Without thinking, Nora touched her purse, her fingers skimming across the embroidered moon.
“This is just where you are right now,” the woman said. “It’s the energy you brought into the store with you. When it comes to matters of tarot, nothing is fixed. Everything, life and the future, is on a continuum.”
Nora swallowed hard. “Right. Well. My present continuum blows.”
The woman laughed, a deep, hearty sound that came from low in her belly. “It can certainly be like that. For a while. The universe has a way of taking away what isn’t needed and providing what is.”
Platitudes. Good guesses. She probably did this for everyone who walked in. Daisy was the walking embodiment of someone goingthrough a crisis, and Soraya looked like she’d stepped straight out of an LDS influencer’s Instagram, so guessing that religious structure was part of her life wasn’t really difficult.
As for Nora ... things being unclear but becoming clear could apply to anyone.
“Well. Thank you.”
“Of course,” the woman said, then turned away. “If you know of anyone who needs a job ...”
“I might ...” Daisy stopped. “I’ll let you know if I hear of anyone.”
“Thank you,” Nora said.
“Of course.” The woman fixed her gaze on Daisy. She didn’t say anything, but Nora felt like something significant passed between them.
“Bye.” Daisy turned away, and Nora followed behind her, out the door and onto the street.
Soraya was standing as far away from the store as possible without falling off the sidewalk, her arms crossed tight. “No surprise she said weird stuff about religion,” she muttered.
“It’s just a little bit of tarot,” Nora said. “It’s harmless.”
“It’s how the devil gets a foothold,” Soraya responded.
Nora scoffed. “Is that how the devil got a foothold in your husband? Tarot?”
Soraya narrowed her eyes. “No.”
“It seems to me he was able to get a pretty good hold on him at church.”
“Well, there’s no use tempting bad things to happen.”
“She’s hiring. And you need a job.” Of course, Soraya had probably just made the worst first impression in history.
It was a coincidence of the highest order, one that was almost too good to be true, and definitely too good to pass up.
“I don’t have any experience working in a store.”
“But you bake,” Nora said.
“I . . . I don’t know.”
“No one from your church would know. Anyway, if they did, they would have to admit they walked into the store,” Daisy pointed out.
Soraya seemed to consider that.
“She needs a bookkeeper, Daisy,” Nora said.
Daisy sighed heavily. “Yes. She does. But if I’m going to take a new job, I have to quit my current job, and that’s ... complicated.”
“I once played with a Ouija board at a slumber party,” Nora lied.
She hadn’t been to slumber parties. But shehadgotten a Ouija board at a yard sale when she was twelve, and she’d played with it one evening, until her foster mom had found it and thrown it out. Because of the devil. The devil was a big concern around these parts.
