Everyone, at some point in their childhood, longed for a magician’s set- one of those cheap toys filled with fake magic tricks that were child-friendly and gave kids less magic abilities than they had expected. There were the little cups with a ball secretly hidden inside, the card deck with only red aces, the coins with both sides showing heads: anything that would trigger the imagination of an aspiring magician. Of course, the novelty of these toys quickly wore off for most children, and as they lost interest in the toys, they lost interest in magic.

Guy Grey, however, never gave up the magic.

Guy became enchanted by the idea of magic, and this enchantment followed him through elementary school, past middle school, and stayed with him even during his high school years. He, too had abandoned his childish Magic For Beginners set, but unlike his peers, he took up a different form of magic: Tarot. To him, it was magic, where to others, it was the unknown, the occult, the things we do not speak of but long to test anyways. His mother, a devout Catholic immigrant, had told him not to invest his time in the cards (they were most likely demonic, she insisted, but her words fell on deaf ears). They were magic. And he relied on them for most everything.

He kept his deck in the pocket of his backpack, bringing them with him wherever he went. He would silently shift them in his lap to predict his calculus grade, openly offer readings to girls with relationship problems at the lunch table, and would shiftily suggest to his neighbors on the bus that perhaps they should apply to colleges outside of the state, the reversed Eight of Wands flipping between his fingers. They were his magic. He was known for them, his standard deck a reliable source of truth within the community. They made him mysterious. They made him trustworthy. They made him magical. They made him the consul of the school, the boy with the cards, and best of all: they made him the Magician.

The Magician would sit at his lunch table during the hour of noon, shuffling his pack and occasionally catching the eyes of the curious. Sometimes, when he was most bored, he would pull cards for himself, asking for an answer he was usually happy to receive. Today, however, they had warned him with a simple glimpse at the Page of Cups. He was to become acquainted with someone who held the potential to change his life. So he sat, anxious, his cards smooth in his grasp, reading the two friends-of-friends the future of their relationship. “Yes, yes, you’ll both be happy together, very harmonious, expect it until you break away for college,” he said calmly to them, barely basking in their smiles and watching them leave expectantly. Today was a quiet day. Too quiet a day for the Magician.

No one new came to the table.

Lunch was almost up.

Where was his Page?

As the bell rang, and he prepared to leave his table, Guy Grey was struck from the side by a stray elbow. He yelped in surprise, his cards scattering on his newly vacant chair. He whipped his head around, his deck spilled and his cheeks flushing. A very blonde girl met his gaze.

“Sorry.”

The girl left without another word.

Guy sighed as he went to pick up his deck. He looked, curiously, at the mess of blue polka dots that stared at him, and the singular, solitary card that stood face-up.

Knight of Pentacles.

He smiled to himself. The collision was no accident. The Page of Cups had finally showed herself, in the form of a very blonde, very rushed girl.

And it appeared she was out looking for something.