Chapter 18 Druid Like Me #2
I couldn’t understand it—how Sequoia had so willingly risked her life, all in the name of research. It defied logic, defied self-preservation. No rational person would go to such lengths just to prove a theory. There was only one explanation.
“You really believe in all of this, don’t you?”
She looked down to her feet, stretching her toes wide. “This is all I have that connects me to my past, that gives me purpose. Power. Of course I had to try it,” she said so casually I thought she could have been talking about the weather.
This only further proved that the students here would go to any length over their research, and in their attempt to feel powerful.
It terrified me to the core. I shook my head, standing up from the floor to grab another towel to dry off my knees.
It was then that I noticed a flash of something golden at the bottom of the tub.
The gold shimmered under the water like a coin sunk in a wishing well. I reached for it.
“What is this?” It was rectangular and had a beautiful intricate geometric design, thicker than a piece of paper. One of the corners was soaked through and fraying, but the image of a woman was regal and her power undeniable: the Empress.
Realization dawned on me. I was holding an exact replica of one of the Skorn cards.
“Oh, that?” Sequoia said.
“No . . .” Aspen said. “You used the cards?”
“I used one. Just to help intensify the magick. I didn’t think it was going to work. But then I saw Sophia, and she was chanting in Druidic. And I knew it had worked—I had channeled the Druidic power through the card.”
“It’s the Empress,” I said blankly, staring at the matriarchal figure imprinted on the golden card before me. In my mind the Empress card toppled—first in a line arranged like dominos, each card falling in turn until they curved inward, closing into a seamless, inescapable circle.
Sequoia was using Skorn magick.
Of course.
“You are all Tarot readers. You’re using the cards in the way the Meister prompted me to at Circle. He wanted me to use the cards to tap into their power, to prove their source of power. But I’m not the first to experiment with them,” I said.
Aspen winced, turning to Sequoia. “How could you be so careless Sequoia?”
“I think it’s stupid that we keep hiding things from her, Aspen, don’t you? If she’s here to help us, then shouldn’t she know that?” Sequoia refuted.
“I suspected that the Meister was keeping something from me. But not this. I’ve been an idiot this whole time.”
“You figured it out quicker than any of us have. We all went through the same process, detangling through the web of secrets before being Initiated,” Sequoia said in between coughs.
“You’re wrong about one thing,” Aspen said. He didn’t look up from the spot on the floor he was staring toward. “We’re not all readers—not ones like you at least—we’re practitioners.”
“Save the semantics for Leone,” I said, almost rolling my eyes.
Something changed in his expression. He became tacit, academic, the version of himself I knew well in Circle. “There is a meaningful difference. We don’t read cards and make predictions. We use the power of the cards to influence the present. That’s what Advisors do for their patrons,” he said.
I frowned. “I’ve read an excerpt on that in The Book of Skorn, but I thought it was theory.”
“That’s because you’ve only read the published version.
There’s an unabridged version that Khorvyn never published.
He didn’t want to share the knowledge with anyone else; he wanted to keep it for his own gain.
But one of Khorvyn’s friends thought the knowledge was too important to remain hidden, so he shared it for a price, with Renate. ”
The Meister.
“Oh, I’m so happy we’re telling her. It’s going to be so much easier from now on,” Sequoia sang, grabbing on to Aspen’s arm, losing grasp of the towel around her.
“Well, it’s not like you’ve left us much choice,” he said, shrugging her off gently. “And if she’s going to know, she better know the truth.”
“The cards,” I began. “You tap into their power, to influence things?” I echoed back. I strained to recall the passage I had read in Julian’s copy of the book.
“Sort of. The magick isn’t very well understood. But we have some hypotheses for how it works. So far, we think it feeds off emotion. We channel emotion through our artwork,” Aspen continued, “the stronger the desire of an outcome, the more likely the card’s power will work in favor of it.”
“I have so many questions,” I said. My thoughts were whirling years ahead of my words. “How have you used it? How effective is it? What are its limitations?” I rattled out. And then I paused, considering the most important question. “Have you used it on me?”
By the way Aspen’s gaze darted to the ground, I knew the answer.
“So, you have,” I said, biting down on my tongue to prevent myself from saying any more.
“It’s not like that. We’re always running tests; the Meister has us do these experiments. If you happen to be around, which you have been, then you can be in the crossfire,” he said.
My thoughts snapped like a rubber band on itself. The way I felt so out of place in the House, the gravitation I felt toward some of the students. They were manipulating me.
That is, they had the intention to. Whether or not the cards’ magick actually worked was a separate question.
Sequoia remained silent, looking down at her feet. “I might have used it on you, once or twice. Oh, Dahlia, I just wanted us to be friends!” She reached over to me, but I shrugged her off.
“I . . . I need time to think,” I said. “Now that you’re breathing, I trust that Aspen can take it from here.” I started toward the bathroom door.
“Oh, come now Dahlia, stay with us,” Sequoia pleaded.
“I just need to be alone right now,” I said, stepping into her bedroom. “And I need sleep.”
Sequoia nodded and draped her head against Aspen’s shoulder.
Aspen placed a hand around her naked body, and Sequoia’s lips parted.
I paused at the door, catching their still frame.
They reminded me of Pygmalion and Galatea—an artist looking upon his muse.
They looked beautiful and broken, just like the first day I saw them.
I tore my gaze away from them and walked out of her room.
Just a few doors down, I found my own. I climbed into bed and pried off my sticky Oxfords. The leather was going to crack at this rate of misuse. I shook off my wet slacks and sweater until I was bare. When I was finally alone, I let the guilt and horror wash over me.
The feelings swallowed me whole, twisting like twin serpents in my gut.
I had spent weeks convincing myself I was the one unraveling the students’ secrets—but all along, I had been their experiment.
How many of my thoughts, my choices, had been my own?
I curled in on myself, exhaustion dragging me under until I finally found sleep.
*
I awoke with my mouth ajar, and my head pressed down against Julian’s journal. Coffee stained the edges where I had spilled it last night. I still had the Skorn deck in my hands. I gripped it in my hands, pushing myself back up.
Thoughts swirled around me—Sequoia, the cards, soul flight. In the last few days, several new clues had come to light. Not that I could say with any certainty that they were connected to Julian’s case, but they were outstanding questions to answer, nonetheless.
The reading from the red woman at the Council flashed before my eyes. She had known why I was at Foresyth, but she breathed nothing about it. Why? It was another loose thread in the fabric of this case, one that was becoming increasingly distressing.
Then there was the matter of Sequoia and the other students using Skorn cards to access magick. Sequoia had mentioned something about a ceremony the night Julian died. Could it have gone dreadfully wrong, like what had almost happened to Sequoia last night?
Then there were the runic markings on the tree in the reading room.
I looked down to where I had drawn the runic symbol and referenced it in my Runes dictionary.
The symbol of two triangles stacked on top of one another was berkano, I discovered— representing birth, or a new beginning.
Was this another message from Julian? Or was this just a random marking, and there were others on the tree that led to a full message?
And then there was Julian’s journal. I tucked his journal in the middle of my own, in case anyone decided to come to my room.
I had combed through it multiple times. Most of the pages were Julian’s scribbled notes—from readings, transcripts from Circle, and his own streams of subconscious.
The Hermetic magick sections were descriptions of ceremonial processions, many similar to the ones I used in my own Tarot readings.
The sections on Christian mysticism were the strangest of them all—they spoke about an evil God, imprisoning souls in human flesh.
So much of the text was written in haste that it was impossible to decipher all of it.
Another section was written in red ink with strange symbols resembling Latin letters and runes overlaid with one another.
The only English text was on the header line and read, “Blood of my blood.”
Flashes of Nina’s dripping blood appeared in my mind’s eye. The Tramping Grounds, another loose thread in the chasm of madness known as Foresyth.
Then a thought took hold of me. I raised the journal to my light source, examining the red ink more closely.
The ink looked off. Too thick. The way it pooled in the paper’s fibers, the way light refused to pass through it—it wasn’t ink at all.
I ran my finger along the edge, feeling the faint tackiness of dried fluid.
My stomach clenched. It wasn’t ink. It was blood.
A flame of understanding ignited in me. Blood magick. That had to be the explanation. Inked blood to conceal a hidden message. A smile spread across my lips; I relished the finding.
I had to get this journal back to the Tramping Ground as soon as possible.