Jimmy heard, but was already plunging into the curtain of smoke that concealed the doorway, before exiting through the small, painted doorway outside. A moment later Tino followed. They stood there, not saying a word, until Jimmy reached out to place his hand on Tino’s shoulder. “I just wanted to say tha—”
Tino jerked his shoulder away and looked up into Jimmy’s eyes, his own filled with sorrow and regret. “I should have stopped you, Jimmy. Who knows what that price is? This was a mistake, and I am sorry. His old voice cracked with barely contained sorrow before he jerked his shoulder away and stalked off down the street, calling out after a few paces. “I gotta think, Jimmy. Just go home. I gotta think.” And with that Tino turned down another random alleyway filled with people and vanished from Jimmy’s sight.
*
It had been two days and Jimmy had not seen heads or tails of Tino. He was beginning to worry, as it was the evening of the fight and Tino was nowhere to be seen. The weigh-in and physicals had already occurred, and now Jimmy paced back and forth in his dressing room, his hands wrapped by some strange new guy, a young kid named Nicky.
“Where the hell are you, Tino?” Jimmy mumbled to himself, eyeing the clock. “Christ! It’s almost fight time. Where are you, old man?”
Jimmy’s eyes flickered over to his gym bag, the small potion sitting right on top of his regular clothes. “Drink it right before the fight, and for an hour you shall have what you asked for, strength beyond that which any man has, or ever will have,” the old mystic’s words echoed in his ears.
Jimmy shook his head to remove the last traces of the old man’s warning. He rolled his shoulders and clenched his fists before striding over to his gym bag. Reaching down, he grasped at the vial, and with a flick of his thumb, popped the cork. He brought the vial to his mouth and swallowed.
The taste was horrid, like gritty, salty iron with some other taste he could not identify. Beyond the taste was the burning. It coated his tongue, filled his mouth, and burned down his throat into his belly where it felt like fire now swam. He doubled over, the vial dropping onto the carpeted floor. Jimmy’s arms cradled his burning gut. But the fire within him was not content with just his mouth, throat, and stomach. It began to course through his body, slowly at first, then more rapidly as his heart rate skyrocketed, until with a simpering whimper Jimmy collapsed. His vision filled with black spots. But just as quickly as the burning had come, it left, leaving on a throbbing sensation.
Jimmy reached out, gripping the sofa to raise himself. A ripping and crunching sensation greeted his ears and his hand as his fingers ripped through the upholstery and cracked the wooden frame beneath. Jimmy staggered to his feet, eyes wide and mouth open at the damage his grip had caused. Stepping backward, his feet stumbled across one another. He began to fall.
His hand shot out to stop his descent; his open palm thudded into the painted cement wall. An audible crunch filled the room. Splintered cracks formed around his hand, which was now sunk slightly into the wall. As Jimmy pushed himself away from the wall, dust and chunks of the wall came along, clattering to the floor. He looked at his wrapped hand, now coated in grey dust.
“Holy Mother of God, the old chink wasn’t fooling.” Jimmy’s voice was barely a whisper as he spoke. The sudden rush of that knowledge and what it meant caused Jimmy to thrust his fist high into the air in a sign of victory, his mind racing. There ain’t no way that stinking Norwegian is gonna win now! I’m gonna crush him like Grandma used to crush grapes in the old country.”
The door burst open. Scrambling into the room came Tino’s temporary replacement, Nicky. He was scrawny young man with a beakish nose and a mop of brown hair stuffed under his hat. “You alright, sir? I heard you yell.” Nicky stood nervously at the door, eyes wide.
Jimmy could see him shaking. Poor kid doesn’t have a strong bone in his body. Jimmy waved his hand and glanced up at the clock, 6 p.m. on the nose. “I’m good, kid. Let’s get going, I got a fight to win.” Jimmy held his hands out so Nicky could put his gloves on.
Nicky waved his slender hand toward Jimmy. “Nah you’re good. Yah still got a few minutes. The clock’s ticking a little fast.” Nicky smiled, showing his large, bucktoothed grin.
“Get ‘em on anyway, Nicky. It’s time to go show this upstart who the real champ is.”
Jimmy spent the next few minutes shadow boxing, aware of the minutes ticking away. A sudden knock at the door startled him out of his thoughts and routine. “Come on in, Nicky, yah don’t need to knock.” The door creaked open, but instead of Nicky, Jimmy’s friend Liam stepped in, an Irish buddy of his from the gym. Liam was also the middleman for Jimmy’s bets. Jimmy had sent him out earlier with the rest of his savings to place the bet. Liam was a good, honest Catholic so Jimmy knew he wouldn’t cheat him. Jimmy sauntered over about to clap his buddy on the back, but faltered when he saw the drawn look on his friend’s face.
“What’s wrong? Did something happen with the money?” Jimmy’s voice rose in pitch as panic began to creep into his voice.
“No, no, the money is fine. I placed the beat. It’s Tino, Jimmy—they found him this morning at his loft. He’s dead.”
Jimmy had lived a life of taking blow after blow. And he had learned how to handle them and come back swinging. But this was a sucker-punch to his heart, a part of him that was not hardened. It hurt, terribly. He was staggered physically at the words, his body rocking for a moment before he tried to compose himself. A million questions surged through his mind, but only one escaped past his lips in a pained whisper. “How?”
Liam reached out to steady his friend, but Jimmy pulled away. “Well, they aren’t sure since they just found him, yah know. But it looks like it was his heart.”
“It wasn’t his heart,” Jimmy mumbled. A wrenching sense of guilt began to spread throughout his body.
“What you say, Jimmy?”
“N-nothing, nothing.” Jimmy knew what had caused the old man to die—it was the price the old man had spoken about. If he had known, he would have never taken the potion. Tears began to line Jimmy’s eyes. “Oh, Tino, you damn old fool. Why…”
“Sir.” Nicky poked his head into the doorway. “It’s time.”
The roar of the crowd, thundering; the flash of cameras, blinding. It fell upon deadened senses as Jimmy made his way to the ring. Overwhelmed with guilt and sorrow for his lost friend and mentor, he walked in a daze. The voices of all those around him were like distant whispers, the people nothing more than fading shadows.
He moved without true thought or purpose, until the loud ding of the bell brought his mind racing back. It just took a few seconds too long to finish that race. As Jimmy’s eyes grew unclouded and sharp once more, they saw a massive gloved fist heading straight for them. A split second later the impact came and he was sent hurtling backwards into the ropes. His years of training worked into his muscle memory thankfully worked a little faster as his arms shot up to cover his face just as a barrage of savage punches were thrown. Even with his arms absorbing the blows he could feel each one. Holy hell, he hits like a fucking brick shit-house.
Jimmy’s thoughts were interrupted by sudden jabs to his gut and sides. Come on, Jimmy, you gotta focus, gotta anticipate. Jimmy managed to break away, moving to the side and quickly outpacing Magnus “The Mountain” Magni, who roared after him like some mythical beast of old. It was then that Jimmy got his first real look upon Magnus. The beast towered over him, and beast was the only word that Jimmy’s mind could conjure to describe the hulking behemoth before him. It was as if a chiseled statue of Mighty Thor had come to life and put on some boxing gloves.
The hulk that was Magnus rushed at him, the ring shook under each massive stomp.
Jimmy braced himself as the berserker raced toward him, Magnus’s eyes wild with bloodlust and rage, right arm raised back to deliver a punch that Jimmy thought for sure would knock him out of the ring if it landed. Well if David did it, so can I.
Jimmy’s body grew tense as ti
me seemed to slow down, his eyes growing sharp as he watched his destruction approach, and as that massive tree-trunk limb began to descend, he stepped to the right and brought his right arm up in a savage upper-cut. Magnus was not expecting the punch, his own self-confidence assuring him that he could never lose to such an old man.
Magnus would never get the chance to regret that pride-induced assurance. As Jimmy’s fist connected with that massive jaw, Magnus’s head snapped back, his entire lower body lifting up into the air before slamming down onto the ring like a falling meteor. The roar of the crowd became deafening as Jimmy stood there in stark disbelief, seeing Magnus “The Mountain” Magni lying before him, out cold.
Jimmy roared his victory as he bounced around the ring, arms raised in triumph. I did it! I did it! Thank you God! I did it!
Through his victory-fueled haze Jimmy noticed the cry of the crowd had not died down but had changed in tone and intensity. He stopped jumping before looking around, before his eyes fell upon the still-unmoving form of Magnus. The ref was standing next to the kneeling ring doctor. Who had quickly jumped within the ring upon Magnus failure to stand, or even move after the fight was over. His fingers quickly reaching out to touch the side of his neck. Jimmy knew something was wrong. Why does his neck look so funny? The thought was answered as the ring doctor sadly shook his head and looked up at Jimmy.
“He’s dead; neck’s broken.”
Dead? But how? Jimmy knew. He looked down at his gloves and mumbled softly, “Strength beyond that which any man has, or ever will have. Oh Lord, what have I done.”
He turned and fled, leaving the ring with the snapping of metal as he ripped two of the ropes from their post before making his way into his dressing room, collapsing against the closed wooden door once inside.
*
“Jimmy Flannigan Thacker, you move away from this door right now and let me and yer daughter in!” Audrey’s voice had risen finally after almost thirty minutes of banging on the door. “It not be your fault that the man had a weak neck. Now stop being daft and open this—”
“No! I… I can’t yet, just a little while longer.” Jimmy’s voice was ragged with guilt. He had killed Tino because of his greed and vanity, and now he had killed Magnus. He hadn’t known Magnus, but he knew that no man deserved to die just because he wanted to prove he was the best. The ref and others had come by to try to convince Jimmy that he was not at fault, but he had been inconsolable because he knew the truth. He had asked for this power, and in doing so he had doomed two men to die. Jimmy blinked through teary eyes up at the clock. It was two minutes until seven. Two more minutes and this curse will finally be over.
Audrey’s tone changed suddenly. “Ginny, dear, cover yer ears.” A moment passed before a tirade of profanities assaulted Jimmy through the door in such magnitude that if those words had been capable of asserting physical force, the door would have been blasted apart, as would have Jimmy.
Jimmy winced at the verbal assault. Blurred, puffy eyes once more moved to the clock on the wall, just in time to see the clock tick to 7 p.m. Jimmy pushed himself up and off the ground. Legs trembling at the effort, slowly he staggered away from the door, his body sluggish, worn from sorrow.
Audrey’s verbal attack finally ended with a kick to the previously blockaded door. Slowly it creaked open. Audrey peered inside the room at Jimmy. He stood a few feet away, slumped. She froze, no doubt seeing his broken heart through his swollen eyes. “Oh, baby.”
Her voice, her soft tone was a balm upon his aching heart. Blinking, his blurred vision finally began to clear. A moment later he could see perfectly once more and before him stood his wife Audrey and his little girl and Ginny—the reason he had done all of this, the reason he would be able to go on. His broken heart began to mend at that simple sight and thought.
He saw the bluster leave her as she gazed upon him. He opened his arms, needing to feel them, to hold and cherish his loved ones. They rushed to embrace him and Jimmy began to weep freely once again as he cradled his loved ones tightly. His eyes closed, and his soul and heart rejoiced in the feel of them so near… until he felt them break beneath him, felt their bones shatter, felt them stiffen for a split second before they both went slack.
Jimmy collapsed. Sorrow and anguish swelled within him for a split second before bursting free in a soul-wrenching wail. His heart broken, Jimmy’s shuddered as sobs and other unintelligible noises of grief continued to usher from his shaking body. Holding the limp bodies of his wife and child, Jimmy’s heart shattered, never again would, or could, he feel joy or love. As overwhelming misery settled within Jimmy Thacker’s soul, a soft whisper filled his ears and his mind.
“Your price has been paid.”
10
the hermit
lisa mannetti
Upright: Soul-searching, introspection, being alone, inner guidance
Reversed: Isolation, loneliness, withdrawal
“Anchorite: A type of hermit who does not wander or roam, but instead permanently seals herself up, literally, by being walled inside a tiny cell (an anchorhold, q.v.) attached to a church.
Anchorhold: Sometimes there was a door that was much too heavy for the anchorite to move, but typically, there were only two or three openings: a small shuttered aperture facing the altar called a squint or a hagioscope where Mass could be observed and Holy Communion received; another tiny flap-covered rectangle to permit the passage of food, water, chamber pots, etc. and, occasionally, a third window high up on the outer wall which faced the street and was covered with translucent cloth to permit the entry of light.”
—Roman Catholic Encyclopedia
“My dear sister anchorites, love your windows as little as you can. For from sight comes all the misery that there now is and ever yet was and ever shall be...”
—From the Ancrene Wisse, 13th century
Northern Scotland, circa 1560
Prologue
There was the stone circle dream again; the same one Catherine had been having since earliest childhood. They say those are the dreams one never forgets, never gets over. They say those dreams are warnings, she thought, but that couldn’t be because the gray stone tower that was a-building ever higher and higher in her dream, enclosing and encircling her until she could dodge the narrowing sunlight and crouch in the widening shadows had always made Catherine feel so very safe.
No, it was the other, more recently borne dream that disturbed her: A woman held down fast to a chair in a white lime-washed stone cellar. On her face and head sat an iron device like a mask, known as a brank or a scold’s bridle. Two long thin horns rose up from the metal neckband, went curving high up—past the cheekbones and eye sockets—and higher still past the crest of her skull, their ends terminating in small bells that would tinkle every time the woman moved. That jingle, a mocking sound to further her sense of humiliation.
But, far worse were the rows of sharpened triangular teeth lining the slit mouth—
teeth that prevented talking, teeth that, if she tried to speak, would eat the wearer’s own tongue.
*
“Bishop Anderson is here to see you, ma’am,” said the girl—recently chosen according to custom by Catherine’s husband Lord Barclay as a lady-in-waiting. She gazed briefly at the slate floor and, at the same time slid back her left heel so her knees bent slightly and her narrow hips and flat midriff tilted, giving the smallest fraction of obeisance—a courtesy, Catherine surmised, that might have been for the bishop’s notice instead of her own; she could hear him breathing heavily just beyond the open parlor door. The former prelate—his predecessor—had been such a braw fellow, a good heart. This one—well—she had her doubts about him, but he was here.
“Thank you. Show him in, Margaret.”
Catherine could guess why he’d come to the gray stone manor house for the second time in less than a fortnight; there might be a certain amount of unrest, but Mary Queen of Scots was still on the throne and this fat bishop wanted to polish up his
dusky granite church near Aberdeen until it gleamed—a Catholic gem above the highlands.
“Quite a few of the nobles here and in the shire have made substantial donations already, my lady,” the bishop said around a mouthful of scone, at the same time he brushed a few errant crumbs from the puddle of his black robe in the center of his lap.
“My husband has been very generous with St. Anselm’s.”
“Oh, certainly, Lady Catherine, without a doubt. Ah, but an anchorhold would be just the thing. Give us a sterling reputation for housing our very own wise woman or pious man—think what might be given to the church in the future, based on the holy one’s followers.”
“To be sure,” Catherine said. “But who will inhabit the cell and dispense all this wisdom and piety?”
“Only let it be begun to be built, and surely our sweet Savior and his Holy Mother will send us such a one.”
“Lord Barclay is at court, but let me think on it and when he returns presently, I will make mention of your… architectural plans.”
“Most bounteous,” he nodded. “Thanks and blessings upon you and your household.”
The raisin-flecked scones, black tea, and whisky were by then gone, and Catherine wasn’t sorry to see the acquisitive bishop depart as well.
“I think the bishop has eyes for you—maybe for both of us,” Margaret said and they both laughed.
*
That night Catherine dreamed of a gentle woman lying on her back and so heavily veiled nothing could be seen of her pale face except her eyes—which seemed full of terror; when they weren’t wide with fright, they shifted rapidly and anxiously back and forth from side to side. The red-mitred archbishop suddenly stood alongside her, his hand above her head, his fingers poised to make the sign of the cross. Surely, Catherine thought, now the poor woman would find calm and peace in the blessing. Instead, underneath the thick linen cloth, she saw the woman’s mouth open wide to scream.
Never Fear - The Tarot: Do You Really Want To Know? Page 21