The Other Side of the Moonchild

[C.F. Kane]

A short story I wrote for a writing class.

Orson went out of The Gate after all the audience had gone. He had spent a longer time in the dressing room than he expected; Hilton Edwards had given him a "you're an amazing bastard" speech that ran longer than usual. Orson was more amazed that his fake line about being a Broadway star managed to work on Edwards when he first showed up in Dublin. As if anyone on Broadway would cast someone with his doughy teenaged face.
He dodged the rain, flitting from the shelter of one awning to another, trying to stay as dry as he could. It was pouring hard enough that even quick dashes through the rain soaked his overcoat. He panted when he wasn’t running, and shivered when he wasn’t panting. After making another dash across the cobblestone streets, he stopped under the awning of a hotel. His breath was steadying as he summoned up the will to dash through the downpour again. A light hit the side of his face.
"You shouldn't be out in the rain, boy."
Spinning around, Orson's eyes met with those of an old man. Deep eyes, like looking into two gun barrels. The light from the room shone off of the man's bald head as it stuck out from the partially opened door.
"I saw you out the window. Come inside, you can dry off for a bit."
The man had an English accent. Orson hadn't been in Europe long, but he'd spent enough time with Irish actors to hear plenty of nasty stories about the English.
"I shouldn't be talking to strangers" he said as he turned his face away from the man, eyes rolling.
"Nonsense! I confess I am a Beast, but to a nice looking boy like you I'm quite harmless," the man said in a nasal, pompous voice as a faint grin emerged on his chiseled face. "Do you like magic?"
He met the man's gaze again. "Are you going to saw a woman in half for me?"
The man's welcoming smile faded a bit. "Heh. Come in boy. I'll show you true Magick." He swung the door out and stepped back into his room. Orson took a few steps forward and found himself in a rather unimpressive hotel lobby. The old man beckoned him upstairs. Orson could now clearly see the man was wearing a dark robe of some sorts. He followed carefully.
They reached the top of the stairs when Orson thought to ask, "What's your name?"
The old man thought a bit before answering. "A basic principle of magic is that names have power. So if I give my name, I shall be giving up some of my power to a stranger" he said plainly. "But since you asked, call me Aleister."
"I'm George," replied Orson.
The old man opened his door and beckoned the boy inside. Orson took a step, stopped, and started walking again into the room. He quickly scanned for exits in the room while the door closed behind him. He kept his overcoat on even though it was soaking.
“There’s a radiator by the window. I’m afraid I don’t have a fireplace you can warm yourself by so that will have to do.”
Orson took a chair and sat near the radiator, eyeing the bathroom and wondering if it had a window. He smelled something strong. He didn’t recognize it, and he wondered if it came from the man or just from the many lit candles placed around the room.
“Just so you know old man, I’m only going to dry off a bit until the rain lets up.”
“I had no other impression than that,” Aleister said. He bent over a table and dragged it to Orson’s chair.
“What are you doing?”
“Setting up to perform a little Magick, just as I promised.” Orson noticed he had an odd way of pronouncing the word “magic” but decided not to say anything about it. He set the table between himself and Orson, placed a lit candle near the edge of the table, pulled up a leather chair and sat across from him. He pulled a thick deck of cards from his coat. “This is what one might call ’78 Card Pickup’, eh?” He chuckled at his own joke.
“Is this a Gypsy fortune-telling thing?”
“There are more races that have used the Tarot than the Gypsies, child. The art, this disease of language, is one of many races both foul and enlightened. Most interpretations are rather erroneous, unfortunately. But I assure you, the Tarot is a powerful tool, especially when my deck is used.”
Orson shifted in his chair and eyed the door. The old man continued.
“Of course, most amateur magi would use that bastard Arthur Waite’s deck. All bunk, really. ‘Dead Waite’ one might say.” He chuckled again. “My own Thoth deck, on the other hand…”
“Look old man, this might all be very interesting to someone but I’m only here to dry off. Just tell me my future and I’ll go off and brave the rain again.”
“Quite an impertinent boy.” He shuffled the deck. “What must your parents think of you? Do they know that you’re out running the streets at night in a foreign land?”
Orson glanced to the left. His parents where both dead. “They trust me.”
“They must be proud of you, to make it onto the stage at The Gate to such rave reviews. I hear Hilton Edwards speaks highly of you.”
Orson looked up at the man as he shifted forward, ready to spring out of his seat.
“You oughtn’t be surprised, Orson. You’re somewhat famous in the pubs. An American teenager barges into The Gate and demands a role! Ha! I know the perfect significator for you!” He whipped a card out from the deck. It was golden colored, showing an athletic man with rays blasting from his head as he rode a chariot driven by a lion.
“The Prince of Wands!” the man said. “An engine of creativity, pure will made flesh! The wand suit represents the penetrative will of the creative man. And you, you are thrust forward by will, the will to create, your wand held high.” He grinned and put the card back in the deck.
Orson leaned back in his chair, wrinkled his nose and crossed his legs. “What the hell am I smelling?”
“Jasmine,” Aleister said solemnly. He carefully laid nine more cards face down as he continued. “It is the perfume of the Sephira of Yesod, realm of fantasy and the unconscious mind, known to Qabbalistic orders as Foundation, The Vision of the Machinery of the Universe, ruled by Luna, the godforms Diana, Ganesha and Incubus.”
Orson rolled his eyes and laughed. “Round about the cauldron go, In the poison'd entrails throw! Ha! We’re going to start putting newt’s eyes in the cauldron next, am I right?” The old man gazed at him, not amused. Orson kept on laughing. “Are you going to be like this all night old man? I came up here hoping to see a rabbit out of a hat, and now I’m getting a whole lecture on Voodoo!” The man’s eyes fixed on him. He was not smiling. Orson’s laugh dimmed, borne down by the weight of the man’s gaze.
“Are you religious, boy?”
Orson shifted in his seat. “Well, um… I try to be a Christian.”
“You pray, then?”
“Well, not often. I don’t want to bore God.”
The man brought his hardened face closer to the boy. “Think of this act as going to church, with the pastor staring at you as you pray. Treat it with the same solemnity that you would show in your own temple. I don’t care what you may think of me. But merely know that this act is entirely for your sake. I’ve taken an interest in you since you’ve come to Dublin. You are a fascinating child, and I wish to know more of your path. This,” he placed his hands above the spread of cards, “is an act of divination, a way of speaking to the cosmos in a language it cannot ignore. It is not a game of poker. Now, do you wish to know?”
Orson’s mouth twitched. “You mean, know my future?”
“Know thyself. The understanding will take time, but in this ritual, we can only change what we can with accordance to your own will.”
Orson inhaled and furrowed his brow. “I didn’t understand a word of that.”
“Just sit still, stop thinking, and shut up.”
The old man flipped one of the cards. It showed a golden staff with flames bursting from its center.
“The Ace of Wands. The beginning of a creative journey,” he explained. He flipped another card. This one had a tall bearded man, clothed in a gold robe and a pointed cap, like a children’s book wizard. He had a pentagram on his chest and was seated in a pose of great authority.
“The Hierophant, symbol of the establishment, the system of order.” He flipped a third. It showed a man colored green-gold like rusted copper reaching upwards as blue rays burst from his feet. Behind him was a staff with snakes coiling around it, a symbol Orson recognized from hospitals.
“And the Magus, the grand creator.” He paused. “The first card shows the atmosphere of the undertaking. The second shows the obstacle, and the third the goal. Since the suit of the first card matches that of your significator, there is an importance you have placed in this journey. Thus, the cards tell me that you are starting your career in performance with the hope of becoming a powerful and respected artist, but the hierarchy of the system could stand in your way.”
Orson gazed back, eyebrow raised. “Do you really need to do a card trick to guess that a young actor has dreams of Hollywood?”
“I didn’t guess. The cards simply told me.”
The boy chuckled. “You know, even with a bizarre deck like this I could probably do the old ‘guess the card’ trick,” Orson said as his face brightened. “I’ve been looking into becoming a magician myself. I think it would be fun to get up there in a corny suit and levitate a hat off a man’s head, or some other ridiculous vaudeville routine.”
The old man ignored the boy as he flipped the remaining cards over. He pointed to a card displaying a man in green clothes like a medieval jester, splayed like Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. “The Fool,” the man said, “Just as I thought.”
Orson’s grin dimmed. “There’s no need to insult me old man.”
“It’s not an insult. The fourth card shows the foundation of the undertaking. It’s clearly appropriate for you: you’re a boy who acts on impulse. You’re here in Dublin because of brash decision, and you’re in this room with me because you enjoy taking risks, no? You enjoy living your life on a Fool’s Hope.” He continued to peruse the cards, mumbling interpretations of the spread to himself. Orson sat, getting bored.
“Aaah…” the man said in a breath of revelation.
“What?” Orson said, the gasp piquing his curiosity. “Something I should know?”
“Take a look at this card, the sixth in the spread.”
He pointed a long finger at a card with Egyptian statues flanking a sky scene. Orson only glanced at it, and didn’t think much of it.
“The Moon,” said the old mage. Nothing about the card seemed very lunar to the boy, but Aleister continued, “How fitting we have Luna’s perfume here tonight. It is the representation of the dark animal nature in us all, a savage mind only met by the night’s luminescence.”
“You mean, like werewolves?”
“Hm… not an entirely irrelevant connection to make. You might be right. But the sphere of Luna is also the realm of revelation, what scientists might now call the subconscious.”
Orson shifted again, getting restless. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to have any cigars around here, do you?” he asked.
The man rose to his feet. “Tobacco is more fitting for a ritual of Mars, not Luna.” He bent over a bag he had placed on the floor. “For a ritual of Luna, we shall require something more suitably soul-revealing.”
“Um… come to think of it, I’ll just have a biscuit if you have any.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of some vegetables I have in here.”
As the old man rummaged through the bag, Orson’s eye caught the last card in the spread. It looked more violent than the others. It was asymmetrical while the others were balanced. Looking closer, he saw a building collapsing in on itself in a sharp spiral, as a mouth breathed fire at its base and a lidless eye looked down upon it. Orson read the card’s title out loud.
“The Tower.”
The old mage looked up, alert. Carrying two plant roots he returned to the table, peering at the spread of cards. The Tower lay in the last position.
“So what does that card mean, old man?” he asked calmly.
The mage paused. Then he handed the boy one of the roots. “Go on, have a bite.”
Orson took the root, and bit into it. “What does the card mean?” he said, suddenly taking in the bitter taste of the root.
The mage spoke. “The cards tell me that the Moon is an approaching influence to be embraced, should the best outcome be realized. The final card in the spread shows the outcome of your undertaking.”
“Well? What does the damn thing mean?”
The old man leaned in. “Look at the card. A high reaching tower, struck down by a cataclysm. It is the symbol of dashed hopes, of aspirations turned to dust by a swift stroke. Those who receive this card rarely come out the better for it.”
Orson set the root down on the table and looked at the man. He placed his hands in front of him.
“So you’re telling me that my future is in that random pull of a card?”
The man glared back, eyes narrowing. There might have been the slightest pity in his expression, but Orson no longer cared.
“I’m not one of those doe-eyed suckers you probably get here every day hoping that you’ll tell them when their fortune will roll in,” he said, setting his left hand down carefully. “I’m not foolish enough to believe that you can predict the future, but I will admit,” he paused to scratch his right cheek, “that this has been a real nice show you’ve put on here. You really ought to charge admission.” He smiled his winning bastard’s smile at the old man’s dour face. “I’ll just stop in the bathroom and I’ll be on my way.”
He stood and stepped into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. There was no window as he’d hoped. He raised his left hand, looking at the card he had palmed just a moment earlier.

 

[C.F. Kane]

Orson gazed at it. He stared at it like the light of an oncoming train. He studied the shape of the tower as it collapsed, the jagged figures leaping from it as it fell, the inhuman mouth that spat flames at the bottom, the red unforgiving eye that oversaw the whole scene. It was a random pull, a one in seventy-eight chance of getting this card. This doodle on paper couldn’t have shown his destiny. No old vaudevillian in a ridiculous cloak could have shown Orson his true fate. That boy genius who charmed his way onto the stage as a child of sixteen couldn’t be one of the obsidian figures he saw jumping out of the falling tower. That was superstition and so much collected bull.
He put the card in his coat pocket.
Orson flushed the toilet to give the impression that he used the bathroom, and opened the door. He stopped. The mage had moved the chair to sit between the boy and the door. His robe was open now, and the wrinkled man was cross-legged upon the chair, sitting straight as an obelisk.
Orson, eyes wide, looked at the man’s open figure. His gun barrel eyes were hazier than before, and there was a new smell cutting through the scent of jasmine. “The card reading was clear, boy,” the old man said with an odd sense of control over every word. “The moon is to be embraced if you want to thrive. The moon is the symbol of Yesod, Sephira of the imagination, of fantasy,” the man looked up, “and of primitive and wild impulses!”
Orson saw Aleister grow taller, even though he was seated. His wrinkled face grew larger, deeper. The flesh on his bare body grew paler, gray and ashen bright like the light of a full moon. Orson realized what had happened as the taste of the root resurfaced.
“You’ve drugged me, you lunatic!”
“Yes boy! Luna – jasmine it’s perfume, peyote it’s drug! Only through its sphere can you become the Mage! Embrace it, sweet child of the Moon!”
Orson tried to push past the mage to run towards the door. He knew his mind would be gone in a few short moments. The old man rose, turned and lumbered toward him. Orson yanked the tablecloth off the table sending the cards flying.
“No! You can’t leave now!” he barked.
As the man now fighting to keep the boy came closer, Orson threw the cloth up between him and the drugged mage just as his wrinkled body lunged for him. Aleister hit the cloth and fell to the floor, for there was no boy behind it. The child had disappeared.
Orson ran down the stairs, his ruse successful. As far as Orson knew he could have been leaping out of the window or knocking over the candles and setting the room ablaze. It was only through luck that Orson’s body stumbled out of the hotel and into the rain.
It was then that the root the diabolist had given him fully took his mind hostage. He did not experience the chill of rainy Dublin streets but instead heard the cackle of a shadow in an alleyway with a red scarf disappearing into the blackness, saw an endless gallery of statues crowding in an abandoned mansion, the creak of a metal door as it unscrewed revealing the tentacled creatures inside, Vodoun witches speaking in antique poetry, the dead walls of a stone cathedral with no creator to claim it, a man rope strangled by a giant in white, buds of roses, and his own body, dashing like a rat through the sewer surrounded by old stone, running water and faded gaslight, in another city, in another time.
His screaming body plunged into the night, the Tower still in his pocket.

Aleister Crowley died in 1947, a year before Orson would return to Europe. Orson Welles died in 1985, ending a career marked by early triumphs and marred by frustration and endless undertakings left unfinished.