She had made the conscious decision to turn off her phone.
It had been the right thing to do, she knew.
But just because it had been right didn’t mean she didn’t feel wrong- her fingers flexed as they yearned for something to mess around with at the same time the traitorous itch in the back of her mind insisted that she needed to keep up to date on everything that was being whispered about her among all of the chats and public social media posts her relationship had any relevancy in; that she needed to know what people that weren't her friends were telling the people that were and what her friends were saying back.
They weren’t many, of course, but they were a lot more than they should have been… no, that was wrong.
Her and Bennie’s relationship had struck a lot of people within their university as intriguing. It only made sense that there now was a notable chunk of people conspiring to figure out why she had broken up with him.
It was annoying and she hated that there was speculation going around that she might be going through something personal because who in their right mind would ever break up with Benjamin Pryce Sharp? Even if she knew that these people, at the end of the day, weren't supposed to matter to her... a tiny, impulsive, and stupid part of her wanted to be able to get all of these people talking about her together in the same place to be able to put them in their place, no matter how stupid that was.
When she had entered this particular university, she had been painfully aware of how similar it would be to her high school. The consensus online about the social media culture that surrounded the university was that it could get toxic. While the education offered was incredible and there was a plethora of success stories that indicated how thoroughly this university prepared its students for their future careers, there was an overreliance on social media by most of the student body that had begun at the dawn of social media and never wavered.
Nellie’s plan going into this university had been the same one she had ascribed to back in high school- never use social media unless it was 100% necessary for a class, have only one page that could be found by searching up her name, and stick mostly to herself and what little friends she managed to make. Things had mostly worked out for the best through this plan… until she had begun to date Bennie.
And now there were more than twenty posts on various social media pages philosophizing about the reason why she had been insane enough to leave one of the best men to ever enter the school- all reasons that had ranged from the mundane to the impossibly extreme.
The last thing Simone had ordered her to do had been to completely distance herself from any and all updates that had anything to do with social media and all the chaos it entailed. Before that, she had told her to not look at any of the messages that Bennie had sent her. And before that, she had had congratulated her on finally growing a spine and kicking the piece of trash known as Bennie Sharp to the curb.
Of her friends, Simone had always been the most vocal about how little she approved of the relationship she had been in… not more than two weeks ago…
With a sigh, Nellie glanced down at the package that had sat on her desk, patient in its wait to be acknowledged, for as long as she had been sat at the chair.
It was a small, yellow thing; rectangular in shape and unimpressive in almost everything. There was a white piece of paper taped onto what she assumed to be the top of the package; in little black letters, there was her address as well as the direction where it had come from. The shop name was printed in the same fine print as the rest and should not have stood out to her; and yet it did: SnowmanCovenInc.
It was a silly name. That made sense, right? All humans had the capacity to have a sense of humor, after all. And there were a bunch of shops online that had quirky, odd, and kind of try-hard names that attempted to come off as amusing. It was completely common for this kind of name to have been decided upon by a shop owner online… it felt weird.
Weren’t the people that believed in this form of… magic supposed to be serious?
That name wasn’t very serious.
With lips slightly pursed, Nellie shook her head at her own absurdity and irrational need to judge everything as soon as she first came into contact with anything. She grabbed the package and began to attempt to rip it open at the edge closest to her; all the while she chided herself for her illogical and, quite frankly, overly judgmental thoughts. Just because someone was selling tarot cards online, it didn’t mean that they were witches or pagans or wiccans; just because someone was part of any of those groups, it didn't mean that they weren't allowed to be comedic.
She had learned that, while these three terms were used interchangeably by a lot of people, they actually weren’t. Two of those were religious in spirit, while the former didn’t require any form of religious thought or action to be part of it. It could, if the witch really wanted to include it, but you didn’t have to be religious in any way to practice witchcraft. To be a witch didn't inherently mean to be a pagan or a wiccan; to be a pagan or a wiccan didn't mean to be a witch; but there was also no rule against one being a pagan witch or a wiccan witch, there were just a lot more nuances than Nellie could have ever expected.
It was really fascinating to have learned so much from just one CaveTube channel; she had to admit, though, that Ainsley Aimes had been the only content creator she had found that had managed to publish videos that were both interesting and informative enough for her to finish every single one she had found. Part of all she had learned through the practicing witch, though, had been because she did a great job of infusing education in the videos in which she reacted to preposterous and/or harmful content posted online on different social media sites that all touted the same badge of ‘INFO FOR WITCHES! COME HERE TO GET THE SCOOP!’.
Her fingers scrabbled and scratched for purchase, but the way the package had been sealed up with packing tape had been just about expert- there were no chinks or weak spots to find that she could tear into. She frowned softly but admitted defeat; she found a scissor inside of the drawer towards her left and fought some more to be able to cut into the package.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Some struggling later, she found herself with the gutted insides of the package mournfully staring up at her from its spot on the desk and a bubble-wrapped box within her hands. It had a notable amount of weight to it.
Tarot decks were generally composed of more than seventy cards and the version she had bought was supposed to come along with a deck-sized guidebook- it would make sense for the box the deck came in to be relatively heavy. She just… hadn’t thought it would be quite that hefty.
Her chest felt marginally tingly.
She forced herself to ignore that sensation as she unraveled the bubble-wrap and touched the box for the first time.
It felt… cold. And smooth. The weight that it had was much more noticeable now, somehow, even if it was supposed to have lost some of it due to no longer having any additional packaging surrounding it. And there was a tingling sensation starting up in the palm of her hand that she could not quite understand, much less explain.
Maybe she was just sleep deprived- that would have been enough of an explanation.
The box was a bright yellow color, with a picture of The Magician as its front cover. That particular card design was bordered with thick white lines, the title in big, bold letters at the top, while the name of the card was at the bottom, black words contrasted on a gray strip. ‘THE RIDER TAROT DECK’ it read, and the name was repeated on both sides of the box, along with the usual written paraphernalia that was probably a requirement in publishing and selling these kinds of decks.
As she opened up the box, the tingling sensation moved along from her palm over to the tips of her right hand’s fingers, all the while it slowly began to appear in her left hand’s palm.
Wow, that sleep deprivation really was affecting her, huh? It was making her feel like there was actually a tingling sensation going on in her hand!
When she peered inside the contents of the box, it was to find that there was, indeed, a guidebook squished in, behind the cards. She began to chew without much force at her inner bottom lip, then she tilted the box over her left hand. The cards slid out without any real complication; they made the softest sliding noise as they went, eventually landing mutely inside of her palm. The book tumbled off and onto the desk, landing flat on its back cover.
The cards were held together by a broad and thin strip of plastic that was even cooler to the touch than the cards themselves. It scratched the skin of her palm ever so slightly before the cards settled at the very center of her upturned hand.
She placed the box down beside the thin the guidebook and wondered for a moment, marveled, what she should begin with.
In these past few days, she had learned more about what tarot meant and how it was supposed to be read. Granted, most of what she had learned had been from quick, general summaries that Ainsley Aimes had offered in videos that weren’t specific to anything that had to do with the art of divination. But, still, she knew 100% more information on the way the tarot worked and how people utilized it within their lives than she had before… before It Happened.
That information she did know wasn’t much, she had to admit. But… it was something.
It would make sense to parse through the guidebook first to gain some understanding over how it had been constructed and maybe learn a little bit about what each card meant. But it would also make sense to look over the cards to actually get to see what they were composed of and maybe attempt to find any symbols that drew her eyes.
She chewed at her bottom lip for a little longer before eventually plucking the plastic up and away from the cards. She pulled it off and then marveled at the smooth sensation the cards elicited when they began to fan onto her palm.
There were tingles all along her left hand now, reaching all the way up to her fingertips- and maybe she needed to go to do a doctor because wasn’t that a symptom of poor circulation? She wasn't a perfectly healthy individual by any stretch of the imagination, but she had never experienced anything like this before!
But... well... she had been under a lot of stress, recently. She hadn't been eating right and sleep eluded her at night, only to ambush her at the most random hours of the day. Her modest workouts had completely halted and she wasn't trying her best to take care of herself anymore. And she knew that she needed to get back to doing the things in her life that her body most needed but... well... She just couldn't force herself to. Not yet. She couldn't find the strength inside of herself to get interested in almost anything other than witchcraft. Even the simple task of getting up and taking care of her hygienic needs in the bathroom had become Herculean.
With a soft huff, she forced her thoughts away from her body and over to the novelty in her hand.
Nellie lifted her right hand to begin to handle the deck, and as she began to get a feel for the cards and how they maneuvered, she could not stop herself from thinking that the backs of the card were much more boring and plainer than she had expected. It was composed of a white background with a bunch of lines in different hues of blue crossing diagonally over one another. She wasn’t quite sure what she had expected… but it certainly hadn’t been something so simple; she had expected something with a little more flair, maybe.
The deck felt just the tiniest big for her hands, but she knew that she just wasn’t very accustomed to handling decks of cards. After a couple of times of handling it, the feel would only become natural for her. Or, at least, that's what she had read online.
She focused first on seeing what each card depicted, turning the deck over so she could see the fronts of the cards. The first card in the deck was one called The Fool, who was a foolish young man blindly making his way over to a cliff with a dog at his side. It was… very yellow.
If the box, Magician, and Fool were anything to go off of, yellow seemed to be the most important color in this deck… and that would get annoying rather fast, seeing how Nellie wasn’t particularly fond of the color. There was nothing inherently wrong with it, of course. It was just… garish when overused.
She moved the Fool to the back of the deck and then found herself face to face with the card she had already become somewhat familiar with, due to its sheer popularity. The Magician.
The tingling sensation began to radiate up both of her arms as she looked at the card, found herself entranced by the stern gaze of the man in the middle of some kind of magical ritual.
The further she stared, the more the tingling rose up until eventually it reached her shoulders; it became hard to breathe.
With a gasp, she dropped the cards onto her desk, making a mess as they flew out every which way.
Tingling was something she could plausibly explain away with some kind of undiscovered medical condition.
But burning?
Nellie stared at the still hot tips of her fingers, reddened and seemingly abuzz with quickly cooling flames and then glanced down at the chaos of cards she knew would be a hassle picking up.
Amongst disorder, the Magician lay at the very center of her desk, face up and defiant.
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