House of Cards

by W. J. May

  “Try circling your fists as you hit. Circle them down and back up again to hit the back. You’ll find a rhythm and when you do, it’ll click. Then you can start changing hands or hitting the bag a different way. Now go!”

  Her fists couldn’t find a rhythm. Rae wasn’t about to let Jennifer know that her store of tatù abilities was low after her fight with Kraigan. She had a feeling it was something she would have to admit eventually but for now, she just couldn’t face showing any more vulnerabilities. She switched to Julian’s, hoping a bit of fore knowledge would help. It didn’t. When Jennifer sighed, Rae took a step back and shrugged. “It’s not going to happen today.”

  “Yes it is. Focus. Concentrate on the bag and connecting with it. Drop everything else from your mind. When you were talking before and getting angry, you managed to hit the same brick consistently. Nobody does that without having skills. Try it again.”

  Rae closed her eyes and stepped forward again. She tuned her ears to the sound of the metal slightly grating as the bag swung. The sound seemed to tell her brain that everything moved in slow motion for that moment. She searched for the frustrated anger she had felt earlier and tried to bring the feeling to her core. The tatù sent a shiver up her spine as it came forward when she needed it. Eyes squeezed tightly shut she began hitting the bag, two times one fist, two times the other. She let the speed increase faster and faster, switching hands or just using one hand and when it got tired she switched it to the other. She pretended the bag was every person who had managed to disappoint or frustrate her. There were a lot of them.

  Sweat collected near her hair and ran down her cheek. She grew warm and finally gave the bag one final hard hit before opening her eyes. The bag swung at break-neck speed back and forth on its hinge. She grinned, proud of herself.

  “Well done.” Jennifer clapped her hands. “Do you switch tatùs as you punch?”

  “I just used one.”

  “Which one?”

  “Devon’s.” Rae’s face grew warmer. She cringed, waiting for the tears to start.

  “Wardell’s?” Jennifer pressed her lips tight and nodded to herself. “I can see that. Good choice.”

  “I didn’t actually choose it,” Rae said honestly. “My body automatically picks the tatù I need before I can even decide what’ll work best. It wasn’t like that in the beginning.”

  “Interesting.” Jennifer tapped a finger against her chin. “Aright,” she said, clapping her hands together. “Let’s get working on the next drill. I just set the punching bag up because I figured you needed it. When I’m stressed, I find a good ass-kicking releases the frustration. When the bad guy’s not around to de-stress, I use the punching bag. I suggest you set one up at your place.”

  Why does that not surprise me? Rae liked the idea though. It made sense to her. “I’m still in the dorms. I’ll have to check with Madame Elpis if I can put one up. It’s not a bad idea.”

  “I forgot you’re still in the dorms. There’s no living quarters onsite with the Privy Council so you should start thinking about where you want to live in three months. With the car you’re driving you are going to need a place with a garage.”

  “It’s Julian’s car.” Rae followed Jennifer to the trampoline and watched her stack plyometric boxes on top of each other on one end. “Can I help?”

  “I’ll be done in a sec.” Quick as a cat, Jennifer climbed the tall tower and placed one more box on top. “It’s a bit rickety, but just focus on balance as you climb up.” She climbed to the top box and pointed to the trampoline. “Then I want you to jump.”

  “Why don’t I just get on the trampoline and start jumping?” Rae put her hands on the edge and started to lift herself up.

  “No! I want you to do this…” Jennifer jumped and landed in the center of the trampoline. Her jump arced away and she flew through the air toward the other side of the gym. She spun around in two perfect flips and straightened to land on her feet. “Just like a cat.” She grinned at Rae. “Your turn.”

  “No way! I can’t do that. I’ll break a leg!” Or worse, my neck and end up paralyzed.

  “Get up there. This isn’t a request.” Jennifer’s face hardened.

  Rae started climbing, fear curdling her stomach as she went. At least she had a healing tatù to use – hopefully before she killed herself. Rae made her way up the stack of wooden boxes and stood precariously on the top. She looked down and closed her eyes.

  Big mistake.

  The boxes trembled and shook with her loss of focus on her balance. She shifted and spread her legs a little further apart, her eyes darting open and frantically looking around. Jennifer stood motioning her to jump. Rae gave a small shake of her head. Not going to happen.

  She didn’t have a choice. The boxes began to give way. She leapt off before the meager tower toppled and managed to land on the edge of the trampoline. Her body flew into the air, her arms and legs flailing in every direction. She went twice as high as Jennifer, at least it felt like that, and headed straight for the wall. The leopard tatù activated and just before she hit face first into it, she managed to get her feet running in front of her and pushed off the wall with both of them. She back flipped and finally landed on the ground, with her feet and hands. “L-Like a c-cat.”

  Jennifer’s mouth hung open and her eyebrows had disappeared under her bangs.

  Rae straightened and wiped her sweaty hands on her pants. She grinned. That had been freakin’ scary, but she’d landed on her feet. She had to admit, it had felt kind of thrilling.

  “Why don’t we call it a day?” Jennifer blinked rapidly, her eyes still huge.

  Rae wanted to laugh but held it in. It must have looked a lot worse than it had felt.

  “I’ll clean up. We’ll meet tomorrow afternoon. I’ll text you the time and place.”

  “Sounds good.” Rae jogged over to grab her jacket and bag. She glanced to see Jennifer’s hand press against her temple as she surveyed the mess.

  Chapter 7

  Depression

  Rae left the gym and headed back to her dorm room. As she drove, she couldn’t stop running the session with Jennifer over and over in her head. She wished she could hit stop and switch to a different train of thought, but it seemed impossible. Back at the dorm she slipped into her room and grabbed her toiletries. In the shower, the hot, hot water didn’t erase the tension in her shoulders.

  She tried thinking about school. Had it only been yesterday she had classes? It felt like so much had happened in the past few days. Three months of school left and she would be done. Hard to believe. Maybe Monday in the Oratory I’ll talk to Carter and see – Wait! The journal! The Oratory reminded her of her father’s journal that she still hadn’t had a chance to read.

  She jerked the shower handle to off and stepped out. Barely bothering to dry herself off, she shoved her clothes on and headed back to her room. She wanted to see what everyone wanted to see in that stupid journal. Burning it in a fire might be the smartest thing to do. Then no one would ever know what was inside of it.

  Molly crashed into Rae’s room. “Did you text him? What did he reply?” Her gorgeous mahogany hair swung side to side from the pony she had put it in. It seemed like the thick, wild mane was trying to escape. Rae had always envied her hair. She idly wondered if she could mimic it somehow now that she had a little power over hair? Hmmm what would I look like with red hair though? Rae’s mind wandered a little from the topic of conversation as she waited for Molly to take a breath and let her respond.

  “Text who?” Rae pretended not to remember. The moment before Molly burst in, she had grabbed her father’s journal, hoping to have a look at it and then hide it in a very good hiding place. No chance of that now. She slid the journal between two textbooks on her desk as non-challantly as she could. Molly was super-observant though, and she half expected to be called out on it.

  “Luke, of course!”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot.” She grabbed the top textbook and the journal and p
ut them into her school backpack, zipping it up tight. Better on me at all times than haphazardly hidden in my room.

  Molly shook her head, her pony swinging wildly again. “Come on, Rae.” She held out her hand.

  For one wild second Rae thought Molly was asking to see the journal and her heart rate kicked up as she wrapped her arm around her backpack possessively, trying to come up with a good excuse not to show Molly.

  “Give me your phone.” She beckoned with her fingers.

  Rae sighed with relief and plopped on the bed, tired from the crazy morning and suddenly hungry. The cafeteria had closed half an hour ago so she’d missed lunch. She would have to settle for the rest of her croissant and a bowl of cereal till dinner time. Rae pulled her phone out of the front pocket of her backpack and held it just out of Molly’s reach. “You’re not texting him.”

  “Why not? You won’t.” Molly tried to grab the phone but missed. “I’d send you a zinger of electricity, but I did that to Nic this week and fried his phone.” Molly thought hard for a moment. It always amazed Rae how Molly’s mind worked. It barely took a moment before she snapped her fingers and pointed at Rae. “You let me text Luke for you, and I’ll give you the parcel which came in the post this morning for you.”

  Rae sat up. A parcel? “You didn’t open it, did you?”

  Molly pretended to look hurt. “I’m not that nosey! Really. It’s from your uncle. He shipped it from New York. It’s kinda heavy. I shook it but it wouldn’t move. It’s heavy and packed tight.”

  “Where is it?” Not nosey ‘eh?

  “I’ll give it to you when you hand me your phone and Luke’s number.”

  “That’s blackmail.”

  Molly grinned mischievously. “Phone. Package. That’s the deal.”

  Rae tossed Molly the phone and went to her coat to dig out Luke’s number. “You should work for the Privy Council in the negotiations department.” She glanced at her phone. “Please don’t say anything embarrassing. And DON’T tell him where we go to school!”

  Molly ignored her, so Rae watched over Moll’s shoulder ready to rip the phone out of her hand if necessary. Molly put Luke’s number in the contacts and clicked on the SMS message link: HI LUKE, IT’S RAE and added a smiley face. She sent the message.

  “That’s it?” Rae was puzzled. She tucked the phone in her pocket when Molly handed it back to her.

  “Yup. Why write more? He gave you his number, now you’ve given him yours. The ball’s in his court.” Molly opened the door and dragged a box from around the corner into the room. “Here’s the parcel.” She sat on Rae’s desk chair. “If Luke replies back right away with some flirty message, he’s a womanizer, like he gives his number to every pretty girl he meets.”

  “It might also mean he’s excited I sent him a text. Now I don’t remember if I told him my full name.” She remembered shaking hands, but did she say her name was Rae Kerrigan? No, she had told him Rae, but not her last name. It had happened right after Devon… Rae didn’t finish the thought. She stared at the box her uncle had shipped with blurred vision. Please don’t start crying. Please not now. I can’t explain that to Molly. It still hurt that she couldn’t even tell her best friend about the love of her life, not even now that it was over. It was all a mash-up of worrying what Molly would think and do about it and worrying that by telling her, Rae would put her in an uncomfortable or possibly dangerous situation. The one really important reason though, that Rae only half admitted to herself, was that she was afraid Molly would turn her back on her. She couldn’t lose her best friend. Molly can’t know, she can’t see. It helped stem the tide of tears before they started to fall.

  “Do you need scissors?” Molly opened the desk drawer and handed Rae a pair of scissors. She grabbed a nail file out of her purse and began filing her fingernails.

  Rae sniffed and concentrated on opening the box and not slicing her skin. She opened the top part and looked inside. There were hundreds of little bubble wrapped things with one large bubble wrapped item. A white piece of paper lay taped to the large item.

  Rae opened it and saw her uncle’s handwriting:

  Rae,

  Hope school is going well. Hard to believe you will be finishing soon. Congrats on the job offer with the Privy Council, I’m very proud of you. I told Aunt Linda that you have a job already lined up for graduation and you probably won’t be coming home this summer. She has it in her head to redecorate your old room. I thought you might like to have these with you.

  Love, Uncle Argyle.

  Rae set the letter on her bed and used the scissors to open one of the small bubble wrapped pieces. Inside lay a little porcelain gingerbread man. Uncle Argyle knew how much they meant to her. It was nice of him to send them. She’d have to call him later to thank him.

  “Cute!” Molly dropped on the floor beside Rae. “It’s those little figurines your mother collected, right?”

  Rae nodded, afraid to speak, now ready to cry for a completely different reason. Molly, bless her, sensed it too.

  “Oh, Rae.” Molly hugged her tight.

  The dam burst. Tears flooded her eyes and coursed down her cheeks. She buried her head into Molly’s shoulder and cried. Molly patted her back and let her weep. Devon had broken her heart, then she’d gone and spoken terribly about her mother to Jennifer. The little figurines were like Uncle Argyle’s unknowing message of making sure she knew who her mother was and how much she had sacrificed.

  She sniffed and leaned back to grab a Kleenex off her desk. “Sorry, Molls,” she mumbled and blew her nose.

  “It’s okay. Why don’t I help you get these unpacked? You want to set them up here in your room? Keep the box and package them back up when you move. They’ll be easy to repack. What we should do is ask one of the cooks if they get egg cartons. They’d be so much easier to move that way.”

  They worked together in a comfortable silence. Rae’s phone vibrated a few times but she didn’t feel like checking it. She just wanted to focus on doing this. She needed this little moment of calm. Everything else could wait.

  When Rae set the last figurine into the miniature china cabinet and closed the door, Molly pulled her own phone out of her purse and started searching the internet. “There’s got to be information on these things. What did you say there were called again?”

  “Uncle Argyle called them whimsies. Whimsie figurines or something like that. There are nursery ones and animals and a couple of really old ones.” She opened the little door again and pulled a figurine out. They’re called Wade.”

  “Here they are!” Molly waved the phone. “They’re made in Stoke-on-Trent. They still make them today.” She scrolled through the website. “Holy smokes! They are pretty popular. There’s a Wade Club and everything… links to eBay, pictures of people’s collections.”

  Rae put the little animal figurine back in the case and as she clicked the door closed, a crinkle sound caught her attention. She moved her fingers pressing against the back of the case. She’d just thought to hold it so she didn’t push too hard closing the door and topple the whole thing over. Another crinkle sounded. She stood on her tippy toes and glanced at the back of the cabinet. Something was wedged between the case and its backing. There were two sheets of wood paneling, one for the back and one to hold the mirror on the back wall of the cabinet.

  She pinched the little yellow triangle sticking out and pulled. A piece of paper came out, folded and yellow with age.

  “Hey,” Molly exclaimed, oblivious to what Rae had just found. “There’s a book called ‘The World of Wade’ and it has loads of photos on sets and collections. You can find out what your set is worth and if you need any figurines to complete the sets.” Molly paused when she noticed the paper. “Where did that come from?”

  “It was hidden in the back of the case. I’ve never seen it before. Maybe it came loose from shipping it from New York to England.”

  “What’s it say?”

  Rae unfolded the paper carefully, worr
ied she might tear it. A small key fell out and dropped to the floor. She picked it up and looked at it, then back at the paper. “There’s some code, I think.”

  “Maybe it’s a combination for a lock box somewhere.” Molly set her phone to camera. “Set it on the desk and I’ll take a picture. Maybe we can figure it out.”

  Rae held the paper close. She knew the writing was her mother’s. “I’m not sure.”

  Immediately realizing that Rae was worried it might have something to do with her father and his evil, Molly rolled her eyes. “I won’t tell anyone. Just keep it between you and me. You may work for the Privy Council but they don’t own you.”

  Rae smiled. How Molly understood stuff sometimes, she never ceased to amaze Rae. She set the paper on the desk and held the corners to try and straighten it.

  Molly took a few shots. “I’ll print this off and then delete the pictures. No one will know about it.” She tucked her phone in her purse and threw it over her shoulder. “Why don’t you write the Wade company in Stoke-on-Trent? Or we can drive over there and see if we can purchase a book? I’m sure they’ve got some kind of shop in town. That place is like home of all the potteries.”

  “I’d like that. I just don’t know when I’ll be able to get the chance to go.” She had that mysterious assignment coming up with Julian. She had a feeling one of the phone vibrations she’d felt might be a message from Jennifer, or the Privy Council on what they would be doing.

  “Easter’s coming up soon. You’ll have a few days off for sure and we can go then.”

  “You’d come with me?” She smiled when Molly nodded.

  “Of course! Now let’s head to the library to see if we can decipher the cryptic message.” Molly rubbed her hands together. “It’s like a secret mission. What if I solve some super-secret code, or it links us to loads of money or a Swiss bank account, or a Nock List! You know, like Mission Impossible? I could be some secret undercover bolt of electricity. Maybe I should apply for a job at the Privy Council. This is so exciting!”