Cards of Providence

When I got home, it was way past midnight. Everyone in my house was asleep—except one person. Amma’s light was on, her room glowing between the two haint blue shutters. I wondered if she knew I was gone, and where I’d been. I almost hoped she did. It would make what I was about to do a hundred times easier.

Amma wasn’t the kind of person you confronted. She was a confrontation all on her own. She lived by her rules, her law—the things she believed, which to her were as sure as the sun rising. She was also the only mother I had left. And, most days, the only parent. The idea of fighting with her made me feel hollow and sick inside.

But not as hollow as it made me feel to know I was only half of myself. Half the person I’d always been. Amma knew, and she had never said a word.

And the words she did say were lies.

I knocked on her bedroom door before I had time to change my mind. She opened it right away, as if she’d been waiting for me. She was wearing her white robe with the pink roses on it, the one I gave her on her birthday last year.

Amma didn’t look at me. She looked past me, as if she could see something more than the wall behind me. Maybe she could. Maybe there were pieces of me scattered all over the place, like a broken bottle.

“Been waitin’ on you.” Her voice sounded small and tired, and she stepped out of the doorway so I could come in.

Amma’s room still looked ransacked, but one thing was different. There were cards spread out on the little round table under the window. I walked over to the table and picked one up. The Bleeding Blade. They weren’t tarot cards. “Reading cards again? What are they saying tonight, Amma?”

She crossed the room and started pushing the cards into a stack. “Don’t have much to say. Think I’ve seen all there is to see.”

Another card caught my eye. I held it up in front of her. “What about this one? The Fractured Soul. What does this one have to say?”

Her hands were shaking so hard that it took her three tries to grab the card from me. “You think you know somethin’, but a piece a somethin’ is the same as nothin’. Neither one gets you much a anything.”

“You mean like a piece of my soul? Is that the same as nothing?” I said it to hurt her, to bust up her soul, so she could see how it felt.

“Where did you hear that?” Her voice was shaky. She grabbed the chain around her neck and rubbed the worn gold charm hanging from it.

“From your friend in New Orleans.”

Amma’s eyes went wide, and she grabbed the back of the chair to steady herself. I knew from her reaction that whatever she’d seen tonight, it wasn’t me raising souls with the bokor. “Are you tellin’ me the truth, Ethan Wate? Did you go to see that devil?”

“I went because you lied to me. I didn’t have a choice.”

But Amma wasn’t listening to me. She was flipping the cards madly, pushing them around under her tiny palms. “Aunt Ivy, show me somethin’. Tell me what this means.”

“Amma!”

She was muttering to herself, rearranging the cards over and over again. “I can’t see anything. Has to be a way. There’s always a way. Just have to keep lookin’.”

I grabbed her shoulders, gently. “Amma. Put the cards down. Talk to me.”

She held up a card. On the front was a picture of a sparrow with a broken wing. “The Forgotten Future. Know what these cards are called? Cards a Providence, because they tell more than just your future. They tell your fate. Know the difference?” I shook my head. I was afraid to say anything. She was coming unhinged. “Your future can change.”

I looked into her dark eyes, which were filling with tears. “Maybe you can change fate, too.”

The tears started falling, and she was shaking her head back and forth hysterically. “The Wheel a Fate crushes us all.”

I couldn’t stand to hear it again. Amma wasn’t just going dark. She was going crazy, and I was watching it happen.

She pulled away, gathered up her robe, and dropped to her knees. Her eyes were shut tight, but her chin was turned up to her blue ceiling. “Uncle Abner, Aunt Ivy, Grandmamma Sulla, I’m in need a your intercession. Forgive me a my trespasses, as the Good Lord forgives us all.” I watched as she waited, mumbling the words over and over. It was a good hour before she gave up, exhausted and defeated.

The Greats never came.

When I was little, my mother used to say that everything you needed to know about the South could be found in either Savannah or New Orleans. Apparently, the same was true about my life.

Lena didn’t agree. The next morning, we were arguing about it in the back of history class. And I wasn’t winning. “A Fractured Soul isn’t two things, L. It’s one thing split in half.”

When I said “two souls,” all Lena heard was “two” and assumed I was offering myself up as the One Who Is Two. “It could be any of us. I’m the One Who Is Two, if anyone is. Take a look at my eyes!” I could feel her rising panic.

“I’m not saying I’m the One Who Is Two, L. I’m just a Mortal. If it took a Caster to break the Order, it’s going to take more than a Mortal to restore it, don’t you think?” She didn’t look convinced, but deep down she had to know I was right.

For better or worse, that’s all I was—a Mortal. It was the source of the whole problem between us. The reason we could barely touch, and couldn’t really be together. How could I save the Caster world, when I could barely live in it?

Lena lowered her voice. “Link. He’s two things, an Incubus and a Mortal.”

“Shh.” I glanced at Link, but he was oblivious, trying to carve LINKUBUS into his desk with a pen. “I’m pretty sure he barely qualifies as either one.”

“John is two things, a Caster and an Incubus.”

“L.”

“Ridley. There could still be a trace of Siren inside her, even as a Mortal. Two.” Now she was reaching. “Amma is a Seer and a Mortal. Two things.”

“It’s not Amma!” I must have been shouting, because the whole class turned around in their seats. Lena looked hurt.

“It isn’t, Mr. Wate? Because the rest of us thought it was.” Mr. Evans looked like he was ready to get out the little pink pad of detention slips.

“Sorry, sir.”

I ducked down behind my textbook and lowered my voice. “I know it sounds weird, but this is a good thing. Now I know why all that crazy stuff has been happening, like the weird dreams and seeing the other half of myself all over the place. Now everything makes sense.”

It wasn’t completely true, and Lena wasn’t convinced, but she didn’t say anything else and neither did I. Between the heat and the bugs, Abraham and the Vexes, John Breed and the Lilum possessing the body of our English teacher, I figured we had enough to worry about.

At least that’s what I told myself.

LET IT SNOW! TIME FOR A CHANGE IN THE
WEATHER! BUY YOUR TICKETS NOW!

The posters were everywhere, as if the fact needed to be advertised. The winter formal was here, and this year the Dance Committee, made up of Savannah Snow and her fan club, decided to call it the Snow Ball. Savannah insisted it had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the heat wave, which is why everyone was calling it the Slush Ball. And Lena and I were going.

She didn’t want to go, especially after what happened at the winter formal last year. When I gave her the tickets, she looked like she wanted to set them on fire. “This is a joke, right?”

“It’s not a joke.” I was sitting across from her at the lunch table, stabbing at the ice in my soda with my straw. This wasn’t going to go well.

“Why would you possibly think I want to go to that dance?”

“To dance with me.” I gave her a pathetic look.

“I can dance with you in my bedroom.” She held out her hand. “In fact, come here. I’ll dance with you right now, in the cafeteria.”

“It’s not the same.”

“I’m not going.” Lena was digging in her heels.

“Then I’ll go with someone else,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed.

“Like Amma.”

She shook her head. “Why do you want to go so badly? And don’t say to dance with me.”

“It could be our last chance.” It would be a relief to worry about something as harmless as a disaster at the dance, instead of the destruction of the world. I was almost disappointed Ridley wasn’t around to ruin it with style.

So in the end Lena had caved, even though she was still mad about the whole thing. I didn’t care. I was making her go. With everything going on, I didn’t know if there would ever be another dance at Jackson.

We were sitting on the hot metal bleachers by the field, eating lunch on what should have been a cold December day. Lena and I didn’t want to run into Mrs. English, and Link didn’t want to run into Savannah, so the bleachers had become our hideout.

“You’re still driving tomorrow, right?” I threw the crust of my sandwich at Link. Tomorrow night was the Snow Ball, and between Link and Lena, there was only a fifty-fifty chance we’d get there at all.

“Sure. Just tryin’ to decide whether to wear my hair up or down. Can’t wait till you see my smokin’ new dress.” Link threw the crust back at me.

“Wait until you see mine.” Lena took a rubber band off her wrist, pulling her hair into a ponytail. “I think I’m wearing a raincoat and boots and bringing an umbrella, in case anyone takes the whole Slush Ball thing literally.” She didn’t try to hide the sarcasm in her voice.

It had been like this ever since I convinced them to go. “You guys don’t have to come with me. But this may be the last dance in Gatlin—maybe anywhere. And I’m going.”

“Stop saying that. It won’t be the last dance.” Lena was frustrated.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist.” Link punched my shoulder, a little too hard. “It’ll be awesome. Lena’s gonna fix everything.”

“I am?” Lena smiled a little. “Maybe John bit you harder than we thought.”

“Sure. Don’t you have some kinda Don’t-Let-This-Dance-Suck Cast?” Link had been depressed since Ridley took off. “Oh, wait. You don’t. ’Cause it’s gonna suck no matter what kinda Cast you’ve got.”

“Why don’t you try a Stay-Home-and-Shut-Your-Trap Cast? Since you’re the one taking Savannah Snow to the dance.” I wadded up my sandwich wrapper.

“She asked me.”

“She asked you to her party after the game, and look how well that turned out.”

Don’t bring it up, Ethan.

Well, it’s true.

Lena raised her eyebrow.

You’ll only make him feel worse.

Trust me, Savannah’s got that down.

Link sighed. “Where do you think she is right now?”

“Who?” I said, though we both knew exactly who he was talking about.

He ignored me. “Probably makin’ trouble somewhere.”

Lena folded her lunch bag into tinier and tinier squares. “Definitely making trouble somewhere.”

The bell rang.

“It’s probably better this way.” Link stood up.

“It’s definitely better this way,” I agreed.

“Coulda been worse, I guess. It wasn’t like I was that hung up on her. Like I was in love with her or somethin’.” I wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince, but he jammed his hands into his pockets and took off across the field before I could say anything.

“Yeah. That really would have sucked.” I squeezed Lena’s hand, letting it drop before I got light-headed.

“I feel so bad for him.” She stopped walking and slipped her hands around my waist. I pulled her close, and she rested her head against my chest. “You know I’d do anything for you, right?”

I smiled. “I know you’d go to a stupid dance for me.”

“I would. And I am.”

I kissed her forehead, letting my lips stay on her skin as long as I could.

She looked up at me. “Maybe we can make tomorrow really fun. Help Link forget about my cousin for a little while.”

“That’s what I’m talking about.”

“I have an idea. Something to fix a broken Linkubus heart.”

The tip of her ponytail began to curl, and I walked across the field wishing there was a Cast for that.