The Cloisters(57)

“Why don’t you lay out the cards,” she said to Patrick. And although her voice sounded very far away, as if she were at the end of a long hallway, Patrick began to do just that. Card after card placed on the table. And as they were laid down, it was as if my mind were doing the work my fingers ached to do: each front dissolved to reveal another card underneath—the Magician for Mercury, the Lovers for Venus accompanied by the constellation of Taurus, the Queen of Cups for a woman who looked like Rachel, her long blond hair set against a gold crown of olive leaves, a one-shouldered toga bound at the waist.

Panicked, I looked from Rachel to Patrick in an attempt to figure out if they were seeing the same thing, but clearly I was alone. When I looked back down at the table, the cards, like everything else in the room, had begun to throw off their own otherworldly glow, and as Patrick’s fingers traced the outlines, they left golden trails on the table, as if part of him had stayed behind where his finger had once been—hundreds of traced fingerprints.

And even though we had candlelight, the room itself began to feel darker still. As if we all, as if the library itself, were being pulled deeper into the belly of The Cloisters. As if the ceiling, with its rib vaults and crisscrossed beams, were slowly folding down on us. But rather than being terrifying, there was something about it that felt delicious, as if I were finally becoming one with the building. As if we were always meant to be crushed beneath the power of the work itself.

I still cannot remember the exact spread Patrick laid out, but I do remember that he did more than one reading, that he kept restarting in an effort to reach a resolution that continued to elude him. In fact, everything I thought I could see in the cards seemed to dissolve into a haze before I could grasp it. And I realized that rather than enhance my intuition, the drugs had dulled it, muddied it, so that I could no longer see, no longer feel as clearly.

But through the darkness that was kicking up around me, there was still an electric feeling. A beacon that came from the cards as Patrick slapped them down on the table, flashes of a heavy, dark future that I couldn’t explain but that nevertheless felt certain. The more I tried to tap into those flashes, however, the more overwhelming they became. Surging into and over me like a dizzying cloud that left as quickly as it arrived. Through the drugs, I didn’t notice that I had stopped breathing, that lightheadedness was quickly progressing to unconsciousness.

And although it only seemed like minutes had passed, there was Leo, standing at the door of the library, asking if I was okay. Walking around the table and putting a hand on my shoulder and looking me in the eye. I wanted to tell him that I couldn’t see what I needed to in the cards, that the herbs we had taken had cast a veil over my eyes. But when I looked up to meet his gaze, the movement proved too fast and the room around me spun violently, casting me out of the darkness and into a blinding light. And while Leo said something to me as he steadied me, an arm under my armpit, and while I could see Rachel’s and Patrick’s mouths moving, it was as if my ears had been stuffed with cotton, as if I were underwater and watching them all from a distance I couldn’t close.

Even though it felt like my legs might not work, Leo nevertheless led me out into the garden. But before we went, I glanced back into the library. And there, I saw Patrick and Rachel, both craned over the table, Rachel’s hand reaching for a card, every movement made slow by the candlelight.

The gardens, however, were not an improvement on the library. The carved capitals and statuettes, the twisting vines that wrapped their way around the Celtic cross that adorned the center of the Trie Cloister, the shadows and pockets of darkness, all seemed to reach out and grab me, pull me in. When Leo walked with me through the galleries, the glittering stones were blinding, and the lion fresco moved before my eyes as it stalked us down the wall. Everything, it seemed, aimed to do us harm.

“I want to go back.” It was my voice, although I could barely recognize it.

“You need to sober up a bit,” said Leo, and I realized he was leading me down the staff hallway toward the kitchen. “I’m going to get some food in you, then you can go back.” He didn’t look at me, but dragged me, supporting me with his long arm and strong back. “What have you eaten today?”

“I don’t eat much anymore,” I said. It was the truth, and in my mind, an image of Rachel as a skeleton, as someone who slowly melted from flesh into bones, came to me.

“You should fix that.”

Leo set me down on a chair in the kitchen and offered me a slice of cake from the fridge, but I pushed it away.

“You have to,” he said.

“I’m going to be sick.”

“No, you’re not.” Leo was close to me now, and I could feel his hands on my hair, stroking it, and running his fingers through it. Consoling me, petting me.

“I want to go back,” I repeated.

Leo pushed the plate back in front of me, but I shook my head. “Sick,” I said again.

He brought me a glass of water, which I drank, slowly, and it was as if I could feel every molecule of water pass down through my throat and into my stomach. Even the industrial light in the kitchen hadn’t been able to dull the high. Everything seemed to work on its own schedule, in wild new ways. I tried to imagine how long ago I had taken the mixture.

“How long will it last?” I asked.

“Longer if you don’t eat anything.”