She handed him the notebook and his eyes darted across her calculations. She had painstakingly handwritten the dates and times of that year’s major planetary movements one after another in blue ballpoint pen, on the same page as a scribbled guacamole recipe and doodles of stars.

  “You calculated this by yourself?” Rhys asked.

  Moira’s eyes hardened “Believe it or not you don’t need a liberal arts degree to be an astrologer.”

  His chest tightened.

  “No, no, I didn’t mean—! I’m just impressed!” He passed the notebook back to her with both hands as though it was something precious. “I pay someone to do mine. I could never learn how.”

  “Well,” Moira said, her features softening as she pressed her notebook to her chest. “You should fire your astrologer.”

  “Obviously.”

  They looked at each other for a moment, a nervous smile playing at Moira’s mouth, a pink hue rising in the tips of Rhys’ ears, and then the young man gave a laugh.

  “Well now I feel like an idiot for telling you to clear out. I’m sorry.”

  “A real idiot wouldn’t have said he’s sorry.”

  Rhys was a bit emboldened by this, and tried on a smile he hoped was charming.

  “I’ll take it.” He turned back towards his abandoned circle and ran his hand through his hair. “I guess that gives me an hour and a half to find another crossroads.”

  “Don’t bother,” Moira said, plucking up the glass bottle from the back of her truck, wrapping her shirttail around the cork. It gave way with a hermetically-sealed hiss. “I’ve got a better way to kill an hour and a half.”

  Moira poured a splash of her brew onto the ground, and the summer-dry earth greedily drank in the libation. Rhys watched, transfixed, as she brought the bottle to her mouth, had a swig, and then extended it out to him.

  He plucked it from her hands with a boldness that surprised him and took a swallow, swiping his tongue along the rim of the bottle to make sure he didn’t miss a drop. Sunlight and clover bloomed in his mouth, sharp and honey-sweet. Mead.

  Moira’s plum-painted lips stretched into a succulent smile. Rhys pretended not to notice, just as he pretended not to notice the dusky rose scent that clung to her clothes as he moved to stand beside her.

  He nodded at unmarked boxed tossed into the bed of the pickup.

  “So what all do you have in the back of this truck?”

  ***

  Steam enveloped Moira as she stepped into the waterfall shower. Rhys had insisted on outfitting the bathroom and kitchen with the latest appliances when they moved in to the townhouse together, a gesture that, to Moira, felt a little besides-the-point in a historic home. Wasn’t it good enough to be able to afford a split-level rental in the suburbs so close to Boston proper? But her husband loved keeping up with the Jonses, and Moira loved to pamper herself with long showers, so she didn’t complain.

  The shower door swung open and a chill crept over her wet skin, but then Rhys slipped in behind her and she felt warmer than she had in ages. His hands settled on her hips and Moira made a deep contented sound, arching her back like a cat.

  “Hi, little goddess,” he said, and kissed the nape of her neck. Moira tilted her head back so Rhys could kiss her forehead, and she chuckled as he pressed his body against hers and held her tightly.

  “Been a while since I heard that one.”

  “It’s always apt,” Rhys said, running his hands up her waist to cup her breasts. Delight spread through Moira from the crown of her head to the tip of her toes, and she put her hands over his and gave a little squeeze.

  “I thought you were abstaining from the pleasures of the flesh in order to elevate your soul’s vibration, or something.”

  “I missed you. And I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t even know where to start.”

  “You’ve been at it for weeks. The downstairs hall reeks from all the frankincense you’ve been burning.”

  “Well I haven’t gotten it right yet and probably won’t at this rate. So. There’s no point torturing myself if there’s no spell to prepare for.”

  Moira turned to face him with a grin, hooking her arms around his neck. The water beat down over both of them, and Moira felt the tightness in his shoulders melt away under her hands.

  “You don’t mind do you?” He asked, kissing the corner of her mouth with a gentle urgency.

  “Not at all,” Moira replied, and practically purred when Rhys ran his hand up her thigh and slipped his fingers between her legs.

  She felt him smile against her mouth as she kissed him deeply.

  Suddenly, there was the awful sound of shattering glass, and Rhys was gone, out of the shower in a flash.

  Moira stood dripping and stunned, her frame shivering from the sudden cold. Rhys was standing over their bathroom mirror, which had somehow dislodged itself from the wall mount and shattered into a thousand pieces over the sink. As the steam in the room cleared, Moira saw that a large strip of the bathroom wallpaper had been torn from the sheetrock in the process and now hung limply.

  “Fuck,” Rhys said, looking completely at a loss as surveyed the destruction. “I can’t believe…Fuck.”

  Moira cut off the shower and grabbed her towel.

  “Baby, be careful, please. Here—”

  She took a step out of the shower but Rhys held her back.

  “Don’t, it’s a goddamn mess, I don’t want you to get cut. I just…Let me just get the broom, please. Don’t move.”

  He tied a towel around his waist and did his best to navigate the crucible of broken shards, then hissed when a small piece punctured his heel. Moira watched helpless as he pulled the glass from his foot and tossed the bloody object into the sink. As he slipped out of the room to find band-aids and a broom, she sank down to the floor of the shower and tried to soothe herself with a breathing exercise. No matter how deep she pulled the air into her lungs, the sting in her eyes wouldn’t go away.

  —

  The tarot card hit the truckbed with a crisp snick, and Moira sucked her teeth.

  “Seven of swords. You’re awfully good at playing a part to get what you want, aren’t you?”

  They were sitting in the back of her pickup with a muggy twilight darkening around them. Rhys’ hands were slick with sweat and the condensation from the bottle of mead, and there was a pleasant buzz in his veins.

  “I don’t consider myself dishonest.”

  “Oh?”

  “Just...Image-conscious I guess. I like to make the right impressions.”

  Moira snagged the bottle from him and took a swig. They were sitting cross-legged on a blanket she had produced from under the passenger seat, with Moira’s black velvet bag of tarot cards tossed between them. Rhys had slid his own deck out of the peeling, taped-up cardboard box it had been sold in years ago, and was passing the cards between his hands. He never travelled without them.

  “So, what is it you’re afraid people might find out that would give them the wrong one?” Moira asked

  “Everyone’s got those sort of things.”

  Moira grinned at him, her teeth catching the moonlight with a wicked glint.

  “I’ve never met a secret in my life.”

  Rhys broke the deck into pieces and spun the cards between his fingers with the deftness of a stage illusionist.

  “Well maybe someday I’ll introduce you to mine.”

  “Where did you learn to shuffle like that?”

  “An ex.”

  “Well she knew her way around a deck of cards, I’ll give her that much.” Moira took a swallow of the mead like a true Southern lady: a double pour put away delicately as you please. “Be mysterious if you like, but you best be mindful, that’ll catch up with you in time. Eventually we’ve all got to take off the mask.”

  Rhys tossed the cards from one hand to another, then flipped over the Two of Swords without breaking eye contact with her. He was grandstanding a bit, he would admit it.

  “I might self-censor in certain company, but you can’t make up your mind. So, what is it? Two job offers on the table? Couple of handsome strangers fighting for your hand?”

  He threw that last bit out as bait, just to test the waters, but Moira refused to bite. Instead, she rolled her shoulders and leaned back onto her hands, tipping her throat up towards the sky. She bathed in the moon for a moment, then said,

  “I guess...I don’t really know what’s next for me. If I should move back home or not.”

  “Where’s home?”

  A dreamy look came over her face. “Georgia. A little hobby farm. Just my parents, six chickens, some wild cats, and a couple of goats. Momma keeps talking about getting one of those miniature ponies though, the ones with sour temperaments. I think it’d be a laugh.”

  She was radiating a kind of warmth that made Rhys sure he had been cold his entire life up until now. He swallowed to loosen his dry throat as he set his deck down beside her own.

  “You love that place, huh?”

  “So much. The summer thunderstorms, the fall colors, the honey harvest...My parents have always let me know I could come back home after graduation. I just don’t know if I ought. We all lived here in Massachusetts for a bit, right when I started school, but they hated it so they went right back to South and I stayed with my scholarships and in-state tuition.”

  “What’s your major?”

  “Oh jeez does it matter? What about you?”

  “I graduated. Double major in classics and anthropology. Working on my masters now. And what do you mean ‘does it matter’? In this economy you won’t get so much as a job interview without a BA.”

  “I don’t need a degree for the job I’ve got.”

  “And what’s that?”

  Moira thought about this for a moment, and Rhys loved watching the way her brow furrowed as she did so.

  “Helping people,” she said finally. “Healing the body. Easing the mind. Giving folks good counsel and a safe place to rest while they figure out what it is they ought to do about their problems.”

  “You’re a fortune teller, then? Or an herbalist?”

  “I’m a lightworker, baby. A layer cake of conjure, reiki, organic medicine, bhakti yoga, and rootwork, garnished with a twist of positive psychology. A little bit of something for every one of my clients.”

  “What about money?”

  “Oh, money seems to find me when I need it. I like taking odd jobs anyway. Doesn't tie me down.”

  Rhys ran his fingers along the edge of Moira’s deck, feeling the slight bow in the cards that came from her shuffling them the same direction for so many years. A fifteenth birthday present, she had told him, from her mother. They had spent every Sunday night until she left for college at the kitchen table, sipping brown sugar bourbon Old Fashioneds and slinging cards for houseguests, paying customers, and each other.

  “So if school isn’t your thing what’s keeping you up here?”

  A bead of liquor ran down Moira’s wrist and she lapped it up with a swipe of her tongue. He continued to finger her deck, slipping his thumbnail underneath a card that just felt right.

  “There’s a lot to love here, too,” she said.

  “In my experience, places are never the way you remember them. Even if you find it the way you left it. You’re the thing that changes.”

  Moira made a little humming sound in the back of her throat.

  “Oh, you’re a sharp one, huh? For that I’ll give you another free reading. One card only, an exclusive deal.”

  “So generous,” Rhys snorted, but he pulled the Chariot all the same.

  Moira’s deck was different from Rhys’; where his illustrations were muted and pulled directly from classical Western metaphysics, hers were vibrant, with whorls of color swirling together to produce impressionistic scenes that he had trouble reading. The familiar symbols he had taught himself to interpret – the scales and chalices and crowns – were entirely absent. In Moira’s deck, the Chariot was a long luxurious car barreling through a rainy night with headlights blazing and a white dove fluttering overhead.

  “Oh, you’re one of those types.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “Chariot folks are driven as hell, natural born leaders, determined to succeed and look good doing it. They hate being broke and they hate feeling busted. Most of all they want. Chariot people are made up of desires, and they've got the power of will to bring those desires into fruition.”

  “Hey, you’re pretty good at that!”

  Moira scraped her hair into a knot, exposing the delicate, damp curls at the nape of her neck.

  “Momma’s a psychic; she trained me right. So what’s a man want so bad he’s willing to spend his solstice summoning spirits in the middle of a field? That’s what those squiggles carved into the ground are for, right?”

  Rhys beamed reckless and golden.

  “The world, to start.”

  Moira snorted and shook her head.

  “You mean to tell me,” Rhys persisted. “That if you could somehow get in contact with ancient, powerful beings with unlimited knowledge about psychics, astrology, the passage of time, the measure of a man’s soul...You wouldn't take advantage of that? You wouldn't want to know?”

  Moira couldn’t keep the fondness out of her smile.

  “You’ve got a bit of a poetic streak in there too, don’t you?” Her face fell a bit. “Nothing’s worth your soul, Rhys. Or didn’t you ever hear that song about the devil and a fiddle?”

  “This isn’t the devil. At least not in the way you’re imagining. These things, these spirits, they’re all over the spectrum. Some are benevelovent, or tricksters, or just plain confused. And yes, some may be malicious, some may be looking to get more than they’re willing to give, but they’re easy enough to identify. It’s like that bit in Corinthians about the discernment of spirits; it’s a skill to be honed, if you have it.”

  Rhys was getting carried away, exulting in alcohol and his passions, and he realized a little too late that this train of talk might be making his conversation partner uncomfortable. A lapsed Catholic with all the requisite philosophy electives, mass-skipping guilt, and bitterness towards the papacy, he generally steered conversations away from religion. But there was something about Moira’s openness that made him feel more willing to throw around concepts he generally relegated to forced Easter attendance with his parents. Or maybe it was just the mead.

  Rhys pressed a hand to his face, trying to steady his spinning world.

  “Sorry...Are you Catholic?”

  “I’m Southern.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Where I’m from, even the Catholics are Baptist.”

  “Alright, well I don’t really consider myself super religious or anything but...We’re talking about the forces that laid the foundation of the earth. The energies that keep the whole thing going. Beings with direct access to God, Source, The Universe, whatever it ends up being in the end.”

  She was watching him with intent, lids slightly narrowed around eyes that glowed strangely. Rhys felt like he was being turned inside out and examined as though Moira couldn’t decide whether or not she wanted to pay full price for him.

  “Magic is a technology,” he continued, voice a little softer but no less intent, “It’s neither good nor bad; just a neutral skill to be used by a competent practitioner. Who you glorify with that skill, who you hurt or help, is up to you. The way I see it God didn’t ban learning how to read or how to make bricks, so why this?”

  Moira gently moved the mead bottle out of the way, leaned forward to take his face in her hands, and stopped centimeters short of a kiss.

  “You don’t mind, do you?” She asked, so kind that Rhys felt a pain in his chest.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to kiss me since I got into this truck.”

  So she did, and Rhys drank in her in like top-shelf liquor he couldn't afford.

  She lingered close after she pulled away, her breath ghosting across his lips as he reached up to brush his knuckle under her chin. When he spoke, his voice was quiet.

  “Do you really want to know what I wanted so badly that I starting teaching myself magic?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wanted to go to Williams.”

  Moira let loose a peal of laughter, but Rhys’ smile was tight.

  “I’m serious. I wanted it so bad I couldn’t think of anything else. I had a B average and middle-class parents and no professional connections. I was willing to do anything.”

  Moira had settled and was looking at him with eyes bright as polished tourmaline. Black tourmaline kept evil away, Rhys remembered absently, and he wondered if that had anything to do with how safe he felt around her.

  “At the end of the day it’s just a school though, isn’t it?

  “It didn’t feel that way then. It felt like my only ticket out of obscurity; the fast track to status and influence and people who mattered. I was dumb.”

  “So your spells didn’t work?”

  “Oh they worked alright. And I got the worst thing possible. Exactly what I wanted, with nowhere to go and everything to prove. I spent four years feeling like I had no right to be there, like I cheated. The way I see it, real magic always asks a sacrifice of us, and that was what I gave up to get in to Williams; my joy.”

  She ran her hand up his arm, coming to rest with her palm pressed against his heart.

  “I’m sure it wasn’t all bad though. Ya’ll have prettier buildings than we do at the state school.”

  Rhys chuckled, and leaned into Moira’s touch. A little mirth returned to his eyes.

  “Yes, we do. And I did join a secret society while I was there so that’s worth the debt, I guess.”

  “Not very secret when you go around telling people about it.”

  Rhys pressed a courteous kiss to the corner of her mouth to see if her lips would part for him, and smirked when they did.

  “Well, we do secret things. Like rituals and summoning circles and stuff.” Rhys suddenly straightened. “Oh shit.”

  “What?”

  “The alignment; what time is it?”

 

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