“We need to leave,” she says in a matter-of-fact tone. There isn’t an ounce of fear in her voice. It’s laced mostly with confusion, but that’s normal for her current state.
Too many things are going through my mind, so I don’t make a move to get out of bed. Something is calling us to them, though I have no idea what. The energy was niggling at me as I watched the faceless woman lie down and rest next to me. It was a whisper in the wind, finding me even in my subconscious, demanding I leave.
After a month away from her, I fought off my instincts for another minute—maybe an hour if I was so lucky. Anxiety kept me rooted in place, unwilling to wake and lose her again. I’m to blame for that but never again.
“Now, Archer,” Sybil tacks on sharply.
Not even her magic could hide that familiar annoyance reserved only for me and our other three siblings.
Our family doesn’t understand Sybil’s magic as well as I do. Not only are we twins, but we are the first Divination Witches born in our maternal family in the past five generations.
“Oh,” she turns around suddenly and places a small stack of tarot cards on the dresser next to the door. “I think these are for you.”
Throwing the comforter off, I reluctantly climb out of bed and grab the cards.
The Chariot—indicating a new journey. One that is written in the stars and cannot be avoided. The best course of action is to push forward, to see this new path to the very end.
Ace of Cups—a reminder that it’s time to let go of the emotional baggage and start living my life for myself. It’s a sign of hope that a long period of loneliness is finally coming to an end.
And the Hanged Man—the most worrying of all three cards. Agreatsacrifice will need to be made. Often spiritual, but it’s time to pay for previous wrongdoings.
Peculiar draw…
The first card is easy enough to figure out since Sybil and I woke up with the same awareness that something—someone—is calling us to them. However, the Ace of Cups and the Hanged Man could mean a million things. A part of me is anxious that the “baggage” I need to let go of is the faceless woman, in hopes of meeting someone else.
There’s no question that whatever Sybil is seeing is true. She’s never been wrong about one of her prophecies.
On an average day, Sybil’s magic aligns with the humans’ idea of a fortune-teller. She doesn’t need assistance to make predictions but she’s fond of tarot and astrology. Otherwise, our magic is similar.
However, they aren’t identical. She sees prophecies. Some come to her in dreams, and we aren’t sure what they mean until it comes to fruition. Those types usually involve people or events outside of our family’s coven. When she’s in her prophetic trances, she’s drawn to the source of her vision and it’s more personal to her, or sometimes to me.
When we were kids and she’d come out of her third one, she explained it like hunting for a treasure and only having one of those maps with the dotted line and X to mark the spot. She’s stuck in this limbo of awareness and instinct.
Prophecies of any kind are less common for me, though they happen on extremely rare occasions while I’m dreaming.
My powers lean toward a natural sense of perception. They give me a certain level of charisma that most Divination Witches don’t have; most are often characterized as awkward and spacey.
I can’t read people’s minds, but I’m able to sense their emotions and read their body language. Sometimes, I might as well have access to their thoughts. Sensing emotions isn’t my only ability. I can control them, to an extent. Depending on my intentions, I can tamper down or heighten someone’s emotions.
To sum it up, my magic allows me to emotionally manipulate the people around me. It makes dating hard, to say the least.
For some unknown reason, the faceless woman from my dreams is even more of a problem for my attachment issues than trying to explain my magic to a partner.
I rub a hand down my face, trying to swipe the remaining sleep and memories of her away.
It doesn’t work.
It never does.
Sybil and I have dreamwalked with each other for as long as I can remember, and as I got older, my powers grew along with my ability. I often stumbled across random people’s dreams and nightmares until I gained better control over it. It’s something no Divination Witch can ever truly master.
About five months after we turned seventeen, I came across a woman with an obscured face who had no voice—at least not one I could hear. The setting of our dreamscape has always been the same and exclusive to her.
It’s a cruel nightmare every time I find her there. To see the person I’ve spent the last eleven years with but can’t speak to—can’t even see her. That’s not the part that fucks with my head. It’s the hold she has on me regardless. There have been partners over the years—men and women—and I’ve even loved some of them.
I’ve never beeninlove with any of them, because there’s a piece of my soul stuck in my illicit dreams. The only reason I classify them as such is because of how often I’ve been more excited to sit in the hours of silence with her than I was to see my actual partners. Which leads to disappointment when I wake next to someone who isn’t her.
And that’s really fucked up, especially with all the added complications of the situation.
