2

SAMANTHA

When I was six, I had discovered this secret room connected to mine. I remember it was right as I climbed into bed and turned out the light. I felt something crawl across my leg. I thought it was a mouse or a spider, so I flipped the sheets off the bed and searched. But there was nothing. I assumed it was my imagination, so I went back to bed.

But there it was again. It was crawling across and up my leg. I could feel it on my thigh. And like any other six-year-old, I shrieked and scurried out from under the covers. In the process, I backed up to the headboard and nearly hit my head against it. Whatever-it-was stopped. And then it began nibbling my toes!

I jumped, hit my head against one of the rose carvings, and fell through the wall. I screamed, but the music from my mother's party below me deafened the sound.

When I finally stopped screaming and looked around, I was fascinated. The room was dark but I found candles and matches on a cluttered, dusty desk. I lit a white candle with some difficulty, and my vision swept the room. Antique bookshelves were haphazardly littered with leather-bound books and folders, strange gold lettering covered the walls, and faded diagrams were pinned to the walls.

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Looking around now, my "study" (as I came to call it), is very different. Everything is dusted and clean. The desks are neat, and the notes of archaic symbols are stacked. And The Cards are with me, of course.

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Carrying the white candle with me, I inspected the hole I had fallen through. In the headboard, one of the roses had been pressed in. The sore, painful knob on my skull testified that my head had knocked it into action.

The next question to fly into my head was how someone could leave the room if they shut the "headboard hole". From my point of view, the "headboard hole" looked like an open oven and if I propped it up without shutting it, I could examine the back! Using my not-so-satisfactory six-year-old strength, I pulled up a chair and managed to push the heavy headboard up onto the chair without shutting it.

"Oh my goodness..."

The back of the headboard was covered with a maze of metal mechanisms that stemmed from the position of the carved rose switch. I quickly found a rose identical to the rose switch and pressed it in.

With a cacophonous screech the headboard slammed shut. I was about ready to start screaming again, but the rose on my side popped out again, and with another press, the headboard swung open. A huge smile broke out on my face, and I couldn't help myself... I shut it again and begun to further study the back. I quickly discovered how the mechanisms worked, but found one set of gears perfectly purposeless.

Hoping to discover its purpose, I twisted one of the gears with my fingers and set off a chain reaction. With the grind of rusty hinges, the pieces began spinning faster and faster. Bits of rust now littered the carpet underneath the headboard, having cracked off of the violently spinning gears and pulleys. And then, like a CD player out of a laptop, a wooden drawer shot out of the headboard, directly above my head.

I pulled over the chair and stood atop it, gently removing the contents of the secret drawer. Unlike the fixtures in the rest of the room, they hadn't seemed to have suffered from any aging. The letter on top hadn't even yellowed! But I was less focused on the effects of aging and more interested in the queer contents of the drawer.

After all, I was six.

I broke the wax seal on the letter and began reading:

February 4, In the year of 1902

Dear Reader,

You have been Chosen.

The Cards you hold in your hands will grant you great power, but this power comes at a price. Danger follows those who hold these cards. Should you leave these cards where they are, I will only say you have made a wise choice.

But should you take them, you must be wary of those who would use you or seek to bring your destruction.

These cards and the creatures inside them will seek to help you on your ventures and will grant you powers you would never imagine possible.

I am the previous owner of The Cards, and have left you the guide the previous owner left me. Should you take the time to decipher it, it will help you immensely on your journey.

Choose wisely,

Marion Agnes Nettles

I, of course, made the obvious choice and took The Cards. I have encountered no dangers since, so I suppose Ms. Nettles was trying to scare people off.

And then, there's the guide. Over the years, that guide has only served to annoy me to the point of snapping multiple pencils in half.

At once.

Lots of help that was, Ms. Nettles.

Pretty much the only thing I managed to learn from it was The Cards can give you advice through a reading, much like a pack of tarot cards. Only these are real and they actually work.

Which at first, didn't seem so amazing, but as I discovered that the limits on my readings were few and far between, I was able to go further and learn things that I never would have imagined. Everything from when a pop quiz was coming, which is supremely mundane (read: boring), to helping my family avoid mortal accidents.

So here I am now, completing my daily reading. I sit down cross-legged and placed the cards in front of me, directly in front of the lit candle. I begin to shuffle, falling into the rhythm of The Cards.

I keep shuffling, and the room begins to swim. I focus on the flickering light of the flame, trying to keep myself from falling into The Cards' power. They, and some other force seem to be pulling me in.

Some unknown, carnal instinct told me to keep shuffling, no matter what.

That is, until you fall.

Wait, what?

I quickly disregard it and return to focusing on the flickering flame, trying to ignore the fact that the room around me is now just a mass of swirling colors.

Focus on the flame.

I feel myself slowly sinking, listening to the voice and praying insanity isn't one of the dangers that came with The Cards.

The only clear thing I can see is The Cards shuffling. Even the flame seems to be wiggling. Sweat is breaking out on my face and by some miracle, I can still think with the room writhing around me like living marbled paper. The only constant thing now is the steady thwap of the cards smacking together as I shuffle. They seem to glow, each giving off a different color, and each time I touch a different one images flood my mind, only to be gone again in half a second. In my dreamy, foggy state of mind I relate it to a television changing channels.

The thought is gone in seconds, drowned out by the loud, desperate cry.

STOP!

It sounds like a hundred voices screaming in pain. The same carnal instinct that made me keep shuffling forces me to grab the cards. I watch, detached from my body, as my arm grabs the pack like a snake leaping to bite its prey. The hand (somehow it doesn't feel like it's mine, even though it is) grips the pack so tightly that its knuckles turn white. And then, I am back in control.

And I am falling.