Disclaimer: I don't own Higher Ground or the characters in this story.
AN: After an afternoon of reading too many Japanese short stories, the idea for this stuck in my head. I suppose it was mainly inspired by Kobo Abe's "Shijin no shôgai" (The life of a poet). You could call it fantasy, but I prefer surrealism (fantasy always makes me think of Lord of the rings which I don't like). I don't really know what to think of this story myself, so please tell me what you think, please review!
The High Priestess
It was night. Maybe midnight, but it could have been earlier. Or later.
It doesn't really matter what time it was when Daisy slowly sat up in her bed and looked around. Everyone else was fast asleep. She could see the movements of their breathing.
It was peaceful. No nightmares tonight. Still, Daisy couldn't shake this feeling. This feeling that wanted to tell her of strange things to come. Something was nagging at her mind, telling her it was so obvious, why couldn't she see it?
She decided to ask the cards. When she made that decision, she realized that she did that a lot lately. But she had to know. Something important would happen soon and she had to find out more about it.
Although the moon wasn't full, it shone brightly. The light of its rays would be enough for her to see. Ever so slowly, she smoothed the blanket on her bed, sat down cross-legged and took out her deck of cards.
With every motion, this feeling got stronger. Urgency came over her, but at the same time the need to slow down even more, to stop and not go further. But she had to know.
Daisy shuffled the cards carefully. Then she drew the first card.
The High Priestess.
Suddenly, she couldn't move. She stared at the card she was holding. And she knew what would happen. There was no telling how much time had passed between the card being drawn and the knowledge appearing in her mind. It could have been more than an hour or less than a second. But time had lost its significance. She just knew.
The ability to move would never come back. Daisy felt herself merge with the card she was holding. It was the strangest feeling. Bit by bit she ceased to be Daisy and started to become the High Priestess. Finally, she fell back on the bed, because no-one was holding her anymore.
Scientists claiming that there are eleven dimensions usually justify the fact that no-one ever perceives the other dimensions with the explanation that we are three-dimensional beings. They go on telling us that two-dimensional beings couldn't perceive our three-dimensional reality, or just the parts of it that pass through their plane of being.
If that were true, Daisy (or rather the High Priestess) shouldn't be able to see the room now. She should only be able to see the things that were on the card, together with her. But she could see the room. Alright, she couldn't see all of it, because the angle was wrong. Her vision was obscured by veils. But seriously, that had to be expected. After all, there were veils in front of her face now. Well, not in front of it in a three-dimensional way, of course, but they were painted all over her face.
One part of her mind was telling her that she should feel terrified, that all this was a terrible thing to happen, that maybe it was just a dream and she should make an effort to wake up… But this voice got weaker and weaker. The state she was in now felt so right. As if that was her place in life, what she was meant to be.
It was morning. Shelby woke up earlier than usual. Both Kat and Juliette were still asleep.
Shelby felt good today. But she also felt…different. Yes, different. Different from what, you might ask. Shelby asked herself the same question but didn't find an answer. She looked around. Everything seemed to be normal. Kat and Juliette in their beds. Herself in her own bed. An empty bed. Normal.
Her eyes returned to the empty bed. No, something was out of the ordinary. Yes, a deck of cards was lying there. They were in a stack with one single card. She couldn't remember having seen them ever before. How did they get there? Shelby always slept lightly. She thought it was impossible for someone to come into the dorm without her waking up.
She got up to examine the cards more closely. They were not playing cards, of that much she was sure. That left tarot cards. Had she known anything about tarot, she would have recognized the single card as the High Priestess. But Shelby didn't believe in fate or destiny, she didn't believe one could predict the future. Even so, something about the single card seemed to draw her towards it, like a magnetic force.
Shelby picked up the card and looked at it. The woman pictured there looked strangely familiar, but she was sure that she had never seen her before. She thought she saw the woman wink at her. But that was impossible. Maybe it was the remains of her sleepiness.
Next, she put the stack of cards into her drawer and the single card under her pillow. After getting dressed she would put it into her pocket and take it everywhere she went. Through all that she was wondering what she was doing. Surely these cards belonged to someone. She could get herself in trouble by taking them. But it was the right thing to do. It was the only thing she could do.
It was early in the morning. Shelby was the only one on campus who was awake.
She didn't know it yet, but she would keep this one tarot card for the rest of her life. Every time she felt depressed, angry, indecisive or alone she would take out the card and draw an inexplicable strength from it. She would forever wonder how the card got into her dorm. And everyone else at Mt. Horizon would forever wonder how Shelby became so much calmer, so much more at ease with herself from one day to the next.