Part 12

Mary is gone as well.  The door to my room is standing slightly ajar, and she is not inside. 

“Son of a…”  I begin and exhale.  Deep breath in, deep breath out.  Looking over the door, it seems to be, well, it has not been in one piece in years, but it does not appear damaged any further.  Peering into the room, I discover it is much as I left it, although the bed does look a little more ‘lived in.’

Switching off the lights, I flip the lock on the door and close it, making a mental note to grab my other key.  On the way back to my cart to do so, I poke my head into both bathrooms, hoping to find her, but not expecting to.  Neither am I disappointed. 

I set the still glowing sphere on a crate and dig through my cart, finding the chain in a pocket of my other pair of jeans.  Pulling it out, I hang it about my neck and tuck the key into my shirt, stifling a yawn with my sleeve.  Sleep calls to me, invites me towards its warm embrace, but I decline.  Who knows what I would wake up to?

Rubbing my eyes I grab the sphere and head out into the main corridor.  Left or right, she had to be walking, unless someone came and got her.  I push that thought from my mind.  There seems to be a pin prick of light at the far end of the tunnel to my left, the right one is pitch black.  Left then.

“Mary!”  I yell out, and am greeted by a thousand echoes as it bounces off of the concrete walls, reverberates in the air.  Waiting a few moments after the cacophony dies down, I hear nothing but the drip drip of water.

I sigh and, holding the sphere aloft, the cold blue light casting shadows of broken stone and dumped belongings against the walls, head down the tunnel.  Things hidden by the darkness scurry away, their squeaks and squeals of protest startle me at first.  Zigzagging through the tunnel, I avoid puddles of stagnant, fetid water and wonder about how a car, an old Cutlass by the looks of it, managed to make it so far underground.  A worn pair of boots stuck in the mud catches my attention and I tug at them.  A loud squelch accompanies there liberation, sending me sprawling on to my butt.  Now that they are free, they look too small so I toss them off to the side, hoping to pick them up later, trade them for something.  I look around for some kind of marker, some kind of landmark and make a note of an oddly shaped piece of concrete leaning against the wall.

Glancing over my shoulder, I am greeted by nothing but darkness beyond of the glow the orb casts.  I start at my own shadow stretched out behind me.  Draw in a deep breath, steel myself to go on.  Moving forward again, I note that the distant light is still no bigger than a pin prick.  I trudge on, afraid to call out any more, regretting that I had in the first place.

Another hundred feet and I trip over a piece of the broken subway rail and stumble.  I hear a startled sob to my left.  “Mary.” I hiss.

“Charlie?  Is that you?”  She calls out.  I move toward her voice, find her sitting, back against the wall, shoeless.  “I’m sorry,” she cries.

“Where are your shoes?”  I ignore her apology.

“They’re back there,” tears drip from her eyes as she waves back the way I had come. 

I look at her feet, cracked and bleeding from the rough tunnel floor.  “Ok.  You stay here, I’ll go get them.”  I hear a final sob, followed by a long sigh as I walk away, leaving her again in darkness.  I find the piece of concrete I had noted earlier, locate the boots and bring them back to her. 

Her hands tremble as she slides them on to her feet.  She stands up and winces at the pain, but shrugs my steadying hands away.

“Where did you think you were going?”  I ask her, trying to keep the edge of irritation, and fear, out of my voice.

“I was going to find Old Jenny.”  She squares her shoulders, takes a step toward the distant light.

I cast my eyes toward the ground, “Um, Mary…”

“What?”

“I’m not, not sure what’s in that direction.  Or the other for that matter, I only ever come down here via the Sigils.  I leave by them too.”

She curses under her breath, “So what are we waiting for, use the sphere and let’s go see her.”

“It’s not that easy, I can get us close, kind of…”  I watch her shoulders slump slightly but her head snaps back up.

“Ok, do it then.”

I find the right spot on my sphere, looking past the glowing light, and again the world drops away.  The walls appear to melt into the floor, which seems to bubble for a moment, change color, become the remains of what was once a brilliant red carpet.  The walls are rebuilt brick by brick before us, and soon they too are covered in a dark carpeting.  Chairs appear scattered on the floor before us, a few broken tables mixed among them.  Three men look at us from one corner before turning back to whatever they were doing.  A torn screen took up three quarters of the wall behind them  What might have been bronze light fixtures hung on either side of the screen underneath a thick green patina.

“Where are we?”  She asks, drawing another glance from the three men.

“The King’s Theater.  There is a passageway down to the Graveyard in here.”

“The Graveyard?”  She asks, looking around the room, her mouth open.

“Yes, now let’s go,”  I grab ahold of her arm and pull her along as the three men break from their huddle, pulling switchblades from inside their black leather jackets.

Part 11

I came seeking information.  What I got was not what I had bargained for. 

“Wait, you drew that?  Let me see it.”  I reach out, take the card from him.  I examine the wheel closer.  Sure enough, almost hidden in the shadow of one of the wooden spokes, is my brother's signature.  “I’ll be damned.”

His long fingers snatch the card from me, “You may already be.”

“What do you mean?”

Jason takes a sip of tea, lets the steam caress his face.  “What are you going to do?”

“About what?”  I file the ‘you may already be’ comment away for later.

He cocks a bushy, greying eyebrow, tilts his head slightly.  “About her.”

“How’d you know?”  I ask, quickly glancing around the room.

“Relax, I read the cards this morning.  Why else would I have answered the door this late?”

“Sorry.  Should’ve guessed.”  I bring the hot liquid to my lips, drink.

He sets the card on the table in front of him, tilts his chair back, opens a drawer and pulls out a small pouch, along with a sheet of paper.  “Cigarette?”  I nod and he grabs a second piece of paper out.

While he is rolling the cigarettes, I pull out the Sigil Sphere and play with it, let the orb roll back and forth along the top of my fingers.  I take the cigarette when it is offered, light it with the sphere, doing the same to his before he can get the lighter out of his pocket.

“How did you…”  He begins, but I interrupt.

“You first, tell me about your reading.”

“All it said was that you would be stopping by tonight and that a woman was somehow involved.”

It was my turn to raise an eyebrow and cock my head.  I pull the book out of my coat.  “I’ve been doing some reading, I don’t think I’m getting the whole picture.  What did you mean earlier, that I might already be damned.”

“I, I don’t know now.”  He takes a long drag, holds the smoke in his mouth for a second, his thin lips tightly sealed.  Opening wide he lets it billow out.  My brother sees the disappointed look on my face and continues.  “I drew the Magician also, and I thought it had something to do with an adversary, but with you doing that,” flustered, he waves his hand, “trick with the fire, I’m not so sure.”  Jason pauses for a sip of tea and another puff from his cigarette.  “Your turn.”  He smiles, his crooked teeth yellow-brown from years of smoking

I nod.  “I’m a Prince,” I begin and immediately he laughs.

“Wait, so I’m supposed to believe…”  He stops as I stand up, push my chair in.  “Wait, I’m sorry.  Sit back down.”

I glare at him but concede, take my seat.  “There were twelve of us at one point,  I believe there are only seven remaining.  I was given this title down below, in the sewers.  I came across the Troll King, he was hiding beneath a heap of boxes, dying of lung cancer.”  I chuckle as I take another drag of my own from my cigarette.  “He handed me this,” I nod toward the glass sphere, “and told me that I was now one of the Underground Princes.  I had no idea what it meant then.  I’m not one hundred percent sure I know what it means now…”

“So, do you have subjects?  Do you have a kingdom?  Do they pay you tribute?”  His questions come rapid fire.

I snort at the last one.  “Tribute?  Remember who these people are.  What they have.  No, my main role is as an arbiter.  I hear grievances and settle disputes.  As for your other questions, kind of.  It is up in the air right now.  With five of us missing, we need to carve up the city again, but we can’t agree how.  Besides…”  My thoughts drift to the possibilities of Cyrus running everything.  “I’m sorry to have involved you in all of this Jason.”  I say and down the rest of my tea in one long gulp.

“In all of what?” He asks.

“The less you know…”  I tell him as I stand.  I grab the library book and the tarot card from the table.  “This card can’t be a coincidence, I need to figure out what it means and how you fit in all of it.”

“Wait!”  He says, holding up a finger, but my eyes are already fixed on the orb.

“I’ll be in touch.  Close your eyes,”  I tell him, and I am gone.

Part 10

Change.  It’s inevitable.

I think that is what Old Jenny was trying to tell me with the Wheel of Fortune.  Or maybe that it was coming and I needed to stop it?  If so, what was the change?  Everything I read said the change should be good, unless the card was reversed.  I try to remember how Mouse was holding it when he handed it to me. I can not.  Or maybe the card meant nothing…

I stand up and stretch, pull my Sigil Sphere from my pocket and begin to roll it around in the palm of my hand.  Absently, I bring the cup to my lips, downing the last few drops of the now luke-warm liquid. 

I leave the coffee shop and duck into the next alley, the book again under my coat, despite the fact that the rain has stopped.  In the little streetlamp light that reaches me, I locate my destination within the sphere and blink.

The sign in the store’s window says ‘closed’ but I knock anyway.  It takes four minutes, but finally I see a light come on in the back of the store.

“Coming.  I’m coming,” A man in his late forties hobbles into view, the lettering on the glass window partially obscuring him.  I can hear the thunk of his cane as it strikes the wooden floor with his every step.  His face lights up when he sees me through the glass door.  He turns the lock and lets me in.

“Charles!”  He says, wrapping both of his arms around me, his cane hitting my shoulder.

“How are you Jason?”  I ask.

“Fine, fine.”  He releases me and takes a step back to look me over.  “You look good,” he adds.

“Thanks,” I smile.  “How’s mom?”  I ask, and he looks at me shaking his head.

“You know, she’s fine.  Dad too.”

“Have you told her?”

He sighs, “No.”  He walks further into his store, past a row of oddly sized jars with labels such as eglantine, fennel, and jasmine.  “If you’re not going to tell her you’re homeless, you could at least come stay with me.  We can put a cot in my office, you can sleep there.”

“Look, Jason, we’ve been over this before, you can barely afford to support yourself as it is.  If you take me in we’ll both be living on the streets in months.”

“We’d make do…”  Thunk, thunk, creak, he walks across the floor, the floorboards groaning with age.  “Would you like some tea?”  He offers shaking his head at my refusal. 

“Sure.”  I follow him across the store, bumping into a shelf and catching a glass skull before it crashes to the floor.  I reseat it upon the small marble pedestal it had previously occupied.

“Nice catch, that.”  He says, smiling.  We pass through a doorway and follow a flight of stairs up to the loft he keeps above his shop.

“So, hows business?”  I ask him as he sets the tea kettle to boil. 

“It’s been pretty steady recently.  I’ve already got next months rent and utilities covered.”

I nod as he pulls an airtight container from his cupboard.  “Look, I should have been up front with you when you opened the door for me.”  He opens the container, the smell of the tea with a hint of mint and lavender, wafting from within.  He pulls two small pieces of cloth from a drawer and spoons some of the dried spices onto them.  He folds each one up and ties them off with small piece of ribbon before dropping each into a mug.

“Look, Charles.  My homeless brother shows up on my doorstep after disappearing almost a year ago.  I know you want something, you’re not in trouble or anything are you?  Are you on drugs again?”

I shudder at the thought of what the heroine had done to my body, thinking back to the wreck I had been then.  “No, nothing like that.”  I pull the tarot card from my pocket.  “What do you make of this?”

He takes the card, flips it over, stares at the black back, and then flips it again.  “Where’d you get this?”

The kettle whistles but he ignores it, still staring at the card.  I get up and pour the hot water into the mugs.  I try to hand him one, note the slack-jawed expression on his face and set his mug down next to him.  I take the other and tell him that it had been given to me earlier in the night.  “What do you make of it?”  I ask.

”Where’d you get this?”  He asks again, more forcefully.

“I told you, it was given to me earlier.  What’s the big deal?”

“I drew this nearly twenty years ago.  It’s from the first deck I made.”

Part 9

The tarot card tucked firmly in the inside pocket of my coat, I head east.  I make it three more blocks before the rain begins to fall.  By the time I make it the final four to my destination, I am soaked, standing outside of the public library.
 
Drip.  Drip.  I walk into the lobby, water soaking the carpet beneath me.  I stand there, ignoring the look the librarian gives me.

“Um, sir, we’re locking up in a few minutes,” she tells me.

“Thanks.  I’ll be less than that.  Do you mind if I leave my jacket up here?”  I ask as I slip out of my brown trench coat, revealing a pair of torn blue jeans and a black t-shirt that once read…  Hell, I don’t know, it was faded when I got it.  I hang the coat on the back of a chair and slosh to the back of the building, follow the bookshelves, simply labeled ‘Poetry,’ to the left.  There, covered in dust, is what I seek.  The old wooden drawers are stained brown, the labeling for the old Dewey Decimal system faded.  I count drawers, five right and three down.  It takes a little effort, the tracks stiff with disuse, but the drawer finally slides out.  I pull it farther, until it stops and I lift it out, setting the drawer, yellowing cards and all, on top of the card catalog.  I reach in to the hole, feel around, my hand finds the envelope I knew would be there.  I replace the drawer and walk back towards the entrance. 

I pass by an aisle of shelves labeled ‘New Age’ and a thought occurs to me.  I turn into the corridor, lined by books on chakra and chi, divination and mysticism, finally finding the section I am looking for.  I grab the first book that looks promising and head to the counter.  I take my coat from the back of the chair, dig through its pockets and find my library card, the same one Ive had had for years.  The librarian, still eyeing me from behind a pair of horn- rimmed glasses, scans my card, and the copy of Learning the Tarot I had picked up.

I shrug the trench onto my shoulders, use it to guard the book as I step out into the rain.  I reach into my pocket, pull out a handful of change, count it.  Just over three dollars.  Should be enough for a cup of coffee, and a warm place to sit for a few minutes.  I walk west, back the way I came and the rain lets up, but the wind still pushes me along.  I duck into the doorway of a small corner coffeehouse I had passed earlier.  The sound of an acoustic guitar assaults me, a nasally voice accompanying it.  I shake my head, ignore the music, and order a small coffee from the teen behind the counter.  I count six hoops through her right ear and one in her lower lip.  When she hands me the cup, I hold out the handful of change and she waves me off.

“He’s buying all the drinks while he’s on stage,” she eyes the young man sitting with the guitar dreamily.  “Isn’t he great?”

I nod, still ignoring the music, and take a seat in a wingback chair, setting the coffee on the table in front of me and pull the book from my beneath my coat.  I take a sip of coffee, silently cursing as it burns my tongue.  I open the tome and settle back into the chair.

Part 8

My cart was where I left it so I took a moment to compose myself before I used the Sphere to bring me back to the soup kitchen.  Rush still sat where we had left him, calmly finishing the food I had left behind.  “Jenny wants to see her.”  I told him as I approached.  “I think,” I added for good measure.

“Bah!  Witch is useless.  Where is Dairy Mary?” he asks, sopping up the last of the mashed potatoes on my plate with a crust of bread.

I study him carefully.  “She’s safe,” is all I give him.  Watching him eat makes my stomach growl so I look out the window to distract myself.  The sky is dark and full of clouds.  The rumble of subway cars has been replaced by thunder. 

“What happened after we left?” I ask him.

“Cyrus walks in, sees you leave, and leaves himself.  You causes quite a stir leaving like that you know.”

I dismissively wave the comment away and he laughs.  I cast my eyes around the room.  There are a few faces I recognize, even more I don’t.  “I have a request,” I say, loud enough for everyone to hear.  I wait long enough for the buzzing conversations to quiet down.  “I need someone to ask a question of Old Jenny for me.”

“Do it yourself,” someone calls out as I sit in the same chair I had occupied not long before.  I wait, ignoring the look, one full of spite for the witch and questions for me, that Rush gives me.  It does not take long before a small, thin man, barely a man at that, makes his way to my table.

“I’ll d-d-do it,” he stammers.

“And who are you?”  The Russian asks.

“M-my name is Mark,” he responds.  This causes the Russian to laugh.

“But Mark, you are meek as mouse!  Do you really think you can talk to witch?”  He lets out a hearty laugh.  "I shall call you Mouse!"

The young man manages a half smile before turning to me. “I’ll do it.”  He says again.  “I can go see Jenny, what is it you need?”

I look him over, his nose twitches.  I laugh.  “Mouse it is,” I proclaim loud enough for the tables around us to hear.  I lower my voice.  “Someone left me a message on the board.  I need to know if it was from her or not.”

“It was,” he replies.

Rush grabs ahold of Mouse, “How do you know?”  The Russian growls.

“I put it there,” Mouse squeaks.

The Russian glances at me and I nod.  He lets go and Mouse stands there cowering. 

“I-is th-there anything else?” he asks.

I reach into my pocket and pull out a dollar bill, hand it to the man.  “No.”  He takes it and snakes his way through the tables, leaving the building .

The Russian glares at me, “You are too generous.”

I laugh at this, “But I am royalty!”  This elicits a chuckle from him as well.

“So what is plan?”  He asks.

His tone causes me to pause.  What if I was right, what if Cyrus made a deal.  I decide on caution.  “I don’t know yet.”

“Then what of witch?”  He asks, flashing a brown smile.

“Again, I don’t know.”  I tell him and stand up.  “I am sorry old friend, but I have other business to
attend to now.

“Farewell friend,” he waves.

I leave the kitchen and the wind bites through the heavy canvas coat that I wear.  Lightning flashes overhead, illuminating the street long enough for me to tell it was empty.  A peal of thunder sets off a car alarm a few blocks away.  The rain has yet to start as I turn my collar up.  Better be safe than sorry.  I walk a block east and turn around at the sound of a voice calling my name.

“Um, excuse me?”  Mouse says.

I look him over.  He really is thin.  “How old are you kid?”  I ask.

“Almost eighteen,” he says.

“You’re an idiot,” I snap back at him.

“W-what?”

“Where’re your parents?”

“Maine.”

“Why are you here Mark?”  I decide to switch tactics, use his real name to try and put him at ease.

“I didn’t want to work in the mill.”

“So you came here looking for an opportunity.  And you think this,”  I hold my arms out, “is better than working in the mill?”  I bite, my tone harsh again.  “Go home.”

He scowls.

“Mark, I’ve been on the streets for almost half my life.  If I had somewhere to go, I would.”

“But…”

“But nothing.  Did they beat you?”

“Who?  Oh.  No.”

“Then go home!”  I growl.

He cowers, reaches into his pocket.  “She told me you would come back, and that I should give you this.”

I take the card from his outstretched hand, look at it.  A wooden wagon wheel is inscribed upon the card, the letters T, A, R, and O are drawn at the compass points, and the words Wheel of Fortune are embossed in a banner across its bottom.  “What’s this mean?” I ask, turning the tarot card over in my hand, revealing nothing but black upon its back. 

“She said you would have to come to her to find out.”

“Why didn’t you give me this earlier?”

“I was afraid of the other guy…”

I smirk.  “Ok, I don’t want to see you around here again.  Get on a bus tomorrow and go home, or as soon as you can afford one.”  To emphasize the point, I hand him another dollar.  “Now get.”

He disappears into the shadows, leaving me contemplating the card in my hand.