Ace of Cups

The wet ripping sound wakes Wilder into levitation, and they smack their still-headphoned skull into the underside of Artemis’s dining room table, under which they had fallen asleep hugging the Ouija board box after Adam and Steve the night before. “Jesus fuck,” they bellow as they drop it. Their emotions immediately crack into focus as though breaking the lens on a kaleidoscope. They remember grabbing for Quibble’s elbow, stealing from him; they are instantly sorry, and only sorry. Quibble, however, does not look like he is thinking about the same, does not look like he has noticed what he’s missing, does look like he might still be drunk. He holds an impossibly large coffee in his free hand as the other closes the hole in space-time. But he smells amazing, like he showered, and Wilder is keenly aware that they have not, and they smell like cigarettes and tequila.

Mary Margaret flings her head back over the arm of the sofa, looks at Wilder upside down. “Ouch,” she says, pitiless. She returns to eating her cold slice of breakfast pie.

Quibble notices Wilder has the board, but he believes it to be useless since the planchette is in his pocket. If he weren’t still a bit tequila-wibbly and if he weren’t holding a coffee he was unwilling to set down for even one millisecond, he might finger the planchette in his pocket and notice it is missing. But he doesn’t because whatever. Because stepping out of There is giving him a bit of the spins.

“Good. You’re here,” Artemis says curtly. She is, somehow, fully dressed, entirely clean and not still drunk, which seems like an impossible trifecta that neither of the boys has been able to attain. “We’re going somewhere.” She stalks out. Wilder opens and closes their mouth like a fish as they watch her pass, then scrambles out from under the table rubbing their fast-forming forehead goose egg.

Quibble clasps Wilder by the wrist and drags their sorry ass up to standing. “You okay, man?” he asks. “You’re whiter than normal.”

Wilder reaches down and grabs the Ouija board box, looks for their own backpack and shoves it in, tastes the mouth in their mouth and wonders if they even get to brush their teeth. “I—does she know? About yesterday? About what the thing said on the Ouija board when she was gone?” They whisper it, in case she doesn’t. What they don’t ask: Does she know I grabbed for you? Does she know I wouldn’t take no for an answer? What they don’t say, even to themself: Still, I am planning to do this without you and I am not going to tell you so that I have plausible deniability, so that I can say of course I didn’t understand that you didn’t want anyone to do it, not just that you didn’t want to do it, and I still, still do not know how I am going to explain taking the planchette but I will figure it out because I have to know. I can’t stop thinking about the AI.

In response to Wilder’s actual question, Quibble shakes his head. “No,” he says, “but I think we should tell her.” He continues down the stairs.

Wilder lets out a breath they aren’t aware they’re holding until they taste the panic on it. “Quibble?” The man turns. “I’m really sorry. I—If you never wanted to see me again, I think that would be justi—”

“Why on earth would I never want to see you again? I mean, do not get me wrong, we’re gonna have a long talk about it later, at some point, probably. But you don’t just throw people away when you fight with them.” What Quibble does not say: people are temporary enough already.

They walk into the shop; Artemis and Quibble know the place well, have a routine. Wilder doesn’t. Hadn’t even known where they’d been going, and it took a long fucking time to get here. Their eyes light on the pastry case, on the coffee carafes out in the open for anyone to refill, and on the tables packed shoulder to shoulder with young, beleaguered students and playwrights who wear socks with sandals and bespectacled scientists reading dense journals and lines of tourists drawn by the cathedral across the street. The windows have steamed up against the outside winter and the space feels volcanic, tropical. Wilder races to shrug off their coat as Quibble breaks off from the group.

“Where’s he going?” Wilder asks.

Artemis shrugs. “Quibble always pays. So he always orders.”

Artemis remains bundled up despite the inside-heat, the fancy pink coat her armor. Wilder wonders why so on edge, more on edge than usual, especially when everything about this well-worn place screams ease. A home-place. The baristas greet their customers by name. Regulars wave at each other, sit with each other though they arrive separately. In contrast, Artemis stands tall, rigid, and marches toward the back, her heels clacking even over the customers’ din. Her mouth is a tense line—has been the entire long subway ride, two trains and a long platform wait worth of grimace. Her eyes do not light on the pastry case, do not follow Quibble, do not look at a single frantic student wildly caffeinating behind their textbook mountain. Her unwavering gaze is focused, instead, on the very back of the shop.

Wilder notices a strange current of Power. Of course they cannot See it, not like Artemis can, a constant Weather-Channel-esque radar overlay on the entire world. But they certainly feel it. They picture a pool filter. Gentle, nearly imperceptible, but constantly pulling everything toward it, trapping whatever needs to be trapped and letting the rest flow through. The hairs on their arms are standing on end, all pointing the same direction—onward, forward. Wilder looks at the dense crowd and notices the subtle eye flicks, the way people’s shoulders point in the very direction Wilder is walking—as though everyone’s attention is focused on something back there, and they don’t even realize. Wilder wonders if their own entire last few weeks, their entire winter, their entire life has been leading them to last night, to this morning, to here, to this time, to this place. The pull accelerates with each second and step, faster and stronger and increasingly difficult to ignore. They join everyone: they look to the back of the coffee shop as well and meet my eyes.

Hello. I am the Sibyl.

I have a body, too, just like all the witches I am Watching. My soft hair is graying and short, cut with clippers on the sides and left longer at the top, an artful swirl sitting on my head, and I watch Wilder’s desire. I watch them want to run their hands along my jaw, something between delicate and angular, and down my long, prominent neck. A fine feature; a reminder of vulnerability. I See them want to slip their hands down the back of my shirt and rest their fingers on my shoulder blades. Thirst; envy. I smile on large lips with large teeth, my mouth a touch oversized for the rest of my face. I have small wrinkles at the corners of my eyes. I look at the table, at my tarot cards, and let the force of their want wash over me. It has been a long time since any witch has wanted me quite like this and I let my body blush, let myself both soften and harden under their gaze. I hear Artemis snort. This is not her first rodeo.

I have a body and I put clothes on it, too. All-black Manhattanite clothes, my coat stored in the kitchen by the owner after I arrive each morning. It is steaming hot against the wall with the oven on the other side, and I am wearing a black T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. It shows off the pink scars under each armpit; someone watching me closely would recognize what they were. Dark jeans with bright cuffs, soldier straight and looking starched. Black boots with silver rings and pointed toes, soft worn leather, polished well but not to a shine. I don’t mind a little dirt.

I have a body and I sit at the table in the corner, pressed back in my chair and shuffling my soft-edged cards, my old ones that smell of linen and time and that no one can get anymore. Patterned with gold stars on a deep blue. I return the Ace of Cups to the deck. Idly, I turn another one, curious. Two of Wands reversed.

You should have come sooner, I whisper into that space between their Ears, and I shoot a curious look at Artemis.

“I felt it was under control,” she says, and she purses her lips. Artemis does not know if it is under control. No one has been hurt, and yet—a volatile and ubiquitous being. Something new that none of them have ever seen before.

You are lying, I Say just to her. Her expression darkens and I can Feel her growl in my own chest.

I have a body, sure, but I do not have a voice (though fortunately and unlike most Sibyls before me, I still have my eyes; if I had every faculty, I would be too powerful and the Universe had to nerf me somehow). I am the Sibyl only for those who listen with their Ears and not their ears. This is, unfortunately, not very many people. I am lonely here sometimes. Surrounded by those who fundamentally misunderstand how I am. How I move. How I do. Even those who listen do not understand me; Artemis is proof.

Wilder is magnetized toward me, this body before them, this Voice in their head, and they walk forward as though dreaming. My pull has them enthralled. I look up. I Feel-See-see them suddenly leap backward, smacking into Artemis, who puts her hands out to urge them onward. I know why: my yellow eyes, slit black pupils, a well-timed blink with two sets of eyelids, purposeful. Just as quickly as they are there, they’re gone. Hidden behind a bright green iris, striking but normal. Some human eyes of my own invention. They needed a learning, an example of something Artemis could have explained, but she has left the task to me. I need to teach them that I am distant. Untouchable. I need the reminder, too (desires that burn hot like stars are always the ones I want to drink up). They are at the center of the story and I am but their humble Sibyl; we cannot fuck.

Artemis pushes them down into the seat and holds her hands on their shoulders. To keep them there. To reassure them. Artemis has, as the youth say, big mom energy. Wilder squirms like an unruly child, uncomfortable knowing that my gaze, trained on them, has something—several somethings—extra about it.

A Reading, then? I ask as Quibble makes his way up to the table.

“Of course a Reading,” Artemis says with her physical mouth—she never could quite get the hang of Speaking. “We wouldn’t be here, otherwise.”

Quibble is embarrassed and he looks away. Wilder doesn’t yet know what goes on here. And I excuse Artemis; I always excuse Artemis. It is so, so difficult to be her and she hates me for it.

For Wilder alone? I ask. They twist in their chair as though I have reached out and touched their legs or their Legs, though I have not. I add, just for Artemis, When will you let me see the one you think of as the Magpie? I will be able to tell you if you are right.

She blinks and shakes her head. I Feel the wall get built. It has been so long, Artemis forgets how deep my Sight goes. She becomes re-acquainted quickly. Pushes me away with a massive STOP (the Feeling, not the word) and I reply, You know I can’t help it.

“I don’t want to know—Yes,” Artemis says. “Yes. Wilder alone. Please.”

“Can I—” Wilder speaks up, overloud with their headphones on. “Uh, can I ask? Reading? What do you mean, like with the cards?” What they do not ask: why do you want me to have one so badly? It is just a tarot reading.

I blink at them again. They are all fire with that unruly red hair—Wands, I think, but they don’t know it yet. One of the flies buzzes around the kitchen door. I unroll my tongue and catch it, my incredible softness enveloping the insect body. I pull it back behind my lips, my teeth. Delicious. This is unremarkable here; people are used to me. No one reacts but Wilder, who swallows as I do and visibly greens. I would guess, I Say to the group entire, it is because this, the creature to whom you yesterday spoke—I gesture to the half-lights, the will-o’-the-wisps in everyone’s pocket—and you—I gesture to Wilder—happened at roughly the same time. Artemis nods, tight and small. Don’t hurt your neck, I Say, because I cannot help myself. And then, just to her: I know about your promise to the child. I can See her, you know, when anyone else is around her, especially you. There’s no amount of Power you could siphon off yourself to keep me from Looking at her entirely. Bring her here and I’ll know. You’ll know. It’s always better to know what you’re dealing with.

What she doesn’t say: no, it’s not. I don’t even have to use Power to know that’s what she thinks.

Wilder pipes back up as Artemis tries to unwind the tension from her face. “Can I also ask—uh.” I Feel their worry. They do not know if this is a question they are allowed to pose.

I am only appearing human. I answer the maybe-forbidden question they have not yet asked. It is not at all taboo; all the witches know. I have built this body over a few centuries. For your benefit. Also for mine. I enjoy this body. It makes me happy.

I watch the journey on Wilder’s face as they wonder, realize what my illegible gender means. If I am not human, if I am in control of how my body looks, if I have constructed it—what does it mean if I have constructed this one? What does it mean that I have selected, carefully crafted, an explicitly trans body? Their eyebrows furrow deep and curved. I could’ve had whatever it was I wanted, so why this one? I watch the fact of me slam into them, change their course just a little. And thank goodness, this time I Feel the Lightness that suggests I am not causing grief.

The curse of Seeing is exactly this: Seeing the results of one’s own movement through the world. The ripples that turn into waves whenever one dips their toes in the water, no matter how carefully it’s done; everyone, everywitch, has a wave and mine is bigger than everyone else’s. And I am the best Seer there is, the most Powerful. The Sibyl. When I meddle, I ruin things for humans. Even when they beg me to help, to cast, I don’t, I can’t, because I always know what happens in the end. Artemis is wrong about me. It is not that I have no comprehensible moral compass; it is that I have too much of one, and the result is an alien distance no mortal could possibly understand. I fear the moment I can See what I have done; I fear knowing they will either know or never know it is my fault. I have experienced that moment too many times. I have learned my lesson. I only Look; I never Touch. And also: I only look; I never touch. In the absence of sweet skin on skin, I am my own love affair. I have made myself not only in my image, but also in my own desire. And I love myself more deeply every day.

Wilder wants to lick my skin and wear it. They are repulsed by me and want to live in my line of Sight forever. I do not tell them that they will. That I will always be able to See them without ever even trying.

This is your choice, you know, I Tell Wilder. Not Artemis’s. My Readings are true. Real. And therefore they are terrifying. She can’t make you have one. It only works if you let me, and I would never try to convince you. Your decision, and yours alone. This Whisper is only for them. They experience me nestling into the interstitial space between their conscious mind and unconscious thought for the first time. Their heart beats faster. Between their legs, a thrilling stiffness. They grab at the table. Readings are—personal. Intimate. Even more than this, even more than Talking. We Drink of Each Other.

They look into my eyes, which they now know are constructions, and they occupy my space as well, curled up in the hollow behind my Ribs. Ringing me like a bell. I am surprised—oh, what a feeling! To be surprised! So few are able to Speak, least of all after experiencing it only once. And even fewer, willing to Speak to me. But they have the gift of gab. And they’ve had courage thrust upon them; as timid as they appear to be, they are at least as brave as the rest of these witches. Of course they would Speak to me; it might feel safer, even, than casting with actual people. You said you wouldn’t try to convince me, they Say.

I’m not, I Reply.

They raise an eyebrow. It sounds very sexual. Very seductive.

It is incomparable, I Say. I am only describing exactly what it is like. To do away with words, to give you an example of the Feeling, and we would already be doing it, and without your true, understanding consent. I can’t take that kind of risk.

“Do it, then,” they say aloud, for the benefit of others and for my benefit and for theirs, too, because I am not the only one who needs to remind myself of things. They speak it like a challenge, jutting their chin forward, but it is not an antagonistic gesture. It is a dare.

I shuffle my cards. While I run my fingers over their worn backs and bend them, I blink and locate the way Wilder vibrates in front of me. A shimmer. A mirage from the heat of existence, the wibbling air over a black tar road in summer. I See it on everyone, the way to enter their own Personal Dimension. Some are inviting, others aren’t. I submerge my Hands in Wilder. They are a cool lake. Sweet and wet with a clinging meniscus, a satisfying surface tension. Again, I am surprised—twice in a day! They are Cups, not Wands. When I do this to anywitch, there is always some grab, a pulling. Or else a fleeing, a pushing.

Wilder is different. They begin as a pull, but we end in a beautiful counterbalance, two acrobats against and with each other, one standing on the other’s thighs. They match my grip; they sink their Hands into Me and pull. I keep shuffling my cards; I exhale. They will try me, this one. Tempt me. I already know it, and I haven’t even gone Looking.

My physical fingers tingle; that is normal. The lights flicker; that is not normal. The milk-white bulb above me buzzes and casts a shadow onto my cards. Artemis Sees it, too, and narrows her eyes, Sees the brightening devices. Not everyone here has a phone either on the table or in their hands. In that way, this is unlike any place else in New York City. But folks do still carry phones, tablets, computers, even if this is the sort of Old New York where people write by hand. We are Connected now, Wilder and I, flowing into each other, in and out of our Eyes and Mouths. I doubt I could pull away without leaving them to faint in their chair. Besides, it would be pointless to stop. We have already summoned whatever-it-is. Already attracted its attention. I cut the deck in three.

First card, I Say. Past. I turn it over. The Magician. A wand-wielding figure stands at a table laden with magical tools. But different than most Magicians in most decks, the standard triumphant visage is complicated by nuance, a haggardness suggesting a lifetime of trials. My deck is unlike any other. Made for me and me alone. But my Readings aren’t made entirely by the images on the cards. I am not, like most, remembering symbolic meanings by rote. The Magician clicks into place, like the clasp on a necklace I do not know is undone, and I begin to prophecy.

You have the necessary elements at your disposal, and you have just learned how to use them, but it has not always been this way. The solitary Magician has sought each tool before them. Has quested to place each hard-won object in this exact spot. To be the Magician is superb. They are powerful, in control. But what many do not see is that with greatness comes distance; with Power comes introspection; with excellence comes loneliness. I can Feel Wilder imagine grabbing for Quibble’s elbow, and I See it anew; their stomach roils. This is a card electric in its thirst for knowledge, but also one of great hardship, great suffering, and often unwitnessed, cast in the bright light of apparent contentment. I am sorry. I pause. But that is in the past. I let them look at the card themself, develop their own relationship with it, get ready to see the next. Second card. Present.

As I turn it over, a spark cracks between the deck and my finger, and I hiss. I put my smarting fingertip on my soft-soft tongue to cool it.

“We should stop,” Quibble says. “Should we stop?”

“I don’t know if they can,” Artemis whispers, and I hear the fear I can See swirling just beneath her skin, thinly veiled by her eyes. A very human thing, to construct the eyes. To hide something behind them for the benefit of others. For the benefit of oneself. I learned this behavior from somewhere, after all. Her fear Looks like purple food dye dropped in oil. Mixed with soap. It Smells tangy and moves by itself. But I am not here to Read her; I can Feel Wilder’s own focus pulling me back. I turn my attention to the card.

The Devil. I frown. My deck isn’t bathed in Christianity; my devil has nothing to do with hell and everything to do with unchecked hedonism. Rather than horned-as-demon, the figure is horned-as-stag, dripping with moss and rain and toothed as a predator. In one hand it plays with mortals as if they are puppets, a string tied to each long, pointed finger; in the other hand, it plays with mortals dead, gone and cut open, their entrails like draping banners, viscera clinging to its fingernails.

An unseelie fae, I Explain, something much more powerful, much less mortal, than anyone present. Even me. I look to Artemis; I let her understand I have Heard her. No regard for human beings, unable to comprehend any approximation of a moral compass you would find acceptable. Wind picks up. Papers begin to blow off tables and patrons look toward the door, which is closed. They murmur their confusion, craning their necks to see from whence it comes.

Wilder’s eyes, locked onto mine, widen. I can Hear something. Their Voice carries a sonic quality that resonates on my tongue. Mine never does; so much less substantial having never made a wave. Perhaps my guess of Wands was not far from the truth—is the truth—is also the truth. Their Voice clangs and booms and shivers my ribs. Low in tone, a clear blue tenor. Entirely unlike their voice in air.

Show me, I Say, and they know how without knowing how. They send it through the water, pour it into me, and I can Hear snickering, high-pitched yet below a rumble, part of the sound and Sound of the city around us. Indistinguishable from its heartbeat, a truck running over a grate or laughter on the sidewalk—indistinguishable, of course, unless one is Wilder and one can hear and understand all the words in the world. Several laughs. Several laughters. Twisting around each other, dancing in concert as one single entity.

The third card—future—flips without me touching it and without me Touching it. Death. A skeleton sits at its own grave, posture contemplative, feet dangling over the crumbling ground’s edge as if the hole is a serene pond and not eternal rest. This is not normally a bad card. Death is about change. A new era. But the energy Feels ominous—nothing clicks for me. No clasp, no hand clap, no lightning strike. Wilder recoils; their waters go ice cold. As I am about to reassure them, they Say, I think I Hear—words. Without being asked, they give them over as well. I become, with them, a boat through which hidden whales sing. I reverberate with unseen creatures.

The word enter. I think you should go. Txt stop. Yummmm.

An amalgam of voices and Voices. An unheard cacophony. Clumsy, but full of need, of laughter. The kind of voice one hears deep in the wood, calling them farther into the unknown.

All three cards flip of their own accord. Instead of revealing their expected backs, they are the Death card, the Death card, the Death card. And with each flip, the skeleton’s face, which should be static, turns from the horizon to face me—us—the Reader and the querent. Despite all my centuries of careful construction, I cannot keep the horror from my face.

The wind is a roar now, punctuated by the laughter within my Body and the cries of coffee-shop-goers without.

“How many Death cards do you have in that deck?” Artemis asks.

I look to her as I Reply:

One.

The lights go out. The cards cyclone up and scatter around the shop. And as suddenly as it began, it ends. The tempest, inexplicably created and contained within these four walls, dies down. The lights flicker to life. We pull our Hands from each other.