “Alone. All alone.”

  Christine stared at him as if he’d cracked. Well, hadn’t he?

  “Let’s get you downstairs,” she said.

  Alan stayed in his room all day Sunday, not eating, barely sleeping, and nearly freezing with the window wide open, terrified to turn the light off.

  On Monday he went to Mr. Strickland. “Yes, Antonius?” his teacher asked, thinking it was about class.

  “Please, s-s-sir.” He could barely get the word out.

  “Slowly, Alan.”

  “Want… you… to stop. D-d-did not see anything.”

  His teacher frowned, concern rampant in his gaze. “Are you sure, Alan? They didn’t do anything to you, did they?”

  “N-n-n no, s-s-sir.”

  “Alan,” Mr. Strickland continued, his tone gentle. “If they’ve used force in any kind of way, you need to tell me.”

  Alan shook his head and ran out of the room. He couldn’t breathe. His chest locked. He ran to his favorite tree and fell to his knees gasping for air. Chris found him there. Alarm filled her gaze. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Physics?”

  “Ca-ca-ca-can’t go inside. N-n not yet.”

  “Maybe you should go to the Infirmary. Tell them you don’t feel well. C’mon Alan,” she continued. “I’ll help you.”

  Alan stayed in the Infirmary until the doctor came, followed by Mr. Strickland and Mr. Pickering. The doctor examined him and asked questions. Then he moved off to speak to the two men. But Alan could hear. Trauma. Panic attack.

  “Alan, we’re going to call your parents. You need to go home and rest,” Mr. Strickland told him.

  “No! I’m all right! Please,” he begged. “I can’t go home!”

  His parents would never forgive him. They’d beggared themselves to get him into The Excelsior. They knew how smart he was. They dreamed of what he could do with his life using those brains.

  Mr. Strickland seemed uncertain. “Are you sure?” He bent down and whispered to him, “I know you’re lying about being bullied, Alan. I want to help. But I can’t do that unless you tell me what happened.”

  Help? The man wanted to help? That was funny. Alan had trusted him once. Did he think he could trust him again? And what if he did go to Mr. Pickering? Would Mr. Strickland back him up?

  Alan knew the answers to those questions.
<
br />   “No,” Alan insisted. “I’m…” He swallowed but didn’t stutter. “All right. I’ll be fine.” He sat up. He prayed the connectors in his brain would work and he wouldn’t stutter. “May I go back to my classes now?”

  Mr. Strickland nodded and shrugged. So he did. He went to class alone. He sat alone, ate alone, studied alone, and finally the Triumvirate left him alone.

  *

  They found Ollie on a bright spring Tuesday morning. The police, using dogs, followed a short-cut Ollie might have taken to go to the train station through the woods. They found him crumpled on the ground, his suitcase next to him. The autopsy revealed a heart defect. On his way to the road, Ollie’d had a massive heart attack.

  But Alan knew something else that would cause that kind of heart attack. And he knew better than to go to Mr. Strickland or Mr. Pickering with his suspicions. So he turned to the last remaining friend he had. Christine. And told her to meet him down by the lake.

  “They killed Ollie,” he announced once she got there.

  “No, they didn’t, Alan.”

  “Just as if they’d put a gun to his head. They locked him under the stage and the stress caused his heart attack.”

  “You can’t prove that,” Christine insisted. “And you can’t accuse them. Not after what—happened.”

  Alan grimaced but stood his ground. “I’m going to gain their trust. Slowly. So they relax around me. And then I’m going to gather the proof I need.”

  He offered his brain in return for entry into their club. Homework, reports, test answers. So did Christine. They didn’t accept right away, which gave him time to get to town and purchase small tape recorders. He and Christine recorded each conversation, gathering enough evidence to have all three boys expelled from the school.

  During the conversations, Alan realized they were referring to some kind of club. An inner circle club. He told Christine about it.

  “They call it The Emperor’s Club,” she told him.

  Stunned he asked, “You know about it?”

  “Sure. Mr. Strickland’s project for his little ‘pets.’”

  At first Alan felt betrayed. Christine knew this and he didn’t. But then he rationalized there was no reason for Christine to tell him. But what if he could use it to his advantage? Perhaps he could prove all of his suspicions. That afternoon, he caught up with Mr. Strickland at the end of the green.

  “I want in,” Alan stated.

  Taken aback, his teacher stared. “In? I beg your pardon but in what? In where?”

  “The Emperor’s Club.”

  “Of course you can join,” Mr. Strickland told him with a quick laugh. “It’s open to all students.”

  Alan took a deep breath and looked the man straight in the eye. “No. I want into the one the others don’t know about.”

  With a skeptical glance, his teacher said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Alan stepped forward right into the man’s face. “I think you do, Caesar. And the Ides of March are almost upon us.”

  Alan whirled on his heel, walking briskly back toward his dorm. He began to shake as he walked, alternating between terrified and euphoric.

  He’ll tell them. They’ll put me in there again.

  No, they won’t. Because I’ll go straight to the police.

  Mr. Strickland will protect them. He’ll tell them I had a breakdown.

  I’m going to expose them once and for all.

  Later, before bed, he told Christine what he’d done. “You didn’t,” she breathed.

  Proud of his newfound courage, his chest puffed out. “You should’ve seen the look on Mr. Strickland’s face.”

  “Do you think this will work?” Christine asked.

  “Worst case it will keep us safe.”

  Christine didn’t sound so sure. “I suppose so.”

  He’d figured it out. Mr. Strickland was terrified of change, anything that would make The Excelsior different than the way it used to be.

  Finally, Mr. Strickland took the bait. He asked Alan to stay after class on Friday. All he said was, “The meeting will be held Sunday night. The other members will come and collect you.”

  Careful, Alan thought. Nothing admissible. Good. A worthy adversary.

  While they studied in the library, Alan passed Christine a note telling her to take her tape recorder too.

  Sunday night, Alan made as if he were going to bed but kept his clothes on. Very, very late, to the point that he actually fell asleep for a while, the Triumvirate finally came to get him. They were all wearing sheets made into togas and circlets made of leaves on their heads.

  A pillowcase covered his head like before but this time, Alan’s heart nearly exploded. Sweat pooled on his chest. No! No! The darkness! He begged them to take it off. They laughed.

  Finally, they stopped. The pungent decay of the woods filled his nostrils and he could hear the tiny lap of the lake against the shore. They ripped off the hood. He stood on a grassy area by the lake surrounded by torches flickering eerily in the wind.

  “So,” Mr. Strickland began. “We have a new guest.”

  The Triumvirate didn’t look happy. Devlin scowled, Chadwick’s fingers curled into fists. Niebold’s stance filled with menace.

  “We learn history for a reason, Alan,” his teacher said softly. “We study Roman Emperors and their civilization to understand their greatness, to make ourselves great, to make this school great.”

  “C-caesar was great,” Alan agreed. “B-but in the end, he was assassinated. B-because absolute power corrupts absolutely. Didn’t you tell us that, sir?”

  Alan held his ground as righteous anger burned away his fear.

  “Indeed I did, Alan. But the Roman Empire survived because of that power, because it wiped out any threat. Change is a threat to the status quo, is it not?”

  He held up the note Alan passed to Christine in the library. “You may come out now, Marcus Aurelius.”

  Christine stepped hesitantly out of the bushes. She mouthed the words I’m sorry to Alan as she stepped into the torchlight.

  At first Alan wasn’t sure what was going on.

  “I’m sorry to say your plan was a failure from the very beginning,” Mr. Strickland told them, his golden circlet gleaming in the firelight. “Because you never understood. You cannot beat an enemy that is more powerful than yourself.”

  “The truth will out,” Alan countered. But even as he said the words his heart sank. Could he be right? Could absolute power corrupt the truth?

  “The only constant in life is change,” Mr. Strickland continued. “But not here. Not on these grounds. Here we defend time, defend honor, defend what is rightfully ours? Is that not correct, gentlemen?”

  The Triumvirate agreed with nods, growls, and chest thumps.

  Mr. Strickland turned, his face growing cold as he faced Christine. “The Excelsior is a boys’ school, Ms. Hathaway. Always has been, will forever be.”

  The Triumvirate closed in around Christine. They grabbed her and began shoving her toward the lake.

  What?

  Alan followed, not sure he wanted to. By the edge, fairly close to the water, in the soft ground, they’d dug a pit at least ten feet deep.

  What the hell was going on?

  Mr. Strickland turned to him. “Well, Alan? Time to decide.”

  Unsure of what was going to happen he answered, “Decide what?”

  “Are you going to join us or not?”

  “Join you?” Alan asked, still not quite processing what was happening. He hated these people, his teacher most of all. Become allies? He’d rather…

  Mr. Strickland nodded. “Which emperor will you be? Antonius or Caligula?”

  Christine, realizing what was about to happen, began to fight them with all her might. “No, Alan. Please. Don’t do this,” she begged.

  Be a friend and end up with Christine or be an ally and finish his time at the Excelsior untouched, without further incident. The easy way or the har
d way.

  “Your choice.”

  In those moments of deadly silence, Alan realized a very important lesson. If you can’t beat them—join them.

  *

  Twenty years later…

  The Excelsior wasn’t even a school anymore. The buildings, untouched and devoid of care, withered in the damp fall air. The place brought back too many memories, memories he’d tried to bury. But he’d accepted Christine’s invitation because he owed her that much at least. He’d turned on her. In the years that followed, he’d had too much time to think about what could’ve been. In the end, self-preservation simply won. But that didn’t make what happened any easier to bear.

  A student out running in the early morning found her. She didn’t speak, didn’t acknowledge anyone. Catatonic, they said. With her fingertips raw and bleeding from trying to claw her way up the side of the pit.

  How he’d hated himself.

  The rain didn’t help. It was so muddy, she couldn’t get out. At night, he’d wake up from nightmares trying to claw his way out of the same pit. Only his wasn’t real. Hers was.

  He heard later, she also ended up fighting off pneumonia. She nearly died.

  At times, Alan wished he’d died too.

  Of course, Strickland planned everything that way. To ensure their silence. Divide and conquer, right?

  He parked his car and got out, pulling his trench coat tight. He walked along the path to the lake wondering what it was all for. It seemed so far away, so long ago, like a play tucked into memory.

  He saw her standing staring out at the lake. Taller, a woman, slender and statuesque, her auburn hair lifting with the wind gusts.

  “Thank you for coming, Alan.”

  He didn’t even say hello. “Christine, listen to me. I can’t make up for what happened. But I’m sorry.” The pent up words simply spilled from his mouth. “I should’ve stuck with you. I should have gone into that pit with you. I was a coward.”

  “Yes, you were.” She turned and her gaze blazed with remembered torchlight. “I couldn’t get out! I couldn’t get out! You were supposed to come back for me. I came back for you,” she accused.