Page 10 of Magpie

T esting the strength of the first step on the ladder, I find it holds my weight just fine, for all it looks like it hasn’t been used in centuries.

I peer up into the shadowy attic, and my breath hitches at the sense of something reaching out to me.

I feel the ghost of hands trailing their icy fingers over my skin, not quite finding purchase, trying to tug and pull me upward.

It should frighten me; it should send me running back to the arms of my friends. Yet I find myself taking another step. And another. It’s like the void inside of me, a cocoon I am only too willing to envelop myself in. It is hollow, and empty, and so damn familiar.

I quickly climb the rest of the stairs, ready to greet whatever awaits me in the dark recess above. The higher I go, the colder it becomes, the chill swirling around me entirely as I pull myself onto the floor of the attic.

“Hello?” I call out, taking in the vast space before me.

Moonlight spills in from a small crescent-shaped window, casting a soft glow around the empty attic, barely illuminating the room.

No actors jump out at me, no strobe lights to confuse my eyes, no blaring sound effect that breaks through the eerie quiet.

The sliver of moonlight is the only true source of light, and yet it seems to make the darkness even blacker. “Is anyone there?”

“I am always here,” a voice answers behind me.

I do not jump; I am not scared of the unexpected voice coming out of the void like that. It is somehow soothing, lulling, begging me to submit to it. Breathing in the heady scent that has the tension leaving my body, the aura that is begging my mind to give in to the numbness, I turn.

A figure is seated behind a small table covered in glistening black linen, pooling like dripping oil on the attic floor.

I blink. Was that table there before? The figure is sat back, shrouded in shadows, untouched by the light of the moon, as though even the light doesn’t dare illuminate this stranger.

But the darkness inside of me rises up to greet them, and I am not afraid.

“I want to get out,” I say, walking toward the shrouded figure.

A gleaming bright smile breaks through the darkness, the only feature on their face that I can make out, teeth white against the murky black. “I can help with that,” the stranger answers.

A hand covered in a crisp white glove motions to the chair opposite them. When I do not move, they lean forward, coming into the light for the first time.

My eyes grow wide at the sight of a man wearing a dark suit, a top hat on his head with an ace of spades sticking out of the side. He looks like the ringleader of some cursed circus. He smiles at me again, teeth flashing in the moonlight, and my mind is instantly filled with the image of a wolf.

For one moment, I falter, the ghosts of my friends calling out to me, begging me to come back to them. For one moment, I wonder if they are begging me to come back to myself .

I shake those thoughts away, feeding them to the abyss inside me, and I walk toward the smiling man.

Out. I am getting out.

“Can you show me the way out?”

He is still gesturing to the seat in front of him. Gripping the back of the chair, I make no move to sit, instead waiting for him to lead me to the exit.

In the blink of an eye, the man pulls out a deck of cards as if from nowhere, like he plucked it from a pocket in the air.

They are larger than normal cards, black as soot with the image of a gleaming silver skull adorning the back of each one.

He shuffles them quickly in his gloved hands, the flashing of the cards making it seem as though the skull is winking at me.

With the deftness of someone who has done this hundreds of times, he bends and cascades the cards, flipping and folding them over each other in a dizzying pattern. Without thinking, I move to sit in front of him, entranced by the cards as they spin and flash their silver skulls at me.

He sets the deck in front of me, cutting it into two piles. “Choose,” he instructs.

A slow, creeping fog has enveloped my mind since the moment I locked eyes with the smiling stranger.

It is alluring, and calming, and it promises to numb me so entirely that I never again have to feel the anguish of my hollow life.

I blink, a silent tear trailing down my cheek as I reach forward.

I put my hand above the pile on the left.

At once I hear Tim and Jessica, their voices sounding as though they are standing behind me.

Spinning around, I do not see them in the attic, but I hear them perfectly.

They are excitedly discussing our final year of college, the apartment we all plan to move into.

Their voices lap over each other, spilling from one topic to the next, a detailed map of our lives laid out before me.

Behind it all, I swear I can hear them calling to me, begging me to come back.

Frowning, I turn back to the table and move my hand over the pile on the right.

I feel nothing. Complete and utter emptiness.

It’s like the numbness has claimed me entirely, and it is so blissfully quiet.

These cards call out to me like a dying echo, whispering dark promises to me.

Touching that pile, I push it across the table toward the man.

That gleaming smile never leaves his face, seeming to grow wider as I remove my hand and wait.

He turns his gaze from me, focusing on the cards in front of him.

In one sweeping motion, he spills the left-hand pile off the table, my breath catching in my throat as the cards flutter to the attic floor.

There is something so final about the action.

Plucking the remaining pile off the table, he begins flipping over cards in quick succession.

The images are different from any tarot deck I have seen before.

Once, on a dare, Jessica and I had our fortunes read by a carnival worker.

She gave us some vague reading that could have fit any number of scenarios.

Jessica was enthralled by it, chatting about it for several weeks after.

I found the whole thing absurd, forcing myself to not roll my eyes as she associated every action in her life with a simple deck of cards.

These aren’t like the ones the fortune teller used, however.

They are covered in scenes of people dancing around a fire, a moon cutting through the dark night, a weeping girl surrounded by a pool of darkness, and lastly, a bird.

It is the same black-and-white bird on the key I still hold in my hand, but this one has a red thread knotted around it, holding its wings down.

I’m leaning over to study the pictures closer when the man begins to speak.

“I see a life half lived,” he says, shocking me into sitting back. He flips more cards over, their images flashing before my eyes. My lips part, the ghost of a gasp escaping, as I realize the cards are all me .

He flips over one depicting me walking down the sidewalk leading to our shared classes, Tim and Jessica on either side of me. Their faces are sketched with big, bright smiles, but my face is blank. No eyes, no frowning mouth, no features at all, but I know it is me.

Another card flips. This time we are at graduation, our billowing black gowns flowing around us. Jessica and Tim have elated looks on their faces; I’m standing slightly behind them. I frown, noticing the sketch of me is hazier, more muted.

Another card, then another. Tim is proposing to me, down on one knee with love shining bright in his eyes, and I am blurrier.

Jessica is standing beside me, placing a veil on my head, and I am translucent in the image.

My life flashes before my eyes: I see my career begin, vacations come and go, a perfect white picket fence in front of the smiling couple holding the keys.

And with each card, more and more of me disappears, until only the ghostly outline of myself remains.

Something drips onto my hand. Reaching up to my face, I realize I am crying.

“What do you want?” he asks, shocking me out of my stupor.

I hastily swipe the tears off my cheeks.

“I want to get out,” I croak, my throat tight.

Clearing it, I repeat in a stronger voice, “I want to get out.” I wait, expecting him to answer, but he just looks at me.

“Are you listening to me? I said I want to get out!” I all but scream, anger flooding my voice, tears streaming down my cheeks again, my eyes locked on the hollow version of myself on the cards.

“What do you want to get out of?” he asks, his voice soft and inviting, like a gloved hand caressing my face.

“I want to get out of this life!” I shout, for once speaking the words I have kept locked tight inside of me.

I sweep the cards off the table, unable to keep looking at the ghostly image of myself, the destiny that waits for me at the end of a carefully planned life. A life I no longer want to live.

His lips split apart in another smile, and I get the image of blood-soaked fangs in my mind, but I ignore it. There is a darkness radiating off him, and the darkness inside of me rises up to greet it.

“You’ve been tied down, your wings clipped, your freedom stolen from you,” he says, moving his gloved hand forward and brushing the tears off my cheeks.

Even through the gloves, his fingers are icy cold, sending a shiver racing down my spine.

A soft voice is crying out in the dark recesses of my mind, begging me to fight, but his touch quiets that warning sound.

Swallowing against the lump in my throat, I bite my lip, holding his gaze hard, desperate for him to continue.

“I can give you back your wings,” he breathes, grabbing my hand and turning it over.

He trails his fingers down my closed fist, swirling over my wrist. His featherlight touch dances over my skin, beckoning me, and I oblige.

I open my hand, exposing the key with the black-and-white bird, my blood smeared across its feathers, a deep maroon in the dim light of the attic.

“I can free you from the cage of your life.”

“How?” I ask, my voice sounding strange in my ears, almost terrified. I know, somehow, deep inside of me, that I have been wanting to get out for a very long time. That I would leap at any offer to escape.

“Give me your key, and I will give you the world,” he whispers, his hand hovering over the key in my palm, not touching it.

There is a wild fierceness in his eyes, an obsession written so clearly across his face that it shakes me to my core.

The voice that has been begging me to fight, pleading with me to not submit to the creeping numbness, nearly bursts through the haze in my mind.

I have to look away from the heat of his gaze, glancing down at the key in my hand instead.

His fingers twitch, as though he is fighting the urge to snatch it.

“It isn’t mine. I just found it,” I say, my voice shaking. My heart is pounding in my chest, filling my ringing ears with the sound of pulsing blood. I feel like I am standing on the edge of an abyss, with no idea if I will jump or not.

“It has always been yours. It was only waiting for you,” he croons, the softness of his voice in stark contrast to the harsh edge of hunger in his eyes.

I see the abyss rise up before me, and without a single feeling in the hollowness of my mind, I jump.

Slowly, I turn my hand over, dropping the key to the table. For some reason, it sounds like dirt piling on a coffin lid. I slide it toward him, the scraping of metal against wood louder than it should be. I remove my hand, leaving the key directly in front of him.

He is beaming, a feverish grin spreading across his face, and my unease grows.

But then he catches my eye, and that blissful emptiness settles on my shoulders, caressing me like a lover.

His white-gloved hand picks up the key, and he holds it in front of his face, staring at it with reverence, turning it in the light of the moon.

The iron bird flashes, seeming to take flight.

I am filled with the sense that I have just made a grave mistake.

“How do I get out?” I whisper.

His eyes flash to mine for a brief moment. He does not answer. He only smiles. With his free hand, he begins to pop open the buttons on his shirt, pulling the fabric aside to reveal his chest. He presses the tip of the key directly over his heart, and pushes it into his chest.

I have no time to register that he is stabbing a key into his heart, because all at once I can’t breathe.

Letting out a strangled noise, I clutch at my throat, struggling to pull air into my burning lungs. I feel like I am underwater, drowning in the suffocating darkness that begins to flow into me. I shove myself away from the table, my chair tipping and falling, spilling me out of it.

Before I can hit the floor, he is beside me, scooping me into his arms. His grip sends shards of ice through my veins, flooding my senses with endless cold.

Coughing and sputtering, I convulse in his arms, unable to scream in panic or pain as he smiles down at me.

My vision turns gray, the room dimming around me.

The only thing I can make out is his bright smile as he says, “Welcome home, Magpie.”