Chapter 9 #2
I gesture to Declan with a little flourish. He bows, and a few of the women in the audience resume their cheers.
“Tonight,” I continue, “we bring you an enchanting story filled with…enchantment and…and…”
My brain blanks.
“Adventure?” Declan offers.
“Thank you, Mr. Thorne. Yes, and adventure,” I repeat, sweeping my arms overhead again like maybe a bigger gesture will summon actual words.
But nothing comes.
A few murmurs ripple through the crowd. The silence that follows is heavy, suffocating, humiliating.
My mouth goes dry, tongue stuck to the roof like I’ve just swallowed a fistful of sand. The crowd is silent. Scores of people staring at me from their rugs and pillows, their faces coming in and out of focus behind veils of smoke.
Every eye is on me.
And my mind is a snow globe that’s been shaken too hard—flakes of panic swirling, no single thought landing long enough to hold.
What even is a Story Witch? What the fuck was I going to say? Holy shit. What have I done? I’m going to get us both killed.
My chest tightens, heat crawling up my neck. The silence thickens, heavier with every second, my lips pressing together more firmly, locking around words that don’t exist.
Someone coughs. A baby fusses. The fire from the torches crackles louder than seems possible.
“Once upon a time,” Declan begins, saving me from myself, “there was a girl who moved to a damp and gloomy kingdom where everyone was pale and mysterious.”
The crowd leans forward.
“Yes!” I cry, nodding like this was the plan all along. “And Bella—uh—Beulah was terribly clumsy, but luck had gifted her with the ability to narrowly escape death’s sharp scythe.”
Declan glances my way, the faintest smile tugging at his mouth.
“Unfortunately,” I add, “she was also deeply committed to poor decision-making and was in desperate need of help to sort out her life.”
Several people in the audience nod in understanding.
“Then, one day, Beulah met a man who sparkled in direct sunlight.” I lift my arms dramatically. Declan steps forward, tugging open the unlaced collar of his shirt to reveal his glitter-dusted chest.
The crowd breaks into delighted ooohs and ahhhs.
“Ed…mund was a brooding immortal with severe boundary issues and a strange fixation on watching Beulah sleep.”
The audience erupts into boos.
“Look at him!” I shout over the noise. “So tall! So handsome! So strong!”
Declan flexes. I lean in and whisper, “More chest,” and he obliges, lifting his shirt to show off his washboard abs in their full, shimmering glory. The women in the front row shriek and wave their scarves.
“You can see why Beulah was so taken with Edmund,” I say. “But do we want the story to end with them simply riding off into the sunset together?”
More boos, louder this time.
“Enter, Jacobius!”
Declan spins, smoothing his hair down, then flashes a charming grin at the crowd.
“Jacobius enjoyed long runs on the beach and occasionally turning into a very…large…wolf.”
With a playful growl, Declan tears open his shirt, howls to the sky, and leaps off the stage. The crowd goes feral.
“Beulah was torn between her glittery stalker and her golden retriever wolfman,” I say once they settle. “So naturally, she did what any young woman in love does.” I pause for effect. “She jumped off a cliff.”
Gasps pop through the audience as I press the back of my hand to my forehead and swoon dramatically at the edge of the stage.
Declan lunges forward, catching me before I can hit the ground, just like we rehearsed in the tent.
Even with the practice, my stomach somersaults, and when his arms cradle me, relief floods my chest.
“Magickally,” I proclaim as he lifts me back onto the stage and climbs up after me, “Beulah survived! And when she washed up on shore, she realized something profound.”
The crowd leans in, and the golden-haired queen calls out, “What realization did our Beulah come to?”
“That maybe—just maybe—she didn’t need Edmund or Jacobius to fix her life. That she didn’t need to find someone else to save her. She needed to learn how to save herself.”
A thoughtful hush falls.
“And while Beulah worked on herself, Edmund and Jacobius realized they didn’t actually like fighting over the same woman. What they wanted was each other.”
Declan turns his back to the crowd, wraps his arms around himself, and mimes a steamy, over-the-top embrace. Cheers and laughter explode through the audience.
“The two men opened a charming seaside bed-and-breakfast,” I finish, “where they lived happily ever after.”
The whole crowd bursts into applause. Cheers, whistles, and elated chatter roll over the stage as we bow.
I grin, wide and breathless, and turn to Declan. “I think we did it.”
Smoke curls around us, and the warm air whips into a sudden wind that lashes the stage. Incense stings my throat. Heat pricks my skin. The audience gasps.
Something flutters through the haze, tumbling from above like a leaf caught in the breeze. It slips down my arm, brushing my skin with the faintest electric tingle.
I snatch it before it hits the ground, my fingers stinging from the contact.
The wind dies, plunging the kingdom into a silence so sudden it makes my ears ring. I stare down at the card.
The Wheel of Fortune.
My breath catches as the painted image shifts. The wheel turns. Its figures move in an endless loop, no longer paint but flesh and bone caught in perpetual motion, alive in my hands.
Out of the corner of my eye, Declan leans toward me, trying to see what has me gaping. Only, he’s moving strangely, slowly as cold molasses. His hand stretches toward me, then stalls halfway, suspended in midair.
“Declan?”
He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t move at all.
My gaze jerks to the crowd.
Every single face turned toward me is perfectly still.
A woman’s scarf is frozen mid-flutter, fabric caught in the gentle breeze like a picture. A man’s mouth hangs open around a gasp that never lands. One child’s fruit-filled hand is locked halfway to his lips.
The entire world has stopped.
I stumble backward, sweat beading along my hairline. “What—what’s going on?”
Tendrils of smoke curl in the torchlight, the flames and I the only things left moving. It softens the world into a dream while the tarot card pulses against my clammy palm.
A woman steps from the shadows like she’s been waiting there all along, and I feel it again, that same low hum beneath my ribs that I felt when she and I first met.
Her hood is lowered, casting shadows across her face so deep I can’t make out the contours of her appearance.
Copper threads are braided into the long chestnut coils of her hair draped over her shoulders.
The hem of her robe trails through the sand behind her like a brushstroke.
“It’s you.” My mouth is dry, but I manage to push out the words. “Fortune.”
The flames from the torches at her back lean toward her presence, crackling louder, brighter, licking the air like they recognize their maker.
She stops short of the stage. Her shadow-darkened face lifts, and her eyes, still the only features I can see through the shadows, lock onto mine like hot coals.
My grip on the card tightens as it finally sinks in—Towerfall’s magick is real.
“It is a shame.” She’s not loud, but her voice slides through the space like molten glass. “I thought you would be ready.”
The flames ringing the stage respond before I can. They leap high and wild, burning orange flares of heat that sear the air and snap hungrily at the sky.
I flinch, instinctively shrinking back, from the fire as well as the certainty in her voice and the disappointment she doesn’t bother to hide.
“I wonder then,” she adds, head tilting slightly, “why the Tower chose you now. It should have waited.”
“The Tower…tarot card? Is that what you’re talking about?”
Her vibrant eyes flick to the card clenched in my hand.
I swear it pulses harder, as if it feels her watching.
“The wheel is preparing to turn,” she says, her voice dipping to a whisper. “Remember, or it shall not be gentle.”
“Remember what?” My chest heaves, breaths rough and uneven. “I don’t know what you want me to remember. I don’t know what I’ve forgotten or what any of this means. I don’t know why I’m here.”
Her gaze burns through me as she lifts her right hand. From fingertip to elbow, it’s encrusted in rubies. Embedded like scales, they shimmer when she moves, catching the light like a living torch.
Heat radiates from her palm in slow waves, warping the air between us. The space crackles. The scent of singed dust and something older—iron, ozone, scorched earth—fills my lungs.
My skin prickles, flushed and burning. Sweat slides down my temples.
The Wheel of Fortune hums, a low, vibrating thrum against my palm like it’s answering her—like it knows what’s coming.
For a heartbeat, I think she’s going to touch me. Leave some mark. Pass ancient and irreversible magick—real magick—into my bones.
I don’t mean to lean in, but I do. Drawn to her like a moth to flame, like a lost thing hearing its name for the first time. Something inside me, something buried and aching, pulls taut in her presence. As if her stillness speaks a language my chaos has always longed to understand.
The heat of her outstretched hand flares so close to my cheek my skin threatens to blister.
My breath hitches. Tears sting my eyes.
And then she withdraws.
The heat vanishes with her, a candle snuffed.
Fortune turns with a finality that makes the wooden planks of the stage feel less solid beneath my feet and strides away.
Smoke clings to the hem of her robes. Ash kicks up in small spirals behind her, tiny fire ghosts vanishing before they land.
The flames along the path bow as she passes.
She disappears into the veil of smoke and flickering torchlight, swallowed by shadow and flame.
Gone, as if she were never really here at all.
I rub my cheek where the heat lingers, skin tender and stinging.
The crowd’s unblinking eyes cling to me like spotlights. But I barely feel them now. I’m too stunned. Too rattled.
And I need answers from her before I can even start to piece together what’s happening—why the crowd is frozen, why Declan and I were pulled here, why the Wheel of Fortune card suddenly feels like it’s lighting a fire inside me.
What does it want from me?
What does she want from me?
What do I need to remember?
…why the Tower chose you.
The words echo in my chest, louder now that she’s gone.
I stumble forward a step. “Wait,” I call out, my voice cracking. “I need your help!”
The words hang in the air, unanswered.
My heart lurches.
I slide off the stage, the Wheel of Fortune card still clutched tight in my hand, edges digging into my palm, and chase after her.
My silk skirt drags across the sand, my lungs burning, smoke and ash painting the back of my throat.
The path she walked is still visible. Embers glow faintly in the dust, the air around them rippling with leftover heat.
The wheel only turns when something is about to change. It brings upheaval, transformation, consequences—good and bad. It doesn’t ask for permission. It just moves. And once it does, nothing stays the same.
The heat thickens the farther I push into camp, weaving between tents. The air shimmers before me, rippling with heat as if reality is warping at the edges.
My sandals crunch over charred earth as I chase Fortune’s path. The faint scent of ozone and scorched sage curls into my nose.
Up ahead, the singed edge of her robe flutters around the last line of tents, trailing her like a dying comet.
“Please,” I shout. “Just tell me what I’m supposed to do. How I get us home?”
I round the corner, heart in my throat…
But she’s gone. All that’s left is her heat, distorting the air in uneasy waves.
The scorched black path opens onto endless dunes, edges softened by wind and moonlight. No footprints. No sign of her. Like she walked into the desert, and it swallowed her whole.
The card thumps against my palm like a cursed heart. It brought me here. It tore my life wide open. It’s the one constant in a series of events I don’t understand, pulling me toward something I begged for a thousand different ways—only to realize too late I might not survive it.
Like Fortune said, the wheel is set to turn. I just have to remember…
A shout echoes behind me. Then another and another, rolling into a rising clamor.
I spin, skirts tangling around my legs, heart lurching against my ribs.
The stillness is broken. Whatever magick this world has that took effect when Fortune appeared and held them all in place has snapped, leaving panic in its wake.
When they realize it looks like I simply vanished into thin air, maybe—hopefully—it’ll add to the Story Witch mystique. If I can’t control the story, I can at least let them believe the magick is mine.