The Arcana

by Matt Hiebert

VI.

  Weeks go by. I am never summoned. Others go but I am always left behind. I’ve never gone this long without being called. Am I being punished? Rewarded?

  Justice goes out many times and leads many different Hands. All return whole and victorious. It is miraculous.

  Once, two Baals crossover in Moscow. Two. With the help of the Hermit’s short term predictions, she tricks them into stepping beneath a collapsing building and they are pinned under the rubble long enough for her to drive her flaming sword into their brains.

  So clever!

  She is phenomenal, magical. In just three months, she logs twenty victories. A new morale rises throughout the Arcana. When Justice is the leader, the Hand goes forward with confidence and courage. Not like the trembling conscripts I have been watching die for years.

  The press goes nuts over her. Her presence seems to represent some kind of turning point in the demon war. She is hope. She is victory.

  The Hermit is a miracle man all his own. He gets so good at his job he starts finding the demon portals before they open. Several times the Hand is already waiting when the monsters arrive.

  I don’t attempt to go outside again. Maybe I can. Maybe I can’t. I don’t try to find out. Who knows why?

  Working intensely with dieticians and physical trainers, I manage to lose twenty-five pounds in a couple of months. I’m in the best shape of my life. I watch the news, read more books. I’m thinking about taking up painting.

  Justice and I eat together sometimes. Twice, she joins the Moon and me for a game of eight ball, but she never visits me in my room like she did before. She never mentions her life before the Arcana or talks to me about anything serious.

  Borges follows her around like a puppy. She is the key, the Rosetta Stone. She is the way it is supposed to work. He tries to reverse engineer a quantum formula for her success. He quits smoking because she doesn’t like how he smells. Now he chews nicotine gum like a spastic camel.

  Things are looking up.

  I think that’s why I am caught off guard when I wake up one night and realize Justice is sitting in the dark at the foot of my bed again.

  “Hey, kid.” I am bleary, but concerned. She’s a veteran now. A hero. The best that’s ever been. She doesn’t need me anymore. There’s a problem or she wouldn’t be here.

  “Something bad is coming,” she says.

  Adrenaline burns away any sleep left within me.

  I sit up, lean forward. “What?”

  She speaks with distance, staring at the floor.

  “I don’t know what it is. Something big. Something awful.”

  “How do you know?”

  She shakes her head slowly. “I can just feel it.”

  I reach over and turn on the reading light. I don’t like the darkness right now.

  “Did the Hierophant say something? The Hermit?”

  “No. They don’t have to. “

  I’m not sure what to say. It could be things are just getting to her. You can’t go out there day after day without it messing with your mind. And she’s just a kid. People are starting to forget that.

  “Justice,” I search for words of comfort and encouragement. “You’re the best member who’s ever been. You’ve brought everyone back alive on every mission you’ve been on.”

  She looks up at me and I see her eyes in the wan light. Not terrified, not despondent, but not young any more.

  “That’s why it’s coming,” she says with a voice so flat with truth I have nothing to return. “It’s coming for me.”

  The silence that falls between us says more than any words. Within it, I am asking her what she needs from me.

  “You’ll never be summoned again,” she finally says. “You’ve been removed from the deck.”

  Somewhere deep inside, I know she is right. You’d think I’d be thrilled with her pronouncement, and honestly, a part of me is. But another part feels bad. Guilty, abandoned. A failure. That’s the part that surprises me.

  “Why? Because of the kite?”

  “I don’t know,” she stands from the chair and rests her hand on the hilt of her always-present sword. “But I want you to come next time.”

  “You said I’d never be summoned again.”

  She walks over to the door and it opens.

  “I want you to come anyway.”

  She leaves and the wall reforms behind her.

  Her words echo inside my head. I am not to be summoned again. I have been released, discarded. I am free.

  Yet she wants me to go out anyway… and I don’t think I can do it.