Freebie Mondays: The Queen of Swords (Prompt Novel Chapter 24)

For 2024, I decided to devote my prompt writing time to a novel. The twist is that the novel plot will be generated entirely by the writing prompts I chose to use for the project – which were rolled randomly using my trusty dice and a few online prompt lists. You can find the Table of Contents here.

For Chapter 24, the prompt was: “character gets to revisit one moment from their life.”

This is the penultimate chapter and the conclusion of the 3-part climax – the moment the entire story has been building toward. This is when Ira has to finally make the decision what she will change about her life and allow those consequential ripples to move outward from their point of origin.

It’s been a long and crazy road to this moment, but it feels really good to finally have the bulk of the story-building process behind me. I had no idea if I’d even be able to build a coherent story out of this random group of prompts, but I think it worked out pretty well.

If you’d like to see this chapter come together, you can watch the VoD on Youtube!
. . .

Small and subtle is always better when it comes to magic. Once again, the voice of the old crone rang in her ears as Ira stood on the threshold of confirmation. She felt as though she’d been hovering on the brink of making this decision her entire life – now she simply had to breathe and make it so.

Big magic is possible. Anything is, really. In order for magic to work at all, big things occasionally have to happen. But the best results I have found, throughout my long and storied life, come from the small magics. The precise spells.

The scalpels not the shotguns.

Ira thought back over all she’d witnessed during the course of this one bizarre night. Outside her window, the sun must be moving close to the horizon, getting ready to paint the sky a thin shade of grey before, at last, it made its spectacular appearance. She was keenly aware that her window of opportunity was about to pass, and she didn’t dare waste the potential still contained within her.

The images she had summoned from the depths of the universal ether to play behind her eyelids now stretched before her like a deck of cards, the corner of each gently overlapping its nearest neighbors. She sensed that she could slide her fingers across them and initiate her change by pulling her chosen card from the pack.

But which is the best? Which would affect the change she needed while still causing the smallest number of ripples?

Because it wasn’t the individual events that concerned her anymore – it was the results that would ripple outward for years to come.

The baby was in the forefront of her thoughts. She didn’t want to snuff that tiny life from existence. She merely wanted to change the father.

That meant finding a way to save Alyial without risking the tryst in the computer simulation.

She felt a small tug against her ethereal dream limbs, and her arm moved of its own accord, pausing to hover above a card that now glimmered with golden light. Ignoring the instinct that told her to once again examine the moment in question and, in turn, risk running down the remnants of her clock, Ira pressed her finger against the warm, golden glow and slid the card forward as though she was passing it to a dealer.

She felt something snap in the distance, as if the dream that surrounded her began to dissolve the moment the decision was made. Then a hazy warmth surrounded her, and she heard her own voice say, “It’s a tarot card.”

Her tone was direct and matter of fact. So much so that Nala and every member of her team stared at her as if she had grown a second head.

“How the hell did you arrive at that conclusion?” Nala demanded. She looked at the stray code again, but it obviously still seemed nonsensical to her.

Ira paused for a moment, dimly aware that she had arrived in this moment out of sequence. She was tempted to slide her hand across her abdomen, but she knew the thing she was looking for – the tiny pulse of life – wasn’t there yet.

This was before that.

So this was the time, the moment that – for better or worse – she had chosen to change.

She didn’t know if she was still dreaming, if she would wake up in the morning and simply know things were different, or if she would live the rest of her life from this moment as if nothing had ever happened. She could only continue to relive the event from the moment she had joined it, like a puppet guided by the strings of its master.

“It says fifty-five,” Ira replied with more patience than she had any right to display. “Then the arrow suggests, to me, a breakdown of what that fifty-five means. Next it says three point thirteen. Then it repeats sixty-three three times.”

Again, she paused. There was something off about these numbers, something that nibbled at the back of her memory. But she ignored it and pressed on.

“There are seventy-eight cards in a standard tarot card deck,” she explained. “The first twenty-two are the Major Arcana. The remaining fifty-six represent the Minor Arcana which are shockingly similar to a standard playing card deck. Each contains ten number or ‘pip’ cards and four face cards – as opposed to the three face cards in a standard deck of playing cards. Three point thirteen likely indicates the thirteenth card of the third suit if the deck is organized according to the standard default presentation.”

“And you know all this how?” Nala spat.

“My association with weird shit,” Ira reiterated with an exasperated roll of her eyes. This woman annoyed her for reasons she couldn’t quite articulate. At the start of the meeting, she had simply gritted her teeth and swallowed the words the woman summoned to the back of her throat. But now she felt a burning desire to smack her across the face.

She isn’t that bad, Ira told herself sternly. Delmar wouldn’t associate with her if she was. But the words didn’t gain any traction within her brain, they simply slipped away to be devoured by the bubbling hatred this woman had begun to foster deep in her gut.

Something about Nala made Ira want to get her claws out. But again, she resisted.

“What card would those numbers represent?” the man named Eidas interjected. It was clear the curiosity in his tone annoyed Nala, which pleased Ira greatly.

She grinned. “The Queen of Swords.”

Again she paused. That was wrong. Pentacles flashed in her head – a card that clearly represented her. She couldn’t remember why anymore, but she knew the number code had called to her.

Now she had to discern a new meaning.

“I need to know what happened the day this all started,” she declared, unable to completely mask the desperation that now filled her chest. “Tell me everything in as much detail as possible. Was the innocent coffee spill really the start of everything?”

The story was a familiar one. So familiar, in fact, that Ira could almost predict the words about to flow from the lips of Alyial’s coworkers. It had begun with innocent incidents that could be written off as clumsy mishaps – a coffee spill, a crossed wire, a short in a plug. But then it had escalated. Even when Alyial asked his coworkers to double check his work, something managed to go wrong. Their project had torn through all its backup equipment and a significant amount of its budget just to keep things running. They were behind schedule, working full tilt, and beyond desperate.

And that was why Nala evidently sent Alyial into the simulation – to make up for all the trouble he caused the project.

One would think if a member of the team had begun to suffer obvious and traceable computer-related incidents, the rest of the team would object to putting that person in charge of the computer-related test.

Ira gave Nala a long hard look – what Delmar would have referred to as her assessment scan. Here was a no-nonsense woman with little sense of humor who probably barely existed beyond her work. She was project-oriented. So project-oriented, in fact, that she likely thought of nothing else. Certainly she had refused to marry Delmar because she didn’t want to be distracted from the education that would lead her to this moment. From what she understood, Nala’s entire adult life up until this moment had been research grant proposals and proofs of concept. She was tireless, never daunted by failures and setbacks – which was a good trait for any woman in a male-dominated field.

But driven and ambitious could be good qualities too. Nala’s problem was that she couldn’t see beyond the current moment. She couldn’t identify her personal flaws or how they contributed to her consistent lack of success. To a person like her, every problem was nail – and she was the hammer, pounding relentlessly against the cusp of no until she shaped it into a yes.

It didn’t occur to people like Nala that the universe might not take the shape they desired. And if they became aware of a lack or distortion, it was always someone else’s fault, never their own.

I’m so glad she didn’t marry Delmar. She knew without being able to say why that it would have been an unmitigated disaster for her husband if he tied himself to this woman, and she was glad he’d never have to experience that heartbreak.

It was a scathing examination of someone she’d known all of five minutes. Yet Ira knew for certain there was more to both this woman and this situation than she’d been given to contemplate in this moment.

Consider the queen of swords.

Swords could be a troublesome suit. Many of the cards related to hardship, often caused by the actions or faults of the person they were meant to represent. Sword cards often called for people to re-examine a situation or the choices they’d made.

The queen was a strong card that represented the overcoming of adversity. But its primary meaning related to the learning of lessons, the end result of finally facing the hardships represented by the rest of the suit.

And several of the decks Ira had utilized herself over the years represented the Queen of Swords as a manipulator – a powerful feminine influence, yes, but also one that twisted to get what she wanted.

Nala ticked all of those boxes. She had sent Alyial into the simulation as a punishment for his perceived failings. Perhaps her original intent had even been to banish him from the team if he proved incapable or unwilling of performing the task. Now only her guilt at having been the catalyst of his crisis would protect him from her fiery rage.

Ira didn’t know why this card had popped up in Alyial’s thoughts, nor why it had transferred into the log report for the computer simulation. The inner workings of machines and their software were well beyond her. But she felt fairly certain she knew who was supposed to learn the lesson indicated by the meaning of the card.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Nala snapped. Evidently, she’d grown uncomfortable under the intense scrutiny of Ira’s gaze and could no longer abide it even to keep the peace with this strange woman she had summoned to help solve her problem.

“Because I think this tarot card is telling us who is supposed to solve the problem of getting Alyial out of this simulation,” she declared with a cold smirk.

“You can’t be serious,” Nala sneered, her tone instantly switching from aggravated to disgusted.

Ira wondered if she was at all capable of feeling joy.

Ira shrugged. “My understanding is that you sent him in there. You seem to be in charge of this project, or at least know its inner workings the best.”

There were several uncomfortable shuffles when she said this. The members of Alyial’s team bowed their heads and glanced anywhere but at each other.

Perhaps there wasn’t supposed to be an overall leader. And perhaps no one wanted to broach that subject while an outside observer was present.

Nala sidestepped the topic by retorting, “I’m not sure why we called you in here if you were just going to tell us to figure things out for ourselves.”

“I’m not really sure why you called me in here either,” Ira replied tartly. “Because you never should have expected I would simply tell you what you want to hear. You dug this hole, now you have to get out of it. Even the universe agrees.” She indicated the log feed again.

She’d be just as happy to stride out the door this very moment. She had no ties to these people and no reason to stick around. She could honestly tell Delmar she had done her best when she returned home to talk to him. And any role she had played in Alyial’s curse… Well that was something she was going to have to deal with on her own time anyway. The only other person it concerned was asleep at the moment, and she didn’t think dragging his coworkers into it would help him.

Ira turned, clearly indicating her intent, and the gesture summoned a growl from Nala’s lips. She shot to her feet, artfully navigated the computer equipment that choked the small office and interposed herself between Ira and the door.

“Surely you can tell me more than just go in there and tell him to come back out,” she snapped.

“I’m not sure how you do it really matters,” Ira protested. “Or if it does, you’d know more about that than me. Just go in there and talk to him. It isn’t really that hard. Ask about what he’s writing.”

Ira wasn’t sure why she said that last bit, and it gave her pause. She recalled a flash of a cafe and words exchanged with a young programmer. In her memory, that programmer looked just like Alyial, but it was probably because he was on her mind right now.

Nala snorted. “And what if I become trapped within the simulation too?”

Ira rocked back on her heels and gave the woman another appraising look. “You don’t strike me as the type of person who would have that problem,” she declared flatly.

She didn’t care if Nala hated her. In fact, for some reason she couldn’t name, that actually appealed to her. So she wasn’t afraid to speak to Nala frankly and, perhaps, a little rudely. Ira got the impression the rest of her team was too cowed to prod this particular bear, and she could also tell from the way Nala gnashed her teeth she was furious to find Ira wasn’t afraid of her.

Good. Let the lesson learning begin.

“Just be nice,” Ira said as she stepped around Nala and grabbed the door handle so she couldn’t be blocked from leaving again. “It isn’t actually that hard.”

Nala clenched her fists at her sides with such strength, her knuckles turned white. Ira imagined steam building inside her head, and it was wonder that smoke didn’t exude from her ears. Her cheeks and forehead did turn a nice deep shade of crimson though, and it was all Ira could do to swallow her laughter.

She left before Nala or her coworkers could say anything else. She felt as if she’d served her duty, weird though it was. And it wasn’t like she could contribute to the coding that would need to take place to bring Alyial safely free of his current predicament.

She returned home to her own problems – including the new one she’d just discovered while talking to Alyial’s team. But even as she retreated from the space, she saw events unfold in her mind’s eye.

She saw Nala enter the cafe in her memory, almost shy as she went to the counter, ordered a drink and plopped herself in Alyial’s booth. She watched the two of them talk, the words not really meaning anything, though Nala constantly had to bite back annoyance and keep from snapping at the innocent face that often turned in her direction.

She watched the two of them share dinner, watched Nala relax and stop holding all the outrage of her entire life on the tip of her tongue for every interaction.

She watched the two of them retreat to Alyial’s home and talk frankly and openly while rain poured down outside the windows.

And she received a phone call two hours later informing her that Alyial had safely awakened and been transported to the hospital to be checked for potential long-term injuries.

Time almost seemed to speed up. Ira applied her knack with weird patterns to the information Alyial’s coworkers had given him about his apparent curse, connected the magic with a strange incident in her past and began the tenuous and uneasy process of unraveling the tangle so that, when Alyial went back to work, he could touch computers without fear they would explode in his hands.

It took several days to determine what she needed to do. And while she was in the midst of contacting the old crone, she received the news that Wendell, her precious nephew, had returned home physically unscathed from his ordeal but no doubt as mentally scared as she had been after her near encounter with the Mawor.

She dropped everything to fly into action, trusting the crone could find her wherever she might end up, and she brought Delmar with her when she returned to tie up this last loose end from her past.

The whirlwind proceeded much as it had the first time. She researched the legend, identified the pattern, determined the mundane nature of the incidents, and experienced the terrifying encounter in the woods that allowed the FBI to arrest a potential serial killer.

The entire time she was aware of other events, though she couldn’t say why or how. She spoke to Alyial via text, promised to relieve him of the burden she had inadvertently thrust on his shoulders. And she knew he spoke to Nala afterward, that the two of them shared some form of revelation in the shaded room that made up their office.

Something that was supposed to happen anyway. Something it was better she didn’t interfere with.

And amid the insanity and strain, Ira awoke in the morning after the arrest and the interviews to find her arm flung around Delmar’s equally exhausted figure. She curled close against him, aware that she had longed for him and grateful that he was here when she hadn’t expected him to be.

It had all worked out as it was supposed to, all the ripples pushing everything into the right place.

And as she blinked sleep from her eyes, Ira was aware of the change she summoned into being. She alone remembered the events of both timelines. Though her time with Alyial in the simulation now seemed like a dream.

Maybe it was a dream. It certainly hadn’t happened in this version of the world, and no one would ever remember it aside from her.

Did that erase her infidelity? It was as nebulous now as the non-existent marriage between Nala and Delmar.

But it was real to her, and she pledged she would do anything and everything in her power to make up for it – and ensure no such thing ever happened again.

She smiled, satisfied with her night’s exertions, and allowed her arm to slip across her abdomen.

A soft, distant pulse rested beneath her fingers, the ghost of an idea that graced the edges of her consciousness.

She still couldn’t believe that she and Delmar had found the time for passion amidst all this insanity. And yet, it had been exactly what she needed to ground her after the endless interviews with the FBI.

It was the promise of a new start, a stage of life beyond this one. One that wouldn’t have to involve the monsters of her past.

And she knew beyond a shadow of doubt when she finally rose to take the test it would be positive.

Because she had willed that it would be.