Lowlife

by Jon Jacks

  The Sun.

  The blazing Sun.

  Dean.

  *

  Chapter 15

  I can hardly see.

  I blink, trying to get a clearer view of the mirror.

  Hoping to see Dean beyond the blaze of light.

  It’s like a fire in my eyes!

  Blinding.

  The fire in the Sun.

  The fire in Ra’s eye.

  The Eye of Ra.

  Sekhmet!

  It’s not Ra! It’s Sekhmet!

  Hidden in the glare, she’s already languidly stepping out of and through the glass. Thoroughly confident in her strength and power as a lioness.

  I leap up off the cushion, intending to waste no time studying her, the way I had the Hanged Man.

  On my card for Strength, I have a priestess offering her heart to Sekhmet. I have no intention of offering her my heart!

  Yeah, like I have a chance of outrunning a lioness, right?

  To placate Sekhmet, you have to play her music. But I think it’s all a bit late for that – especially the bit where you have to drink vast quantities of wine – even if it would work.

  She doesn’t even have to put too much effort into pursuing me.

  I hear her emit a drawling, almost bored snarl. Possibly the sound of her springing up from the floor.

  But the next thing I know she’s landed on my back, impossibly heavily; so heavily I crumple to the floor with a thud beneath her.

  And then, with a satisfied growl, she hungrily clasps her iron-hard jaws around the back of my neck.

  *

  There is a strangely haunting piece of music playing somewhere.

  Somewhere far off outside of the room.

  It’s quite celestial in its beauty; like angels singing.

  Like nothing I’ve heard before; well, at least not on the radio or what have you.

  Is it heavenly music? Is this heralding or welcoming my entrance into heaven?

  Sekhmet’s tight grasp of my neck in her jaws slackens.

  She eases her heavy hold on me with her heavy legs and paws too. Her claws retract, pulling back out of the flesh they’d deeply sunk into when she’d first leapt on me.

  She’s no longer ferociously, hungrily growling. She’s purring, happily. Maybe even snoring.

  She rolls off me to the floor, her body so heavy the floorboards thunder and shake. I never realised lionesses were so big!

  I hesitantly glance her way, worried that I’m so badly injured even the slightest movement might cause things to get worse. She’s purring, almost asleep, as if in a daze.

  As if drunk.

  The music? Did the music do that?

  Whoever’s playing it, I wish I could thank them for saving my life.

  If I knew the track, the group playing it, I’d buy about a thousand copies and play it endlessly.

  I need to get out of here before Sekhmet recovers – who knows when the music’s going to come to an end? – but I daren’t stand up. If my spine’s damaged, I could end up being forever paralysed.

  I gingerly feel my neck with my hand, dreading what I’m going to find there. When Sekhmet had dug her jaws around it, it had felt like she had severed most of my neck.

  There doesn’t seem to be any deep gouge, thankfully.

  It must have been my imagination that she’d sunk her teeth deeply in there. It doesn’t feel like there are even any cuts, which is weirder still.

  I stand up. I feel fine. Just a little winded after having what seemed to be the weight of a house landing on my back.

  There’s no blood on me. But there’s plenty of blood on the floor. An amazing amount of blood around Sekhmet’s maw, on her claws.

  My back isn’t hurting, not as if it has been deeply clawed anyway.

  Looking at the dazed, drunken Sekhmet rolling around happily on the floor, I’m tempted to run, now; before she recovers.

  But can I really leave something like this running free in the world?

  I look back towards the mirror: I’ll have to drag her back in there.

  I don’t want to – but I don’t have any choice.

  *

  Chapter 16

  I wish I were capable of magical feats!

  If I were, I’d simply levitate this great hulk and send her happily flying back into the mirror!

  As it is, I have to steadily drag her back towards it, pausing every now and again to catch my breath, regain my strength. It’s not even easy grasping her hind legs, trying to get a firm purchase; my hands won’t stretch completely around what passes for her ankles.

  Eventually, I prepare to give her one, last determined pull into the mirror. I don’t want to have to stop to take a breath in there! I want to get out as quickly as I can!

  I drag her in, glancing about me nervously, fearing that the Hanged Man is going to show up at any moment, lassoing me about the neck once again.

  The rooms in here seem no different to the real rooms. They head off in every direction, as if it’s a whole new world in here. New, but more or less the same.

  I’m tempted to explore. I’m also tempted to bash myself about the head for even thinking of doing something so stupid.

  As soon as the last paw of Sekhmet’s massive body completely passes over the frame, I leap half past and half over her as I jump back into the real world. Immediately, I begin snuffing out the candles, using my fingers rather than wasting time trying to blow them out.

  I pick up my Sun card and dash down the stairs.

  Should I have smashed the mirror?

  Probably. Too late to think of that now.

  I’m not going back.

  Not ever.

  Not even to try and talk to Dean.

  *

  I hurtle down the house’s stairs so quickly, I’m in danger of falling and dying anyway.

  I throw open the house’s front door, letting it crash to behind me.

  It’s not daylight anymore. It’s night time.

  How long have I been in there?

  Even as I wonder this, I don’t stop running. I want to get as far away from that damned house, that terrible mirror, as I can.

  Behind me, as I run, I hear the sound of a revving motorbike. A motorbike that sounds like it’s roaring after me.

  Please don’t tell me lionesses can ride motorbikes!

  I whirl around, just in case. That’s how crazy all this has made me.

  I’m half expecting to see Sekhmet on the bike, grinning from ear to ear. Thankfully (of course!) it isn’t her. It’s a normal rider, wearing a dark helmet.

  He slews to an almost immediate halt alongside me at the kerb.

  I don’t know whether to run or not.

  The rider swiftly slips off his helmet.

  ‘Grace, where’ve you been? I’ve been worried sick!’

  I feel wobbly on my legs, almost faint.

  It’s Dean.

  *

  Chapter 17

  ‘But…but you’re…’

  I can’t say it.

  Can’t say, ‘You’re dead.’

  Because he quite clearly isn’t.

  He’s here. And riding the motorbike I also thought got crushed beneath that truck.

  That truck driven by a horse and a dog.

  Has…has it all been some weird dream? Some bizarre hallucination?

  He dismounts his motorbike, kicks its stand into place. Dashes over to me and holds me close.

  ‘Grace! You’re trembling? What on earth happened in there? I shouldn’t have brought you here, I’m sorry! I’m really sorry.’

  He bends his head, kisses my cheek. Again and again. Like he’s kissing away imaginary tears.

  ‘You’re crying,’ he says in surprise. ‘Grace, please tell me, what happened in there?’

  He pulls back a little so he can look directly into my eyes. Wanting the truth.

  What is the truth?

  How is he back here? Alive?

  What does he mean, �
��I shouldn’t have brought you here’? He didn’t bring me here. I brought myself here, looking for him.

  Is that what he means? He effectively brought me here, because I’d gone looking for him?

  And I’ve found him!

  He’s back.

  ‘Oh Dean, it’s so so good to have you back!’ I say joyfully, wrapping my arms tightly around him once more.

  *

  ‘Back?’ he chuckles. ‘Grace, I’m sorry I left you in there on your own; but I’d only gone off for a few seconds. To check on a noise I thought I’d heard on the stairs. I didn’t think being alone would freak you out into running!’

  ‘Alone? But of course I was alon– wait! Are you saying this is the first time we did this?’

  Is that it? Have we gone back in time?

  ‘First time?’ It’s a mystified chuckle this time. ‘What other times were there? If it freaks you out this much, Grace, we won’t ever do it again! Sorry!’

  He holds me tight, like he wants to reassure me. Like I’m the most delicate little flower he’s ever come across who needs protecting.

  It’s nice, in one way.

  Extremely irritating in another.

  At least it gives me time to think; to try and work out what’s going on here.

  If Dean thinks this is the first time we went into the house, then either we’ve gone back in time; or I’ve just completely imagined the last few days of my life!

  The first situation sounds crazy!

  The second means I’m crazy!

  *

  Chapter 18

  My arms are wrapped tightly around him again. This time from behind. My head encased in his spare helmet.

  I’m riding pillion on his motorbike.

  Again? Or for the first time?

  I really don’t know anymore.

  It feels like I’ve been here before.

  That wonderful, warm, comforting feeling of putting my arms about him.

  That fear that I’m going to fall off at any moment.

  But; we’re not on our way back from a takeout meal of chicken and fries.

  Our first date.

  Our now non-existent date.

  Did I just dream it all? Imagine it, because I wanted it all so much?

  Well, not his death, obviously.

  But it’s not as if you can control a wonderful dream when it transforms into a nightmare, can you?

  What could have happened in that room?

  Was there something in those candles, some perfume that made me dizzy, drowsy – delusional?

  Or, maybe, it was some old fungus growing amongst the house’s rotting timbers. Like the fungus on the wheat that gave everyone hallucinations about witches.

  I’ve told Dean where I live. (Again?)

  He drops me off on the kerb outside my house. Taking off his own helmet, carefully straddling his bike as he leans across to me – he kisses me.

  Our first kiss?

  Or our second?

  He doesn’t give me the book. Not this time.

  Well, nothing went wrong; did it?

  I imagined everything.

  The experiment didn’t work.

  ‘Wait!’ I say to Dean as he’s about to slip his helmet back on. ‘I know how to use the cards! We didn’t do it right!’

  He raises his eyebrows in puzzlement.

  ‘I thought you didn’t–’

  ‘I’m not sure I do: but the cards, you’ve got to use one card. To choose who you want to speak to in the mirror!’

  Maybe that’s why I had my hallucination. A weirdly complicated way to show me how to use the tarot cards within the diagram.

  Magic? But maybe the diagram’s responsible; its way of informing me how to make sure we’re using it right.

  ‘One card?’

  He looks embarrassed, like he’s been caught out in a lie.

  ‘Isn’t that what this mirror’s really about?’ I say. ‘A way to talk to the dead? To talk to your ancestor about witches?’

  He looks abashed, like he’s worried I’m going to storm at him for lying.

  ‘How did you know?’

  How did I know?

  ‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?’ I reply.

  Is it?

  He grins.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose it is. It’s not like a mirror’s going to somehow call up witches, is it?’

  Hmn, I suppose not. But then again, it’s not like a mirror would help you talk to the dead, is it?

  Then again, if it is magic – and it’s trying to help us get everything right…it would let me know what it’s intended for; wouldn’t it?

  So now I believe a mirror’s having a conversation with me!

  Just great!

  But better to believe that than that it brings my cards to life!

  *

  As soon as I’m in the house, I click on my cellphone, check the date.

  Why didn’t I think of this before?

  Oh yeah, because I was too busy talking to a boy I saw run over by a truck.

  Well whaddya know?

  Today is the day we made our first attempt at using the diagram.

  Dean was right.

  (Maybe the fact that he’s still alive rather than dead had something to do with that.)

  In my version of events, we don’t get to have our first kiss until tomorrow night.

  In Dean’s version, this new version, we had our first kiss tonight.

  This time, too, when he drove off on his bike, I told him not to look back at me, not to wave.

  I also insisted he went the other way, back the way we had come. Even though he protested it was the wrong way for him to head on home.

  He’d roared off, as he had that first time.

  He even looked back, eventually. Waved excitedly.

  All as he had done the first time.

  But unlike that first time, this time there wasn’t any truck.

  There wasn’t a horse-headed driver. A dog-headed passenger.

  There wasn’t any presence of the Death card.

  He rode off into the distance.

  Like the leader of the pack in a romantic movie.

  Not like the Leader of the Pack in the Shangri-La’s song; thank God!

  On his back, on his leather jacket, he had a painted image of an eagle, maybe a hawk. It all added to that sense he was flying off into a glorious sunset; even though it was so dark the only glowing lights were those of the streetlamps and nearby houses.

  Glancing in a mirror – a normal mirror – I check my own back.

  Wondering how badly gashed it will all be after Sekhmet leapt on my back, clawing–

  What am I on about?

  It never happened, did it?

  There’s not a single mark on my back. Not a single tear in my dress.

  Wow, what an imagination I must have – I’ve conjured up a whole week in my mind that never really existed!

  *

  Chapter 19

  What’s that saying?

  Fool me once, something something?

  Fool me twice, more fool me?

  And that, of course, is if this is the second time I’m being fool enough to try this again.

  If it’s the third time – well, what’s that other saying? The first time’s a mistake, the second something else I can’t remember; and the third’s just you being clearly stupid.

  So I’m a clearly stupid fool.

  And you know what? Deep down, I reckon I’m only going through with all just so I have the chance to be with Dean again.

  You know, after thinking I’d finally lost him and all that?

  And yet here is, back with me, alive; as if he’d never, ever really gone away.

  Which, according to him, he hadn’t.

  ‘What if you’d been put on this earth to do something special?’ he’d asked me. ‘And then, because you were too lazy, or too sacred, you blew it? It never happened, because you refused to accept your destiny?’

  I’d hummed and ha
wed of course, trying to think of some way to get out of it, to not have to go through with using that damned mirror again – but I couldn’t think of a good enough counter argument. Besides, he’d added the clincher.

  ‘What if you and me, Grace, were destined to be together? You with your amazing tarot cards, me with the book of diagrams, the witch-finding ancestor?’

  Destined to be together – show me the girl who can’t be persuaded to do just about anything for a gorgeous guy who tells her that.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ I’d agreed. ‘So what did he look like, this ancestor? What card should we use for him? To make sure he’s the one we call up?’

  ‘I don’t know what he looked like, not for sure; dark haired, thin face, going by the illustrations I’ve seen of him. But they were woodcuts, you know? Printed from images cut into wood? So just about everyone looked like that in the illustrations of those days.’

  ‘We can base it on character; you know, we know he’s intelligent, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Sure: wise, knowledgeable – searching all the time for new areas of knowledge, too, I suppose you could say. And writing it all down as well; so very well-educated for his age.’

  ‘Hmn, sounds like the Hermit to me; gaining knowledge, self-reflection. As represented by Imhotep, sage and patron of scribes.’

  I’d shown Dean the card, a seated, shaven-headed Imhotep holding a papyrus scroll in his hand. Being able to send to sleep those who were suffering or in pain, he was also linked with the god of healing, Nefertem; who I’ve also painted here, this time as a small child crouching on the sacred lotus flower he emerged from at the point of creation.

  ‘It’s a beautiful card,’ Dean had breathed in admiration. ‘Where did you get your inspiration from for the inclusion of the ancient gods? The Book of the Dead?’

  ‘Partly,’ I’d admitted, impressed that he saw the link. ‘But each one closely follows the illustrations found – and in this order too, an order following the major arcana – in a Temple of Serapis.’

  ‘It’s a good card.’ He had nodded, like he understood my choice. ‘I can see why you might think it would be right for my ancestor. But I think it needs a more spiritual side: you know, with him seeking out witches and all that? Creatures of the otherworld.’

  ‘Hmn, but he’s not part of that world himself, of course.’

  ‘That’s right; more like he knows it’s there, he’s accepting that it’s there. But he thinks it has to be controlled, to limit its damage to normal people, the earth, that kind of thing.’