The Arcana Club

I am not Summer. Summer is… She’s always wanted to be a protagonist in one of her books, but I don’t want that. I’d rather be someone living peacefully in their own home, or even hiding in a cave. The point is I don’t want to be a hero, or a chosen-one, or whatever it is I’m stuck as now.

I don’t want people to see me.

I don’t want to disappoint anyone who expects anything of me.

My name is Minerva Worster, and this is the story of how I came out as a girl. More importantly to you, I guess, this is the story of how I became a superhero.

After Winter surrendered—or maybe it was Summer’s mom who surrendered—things were peaceful: No talisman spirits we had to handle, and no directives from Talisman himself.

About a month after the confrontation, Summer came to game happy again. When Cindy asked, worried, about what happened to make her feel happy, she presented the four talismans we thought she lost.

Apparently Winter needed therapy, but instead of that, Talisman handed her over to Summer.

Summer was Winter now, and no one but her felt comfortable about that. If we didn’t hold Summer’s mom accountable, then we had to hold Winter accountable, right?

Wrong!

Apparently we just had to trust Winter wasn’t going to corrupt Summer and turn into a problem again.

Admittedly Summer and Winter were doing fine together, with the help of the other seasons, but that didn’t mean we weren’t on guard.

Since training was more of an afterthought, we got through the rest of our campaign surprisingly fast, even with a secret antagonist by the name of Summer.

So we all sat down for another “Session Zero”, except Jonah wasn’t at the table with us because Cas was our GM.

Cas was having us make characters for a space fantasy, with different books than the previous one.

“Before we all build characters individually, does anyone have an idea, so others can build off of it?”

I raised my hand.

“Go ahead,” Cindy said.

“Princess Athena, taken from her home planet by a terrible conquerer only to watch it explode, but it turns out, that conquerer is her real father.”

“Isn’t that just Princess Leia?” Summer’s mom asked from the kitchen.

“Chaperons aren’t here to interfere,” Cas said before turning to the group, “But it is just Princess Leia.”

“Why would you play a girl twice?” Emmy asked, “I’d hate to be a boy twice in a row.”

“I don’t think a prince would be as interesting in that position,” Summer defended, “Even if the conquerer knows, would he be feminist enough to try making her his heir, or is this just to cause her pain?”

“Fine,” Emmy said, “I’ll be Luke Skywalker then, a farmboy who accidentally intercepted Princess Athena’s plea for help meant for someone in my village, but decided to rescue her himself. Turns out he’s actually her twin brother.”

“Can you at least choose a different name?” Cindy asked.

“Apollo Cloudburner,” Summer immediately proposed.

“Ares,” I suggested instead, “Ares is Athena’s closest counterpart as a god of war.”

“Or Hephaestus as a god of Forge to her domain of Craft,” Cindy proposed.

“Ares Apollo Hephaestus Cloudburner,” Emmy decided, “Aahc for short.”

“Athena,” Cas said as xe wrote down, “Ack.”

“Aahc,” Emmy corrected, “You’ve gotta pronounce the H.”

“Ares Apollo Hephaestus Cloudburner,” Cas said.

“I was planning to be a smuggler,” Summer admitted.

“You’re Han Solo?” Emmy asked excitedly.

“No,” Summer said, “I’m closer to Chewbacca. I was taken from my planet, and am using smuggling to gain the resources to navigate a way back.”

“Cool,” I said. Summer usually had good ideas.

“I like the pattern,” Cindy said, “But I’ll have to break it: Uru used to be the chief of security on a space-station, until they discovered their origins as a member of a conquering race. Now they’ve joined the rebellion against their home.”

“It’s on the tip of my tongue,” Summer’s mom insisted.

“Star Trek,” Aisha identified.

“The best Star Trek,” Jonah insisted.

“Should you go in the other room?” Cas asked.

The parents all put their hands up in surrender.

“Can I be Han Solo?” River asked. Since Summer revealed everything to her, she’d tagged along with us, and since our sessions weren’t on a practice day, she decided to join our next campaign.

“How would you be Han Solo?” Cas asked, “What’s the backstory?”

River blew out some air.

“Loner Nah,” she said carefully, “Has been riding with—what was your character again?” she stared at Summer.

“I’m not sure about a name yet,” Summer answered, “But yeah, you can ride with me.”

“Loner Nah has been riding with Summer’s character since she tried to stow away on their ship a few years ago and was told to make herself useful. Now she’s an indispensable member of the crew.”

“Good work,” Cindy said.

“Thanks.”

“I wanted to be an engineer,” Van said awkwardly, “They like working on machines.”

“Good start,” Cas said, “Now with these ideas, let’s look at classes and ancestries.”

We started fleshing out the character ideas more, and I watched Summer intently the whole time. She and Van (And Van’s mom) were the only people I’d come out to, and she did a lot more work to keep me hidden.

I needed to come out to Emmy at least. Aside from Summer, she’d been my friend the longest.

I couldn’t right now though.

The next Friday, we met at the bench. Months ago we sat there to talk about a book Summer really wanted us to like, until Cindy asked us all if we wanted to save the world.

This time Cindy and Cas joined us, and everyone brought some sort of snack.

“Not to jinx it,” Summer said, “But do you think we’ll have anymore incidents?”

“With the brides and the sisters in the same place?” Cas asked back.

“Is that supposed to be a definite no because they’re too scary, or a definite yes because they’re too valuable?” I asked.

“It’ll probably be a bit more subtle,” Cindy said, “But even throwing one of us off-kilter would be valuable to the Light Brother, let alone both, not that any of us are slouches.”

“I know you probably can’t say any names, but who all is against us?” Emmy asked.

Cindy offered a disquieting shrug.

“We’re not a particularly well-connected network. Apparently the Lady of Shadow left him a while ago, but a generation or two ago, almost every major Arcana was on his side.”

“Arcana?” Summer asked, “Like our club?”

“Like Tarot’s direct subordinates,” Cindy explained, “We’re still not sure where all of them are. It’s not like we can ask Talisman himself who’s in his service and who isn’t, because even if he does talk to someone, it’s not long enough for them to ask questions back.”

“Did you see god when you got your talismans back, Summer?” Van asked.

Summer shook her head.

“He granted Winter permission to ask me, but he wasn’t there when she did, at least not where I—” Summer started looking around, “I think I jinxed it.”

I started looking around too. There was seemingly nothing to see.

Emmy sniffed the air.

“It smells like wood.”

“We’re next to a tree,” I said, gesturing at the large tree behind us.

“Not that wood, like treated wood. It smells like a table.”

I’d have to take her word for it.

“We don’t know if they’re a problem yet,” Cindy said, “No sudden moves. Cas, what do you see?”

Cas squinted where Summer and Emmy directed.

“It’s hard to tell,” Xe complained, “But there’s definitely something.”

I sighed, humming under my breath, trying to signal any nearby creatures to tell me what they saw, not that they could necessarily see anything.

As expected, I got nothing.

“It’s coming closer,” Cas warned.

Cindy turned to Summer.

“See if Winter can negotiate. If it’s on the Light Brother’s side, they might not know she defected back.”

“Winter!”

Summer changed to the palest skin imaginable, with a dress made of ice, fingerless gloves made of plants, shoes made of fire, and hair buffeted up by the wind. I scrambled out of the way.

As Summer—Winter—left, it became easier to see our threat. Its silhouette looked a bit like it was wearing a dress, but I wasn’t so sure.

Suddenly four new people popped out of it, each colored differently: one white, one green, one red, one brown.

“Who can do that?” I asked.

“They can’t imitate a commander,” Cindy said, “Death!”

Cindy was slightly smaller as Death, covered in a cloak, though you could still tell her skin had developed a shade of blue. If you looked even closer, her eyes had turned into a full red.

And she was off.

“Do we go?” I asked.

“Invention!” Van ran off in their steampunk look before anyone could stop them.

Emmy looked at me, then at the fight beginning to form.

“Lupus!”

“You should go,” Cas said, offering a thumbs-up, “I’ll look after the snacks.”

I took a deep breath in. I was uncomfortable with all of this, but when was I not uncomfortable?

“Princess!”

I was surrounded in light that sort of looked like fish, but also a bird in flight, or running rabbits. It turned my nails pink, and made my hair grow long and fluffy, though not as heavy as it should be.

“Shall we?” Princess asked.

I shook my head. Just because I knew I was a girl, didn’t mean I wanted anyone else to know.

I got a glittery pink suit, and comfortable shoes, also in that glittery pink, then I accepted the talisman spirit.

“We are Princess, Guide to animals.”

I barely joined the group in time to see that I wasn’t wrong about it not being a dress. They looked like chess pieces, specifically pawns.

Pawns change into queens.

“Oh no.”

“Yeah,” Death said, “I should have told the rest of you not to follow me.”

The pawns had increased in number, outnumbering us already.

“Can we just change back?” I asked.

Death shook her head.

“We have to face them head-on.”