The Hierophant (Book 1 in The Arcana Series) (14 page)

He looks strangely at me, still holding my hand. “There's...it's like...” He can't find the right words. “It’s like
you
are the hole in your heart.” His brow furrows. “You don't...you're so...
human
.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” I murmur, feeling sick with emotions all over the spectrum.

“No, it's...it's good. It's real. Sometimes—sometimes being what I am—it doesn't feel...real.” Trebor twitches again, and drops my hand.

The connection severed, the terrible-wonderful lightness of being begins to drain from me. But I’m compelled to grab his hand again before the lightness can leave completely, to hold onto it for a moment longer, locking my eyes on his.

“You're the realest thing in my world right now, Trebor,”  I whisper, and feel my heart chakra screaming in free-fall.

I let go quickly, bring my hands back to my lap. The lightness leaves and the world dulls, becomes harsh and muted, and I'm left feeling silly and sick and far too exposed.

“So…what just happened there?” I ask after a few deep breaths.

Trebor is so still and silent, I almost don’t expect him to answer. “I overloaded your system with magic,” he says, softly, after a while.

“I got that. I mean…what happened to you?”

He looks back and forth between the floor and me, considering. “I’ll tell you some other time.”

“What?” I almost scoff. My mouth is already open, ready to deliver an angry retort, but the earnest plea of his voice stops me.

“Trust me, Ana. Please.”

His words swirl around inside of me. Maybe it’s magic, and maybe it’s not, but I feel his need to withhold as if it is my own, and I understand. “Okay. Sure. So, what now?”

He turns the jeweled dark of his eyes to mine. “We keep practicing.”

— 31 —

We practice. Day after day, Trebor tries everything he can think of to crack the restraints I’ve built around the energy—the
magic
—coursing through me. I meditate for hours, trying to learn how to clear my mind, how to let go and stay in control at the same time. It doesn’t get me very far very fast, but it’s something.

Two weeks pass in a blur, bringing us full into spring. Andy finally catches me on a day when Trebor is off doing questy things, and we agree to meet for that cup of coffee I promised in March.

It feels different this time, when I meet up with Andy. Everything related to my heritage and to the world of the Arcana, as my mother called it—it all seems suspect, like there might be an all-mighty truth hidden somewhere. Maybe a truth that, when uncovered, will explain everything. I don’t know if Andy is a part of it at all, other than as an amateur anthropologist, but I have to look at him as suspect too.

We’re seated by the fireplace inside the cafe like last time, but it’s already dark out now. Warm light is playing across his features, making him look soft, trustworthy,
human
—a distinction I must make all too frequently these days.

“Are you okay?” Andy asks, surprising me. “You look tired.”

I raise my eyebrows. “I am. It’s been a long week.” Trebor and I have gotten together every day after school so he can try to teach me how to use magic. It’s left me exhausted, and sometimes—with our lack of progress—defeated.

“Sorry to hear that. I can keep it short.” Andy smiles, amenable. He flattens his hands on the table, and his smile falters.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. Andy’s façade doesn’t
slip
—he let it down. He either wants me to know he’s upset, or he actually trusts me enough to be genuine around me.

“Well, I did find some interesting information about the Ouros.” He takes a breath. “They were called the ‘keepers’ because they were famous for keeping their secrets all locked up. Literally. They kept sacred objects, books, instructions, all locked up in these primitive-looking wooden boxes.” He shrugs. “A lot of people make puzzle boxes, but here’s the weird thing: literally no one could open an Ouros box except for the person who closed it, usually at a predetermined place and time.”

I squint at him. “That’s a strange tradition to pass down.”

“I know. Evans-Pritchard couldn’t explain it—it was like the entire tribe had an obsession with hiding things, like OCD dogs burying anything precious that belonged to them. Not to degrade them.” He clears his throat. “The boxes were something they sold only once, back in the nineteenth century, to raise money for the clan to come to America. But a lot of people bought them to try and figure out how they worked, how they could recreate and sell them.” He shakes his head. “No one has ever figured it out. Even Evans-Pritchard convinced them to give him a box, but once he closed it and stated some arbitrary date—a date that he didn’t live to see—no one could open it. Even with tools. Even with
fire
.”

“That’s like what Ky—” I stop myself. The box my mother gave me. But
I
didn’t close it. How could it open again? “That’s, like, crazy.” I stammer, covering my words.

Andy blinks, and nods. “Maybe. Evans-Pritchard developed a theory that the proliferation of these ‘enchanted coffers,’ as he called them, actually had to do with a greater secret—real or imaginary—that they were keeping in one of the boxes. I mean, eventually there were thousands of locked boxes—if one of them had something significant inside of them, no one would know which one.”

“That’s insane,” I point out.

“Well, they also claimed the boxes were made from enchanted wood, and that they were locking them with magic.” Andy shrugs. “So, insanity, or faith, who knows. They were definitely an unusual people.”

The Key. The box. What if the very thing Trebor is looking for is inside of that box? Would he be able to open it with magic? Would he just have to wait until I finished school next year? Will it ever open for me at all?

“So, any idea what that ultimate box might have held?” I ask, swirling my coffee in my cup, trying to appear interested, but not excited.

“Evans-Pritchard said it was probably their ‘holy grail’ myth.”

“
Their
holy grail myth?”

He nods. “A lot of cultures have one—something the believers must quest for, and obtain only at the end of a great journey, and many sacrifices. It’s usually symbolic of some form of enlightenment or salvation.”

“Like the MacGuffin of the religious world?” I wonder dryly, thinking of an American Films elective class I failed last year.

Andy stares at me, confused.

“In a story, when there’s an objective that’s not really important besides the fact that it moves the story along. Like…” I think about it. “Like the briefcase in
Pulp Fiction
. Or unobtanium in
Avatar
. Or the Maltese falcon in, well,
The Maltese Falcon.
” I pause, waiting for him to get it. “Because the story isn’t really about the object, or about reaching the goal, it’s about what you learn on the journey.”

“Oh,” Andy sees. “I guess so. Yeah.” He shrugs. “Anyway, whatever might have
been
their holy grail, they never let on. The point is it might not even exist—it might have only been a myth they perpetuated, just like the grail, and their stories about demons and watchers and angels.”

“So my mother wouldn’t have known what the object was, even,” I speculate.

Andy takes a deep breath. “Yeah. Maybe. That’s the thing.”

I cock my head. “What?”

“If the Ouros ever knew what was in the box, your mother would have been the last to know.”

“What do you mean?”

He swallows. “My father is colleagues with a woman who took over some of Evans-Pritchard’s open case-studies when he passed away in the seventies. I called her up and asked about the Ouros—she’s the one who gave me all of this information.” He hesitates.

I stare at him. “
And?
”

“And…they’re all gone.”

“What do you mean,
gone
?”

“She stayed in touch with the clan over the years—they wanted their history preserved. They liked the attention, I guess. But then, she said about seventeen years ago…”

“Stop pausing! What happened?”

“They died.” He frowns.

I shake my head. “That’s impossible.”

“I swear. She told me the tribe had dwindled in numbers over the years, and one day she called their last known location and the call was redirected to a sheriff—” He swallows hard. “They were slaughtered. It was like…a genocide.”

I feel the blood drain from my face, a slow pulse in my throat making me sick to my stomach. “But they came to her grave. They left coins. They were there, I saw it.” I’m muttering, I realize.

Collecting myself, I shake my head and scoff. “It’s a trick. They’re just hiding. They probably decided they didn’t want the world to know so much about them after all.”

Andy’s brow furrows, and he shakes his head again. “Cynthia—my father’s colleague—she said she thought the same thing. But she saw their death certificates. She saw the autopsy photos. She was listed as their next of kin, and she had to handle what remained of their belongings, what hadn’t burned—” He stops, realizing he said more than he wanted.

“Slaughtered? And burned?” I bite my lip to keep myself from frowning. Suddenly the loneliness I’ve cultivated since my mother’s funeral feels as close and vast as a summer thunderstorm hanging low in the sky. All the anger I’ve felt towards them for leaving me is like a boot to my gut.

“I’m sorry Ana,” Andy tells me.

I stare at the fake grains in the artificial wood tabletop, gears turning, pinching skin and drawing blood as they go. “Seventeen years ago.” I nod. Right around when my mother left. Because she was marrying outside of the clan. Because she was pregnant with me.

I look at my hands, at their shape, their lines, as if their flesh does not belong to me. Would I have been killed, too, if my mother had not run off? If my father had not been
gadje
?

My mouth betrays me, twisting into a deep frown. “I’m sorry,” I mumble, standing. “I have to go. Thank you—for telling me. I…” I shake my head, grab my bag. “Sorry.”

Andy just sits there, brow furrowed, mouth half open as if trying to find the right words.

There are none.

— 32 —

Abe is sitting at the computer desk in the living room when I get home, checking his email. As soon as I walk in the door, he turns, looks at me over the rims of his reading glasses. “Sweetheart? What’s wrong?”

My hands are shaking as I unsling my bag and hang it by the door, moving slowly, carefully.

“Ana?”

It takes me a moment before I can turn around. When I do, I can’t help but stare at my father, wondering, fearing.

And then I ask him. “Did you know?”

After a long moment, he takes his glasses off. It’s a calm, deliberate action: he slides them off, folds them up, places them beside the keyboard, pushes out from the desk, stands.

My father moves strangely at times like this, when he’s put on the spot, under fire. I can see the shadow of the young man he once was, broad-shouldered and strong, and maybe even wild—maybe even dangerous. At the moment, he’s not threatening. But he is on guard.

He faces me, arms straight at his sides. “About what?”

“Did you know about mom’s people? The Ouros?”

His eyes grow dark. “What about them?”

I swallow, sudden tears making it hard to keep looking back at him, making it hard to talk at all. “Did you know they’re all dead?”

The silence of the house is oppressive. My ears latch onto every little sound: the furnace kicking on in the basement; the tick of the clock on the mantle; the scratching of a tree branch on the kitchen window; my father parting his lips and drawing breath to speak.

“Yes. I knew. I’ve always known.”

“What?” I gasp, and feel the levee crack inside. Power gushes through my veins in a deluge, even as my whole body grows heavy and weak. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He comes forward, hands out, open. “Ana, please. Don’t be mad. What should I have done?”

“You should have been honest!”

“I
have
been.” He reaches for me, eyebrows knitted together with sincerity. I consider pulling away.

Instead, my tears push me forward. I fall into the comfort of him, the familiar scent of out-dated aftershave and woodsmoke, the soft brick of his shoulder under my cheek, arms like tree trunks around my shoulders. I hadn’t realized, until this moment, how much I’ve wanted the security of my father’s embrace. I hadn’t realized how much I’ve secretly wished that he could protect me, make things better.

“What should I have done, Ana?” His voice is low, soothing. “Should I have sat you down and told you that all of your mother’s kin were killed in a hate crime?”

“I don’t know,” I admit, crying openly, tears soaking his shirt. “Maybe?”

“When? On a holiday? For your sweet sixteen?” He holds me more tightly to him for a moment. “My god. How do you tell your daughter something like that? When is the
right time
for that?”

“I don’t know. It’s just…it’s so horrible…”

“It is. It really is.” He strokes my hair the way my mother used to, when I was little, when I had needed someone to cry on. “The world is full of so much darkness. I only want to keep it away from you. I’m your father, after all—you can’t ask me not to try.”

“I know. But it’s so much worse when I hear about it from someone else.”

He nods, kisses the top of my head. “I know. And I’m sorry. I really am.”

I hear a hiccup in his voice, and I pull back, let him keep hold of my hands while I look him in the eyes. He looks so sad.

“I’m sorry, Dad.” My face hurts from frowning, but it’s not quite ready to go back to normal. “I didn’t mean to attack you—I’m just…” I don’t even know what I am. “I’m exhausted. I’m just going to go to bed if that’s okay.”

“Yeah. Of course.” He takes his time letting go of my hands, as if some part of him doesn’t believe he’ll ever get them back.

I turn, and I’m halfway up the stairs when he almost-whispers, “You know I’m doing the best I can, right, Anastasia? By you, and your mother.”

I feel my lower lip trembling, but I nod and try not to frown when I look at him. “I know. And…you’re doing good, Dad. We both are.”

He nods, and gives me a small, sad smile. “I hope so.”