For some reason, I felt like I should apologize for what happened to Marietta, as if it were my fault. As if I’d taken Marietta away from Eleanor myself and forced her to raise me. I wanted to apologize for all the years stolen and for her not being there for Marietta when she got sick. But I couldn’t say anything as the grief held my tongue in a firm grip.
“It is alright, child,” Eleanor said, reading my mind. “We knew this day would reach.”
Eleanor pulled out the large chair and offered me to sit. And I did, slowly shaking my head. “I don’t understand.”
Eleanor took a seat across from me. “You will.” She offered a small smile, and her gold bracelets jingled as she folded the cards into a clean stack and placed them off to the side between two other decks. “Have you ever had a reading done before?”
“No,” my voice was shallow as I said it. “I was never really introduced to this sort of stuff until now. I mean, I’ve heard of magic and witches and the supernatural, and I know it’s all real. I’ve never doubted it. But since I returned to Weeping Hollow, it’s as if I was thrown into an alternate universe where normal doesn’t exist. Half the time, I don’t even know what’s real.”
“Me, I see,” Eleanor said in a disapproving tone, then she nodded as something seemed to click in her skull. “It seems as if Marietta was the right choice, after all.” She laughed lightly. “Tarot cards are a mirror to your soul. The biggest misconception is that they hold the key to your future, but what they truly unlock is one’s inner intuition and wisdom as a guide to navigate life.” Her eyes veered over to the three decks resting beside us. “Go on. Choose a deck.”
I examined the three decks, all bent and out of shape and frayed at the edges, no longer sitting cleanly on top of one another. The first deck golden, the second black, and the third silver, but all three journeyed through many readings. The silver deck had a picture of a bird’s claws swooping down, and it captured my attention. “The silver.”
Eleanor’s expression remained stoic, and she asked me to shuffle.
I did, and the cards were frail against my skilled fingers as I slid them and wove them back into place before handing them over to her outstretched palm. Eleanor placed the shuffled deck between us on the table. “Sawa, make three piles, dear.”
I separated the deck, as she requested. Shortly after, Eleanor flipped the top card of one pile and laid it in front of the pile. Then she slipped the last card from the bottom of the same stack and laid it face up over the pile. She repeated these steps for all three piles.
“Your past, present, and future,” she explained. Six cards, face-up, stared back at me. I shifted forward, sitting over the edge of the seat with perked ears, anxious to hear more. “Feeling tense?” she chuckled, and my eyes snapped to hers. “Little psychic joke.”
Eleanor’s long nail scraped along the rim of the pile that marked the past. “The hermit card, this tells me you have mainly kept to yourself in younger years and … it is paired with the Devil reversed. Entrapment. It signifies a past of no escape, and a road leading to one. You are held captive, or a situation that happened to you. Perhaps something more literal—trapped.” Her eyes bounced up to mine, and I quickly looked away. “Are you getting me, Moonshine?”
A lump formed in my throat. “I … I don’t know,” I lied, flashes of the horrifying night in the well replayed inside my head—the walls closing in, the whispers in the cold, wet night, my throat so raw from screaming …
Her hand darted out for mine, but stopped halfway, changing her mind.
“Your present,” her hand slid to the next deck, “Ah!the trickster.” Eleanor tapped over the card with the faded picture of a man or woman—it was too far gone to tell at this point—carrying a sword over a flowing river. “The card is reversed. In this case, it represents the illusion of the world around you. Do not believe everything or everyone you see or hear,” she advised. Her finger moved to the paired card that read DEATH. I felt my jaw slipping open at the immediate thought of Gramps, and Eleanor clicked her tongue. “A severance is coming, and it will be painful. I know what you are thinking, but it could be in any aspect of your life. It will almost certainly be significant and absolute.”
My eyes lifted from the Death card to her black ones as my heart shook in my chest. “Almost? So, this could change?”
“It is doubtful. Death is a natural process in life. When it comes, use your inner strength to embrace it. Though, your future is most peculiar.” The disappointment in her tone didn’t go unnoticed. The expression crossing over her features revealed nothing short of pity and sorrow, not what she presumably had expected from the cards. “Here, you have the wheel of fortune, but it is reversed. You have lost control of the inevitable fate you were destined for. There is misfortune to come.” My eyes steered toward the card pairing with the wheel of fortune, and I saw a man and woman under two birds. “Mhmm … It is paired with the Lovers card.” Her voice changed as she spoke, shock and anger rising. “This can’t be,” her eyes snapped to mine, struggling to finish, “You will have to make a choice and a sacrifice. But do not make this choice lightly, as the ramifications will be lasting!”
“I don’t understand any of this. What does it even mean?” Questions oozed out of me, the cards hardly revealing anything with much substance, and my heart was on standby with tears in my eyes.Misfortune? Death? Loss of control?
Eleanor pulled the future pile of cards toward her and quickly folded them back semi-neatly, her face stern. “Alight! You are going down the wrong path. I’m too close. I can’t help you.” Her entire demeanor had changed, and if I wasn’t mistaken, she seemed mad. She jumped from her chair and skated to the door. “It is time for you people to alight!”
“But you have to help me. You can’t tell me all this and force me out! Please,” I shoved my hand into my bag and withdrew a wad of cash. A few bills slipped through my fingers and fell to the floor. I was desperate, needing to hear something hopeful. Worried for Gramps’ sake, I needed to know my bad fortune wouldn’t rest upon his soul. “Give me something here,” I begged, needing more.
Eleanor snatched my arm in a firm grasp and set her beady eyes on mine. “Do not fall into the trickery that surrounds you. Only you have the power to determine your fate, my moonchild,” Eleanor quickly said, then shooed me out of the room before slamming the door behind me.
A strong wind carried my hair, and the dropping temperatures gripped the back of my neck in a tense chill. I stood outside Eleanor’s shop, dazed and confused, lost in her words, as Milo, Monday, and Kane surrounded me. Their chatter was distant against Eleanor’s last words.“Only you have the power to determine your fate.”The mantra repeated over and over and over inside my head, bounced around the corners of my skull.
Gramps was the only tie I had left to the mother I’d never known. Yet, it seemed as if his fate had been flipped over and printed upon a card—our future told within a matter of fifteen minutes, and the unnerving quiver shuddering up my bones beneath my flesh made me believe it was real.
It was happening. Gramps was going to die.
“If it helps, she once told me I’d dig my own grave. You have to take what she says with a grain of salt,” Monday insisted.
“Yeah, and I would get lost in time,” Milo added.
“No, mine’s better,” Kane pumped his chest, “Under a midnight sun, I’ll lose my power in the fall of a roamer, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.”
“See,” Monday laughed, “It’s all just for fun.”
Chapter 23
Julian
