Lillyanne Plume's Arc

Chapter 3 of 22

Lillyanne slept four hours and woke to a clean counter. No envelope. She checked the sink, the couch, the pillow, the inside of her boots. Nothing. She let herself breathe. She walked to campus under a gray sky and felt eyes on the back of her neck the whole way. She turned twice. A woman at the bus stop. A man reading a paper. Neither looked up. She climbed the wide steps of the university's main hall, passed under the tall columns, and pushed through the heavy doors. Class went by. No envelope in her bag. No envelope in her locker. No envelope tucked into her notebook when she opened it. By the time she clocked in for her janitor shift, she almost believed it was over. She mopped the science wing whistling. She ate a granola bar on the loading dock and watched the snow fall. Whoever they were, they had given up. She had won by throwing everything away. The basement game started at eleven. Six regulars around a folding table under a bare bulb. Lillyanne dealt. She took a pot on the third hand and another on the fifth. The pile of bills by her elbow grew the way it always did. The door opened at midnight and a stranger walked down the steps. She was tall. White suit, cut close. Pale hair pulled into a tight bun. Black lipstick, black liner, one silver earring shaped like a lightning bolt. She moved through the smoke like she owned the lease. The regulars went quiet. Dijon slid his chair back an inch without meaning to. "Deal me in," the woman said. She set cash on the felt without counting it. Lillyanne dealt her in. She played twelve hands. She won nine. She did not blink when she bluffed. She did not smile when she hit. Lillyanne studied her over the cards and found nothing to study. No twitch. No breath change. No pattern. Lillyanne's chest went hot. She pushed harder. She raised on garbage to bait her. The woman called every time and turned over the better hand. On the last hand Lillyanne shoved her whole night's take into the middle. The woman matched it and laid down a straight. Lillyanne had two pair. The table did not speak. Emmy stared at her hands. Someone coughed. The woman stacked the bills, tapped them square, and walked out. Lillyanne left ten minutes later. The woman was leaning against Lillyanne's car in the lot, one ankle crossed over the other. She held out an envelope. Black and white. Red wax. Silver ink. "She's determined to have you there," the woman said. "I see why." Lillyanne took it. Her fingers closed on the wax before she decided to. The woman walked off into the snow. Lillyanne stood by her car with the envelope in her hand and, for the first time, wanted to open it.