Spring Won't Come

Fourteen: Manny

Manny watched the cards with a restless anticipation. Tarot cards were new to him and he wasn't sure what to expect next. So far, Alice had found that he and Blake shared a lot in their lives: wasted energy, conflict, rejection, being let down, and stress. She also predicted a coming peace, following some great conflict.

Blake held the card that Alice had given to him, explaining that it represented triumph over an oppressive force. Manny's mouth twitched with jealousy. He wanted to be triumphant, he wanted to succeed in life. Alice had even pulled a card that predicted love for Blake!

"You told us that you were doing a reading before we came here," Blake said.

"I was," Alice's face became drawn out, as if she had aged a dozen years. "I was doing a reading for Isaiah. I wish I had understood how serious this was," she flipped up a card between two fingers.

Manny stared at the card, the rider with his pale horse. He knew what it meant before Alice even explained it. He had cried enough in the past few days, days accompanied by sleepless nights. Death was shamelessly indiscriminate, and had taken Isaiah to a place where Manny could not follow.

"I wish I could have helped," Alice continued. "Isaiah was a tragic casualty in this struggle. I won't let that happen to either of you though. No, I shall give you both a gift."

"Struggle against what, exactly?" Manny asked. "You still have explained that, and you haven't explained how the cards work."

Alice cleared the tarot cards from the coffee table and placed them inside of a small, wooden box. The box was velvet lined and had strange carvings that wove around the entirety of the dark wood.

"Tarot cards," Alice said, "are meant to understand what is within a person and how that relates to situations in their life. They aren't meant to predict the future," the brass clasps on the box clicked shut, "unless you have a special touch."

"So that's why you've been able to..." Blake began.

"Do weird shit," Miguel finished for him. He downed the remaining tea in his cup, the sharpness of the sassafras biting his tongue. "What exactly is this 'struggle' you keep talking about?"

Alice placed the box on her lap and folded her pale hands over it. She sipped her tea, brushed a piece of lint off her black sleeve, and then adjusted her white collar. Manny sometimes found her unhurried mannerisms to be utterly frustrating and he wished she would just spit it out.

"Are either of you boys religious?" Alice asked. Both boys shook their heads and she smiled. "I suppose that could be a good thing. You see, there is a world beyond what we see, though it isn't like those silly men would have you think with their Bibles, Torahs, and Qurans. Oh, no," she crossed her legs and held the box up to her chest, "it's so much more than that."

"What's this gift you're talking about?" Blake asked.

Manny looked at the boys suspiciously. He didn't like Blake's eagerness, nor did he like the way that he was looking at Alice. First you take Kayla from me and now you want Alice? He still couldn't believe he was sitting next to Blake, but Alice said that she had called them both here for a single purpose.

"Isaiah was killed by a dark entity," Alice said. A single tear crept from the corner of her eye and slid down her cheek. "He was so pure and it just had to snuff out that light of his."

"What you said, earlier," Blake interrupted.

"Whispers of power," Alice said. "It means the three of us are linked." She looked each boy in the eyes. "We have a bond. And I intend to use that bond to protect you, I only wish Kayla was here as well."