Page 87 of Scythe & Sparrow
There’s a stamp in the upper right-hand corner, one from Croatia, but there’s no mark on it from a post office. It takes me a minute to just sit back down at the table and stare at the text. I run my finger over every line of script. I didn’t see his handwritingmuch when I stayed at his place. But there is only one person it could belong to.
I tear back one slide of the flap and run a finger beneath the top edge of the envelope, careful not to damage the stamp or handwriting as I rip it open. Inside is a letter folded around something. When I take it out, a tarot card falls onto the table.
The Five of Cups.
I unfold the letter, carefully placing it next to the lone card.
Dear Mayhem,
You know more about tarot than I ever will. So bear with me. I might make some mistakes. Lord knows, I’ve made plenty already.
I want to start with the Five of Cups—not to look into the future, but to talk about the past and present, and the regret and sorrow the card symbolizes. I’m so sorry for the way I hurt you. You deserved more from me from day one, and I didn’t think I was a good enough person to give it to you. And when I finally felt like I could be that man, I was forced to let you go. It was the last thing I wanted to do. But it was the only way to keep you safe.
The grief and loneliness represented by this card haunt me every day. There isn’t a moment that goes by when I don’t think of you. And maybe you’ve let us go, maybe you’ve moved on. Maybe this is the only letter you’ll read. I have to acceptthat possibility might be true. Ultimately, all I want is for you to be happy, no matter what you need to do.
But I am not done fighting for you.
I love you. I’m not letting you go. I never will.
FK
I take a shaky breath, wiping away the tears that trail down my cheeks. Part of me holds on to the anger and loss I still feel at being ghosted, left behind with questions that might never be answered. But another part of me wants to be warmed by the first little bit of light that’s seemed absent from the cold darkness of my heart these last few months.
I reread the letter, over and over until Jim knocks at my door to tell me I’m going to be late for the performance. I do my show and then come back to my trailer and read it again until I can recite it from memory. It’s on my shelf next to my bed so it’s the last thing I see when I fall asleep. When I wake up the next morning, it’s the first thing I grab, touching it just to make sure it’s real.
The next week, there’s another letter. Another tarot card, the Moon. In his letter, Fionn talks about how it symbolizes secrets and deceptions and illusions. He tells me about the things he feared—his own darkness, the secrets that he kept from his brothers. He talks about the secrets he’s keeping now too, but only in the loosest of terms. He worries about his brothers and the people he left behind. But it’s the last lines of his letter I reread that night until I fall asleep.
The hardest secret I ever kept was the one I kept from you. It was not telling you how much I love you. How much that love has consumed me, even when I tried not to let it. You unraveled the life I’d convinced myself I wanted. I didn’t think the man left behind was one I could trust. I thought I was keeping you safe from me by hiding those feelings away. But I was wrong. I’d give anything to go back and break every rule before the day we made them. Because I know now that I loved you even then.
Another week. Another letter. Two tarot cards this time. The next week, another letter, a single card. Week after week, they keep coming, each letter accompanied by at least one card, sometimes two or three. Every letter relates to the meaning of the cards sent with it. Every one ends the same way.
I love you. I’m not letting you go. I never will.
The closer we get to the first of April, the more the anxiety churns in my guts. Because that’s when we hit the road and start touring for the season. Maybe my last season, for real this time. Or maybe not, I don’t know. Maybe I’m clinging to this life I no longer want because it’s safe. It’s known. And the last time I dove headfirst into the unknown I ended up with an edge beveler in my belly and my heart torn out of my chest. All I know for sure is that Fionn’s letters have been something I’ve come to dependon, even on those days when I’ve tried to convince myself not to. I’ve even started replying, writing pages to fold and put into envelopes with nowhere to send them. I tell my own stories about anger and forgiveness and love and loss. And maybe hope too. It might be a one-sided conversation, but there’s a relief in putting those feelings onto paper and sealing them up, even if they’re never read.
I get a letter the day we pack up to head out on the road. It comes with the Knight of Wands. He talks about how I must be getting ready to leave soon. He knows the card can signify travel, and he wonders where I might be going. He wants to ask about my favorite places. Says he wishes he were here so we could talk. “If you’ve kept your fringe, you’d blow the hair from your brow as you think about it. And then your eyes would shimmer when you’d tell me about the best stops on the road.” I write back and say I wouldn’t need to think about it. My favorite stop is the one where I found myself laid up in Hartford, Nebraska. I wonder about the people I got to know there. Is Nate still fighting in the Blood Brothers barn? What about Sandra and the Suture Sisters, have they all started crocheting sex swings now? And why did we never make them form a cover band and play at a Blood Brothers fight with a name like that? Sandra and the Suture Sisters need crocheted merch. I would buy it. “I miss Hartford,” I say in my letter. “I miss you most of all.”
I seal that letter and cry myself to sleep that night. And the next morning, we set off for Archer City.
It’s not a long drive. Our first trip rarely is, just so we can work out the kinks with new staff and old machines and performances that are getting off the ground after a winter season at home. Itwill take a few weekends before we truly get into the swing of things. We spend a few extra days setting up and practicing. We run an extra night of shows. The day of teardown, I’m about to peel off my dirty, sweaty clothes and hop into my tiny shower when there’s a knock at my door.
“Mail delivery,” Baz says when I open the door and he thrusts an envelope at me. My heart flips over. I reach out with a tentative hand, but he whips the letter out of reach before I can touch it. “Are these love letters from the guy who came to visit when that moron tripped on the fence and offed himself?”
“None of your business,” I reply. I hang on to the edge of my door and reach for the paper that he flaps just beyond my grasp. I finally manage to yank it from him, but only because I think he lets me.
“I’ve never seen you get mail on the road before.” Baz’s teasing smile softens when I look up from the envelope. He’s right. Some of the troupe get mail forwarded by third-party services, or they pick it up from friends and relatives scattered along the route. But I’ve never done that. Never had a reason to. “It’s nice. Dude must really like you.”
With a little salute, Baz shoves his hands in his pockets and then walks away whistling “La Vie en Rose.” A stupid grin must be plastered across my face, but he doesn’t look back to see it.
I didn’t think another letter would come, but now that I have it in my hands, the relief and excitement almost overwhelm me as they compete for the space in my chest. I sit down at my table and slide the letter opener I bought in February beneath the edge of the flap.
Dear Mayhem,
If I’ve timed this right, you’ll be at your first stop. I hope it went great. I never told you that I went to see you perform in Ely for the first time after your accident. I didn’t want to seem like some kind of weirdo stalker. I guess telling you about it a year later in my fourteenth letter that was written in a secret location and sent by phantom postal service is already pretty stalkery. In retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have been so worried that you’d see me in the audience after all.
The Chariot card probably means a lot to you. I bet it comes up frequently in your deck with all the travel you do. It would have come up for me too that time. I got in my car and drove for thirteen hours just to see you ride in that insane metal death cage. I was so fucking worried about you. I know you know what you’re doing, but I wanted to be there, just in case. But it went perfectly. You were amazing. You came out of the cage and took your helmet off and held it up to the crowd. You looked so fucking proud. And I was so fucking proud of you too.
Ride safe, Mayhem.
