Once upon a time, when much of the world was still new and there was still magic in it, there lived a young boy named Jack. Jack was the only child of two poor farm workers who spent all day in the fields and all night resting their tired bodies. His parents did not raise him as much as the townspeople did. Jack had learned how to read a little bit from the town’s only priest, how to hunt from his neighbors and uncles, how to mend a fence or a wall from carpenters and masons. But Jack’s true skill did not lie in any of these areas. Jack’s true skills were those he learned in the pub.
Jack was not yet old enough to drink in the pub as the older boys and men did; his mother told him that he had only seen twelve or thirteen summers, though she couldn’t be sure. But while the old men drank and caroused and played in the pub, Jack watched them play their games. He watched as piles of money moved across the table, first to one man, then to another, then to another. They dealt out cards and whether they won or lost was based on the cards in their hands. Jack had watched honest men working hard for days and weeks, and they never made as much money as these men could win in a single hand.
Jack did odd jobs around town until he could buy his own set of playing cards. They were his most prized possession. For hours and hours, late into the night, Jack would practice moving the cards around his hands. He learned how all of the cards felt and how the friction worked between them. His fingers were long and nimble, and it wasn’t long before he could place the cards wherever he wanted! With a few dexterous flicks and twists he could place the cards in any order he could imagine, and when they were dealt he knew exactly where each card lay.
To young to play himself, the boy merely used his talents to have a bit of fun with the men at the pub. He would offer to deal for them, and spend the entire night making one man rich, only to take it all away at the last minute. Some nights, everybody around the table inexplicably broke even. His favorite was to pit two of the drunkest players against one another, watching as they blundered and cussed at one another as the pile of money went back and forth, back and forth. What fun was had just by shifting a few cards about!
One hot summer night, Jack was dealing to the men around the table. John Mason was up nearly tenfold for the night, and Jack was certain he could winnow the fortune down to a single penny. But as he did so, the tiny hairs on the back of his neck rose as they do on a dog’s neck before a storm. His motions, as always, were lightning-quick and he was in no danger of being caught or discovered as a trickster. But still, there was something not right about the air, so he ended the game immediately- much to John Mason’s delight.
With the game ended its players got up and stumbled into the balmy night, all but one of whom looked forward to the harsh looks and stern lectures from disappointed wives. (John Mason’s wife would no doubt be subdued by the bulging coin purse). Jack sat alone at the table, shuffling and re-shuffling the deck without thinking about it and trying to figure out what had caused such an odd sensation. His hands moved automatically over and through the cards, and for a moment he became hypnotized by his own movements. When he looked up, a prune-faced old man wearing a dark cloak was sitting across from him.
“I was watching you, boy,” he croaked.
Jack’s heart raced, but he spoke calmly. “Who are you?” he asked.
“You oughtn’t toy with the players like you do,” he said, ignoring Jack’s question. “It’s not safe.”
Jack’s lip curled upward automatically, a confident grin beginning on his face. “I’m too fast for them to see what I do. They’ll never know.”
“It doesn’t matter whether they know, boy!” The old man’s voice was almost like the creaking of an old door when he raised it, a creak that got louder as the door swung open. Jack’s grin instantly disappeared.
The old man continued, but his voice was softer again, like a teacher explaining something to a particularly dense student: “You see, the games these men play are all about chance. When fortune falls from one man to another, we accept it because that’s the way the world works. There’s nothing right or wrong about it, you see, it simply… is. Do you understand?”
Jack furrowed his brow while he thought, but shook his head. “Come with me,” the man said, standing. “I’ll show you.” Jack didn’t move from the table. He looked suspiciously at the old man. The old man only laughed. “You needn’t fear me, boy. I’m trying to help you, and I couldn’t hurt you if I wanted to. If your feet are half as fast as your fingers, you can run right home if you feel you must. Come along now.”
Outside and behind the pub was a wagon with a roof on it, parked in the alleyway. “You’re a gypsy,” Jack said.
“Hmmph,” said the old man. “I’m a wanderer, boy, if that makes me a gypsy…” Jack followed the man into the wagon.
Inside Jack could see a bed on the far wall, and a table with two chairs in the middle. The walls were lined with shelves, but the candlelight didn’t shine on them very well. The shelves seemed only to contain different dark shapes and shadows. Jack and the old man sat across from one another at the table. With a movement so subtle and imperceptible that even Jack was impressed, the old man produced a deck of cards seemingly out of nowhere.
“These, boy, are the cards that make our fate,” whispered the man. “Do not doubt me! I can see the look on your face, but is it really that hard to believe? Our destinies are no different than the cards dealt in a hand.” As he spoke he shuffled the cards over and over, and once again Jack was pulled into the sway and motion of it. “We may win, we may lose, but in the end we know that it is all random.
“When a mother’s child drowns in the river, do we say that either one deserved it?” The man dealt three cards slowly in front of Jack, face down. “When the rain and the sun are balanced perfectly and a farmer doubles his yield, do we say that he earned the sun and the rain? Of course not! We just know, boy, that these things are simply meted out. It is not your place to pluck idly at the strings of fate!”
With this, he flipped over all three cards in front of Jack with a flourish. The first was an owl, sitting on a branch under the crescent moon. The second was a mound of gold coins and jewels. The third was the most frightening, a bony hand bent around a sickle. Fear welled up in Jack and, embarrassed, he couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down his face. The old man only threw his head back and cackled loudly, his dry voice piercing the stillness of the still summer night.
While the man wasn’t looking, Jack swept his hands over the table and bolted from the wagon. He didn’t stop running until he was sure he no longer heard the ugly laughter echoing around him. When his finally stopped, however, the first thing he did was unclench his fist from around his new prize: back on the table, in that mysterious wagon, Jack had switched his own deck for the strange deck the man had laid out.
* * *
Jack spent the following weeks looking at and learning how to shift and manipulate this new deck. The old man’s wagon had disappeared the very next day, and with him all of the fear Jack had felt that night. Now he only wanted to know this new deck as well as he had known his old one.
The symbols were strange and usually impossible to decipher. Many of them showed animals doing the things that people usually do, like farming or living in a house. Others showed the sun or the moon, or both, or many suns and many moons. And always in the deck somewhere was the dark card, the reaper and his tool.
Jack stopped dealing to the men at the pub, but instead sat in the back and watched everyone around him. The men played cards, the barman served ale and his daughters served the food while their bottoms were pinched by the young men. Jack watched and watched, shuffling the cards over and over as he did, until his gaze froze on just one person. This night, for example, it was Samuel Goodwyn. He watched Sam playfully lift the dress of one of the barmaids, Elizabeth. As he watched Jack laid out three cards: a branch with a green bud, a cat and a dog standing upright and holding hands as people do, and a sun and a moon rising together.
As Jack laid the third card down, Elizabeth was caught up in the folds of her dress, which Sam had lifted, and she dropped the dishes she was carrying and fell backwards, right into Sam’s lap. The other men around Sam’s table laughed or jeered, but Elizabeth and Sam sat together for a moment, looking for one another. Sam muttered an apology and Elizabeth, whose face was flushed red, only smiled.
Now Jack looked over at John Mason, who already had a young woman on his lap who was feeding him bits of meat from his stew and wiping the juices from his beard. Jack shuffled again but, as usual, he knew exactly which cards he would deal out: a lightning bolt striking from a cloud to a tree, an all-seeing eye, and a teacup- this last card dealt upside down. Again, no sooner had the clean snap! of the card hit the table than Mrs. Mason stormed into the pub. John stood up quickly, practically throwing his young companion over the table. John began to talk and plead, but was walloped again and again by his wife and was driven outside into the street. The pub erupted in laughter, and several young men offered to help the young lady off the floor.
Jack laughed, too. This was much more fun than moving pennies across a table! He dealt again and again, watching the others dance like his own private puppet show. By the following week, however, silly games were becoming boring. And more, Jack wasn’t getting anything out of it except for cheap laughs. He knew the power he now controlled, and he was ready to use it for himself.
Jack sat on the dirt floor of his own meager dwelling while his parents slept not far away. Quietly he shuffled the cards, but this time he closed his eyes and thought only about himself. Even with his eyes closed Jack knew every card and where it was. He dealt the branch with the green bud, the pile of treasure, and the sun and the moon rising together. Laying the last card down, Jack heard whispers from outside the window.
“What did you say?” hissed one voice.
“In the field!” said the other. “We’ll bury it in the field!”
“And we won’t get in trouble?”
“Naw. A man as rich as Robert of Norwich won’t notice a missing purse or two! We’ll bury it in the field’s far corner until he leaves town, and then we’ll be set!”
Jack smiled, for he knew what he would find the next day. Sure enough, he found a clean mound of dirt in the far corner of the field near his home. Inside were two rather large sacks with gold plates, cutlery, and jewelry.
“I’m rich!” Jack cried aloud, though he could hardly believe it. The magic of the cards was more powerful than he thought. With this power, he thought, I can do anything! I can be an earl- or king!
He stowed his new-found wealth in his home and that night he went to the pub. His next acts would be in public, where the people of the village could watch Jack as he manipulated the strings of his own destiny in his favor. He sat at a table in the back, anxiously shuffling and re-shuffling the deck. Next, he thought, I will bring more gold. Perhaps an entire chest this time!
As confidently and adeptly as ever, Jack laid the cards on the table, but was shocked to see images he did not expect.
The first card showed a crow in flight with its wings spread across a full moon.
The second showed a great tear in the ground with a fiery red glow rising from beneath.
The third… the third was a card that Jack had not seen since that night in the gypsy’s wagon. The third was that bony, pale hand gripping the reaper’s tool.
Jack was holding his breath without realizing it. He jumped when the pub’s door flung open and slammed against the wall. Mrs. Mason entered slowly, leaning heavily against her aged father, her face buried in her hands.
“It’s terrible!” cried the old man to the crowd. “Terrible!” Everyone in the pub now gave their attention to the crying woman and her father. “My daughter’s husband is dead!” With this Mrs. Mason gave a great moan of grief and continued crying. Her father left her sitting at a table and walked around the pub, telling the sad story: John Mason had been building a new wall outside the town’s mill, near the river, when the earth gave a mighty shake and the rocks came tumbling down on the man. John and the boulders rolled into the river They sank together and never came up.
Mrs. Mason’s father was crying now, too. “What a cruel fate!” he cried.
Jack stared wild-eyed at the cards. He knew that they had done this, that the cards had brought John Mason his end. Jack picked up the cards and shuffled again. Surely they could undo this accident. He felt the cards as he always did and was sure he would lay out a lucky sequence.
He dealt and was surprised once more. It was the all-seeing eye, followed by the mound of treasure upside-down and the teacup, also upside down. Jack gathered the cards and rushed home. The door was already open and the house’s only room was illuminated by moonlight. Jack entered to see his parents’ bodies beaten and unconscious on the floor. He knelt down to them, but even before he reached out to them he knew that they were still alive; the cards had not shown death this time, only misfortune and poverty. He looked around to confirm what he already knew: the bag of loot was gone. The thieves had discovered that their treasure was missing and when they found it in Jack’s house, his parents were punished for it.
Jack looked at the deck in his hands and was suddenly terrified by it. He ran outside once more. He had to get rid of the cards, destroy them, anything to stop them from bringing about such awful things.
In the dark and stillness of the night Jack once again felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, and he felt again as if he was being watched though nobody was near him. And then, down the road, came the steady clip-clop of a horse. A wagon crested over the horizon, blocking the muted light of the moon. Jack recognized the wagon immediately and watched it approach, paralyzed.
When he was near the old man stopped the wagon and descended slowly. “Have you learned your lesson yet, boy?” he asked.
“I thought I could control it all,” Jack explained to the old man. “I thought I could make whatever I wanted happen.”
The old man shook his head. “You cannot play with that kind of control, boy. Fate holds all of us- including you. Including me.”
“A man died. John Mason died because of me.”
“Maybe. Maybe he died because he was meant to die. Either way, you have no business playing games with those cards.” The old man stuck out his hand and Jack carefully gave him the deck.
“What do I do now?” asked Jack.
The old man seemed to smile as he climbed back onto the wagon. “Now? Now… you do the best you can, and do it honestly. You never know what may be in the cards tomorrow.”
The wagon bumped and swayed into the night, and Jack never saw it or its occupant again. Nor did he forget the lesson he had been taught. He continued to learn trades and help out around the village. He respected the power of all the things he didn’t know, and did his best with the things he did know. And he did it honestly.
