The Arcana

by Matt Hiebert

VI.

  Back at the Enclave, both Borges and Stokes are waiting in the great room. They already know the story. It was thoroughly transmitted by an army of soldiers, helicopters, jet fighters and satellites.

  “Well done,” Stokes says to Justice as Chariot’s disk evaporates.

  “Thank you,” she answers. She would have sounded cocky, but her confidence was beyond that.

  We haven’t slept in many hours and all of us head to our quarters to rest. The debriefing can wait.

  Borges can’t though. He follows me into my room.

  “Never,” he says. “To answer your unasked question: there has never been a Hand return with a hundred percent survival rate.”

  I sit down on the foot of my bed, exhausted.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  Borges puts a cigarette in his mouth but doesn’t light it. He knows I hate them.

  “Is it because she’s a kid?” he asks from behind the bobbing cigarette. “Can she use her power more efficiently because she’s not clouded or tarnished somehow?”

  “I have no idea.” I lie back on my bed. There’s something different about this Justice and it’s not just her age. She accepted the change quicker than anyone I’ve ever seen, led us to a clean victory her first time out.

  Borges paces my room and keeps talking. He is brainstorming, speculating, trying to make connections. His voice grows distant as I begin to fall asleep.

  “Maybe it’s her mind -- her imagination. Maybe she’s more receptive to possibilities……”

  When I wake up, he is gone. But I sense someone else is in the room. I prop up on my elbows.

  Justice is sitting quietly in the leather chair.

  “Hey,” I say in groggy surprise.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I tried to be quiet. But I didn’t want to be alone.”

  “It’s all right.”

  She looks small sitting in the large leather chair, a child once again. Not a Valkyrie.

  I can tell she is gathering her words. She wants to talk.

  “It was horrible,” she finally says. The phrase is everything rendered down to its smallest portion.

  “I know.”

  “Once I saw the city, I knew just what to do. I could see it. The water. The streets. You.” She looks at the floor. “But, the demons … coming at me, never stopping. Reaching for me. I could smell their breath. Some of their blood splashed in my mouth...” She pulls her legs up on the chair, hugging them in her arms. “….and I liked it.”

  I reach over and turn on my battery-powered reading lamp. Weak, yellow light pushes away part of the darkness.

  “It’s okay, Justice. You did better than anybody ever has.”

  She doesn’t lift her eyes, but says, “My name is Stephanie.”

  I cannot speak for several beats. I have never known the real name of another member of the Arcana. I swallow and force myself to speak.

  “Stephanie,” I repeat the word to confirm my understanding. “My name is Michael.”

  “Michael,” she says. “I miss my mom.”

  She stands from the chair, crosses the room and hugs me.

  “I miss my mom,” she says again.

  “I know. It’s all right. It’s going to be all right,” I say and wish I hadn’t.

  We don’t talk any more after that. She stays a little while longer then heads back to her quarters. I hope what just happened helps her.

  I don’t get back to sleep. I am furious. I am sick of all of it. The waiting. The manipulation. The terror. And now a child must suffer to feed the horror? I hate whatever is doing this. God or devil.

  I cannot deny the summoning, but I can make decisions during the battles. I think about letting myself get killed during the next one. Ending it. Cheating whatever monster is playing this game.

  I hope it can read my thoughts.

  In a few more hours, noises awaken outside my door. The workday has begun. The employees are arriving, performing their duties. We must debrief the military and scientists. Yesterday was significant. Something has changed. They’ll want to hear all about it. Find out what was different.

  An airman comes to fetch me for the inquisition but I am rude and invite him to go have sex with himself. I’m tired of being told what to do and when to do it. By anyone -- visible or invisible.

  An idea comes to me. An image, really. Something I want. I grab a notebook off the dresser and scribble down a list of items. I tear out the paper and hand it to the airman.

  “Get this for me.”

  He looks at the paper then looks at me.

  “Okay,” he finally says. “A tail?”

  “Ask the older soldiers.”

  He leaves in vanquished silence, and I go out into the Enclave, daring anyone to try and get me to comply. Or say good morning, for that matter. I’ve had it. I’m done.

  Justice and the World come out of Stokes’ office. They told him everything they knew, trying to be helpful. But they have no experience to hold up in comparison. They haven’t been through a hundred other battles.

  Stokes sees me, makes eye contact and turns away showing his disappointment over my noncompliance. He obviously got my memo from the airman.

  I eat a little, but decide to start a diet. I mope around the common areas, purposely forcing people to avoid me. The whole Enclave knows I’ve had it. The other Arcana offer half smiles of greeting but keep walking when they see me.

  In the afternoon, my requested items are delivered. The airman brings me exactly what I asked for.

  “Where’s Justice?” I ask one of the scientists walking down the hallway.

  The woman tells me Justice is in her room, watching television. I walk down the hallway with intent and her door opens upon my approach. She did not have to invite me in. The strange liberty between us apparently works both ways.

  “Come on,” I say to her and show her what I have. “We’re going outside.”

  She jumps up from her bed and follows me through the great room. I can tell she is hopeful, but skeptical. She doesn’t believe I can do it. She knows we cannot leave the Enclave.

  I walk to the area where the exit appears for the staff. The doorless wall remains intact, refusing me, ignoring me.

  “Open the goddamn door!” I shout and my voice bounces off the rune-covered walls. People stop what they are doing and stare at me. Soldiers, airmen, scientists, the other Arcana, all pause to watch me lose my mind.

  “You bring a kid into this?” I shout at the invisible manipulator. “You force a child into this hell? What kind of monster are you? Open the goddamn door and let us outside!”

  There is a fat silence. My voice does not echo but somehow the words resonate against the shell walls.

  Then the portal relents. Like the ceiling, like the entries to our rooms, the wall unfolds and the world outside opens before us. Fresh air and warm sunshine hit me in the face. For a second I am stunned. I really didn’t think it would work.

  I can’t move so Stephanie walks around me and steps outside. I break from the spell and follow her. There are worn trails all around the Enclave where the sentries walk their routes. About a hundred yards out, a chain link and razor-wire fence encircles the grounds.

  In the open, I take the kite out of the bag and assemble its simple framework. I attach the cloth tail, unwind the string from the spool and tie it to the crossed supports. It is one of the old-fashioned kite-shaped kites kids don’t fly anymore. That’s the kind I wanted. I hand the spool of string to Stephanie. As if on cue, the wind picks up off the Gulf and the kite rises into the sky, the string feeding it distance.

  The kite dives and rolls, floating into the air like the Chariot’s disk, higher and higher. The string unravels from the spinning spool in Stephanie’s hands. She is smiling.

  The line reaches its end and the kite soars above the highest pinnacle of the Enclave. Soldiers have stopped in their tracks to gather and watch. The child reels in the kite a bit and runs
across the rutted grounds. She runs towards it, giving the tether slack and watching the wind have its way. After a long time she sits on the ground with her back against the Enclave wall. I sit beside her and we watch the paper diamond dance against the clouds.

  She looks at me and smiles, squinting against the sun.

  Then I hear a small voice in the distance, calling from outside of the fence.

  “Stephanie!” the muffled word carries over the wind.

  The child looks past me to find the source of the voice.

  “Mom!”

  I turn and see a woman at the fence, tiny in the distance, her fingers gripping the chain link. Stephanie jumps up, drops the spool of string and runs toward the woman. Her sword bobs upon her hip. I pick up the string.

  The soldiers do not stop her, but I see them shifting nervously, unsure of what to do. They have no orders that cover this situation.

  Stephanie makes it to the fence and the woman collapses to her knees. She is crying hysterically, blubbering words I cannot discern. Their fingers entwine through the mesh.

  I wait for a while and tie the kite to a scrub bush. With my hands in my pockets, I walk slowly over to the reunited family. I need to meet this woman, to hear her speak.

  “We’re going to get you home, baby,” I hear the mother say as I get closer. “They can’t keep you here. We’re going to get you home.”

  Stephanie looks downward, her cheeks glisten with tears.

  “No, mom,” she says. “I won’t be coming home.”

  “Don’t say that, Steph. Don’t say that.”

  The child looks up at her and pulls her hands away from the fence.

  “You need to go home, Mom,” she whispers but her voice is firm. “You just need to go home.”

  The woman collapses to her side. She is crying but no sound comes out. I want to give her comfort, but there is none to give, so I can only lie.

  “We’ll take good care of her,” I say and wish to God I hadn’t.

  “I can’t…I can’t.” She has no words beyond that.

  Stephanie steps back from the fence.

  “It’ll be all right, Mom. But you need to leave.”

  She takes my hand and leads me back to the Enclave. I look back and see the woman has not moved. She sprawls on the ground still hanging upon the fence.

  The unattended kite has crashed outside the perimeter. The string drapes over the razor wire. We leave it there and walk back to the Enclave wall. It opens its mouth and we walk inside.

  Justice never turns around.