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

by Heather Graham

  Pak Nyoman chuckled. “Not so lofty as before, eh? Your family was of the Ksatriya caste of rulers and warriors. Now you are lower than a common Sudra. Lower than me.” He waited for Wayan to nod his acceptance of this fact and then continued. “But my knowledge elevates me above my caste. I may not be as educated as a priest, who studies the sacred Lontar books of inscriptions, or as dangerous as a leyak, who studies them equally hard for a darker purpose. But you would be wise to respect me.”

  Wayan knew this was true. There was no telling what a balian knew or which powers—light or dark—he fostered. Everyone knew they dappled in both.

  “How can you tell a leyak has worked a magic on me?” Wayan asked. “Do I have some kind of mark? Can you smell the magic on my body? Why would you jump to a conclusion like this?”

  “I can see it in your eyes. You look different than you did before. Something significant has occurred.”

  “A spell?”

  Pak Nyoman nodded. “Or maybe something more. Stick out your tongue. Let me have a look.”

  The healer leaned forward and peered over the top, the sides, and the bottom of Wayan’s tongue. Then he reached into a basket and took out a stick. “Lie down,” he said, and stepped off the platform, to make room for Wayan to stretch out his body. Then he poked Wayan’s toes with the sharp point of the stick. When he found a tender spot that made Wayan cry out in pain, he stopped. “Sit up. Now we can talk.”

  Wayan’s mind filled with worry. Did his organs rot with some horrible disease? Had his father’s ill deeds infected his brain? He felt too sick with dread to ask.

  The healer moved his cushion back into place and sat. “Why do you look so worried? I have good things to tell you.”

  “Really? Then why did the stick hurt?”

  The healer chuckled again. “Because you are ignorant.”

  Wayan pulled back his shoulders and glared. For the first time in years, he felt pride. “I am of Ksatriya caste, and I can read better than you. I may suffer, but I am not ignorant.”

  Pak Nyoman waved away Wayan’s objection. “Then why do you act so stupid? Besides, I am not talking about school. I cannot read at all. So what? I am talking about opportunity. You have been offered a gift, and you are either too stupid, too stubborn, too lazy, or too much of a coward to take it.”

  Wayan shut his mouth, too shocked and confused to respond.

  The healer nodded, as though the teenager had finally done something intelligent. Then he reached back into the basket and pulled out his treasured Lontars. There were four books made from lontar palm leaves, all of them deteriorating from Bali’s humidity and in need of replacement. He fondled each wooden cover with reverent care.

  “They are old,” Wayan said, his voice tinged with awe.

  Pak Nyoman nodded. “They contain instructions for rituals, recipes, and magical prayers against evil.”

  “How do you know? You can’t read.”

  “So what? I am balian, and the Lontars are my sacred objects of power. I learned my skill from mouth to ear. So tell me about this pain. How is it different?”

  It had felt more intense than the other headaches, but Wayan did not think the healer would care about that. Instead, he told him about the dream. “I saw my father die. Then when I woke, I smelled the smoke and burning hair from his cremation.”

  Pak Nyoman nodded. “What else?”

  “Earth,” Wayan answered. “Damp, rich soil, mixed with dung. And the fresh scent of sprouting grass.”

  “You see? Rebirth. New beginnings. The spirit world is presenting a great opportunity and you are ignoring it. Your body attacks because your mind is not paying attention.”

  “Then this is not the work of a leyak?”

  “Who says this? Not me. Your ignorance makes you vulnerable. Your fear makes you weak. Anyone who wants to harm you can do this easily. You must learn to protect yourself, and I will teach you.”

  “No disrespect, but why would you do this for me?”

  Pak Nyoman smiled. “Because I received a sign.”

  He reached into the basket and brought out a card unlike any Wayan had ever seen. It was white with a hand coming out of a cloud to grasp a tall stick that sprouted with young leaves. Beneath the hand was a landscape of a mountain and a river.

  “What is that?” Wayan asked.

  Pak Nyoman shrugged. “I found it on the ground when I saw you lying in the road. So I knew it was connected to you.”

  Wayan nodded with agreement—the card was obviously a sign.

  “Can you read what this says?” Pak Nyoman asked, pointing to the three words written at the bottom of the card.

  “It says Ace of Wands.”

  “See? You can read it. This card is meant for you.”

  “But what does it mean?”

  Pak Nyoman pointed at the landscape on the bottom. “You must take a journey.”

  “But I don’t have any money. Where can I go?”

  “Not with your feet. With your mind,” Pak Nyoman said, poking at Wayan’s forehead. “This is the cause of your headaches.” He held up the card. “See this hand? You must grab your new future, the one with the sprouting leaves. You are being given a chance for rebirth in this lifetime.”

  “What kind of rebirth?”

  “How should I know? Am I God? You must ask the spirits. Tonight. In the rice paddies. Near the river. If you survive, I will teach you everything I know about the spirit world and healing so you can serve the people of our village. I will have a student for my knowledge. And when I am gone, you will take my place as balian. This is how you will atone for your father’s actions and earn respect.”

  Wayan had never considered this possibility. Before his father’s death, he had assumed he would go to college, take an important job, and when the time came, replace his father in the community and become the head of the village banjar.

  “I do not deserve this honor,” Wayan said, bowing his head so Pak Nyoman could not see the bitterness in his eyes. The people in his village had butchered his father and every other neighbor they accused of sympathizing with the Communists. The whole island had risen up against its own until eighty thousand Balinese had been murdered—almost a million Indonesians had met with this fate.

  Pak Nyoman clicked his tongue and dismissed Wayan’s concerns. “No one cares if you think you deserve this honor. The spirit world has sent a leyak to motivate you into action. The pain will get worse unless you respond.”

  “What will happen if I say no?”

  “How would I know? Did I work this magic on you? Do I inhabit the forms of animals in my sleep and cause mischief and death? No. I draw my power from the sacred Lontars. And my power says you must find your answer alone. Go into the fields. Open yourself up to the spirits.” He pointed at the card. “If you are worthy one will come and take you across this river so you can climb the mountain of your future.” He handed the card to Wayan and watched him tuck it safely in the pocket of his shorts. “And you must do this at midnight.”

  Wayan gasped. The man could not be serious. Everyone knew evil spirits roamed at night searching for people too foolish to go home. And to be out at midnight? That was the most dangerous time of all.

  “I could die,” he said.

  Pak Nyoman shrugged. “Are you living?”

  *

  Wayan’s legs trembled as he made his way along the raised banks of his neighbor’s rice paddy. A passing cloud drew shapes on the moon, which in turn, cast dancing images across the water. Rice stalks swayed in time. Frogs sang the tune. Geckos kept the beat. His village slept, safe behind their stone gates and spirit-confounding partitions. Only Wayan was foolish enough to wander outside this late at night.

  As his toes dug into soft earth, his eyes searched the shadows for monsters. Every story he had ever heard and every demon he had seen portrayed in dance came alive along the forest’s edge. Razor fangs. Lolling tongues. Bellies dripping with entrails. Horrible eyes crazed with hunger and thirst. Waya
n saw them all. Every cell in his body screamed for him to turn and run back to his humble home where he could climb into bed with his mother, sister, and brother—and be safe.

  But Wayan did not turn. Pak Nyoman had promised him a brighter future if he had the courage to make it happen.

  “My name is Anak Agung Wayan Oka,” Wayan announced to whatever spirits might be roaming the night, “And I am not afraid.”

  He sat down at the crossroad of earthy banks that divided the rice fields. Intersections of any kind held power and would amplify his call. He just hoped the answering spirits or demons would not rip out his belly and slurp up his guts. But if they did, he prayed they would kill him first.

  “I am here,” he said, not knowing what else to do. “I am ready to meet you.”

  Wayan rested the backs of his hands on his knees, palms turned up to the night sky, and steadied his breathing. Meditation calmed his mind and opened channels for speaking with spirits. While Wayan had never attempted to use his meditations in this way, he had seen mediums do it all his life. Of course, they protected themselves with prayers and amulets and rituals. Wayan had none of these. Pak Nyoman had told him he must approach the spirits like a beggar, open to receive whatever blessings or curses they might dispense. And so Wayan did exactly that.

  A beggar he might be, but he was still the eldest son of the eldest son with the blood of Ksatriya rulers and warriors running through his veins. He would not falter. He would not run.

  The stench of rotting meat and rancid blood assaulted his nostrils as something soft and wet began a slow investigation of his face. Flesh pulsed against his nose and mouth. Tentacles slithered down his neck and around his torso. Fat fingers massaged his groin and thighs.

  Wayan froze in terror. He could not move or scream or even breathe. He could only think— I am Ksatriya! I will not run. I will not fail! —and pray his mantra would give him courage not to shit or vomit as he died.

  The demons cackled as they rubbed their sticky, flaccid appendages against Wayan’s body. But he would not surrender. If he showed any sign of cowardice, the demons would rip out his guts and drive him insane. So Wayan opened his eyes and saw those flaccid appendages for what they were—long bloody cords of pulpy entrails, hanging from the ragged throats of disembodied heads.

  Leyaks.

  A scream caught in his throat as an intestine wound around his neck and crept its tip up to his lips, circling like a lover’s finger before a kiss. Wayan’s stomach heaved. Vomit rose in his throat, but the pulpy organ kneaded it down.

  The hovering faces laughed, showing bits of flesh stuck to their teeth and fangs.

  “You seek to control us?’ they shouted. “Go and get it. Come and try.”

  The heads drifted back, disentangling their bowels from Wayan’s throat, chest, and groin. Lidless eyes glared at him with hunger and madness. Guttural sounds, with no throats to create them, emitted from their bloody maws.

  The forest rustled as a troop of macaque monkeys burst through the leaves and leapt to the ground. They ran on all fours with their tails held high, gray hair flickering in the moonlight. Their gold eyes shone beneath thick tufts over long narrow noses and wide mouths flared with rage.

  “Behold!” the heads shouted in unison, stretching out their dangling bowels in welcome. “See what you may become.”

  The monkeys raced across the mounded paths of earth and splashed through the flooded field. But instead of attacking Wayan, they grabbed and yanked and stretched him on his back. Rank breath and hot spittle rained on his face, but the monkeys did not bite. They just held him in place, glaring and baring their fangs.

  I am Ksatriya! I will not run. I will not fail!

  Wayan repeated the mantra until the words merged together into one unintelligible sentence, and the world went black.

  And then he ran.

  The pads of his feet sprang on dirt. His supple tail flexed for balance. All so natural. All so right as he darted up the road to the wall of stone and the giant plank of wood. If he had been trapped in his human form, he might have had trouble getting through it. But instead, he had this marvelous tail and nibble fingers.

  The monkey scampered up and over the wall and landed in the dirt next to the fragrant hill. The alpha human’s mate was sound asleep, like the rest of her tribe, so she could not glare at him as he passed. Too bad. His fangs would have felt good in her flesh, tearing out her soft human lips. He sucked on his padded fingers, trying to imagine the taste—then promised to come back another time and find out for sure.

  Tonight, he had a prize to hunt.

  He hurried by the treehouse. He wanted to climb to the top and dig out the rice hiding inside, but the prize he hunted tonight could not be eaten. So he hurried past and jumped onto the temple floor. The monkey knew about temples—men left them scattered all over his land—and this one held the prize.

  But where?

  The thing did not smell or squirm. It hid, like a mouse in a hole. He tore and scratched and toppled. But still, he did not find the prize. So he jumped to the ground and ran past the smelly cave, where humans buried their dung, and onto the next temple where the gray-whiskered man slept.

  The prize.

  The monkey wanted to snatch it from the man’s hairless arms and run, but he needed to be sure. So he pried away the man’s fingers and lifted the wood. The inside smelled of palm leaves dried in the sun and the faint scent of burnt trees. Black marks scored the grain. They meant nothing. He stared harder and watched as human words appeared. They told of dark magic and hungry demons. They warned of dangers and promised rewards. Page after palm-leaf page, each of the four Lontars offered dark secrets. And he understood them all.

  He gathered them in his arms and was just about to leave when the man grabbed his marvelous tail. The insult could not be suffered. He dropped the prize and sank his long, sharp fangs into the nasty human’s face.

  Later that morning, Wayan woke with the heat of the sun on his skin and the cit-cit of chirping birds in his ears. Beside him on the rice paddy bank sat Pak Nyoman’s treasured Lontars—not inscribed with protective spells against black magic as the balian, in his illiteracy, had assumed, but filled with detailed instructions for becoming a skilled and powerful leyak. Wayan pulled the Ace of Wands from the pocket of his shorts and stared at the picture on the card. Pak Nyoman had been right—this card was meant for him.

  Wayan wiped the old man’s blood from his mouth and smiled.

  24

  ace of cups

  jason pozzessere

  Upright: House of the true heart, joy, content,abode, nourishment, abundance, fertility

  Reversed: House of the false heart, mutation, instability, revolution

  Milo Stills sat gazing at the water as it gushed its way down the Excelsior’s grand waterfall. It was a glorious structure indeed, constructed of natural and unnatural materials, yet completely man-made. When the casino was built in the 1960, Louis LaFica—or “The Lip” as he was known by his syndicate associates—decided that there would no expense spared when it came to the main recreational area in this, his grandest casino. He was a creative man, and was quoted in a March 1987 interview in Forbes as joking that in another, simpler life, he might have been an interior designer.

  The entire rooftop of the casino was dedicated to the most luxurious outdoor and artificial oasis that had ever been built. Surrounding the three-story falls was a sandy beach, lush tropical foliage, and a Mediterranean-styled bar, complete with gorgeous Chi-Chi girls. Those lovely waitresses were known worldwide for their combination of raw, unapologetically open sexual appeal and elegance while wearing, no… modeling, floral-patterned bikinis and wraps that left little to the imagination. Milo thought it was quite enough to keep a man wondering longingly for hours.

  With a chuckle he gave the idea some playful consideration. How many times had he relaxed out here doing just that? He remembered coming here for the first time twelve years ago. What a different a man he had
been then. He had changed quite a bit, and not just physically either. He took a look at his watch, saw that he was still a little early for his afternoon meeting, and decided to take a stroll around this rooftop “Oasis.” Just before he did so, he reached into his right pants pocket and pulled out an old and browning tarot card. The card depicted a naked man and a woman facing each other, with each of them holding a golden chalice. Neil Young lyrics creeped their way into his consciousness. “Remember me to my love, I know I’ll miss her.” Tucking his lucky charm back into his pocket, Milo began his stroll. It could not be helped that in the end, the jaunt led him down a path through memory lane.

  *

  It was November 1975 when a young Milo Stills hopped off the bus in the little town of Moapa, Nevada. He stretched his long legs as he began to walk off his fatigue and looked back to see his friends Nicco and Rush stepping down behind him. Nicco was rubbing his head where it began to show a little pink, and began muttering something about the driver and his “culo.” Rush jokingly picked up Nicco in his arms, and with a great big bear hug told Nicco to just shut up and walk it off. He then told Nicco that this trip had already been the most exciting thing that the three of them had ever experienced.

  Just moments before, the vehicle had made an unexpected halt on its trip to Las Vegas after a sudden jolt and a decisively loud bang, which led to a jumbling stop. After the initial shock and excitement, several travelers let forth a mix of curses and not a few groans of relief. Darryl, the pudgy driver issued a curt apology for what he said would hopefully be their final delay, but stated that no one would be getting to Las Vegas at all if the bus didn’t have the wheels to carry them all there, so they should “quit their bitchin’” if no one was seriously hurt, so he could get to “seein’ what’s what.”