The Hermit
Just after 3 a.m., Luna stepped out of the Soho bar where she had worked for the past month. As she walked home, her thoughts drifted to Noel, her fiancé, who would be fast asleep in their East End flat. She wouldn’t get the chance to talk to him until noon. The night shifts had taken a toll on their relationship, and Luna sighed, feeling the weight of their mismatched schedules. Noel worked days, Luna worked nights, and they saw less of each other than they wanted.
It was one of those unpleasant nights in which the air was warm and humid, trapped between the concrete and the tall city buildings, while large raindrops fell haphazardly from the sky. Bright neon reflected in the beads of sweat that had formed on the cars and glass-fronted bars and restaurants along the Soho street. Taxis were lined along the pavement waiting to take the last few revellers back to their West End hotels. It was closing time and streams of shouting drunks now trickled out onto the streets.
As Luna approached the underground station at Tottenham Court Road, she rummaged through her coat pockets before producing her card, swiping her way through the barrier and descending into the city’s underbelly. It was dead quiet in the station – no one else was around. After descending the escalators and navigating the subterranean corridors and stairs, Luna made it to the platform for the eastbound Central line and began to wait for her train.
A few minutes passed and still it hadn’t arrived. Luna thought she heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs coming from the corridor behind her, but nobody had followed her onto the platform, and she assumed that whoever it was must have gone to a different line. She was alone except for the occasional rat that squealed back and forth along the tracks and dismissed the sound as a product of her imagination, a symptom of her tired mind long overdue for sleep. Her thoughts turned to her future with Noel: the wedding which they had perpetually postponed as they didn’t have the money and their shared hope of finding better jobs with better pay and better hours soon.
The rumbling of an approaching train started to radiate from the tunnel, growing louder and louder. No sooner had she noticed the sound, she also became aware of footsteps frantic and pounding on the stairs behind her. Someone else was rushing to catch the train. The footsteps slowed a little and a man, hooded and pale, emerged from the passageway behind Luna. He seemed to linger behind her in a way that made her feel uncomfortable. She hoped the train would arrive quickly and that there would be other passengers in the carriage. She certainly didn’t want to be left on her own with the man.
At the precise moment the train shot out of the tunnel the man lunged forward. With a single forceful grip, he latched on to her coat and shoved Luna hard towards the platform edge. Luna turned and tried to resist the man, getting a brief look into his hooded face before he pushed again. This time much stronger than the last. This time decisive, final and fatal. The man slipped quietly out of the station and into a group of partygoers who were too drunk to notice the stranger in their midst.
***
A shrill noise flew across the room, awakening Noel in a terrified sweat.
Well beyond the foot of his bed, a small table placed deliberately out of his reach held an alarm clock that was now blaring its ghoulish tune into the cold, damp bedroom. Noel’s alarm clock went off every morning at 9:30 a.m. but he always failed to recognise its bitter tones during those hazy moments when he moved from deep sleep back into the world of the living. Throwing off his tatty duvet, Noel slid out of bed, stooping to avoid hitting his head on the low-sloped ceiling. Noel tiptoed barefoot across the wooden floorboards, taking care to avoid the wide gaps between the planks that so often pinched at the soles of his feet.
Having silenced the alarm, he stood up straight in the middle of the room wearing nothing but his white boxer shorts and proceeded to stretch his aching back after yet another uncomfortable night’s sleep. Noel was exceptionally thin, the contours of his ribs visibly protruding from beneath his pale skin, his eyes sunken, red and raw. His right ear was pierced with a black spike earring that protruded out the back. Noel felt as though he had just woken up from a dream and was only now beginning to remember what it was.
A single window admitted grainy patches of light into the room that infiltrated the gaps in the frayed curtains. Its rail hung loose on one side, exposing a triangle of uncovered window that let in as much light as Noel was willing to tolerate. The air was stale and filled with dust particles that gently swayed back and forth, having long since resigned themselves to being trapped in Noel’s room forever.
Noel’s bedroom was a tiny shoebox, giving just enough room for his bed, a small desk, and a battered wardrobe that was lopsided and leaning against the far corner, as well as the bedside table that held the alarm out of reach. Mounds of clothes scattered across the floor betrayed a general unkemptness and an over lived-in feel. Satisfied that he had now regained enough consciousness to function in the land of the living, Noel ambled over to his desk and lit a Tibetan incense stick that protruded from a pot next to a heavily creased photo of Luna. Fresh juniper smoke started to fill the room. Noel’s phone and a pack of cards occupied the space next to Noel’s desk. The cards were especially odd-looking, for there were only a few of them and they seemed larger and thicker than regular playing cards.
He picked up his phone first and swiped through the notifications waiting for him. A collection of fresh news articles had pinged through, recounting the latest theories about Luna’s killer. Since Luna’s death there had been three more victims all with the same features in common. All were young women. All worked late hours in the city centre. All had been killed by being pushed in front of a tube train. The police never had any leads. There were never any witnesses and the killer had cleverly skulked around the functioning cameras in each station he visited. The press had nicknamed him the “Tube Terror” and Noel now read their articles in grim silence.
After he had finished, he noticed two recent missed calls from Aurora and an unread text message from Ava to remind him of his appointment at eleven today. That worried Noel greatly. Appointments always worried him as he never knew until the morning whether he would be able to make it, and letting people down had become second nature to him over the last year.
Noel scavenged a set of clothes from the floor, jet black jeans and a black hoodie that bore the emblem of the Dead Gauls, a Swedish metal band whom he had seen with Luna. Turning his attention to the cards waiting for him on the desk, he thumbed through them and inspected each one carefully. There were nine cards in total, all from the major arcana of the Tarot: HERMIT, LOVERS, CHARIOT, WORLD, DEATH, DEVIL, SUN, STAR and FOOL.
The cards looked antique, each one depicting its subject in gothic design made of black print and gold-gilded edges that shimmered subtly when held at a certain angle to the light. Noel had always assumed they were Victorian, but beyond that he knew little about them. He had tried to research them online but nothing ever came up. As far as Noel knew, his set were the only ones of their kind left in the world. They were originally owned by Noel’s grandfather, who had given them to Noel when he was six, and his grandfather had died shortly after. If the cards were once part of a standard Tarot deck there should have been twenty-two, but Noel only knew of the nine he was given. Nobody in his family could remember how they came into his grandfather’s possession. As far as they knew he had always had them, and they had always been incomplete.
He rubbed the old papery material between his fingers and took a comforting pleasure from the familiar sensation. Touching the cards brought back potent memories for Noel, but the cards had another purpose, too. A greater purpose that was efficient and practical, and one which Noel had great satisfaction in having developed.
In the weeks after Luna’s funeral, Noel had locked himself in his flat and refused to come out. Living solely off cans of peaches he had saved up in his kitchen cupboards, he had almost driven himself to the point of starvation. He spent the whole time thinking about what had happened and had concluded that the world was an especially dangerous and scary place to be. Noel would spend hours standing at the door, his hand quivering over the handle desperate to leave but afraid of what might happen if he went outside.
After two weeks of pure solitude, he had run out of peaches and was starting to feel desperate. That’s when he decided it was best to rely on the cards. They reminded him of Luna and his grandfather. They never lied to him and that made him feel safe.
Every morning he would pick two cards at random from the deck and they would decide his fate for the day. Each of the cards had a meaning in Noel’s eyes. DEATH, DEVIL, HERMIT or FOOL meant it was too dangerous to go outside, and so Noel would barricade himself in his flat and refuse to go out. Other cards represented rules that must be followed and Noel feared that something bad – something truly evil – would happen if he failed to obey. The DEATH card was the worst, as it depicted a robed man on horseback, his face shrouded in darkness but with two skeletal hands on the reigns, as though he had been robbed of his flesh. Noel found that one especially disturbing.
Noel spread the cards out in a fan shape, face down in his right hand. Running his fingers across the cards, he contemplated the appointment that was waiting for him and drew two cards.
SUN. CHARIOT.
Noel was glad the SUN card had appeared. That told him it was safe to go out during the day, but that he had to be back before sundown. The STAR card meant the opposite. Noel would be obliged to cancel his plans and lock himself in while he waited for the sun to set, and he always obeyed what the cards told him. The CHARIOT card meant that it was ok to take the tube. After what had happened to Luna, Noel had developed a fear of the underground. The rounded signs at tube stations always stirred bad memories and the descent down into the tube made him feel as though he were being swallowed by the city, never to see daylight again. Without the CHARIOT card, Noel preferred to avoid it altogether and either walk or take the bus.
Noel stuffed the cards into his pocket and went down the small passageway leading to his front door. Sliding open the four deadbolts that separate his inner sanctum from the outside world, he placed his hand upon the main handle and sucked in a deep breath of old dusty air. Finally, with a firm twist of the handle the door swung open.
Noel was blinded by the bright outside light. He had spent the better part of a week indoors with the curtains drawn and the fresh dazzling sunlight felt intolerable, like tiny daggers stabbing at his retinas. He stumbled over to a brick wall and leaned against it for several minutes, slowly opening his eyes little by little to allow in more light. For Noel this had become routine after a long stay inside. Whenever the cards came up bad for a week or more, this always happened on his next excursion outside. Summer was fast approaching and its longer and brighter days only served to magnify the pain.
Once his eyes had adjusted, Noel started on his way, trundling round the corner and onto the main road that led to the Redbridge tube station. While the road Noel lived on was relatively calm and quiet, the road to the station bustled with activity. Red buses and delivery vans screamed past, and strangers seemed to be milling about in all directions. Jackhammers shrieked behind white plastic sheeting obscuring roadworks that seemed to have been going on forever. Noel was certain they were there when Luna was alive. Perhaps she had heard them, he thought. Noel’s entire world had been toppled by her death, but nothing seemed to have changed for anyone else in the city.
Noel walked over a zebra crossing leading to the station entrance. A black cab slammed on the brakes and stopped inches from running him over, the driver hurling abuse at him from behind the windscreen. Noel felt very out of sync with the rhythms and interruptions of big city life, which had so profoundly shocked him upon moving to the city five years ago, but with which he had grown gradually accustomed before Luna died.
Noel stood on the platform and waited for his train to arrive. He thought about her again. Earlier on the day she died, Luna would have walked the same route he just took and she would have stood on the very same spot on the platform while waiting for the same westbound train that took her to her bartending job in Soho. Everything was a reminder of her. How could she possibly have known that her journey, from which she expected to return several hours later, would only be one way?
And what of the Tube Terror? That unseen entity who had decided to put an end to her life that night, and who moved through the city’s arteries, wraith-like and unseen. Who was he? Why did he do it? And why did it have to be Luna? Noel’s mind turned these questions over and over, always failing to find an answer, or to find peace.
A blast of warm gloopy air shot across the platform and stung Noel’s face. One second later over two hundred tons of glass and steel hurtled through the tunnel to the sound of a soul shattering scream. Noel’s train had arrived.
***
Just over an hour later, Noel stepped out onto Chancery Lane. Rain and car fumes fired up his nostrils. The warm spring sunshine that had poked holes in his curtains that morning had been replaced by a light drizzle that made the concrete shimmer beneath his feet.
Tucked away down a narrow side street was an Edwardian building. Four stories of pale brick and thick sandstone columns gave it a rugged and timeless feel, as though the whole building were carved from a single piece of rock and designed to remain forever rooted to that spot. The entrance was a large wooden door, rectangular and austere, painted in royal blue and framed between two towering sandstone pillars. Noel fumbled with the intercom on the right-hand side and was admitted in with a whiny buzz.
For all the grandeur of the building’s exterior, the inside felt distinctly tired and worn. A red carpet ran the full length of the corridors and stairs, and banana-coloured walls ran high into ceilings designed for giants rather than men. All the colours were faded and diminished, their life long sapped out of them. Noel felt small as he trudged up the grand mahogany staircase and arrived at a white door on the third floor that would have been completely indistinct if not for a tiny plastic sign that read: AVA DELATOUR, REGISTERED PSYCHOTHERAPIST BACP.
Noel’s knock on the door was answered instantly by a short middle-aged woman. The top of her head only came as far as his chest and he had previously guessed she was around four-and-a-half feet tall. She looked delighted to see him, as though she had been expecting his arrival all morning but was pleasantly surprised that he had actually shown up. It was only their third session together and there had been several missed appointments and belated excuses from Noel since the first and second sessions.
“Noel – so glad you came!” Ava said, beckoning him inside.
She spoke with an understated French inflection that seemed dulled by years of speaking English. Noel followed Ava down the red-painted hallway that led to her office. The small lady walked with a slight waddle that made her sway from side to side while her heels clacked along on the bare wooden floor. Her office was small and neat. The giant windows Noel had seen from the outside admitted copious quantities of light, giving a soft and airy feel that was far more welcoming than the hallways and stairs. Noel felt comfortable here and for a moment he considered opening up his curtains back home to try to revive the feeling later.
A kitchenette ran along the far wall, with tea and coffee-making facilities. Two blue fabric sofas faced each other in the middle of the room, with a glass coffee table in the middle that held a bowl of fresh apples and bananas next to a little blue notebook. Ava scooped up the notebook and took her seat on the farthest sofa, while Noel sat facing her on the other sofa.
“So, how have you been, Noel? It’s been a while since I last saw you.”
Ava checked her notes.
“I think you were unable to make our last two appointments.”
Her voice was relaxed and controlled, absent of any hint of blame or frustration. She understood Noel and his problems better than anyone else in the city.
“I’m sorry about that,” Noel said, “the cards didn’t come up good those times.”
“It’s okay, I understand. And how have the cards been coming up lately? Have you been able to get out much?”
Noel stayed silent and looked out the window while he thought about it. He had only been outside twice in the last month, and on both occasions, he had been running low on food and desperate for the cards to grant him permission to go outside. Ava felt that Noel’s silence answered the question well enough. She scribbled a few words in the margins of her notebook. “And when the cards don’t give you permission, how do you feel about it?” Ava continued.
Noel mulled over the question. In truth his relationship with the cards was tumultuous. On some occasions, he loved how comforting and familiar they felt, as though Luna was standing next to him and guiding him through them. At other times a string of bad cards kept him in for several weeks at a time and his relationship with them grew fraught and angry.
Ava listened carefully and made notes while Noel communicated those feelings to her. After he had finished, she asked, “Do you think you have come to rely on them too much? That, while you started using them to make you feel safe when stepping outside, they might now be holding you back from doing what you want to do?”
Ava’s words were the last thing Noel wanted to hear. He had put so much faith and trust in the cards throughout the last year that any fragment of doubt was almost sacrilege to him. The cards hummed in Noel’s pocket, reminding him of their presence.
“I think you’re probably right,” Noel mumbled sheepishly.
As soon as he said that he perceived that the light coming into the room from the windows darkened a little. A thick black raincloud had swallowed up the sky. His throat had suddenly gone dry and scratchy, and so he thought about asking her for a drink, but worried that it might seem impolite and decided against it.
“When we last spoke, we talked a bit about forming new relationships, making new friends. You mentioned that you had recently started talking to someone. How has that been going?”
“You mean Aurora? We talk every now and then I suppose. I’ve seen her a few times at the place she works at. Been a while, though.”
Noel remembered that he had not returned her calls and shuddered at the thought that he might be neglecting his only friend in the city.
“I think it’s good for you to spend as much time with others as you can. You should try and hold onto that.”
Ava jotted down more notes and paused for a second before continuing. To Noel she seemed like a doctor working out a prescription for a patient. The pair then talked for the next half an hour. Ava got Noel to give her a detailed account of his early days after Luna’s death, including the details of exactly how and when the idea to start using his Tarot cards had come to him. Finally, Ava announced that they had come to the end of the session. She arranged next month’s appointment and Noel made a note of it on his phone before departing for the outside.
As he got up from the sofa and was about to leave, Ava started talking to him again. “Before you go, I’ve got a special request for you. I want you to try something for me.”
She sounded more serious than usual, but her voice still ran calm and tender. “I want you to try and make a decision without using the cards – just once – and only once before our next session. It can be for anything – any decision where you would normally use your cards to help you decide. It can be as small and insignificant as you like. I just want you to try it for me and tell me how it goes. And for you to see how you feel when you make up your own mind.”
Ava’s suggestion made Noel’s blood run cold and his throat feel drier than ever. But he knew she was trying to help and cautiously agreed to try it before hurriedly making for the exit.
After leaving Ava’s office, Noel checked his phone to find out when the sun would set. As the SUN card had commanded, he made a mental note to return home before 8:30 p.m. that evening. That gave him several hours of freedom in the city and Noel thought he should take that chance to visit Aurora.
***
Noel had met Aurora in the Covent Garden café where she worked. She had noticed him sitting in the corner playing with his Tarot cards one day and jokingly asked if he could predict her future, after which the pair started talking. First on Noel’s visits to the shop and then over the phone. Aurora was new to the city and eager to make friends with anyone she could talk to, even though communication with Noel was often inconsistent and intermittent at best. Most of Noel’s friends had been Luna’s friends and they had all peeled away one-by-one in the weeks after her funeral. Aurora was now the only person he could call a friend in the city. She liked him and Noel liked talking to her. Together they were two lonely people in a city of almost nine million others.
Twenty minutes later Noel turned off the main road and headed down a quaint side street filled with several cafés and a collection of boutique eateries serving sweet treats from around the world. All the bustle and noise that plagued London’s main thoroughfares fell away in an instant and Noel felt more at ease on the quieter streets. As he passed a Turkish artisan bakery, sweet almond wafted from its window filled with shiny golden baklava. Next door to it was the Café Arabia, a chic coffee house with a look that oscillated between Victorian red brick and a clean and trendy décor, trapped between past and future. In the window a bright neon sign proclaimed its name in a free-flowing scrawl.
Noel pulled open the door and crept up to the counter. An assortment of late afternoon patrons sat about chatting with each other and tapping away at their laptops, taking the occasional pause to sip frothy brown liquids from oversized mugs. A whitewashed brick wall ran around the full length of the interior; the whole place reeked of breathy hot air and ground coffee beans.
Behind the counter was a young girl wearing a slate-coloured apron. A gigantic badge pinned to it read MY NAME IS TRAINEE and made Noel smile a little. It was the first time he had found something funny in as long as he could remember. He was disappointed that it wasn’t Aurora behind the counter but decided he would call her later to make up for it instead. Noel ordered his usual, a large mocha with whipped cream on top, and the trainee told him that she would bring it over soon, before disappearing behind the counter and starting to fumble with the coffee maker.
Noel slunk over to his favourite spot in the corner and started fiddling with his cards. Periodically he ran his thumb along the deck, lifted the edge of a card and peeked at its identity. Noel had taken Luna there on their first date and it always stirred strong memories for him. He liked going back there, ordering a coffee and sitting quietly in the corner where he could replay his favourite memories without interruption. He closed his eyes for a moment, listening to the soundtrack of clattering cups and steaming coffee machines, and imagined she was sitting next to him.
But it wasn’t long before his mind drifted back to the final moments of her life. Back to that platform at Tottenham Court Road where her life had been ended so quickly and so brutally. He tried to imagine what she must have felt and prayed that it was painless and over in an instant. The coroner had told him it was. He hoped it was true, but how could he know what she felt? Nobody has touched death and lived to tell anyone how it feels.
He regretted all the times he went to bed early and didn’t stay up for her coming home and he hoped beyond all hope that she knew he loved her.
“Noel”
A familiar voice broke up his ruminating and jolted him back into the present.
In front of him stood a tall, slender girl. Her hair was lava coloured and shoulder length and, like the other baristas, she wore a slate grey apron over a white blouse with the sleeves partially rolled up. In her hands was a black plastic tray holding a tall glass containing a muddy liquid topped off with two inches of whipped cream. It was Aurora.
“Haven’t seen yous in a while. Thought maybe yous was ignoring me,” Aurora said. She spoke with a Geordie lilt, thick and playful. Her eyes glowed softly as she spoke to him.
“I– I wasn’t, honest!” Noel’s voice choked as a sign that he wasn’t being completely truthful.
“I meant to call you– It’s just been– a bit of a week.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it man,” she said, sliding his drink gently onto the table.
Noel fell silent and felt awkward. He knew she was being polite and was probably upset he hadn’t called on her sooner. Aurora stared at the table, at the cards still in his hand.
“Still got those weird Tarot cards eh?”
“I like having them with me.”
“Can I pick one? See what they says about my future.”
Noel was stunned. Nobody had ever asked him to pick a card for them before. Nobody except Luna anyway.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he blurted out, before immediately wishing he hadn’t said those words.
“Oh, okay.”
Aurora looked shot down in flames. Her natural confidence around Noel shrivelled and vanished in an instant. Noel noticed and shuddered to think he might have upset her even more.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just– I’ve had em’ a long time. Old family heirloom. They remind me of certain people, that’s all.”
“Aw, that’s nice.”
“If you want, I can pick one out for you?”
“Aye, I’d like that,” she said, her fingers fiddling with the plastic serving tray with a nervous excitement.
Noel spread the cards face down on the table and picked one from the deck.
LOVERS.
Aurora burst out giggling.
“What does that one mean?”
“Guess it means you’re about to meet someone very special.”
“Maybe I already have,” she said, with a big grin across her face.
Noel’s face had already gone red when he realised she was talking about him. After a moment of beautiful silence, it was Aurora who spoke first.
“Anyway, I’m glad yous came in today. I’ve got some exciting news. I got a new job.”
“That’s great! When do you start?”
Noel felt mixed about this. He had enjoyed chatting to her on his visits to the café and he now regretted not visiting more often.
“Tomorrow actually– at a bar, jus’ round the corner. Trainin’ us up as a mixologist. Lotsa’ late nights sadly but the pay’s alright.”
“Working nights?”
Noel went quiet while Aurora carried on talking about her new job, before finally he said:
“How you gonna get home then?”
“Aye, it’s easy enough. I can get the tube from Covent Garden. Still runs at that time.”
After that, Aurora told Noel that she would have to go take over from the trainee and close out her final shift at the café. The pair agreed that they would go for a drink together soon. She left Noel gazing silently at the whipped cream, which had now congealed in his untouched coffee. Noel was disturbed; a troubling image conjured in his mind. Aurora waiting for her train in the middle of the night. And the Tube Terror was standing right behind her.
***
Noel made it back to his flat just before his curfew and spent the whole night lying wide awake in bed. The LOVERS card meant a lot to him. Luna had taken an interest in his cards when she moved into his flat, and she had used the LOVERS card as a prop when she proposed to him. The couple were walking along the embankment opposite the London Eye. She pretended to have lost her credit card and asked him to check his pockets for it, upon which he found the LOVERS card in one pocket and a ring in the other. She had slipped them in before they went out. Noel wondered if its appearance now meant something. Was it some kind of message from her? A sign that it was ok for him to carry on seeing Aurora? Luna would have liked her, Noel thought.
Every so often his mind wandered back to Aurora and to the image of her waiting on the platform at Covent Garden, where she would be in only a few hours’ time. Could she really be the next victim? Could it really happen to her? Was the world really cruel enough to take someone from him twice? A cyclone of thoughts whirled around Noel’s brain and he took to pacing up and down the length of his flat. Thinking. Worrying.
By the time morning came, Noel decided he wanted to go and see her but he drew a HERMIT card that told him to stay inside.
Six o’clock in the afternoon came around slowly and painfully. He pictured Aurora starting her new job, jostled into a tiny bar with a hive of punters around her. Noel pictured the killer amongst them, the hooded man, watching and picking out his next victim. He had to know if he was right. He had to know what was going to happen tonight.
Gathering together the cards, he inhaled deeply and whispered her name before sliding two cards out. He was too scared to look. But slowly he found the courage and tilted his eyes down towards them.
LOVERS. DEATH.
The cyclone that had been in his mind the whole day plummeted into his stomach. Panic and adrenaline shot through him and he started shaking. He had to warn her. Instinctively he snatched up his phone and quick-dialled her number. No answer. Over the next few hours he tried again and again but each time it went straight to voicemail.
Midnight came and went and by now Noel was a total wreck. White hot sparks fired inside his brain. Why wasn’t she picking up? Could the killer have already got to her? No, it’s too soon. She’ll still be working her shift.
Noel thought about going out to find her. He grabbed his cards and marched to his front door where he begged for their approval.
He picked another two.
CHARIOT. DEATH.
He shuffled the cards and picked again.
DEVIL. CHARIOT.
He shuffled again.
HERMIT. FOOL.
Noel banged his head hopelessly against the door. If the cards had foretold it, then it was true. It was destined to happen. She was next and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Noel sank against the door and cried. His tears ran down into the corners of his mouth, warm and bitter. He thought about Ava and wondered what she’d think if she could see him now. Would she pity the sight of him bawling his eyes out behind his front door?
But then Noel remembered what she had asked of him the previous day. Was she right? Could he ignore the prophecy his cards had given him, just this once?
Noel wasn’t sure whether it was his concern for Aurora or Ava’s words echoing inside him, but whatever it was, something spurred him on. For a moment he felt as though Luna was next to him, her hand on his shoulder, reassuring him that it was the right thing to do. He climbed to his feet, unlocked the door and went to find Aurora.
***
The clock had just struck two as Noel’s train pulled into Covent Garden and he worried that it was already too late.
As the train doors slid apart, Noel dashed through them and into the connecting tunnel that led to the eastbound line. He burst onto the platform and looked to his right. Aurora stood waiting, the headlights of her approaching train glinting off the rails in the black tunnel beyond her. It was seconds from arriving. And stood right behind her was a dark, well-built figure. A man wearing a navy-blue hoodie who seemed nervous and shifty, as though waiting for more than just the train.
“Aurora!” Noel called out. She turned to look at him and he ran towards her.
At the same time the man behind her startled and backed off further down the platform. Noel reached her at the precise moment the train blasted through the tunnel and screeched to a standstill. Noel grabbed her and hugged her tight.
“Noel! The hell yous doing here at this hour,” she said.
Aurora was a picture of confusion and shock. She had never met Noel outside of the café before.
“It’s a long story,” Noel panted. The train doors opened, the man in the hoodie got on and the train departed without incident.
Noel and Aurora sat together for a while on the platform. He told her all about Luna. All about the cards and their predictions, how they had dictated his life over the last year, and how they had foretold her death that night. Aurora didn’t know what to make of his story. More than anything, she said, she felt sorry for him. She could see he looked tired and thin, his eyes glassy and deep set. She certainly believed that he hadn’t slept since she last saw him.
The pair agreed to catch the train together and Aurora offered to let Noel stay with her that night so they could talk again in the morning. A little while later another train came and they both got on. The train was empty except for a homeless man who was sleeping across the seats at the far end of the carriage. Several minutes passed and still the train hadn’t moved.
Then the train driver came walking down the platform where he seemed to be checking each carriage as he walked by. Eventually he reached Noel and Aurora and came up to them.
“Somethin’ wrong?” Aurora said.
“ ’fraid so love,” said the driver, “Someone’s bin pushed in front of a train at the next stop.”
Noel gripped Aurora tightly with one hand, while his other hand clutched his jacket pocket, feeling the cards inside. He gently unzipped it and pulled out a single card.
DEATH.