Writ on the top of the Card were two words: The Nightmare. My mouth opened, my childish eyes round. I knew enough of The Old Book of Alders to know this particular Providence Card was one of only two of its kind, its magic formidable, fearsome. Use it, and one had the power to speak into the minds of others. Use it too long, and the Card would reveal one’s darkest fears.
But it wasn’t the Card’s reputation that ensnared me—it was the monster. I stood over the desk, unable to tear my eyes away from the ghastly creature depicted on the Card’s face. Its fur was coarse, traveling across its limbs and down its hunched spine to the top of its bristled tail. Its fingers were eerily long, hairless and grey, tipped by great, vicious claws. Its face was neither man nor beast, but something in-between. I leaned closer to the Card, drawn by the creature’s snarl, its teeth jagged beneath a curled lip.
Its eyes captured me. Yellow, bright as a torch, slit by long, catlike pupils. The creature stared up at me, unmoving, unblinking, and though it was made of ink and paper, I could not shake the feeling it was watching me as intently as I was watching it.
Trying to grasp what happened next was like mending a shattered mirror. Even if I could realign the pieces, cracks in my memory still remained. All I’m certain of was the feel of the burgundy velvet—the unbelievable softness along the ridges of the Nightmare Card as my finger slipped across it.
I remember the smell of salt, and the white-hot pain that followed. I must have fallen or fainted, because it was dark outside when I awoke on the library floor. The hair on the back of my neck bristled, and when I sat up, I was somehow aware I was no longer alone in the library.
That’s when I first heard it, the sound of those long, vicious claws tapping together.
Click. Click. Click.
I jumped to my feet, searching the library for an intruder. But I was alone. It wasn’t until it happened again—click, click, click—that I realized the library was empty.
The intruder was in my mind.
“Hello?” I called, my voice breaking.
Its tone was male, a hiss and a purr—oil and bile—sinister and sweet, echoing through the darkness of my mind. Hello.
I screamed and fled the library. But there was no fleeing what I had done.
Suddenly it became bitterly clear: The infection had not spared me. I had magic. Strange, awful magic. All it had taken was a touch. Just a touch of my finger on velvet, and I had absorbed something from within my uncle’s Nightmare Card. Just a single touch, and its power stalked the corners of my mind, trapped.
At first, I thought I had absorbed the Card itself—its magic. But despite all my efforts, I could not speak into the minds of others. I could only speak to the voice—the monster, the Nightmare. I poured over The Old Book of Alders until I knew it by heart, searching for answers. In his description of the Nightmare Card, the Shepherd King wrote of one’s deepest fears brought to light—of hauntings and terror. I waited to be frightened, for dreams, for nightmares. But they did not come. I clenched my jaw to keep from screaming every time I entered a dark room, certain he would rip through the silence with a terrifying screech, but he remained quiet. He did not haunt me.
He said nothing at all until the day the Physicians came, when he saved my life.
After that, the noises of his comings and goings became familiar. Enigmatic, his secrets were vast. Stranger still, the Nightmare carried his own magic. To his eyes, Providence Cards were as bright as a torch, their colors unique to the velvet trim they bore. With him trapped in my mind, I too saw the Cards. And when I asked for his help, I grew stronger—I could run faster, longer, my senses were keener.
At times, he remained dormant, as if asleep. Others, he seemed to take over my thoughts entirely. When he spoke, his smooth, eerie voice called in rhythmic riddles, sometimes to quote The Old Book of Alders, sometimes merely to taunt me.
But no matter how often I asked, he would not tell me who he was or how he had come to exist in the Nightmare Card.
Eleven years, we’ve been together.
Eleven years, and I’ve never told a soul.
I did not often walk the forest road at night, and never alone. I cast my gaze over my shoulder, once more hoping Ione would come up behind me, that we might brave the darkness together, arm in arm.
But the only thing to stir at the edge of the wood was a white owl. I watched it soar from the thicket, startled by its quick descent. Night crept over the trees and with it came animal noises—creatures emboldened by darkness. The Nightmare shifted in the back of my consciousness, sending shivers up my spine despite the tepid air.