Shuffle your deck, cut from the center. Remove three cards & place in the spread. Once the cards are placed, do not disturb them. Return the deck to the box, face down.
The inlaid template was a simple three-card spread. Past, present, and future. It was the first time the little cat had led her to one of the tarot tables, and she didn’t know why the notion of having her cards read in order to inform her tea selection had her heart thumping in her chest. At the top of the table was a gold filigree basket, just large enough to hold the narrow deck. Harper exhaled steadily.Now or never.
Shuffle the deck, cut from the center.
She shuffled the cards, twisting them this way and that at regular intervals, being no stranger to a tarot deck. She could list each of the Major Arcana on sight and a handful of properties relating to each card and knew the rudimentary basics of the Minor Arcana, but she was no tarot reader. Divination had not been of particular interest to her mother, and so she and Morgan had not grown up in a household with regular instruction.
The divination section of her core competencies had been glossed over by the instructor, and as a result, Harper was more likely to examine her makeup in a scrying ball than she was to see a glimmer of the future yet to pass. Tarot cards were pretty illustrations and little more, but it was obvious that her shadowy tea host placed more stock into the cards than anyone in her family.
Remove three cards and place them in the spread.
The first card she pulled from the deck depicted the solitary figure shrouded in black. Before them, four golden cups lay on their sides, their blue liquid contents spilled along the bottom edge of the card. The figure’s eyes were closed, the sky above them dark and stormy, and the tears that ran down their cheeks held the same pattern as the spilled liquid at their feet, caught in the 5th cup.
Well, fuck. That’s a great start.
The second card showed six cups. Harper blew out an exasperated broth, already annoyed with her subconscious. Six scattered cups on a bright emerald field beneath the glorious sun. Upon the card, two children played, and a stylized flower grew from each of the cups. It seemed like a happy card. Or at least, it would have been if it were upright. She placed the reversed Six of Cups in the center space on the template, sucking in another deep breath.
You only have one chance left. Don’t blow it.When her third and final card proved to be the Seven of Cups, Harper nearly flipped the table over in frustration.You had one job.
She didn’t know why she expected her broken brain to obey her that day, when it had never done so in the past. Her father was the one who’d pushed when she was a moody adolescent, claiming something wasn’t right, that she wasn’t acting like herself, in a way that seemed more than typical preteen angst. Even then, Harper thought with a snort, her mother had simply assumed she was being difficult and lazy. She had a feeling her mother had been mortified at her eldest daughter’s diagnosis of clinical depression, but she had liked her therapist, and for a time, it seemed as if she was better.
The family therapist she’d seen as a teen had retired from practice when she’d still been in undergrad, and there had been no professional intervention in her life since then.And now look at you. The whole suit of cups, just yeeting all your trauma onto the table in public. Great. Excellent.That’s not mortifying or anything.
The tea shop was quiet, but she knew it wouldn’t be long before it was bustling, as it always was mid-week. Soon, they would be too busy to hover over her, but for now, she had the proprietor at her singular disposal, and Harper knew it would only be a few minutes before they slid up to her table to inspect her spread.
“Oh my.”
Harper jumped at the voice coming from over her ear, covering her face with her hands as they gazed down at her cards. “I know. It’s mortifying.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, sweet one, but it certainly tells a story.”
“Yes, one of emotional dysregulation,” she mumbled, looking down at her hands so they wouldn’t see the way her cheeks heated.Sweet one!
“One of emotional fatigue,” they corrected, “and it is hardly surprising, given the recent stress you have experienced. The Five of Cups—”
“Grief,” she nodded. “I know that one.”
“Grief and loss,” they agreed, their voice shifting to her side. “Self-explanatory, I suppose. But also self-pity. Stasis. Being trapped in a cycle of unending grief and pity. And let’s give credit where it is due, sweet one, because that card shows your past.”
“I’m not sure if the present is much better. Although, I don’t think I know the full meaning of this one reversed.”
They rumbled beside her, a low croon of amusement, and she nearly levitated off her seat. It was ridiculous to have a crush on the voice, she reminded herself for at least the hundredth time that week, but Harper couldn’t help it.
“I think what is most amusing about the placement of this card is the utter plethora of meanings it could potentially hold for your present circumstances,” they chuckled warmly. “This is a card of nostalgia, of happy childhood memories, of passing things down from one generation to the next. It is a card of homecoming. Reversed, its meaning is not so different. It is still a card of homecoming, although perhaps for unhappier reasons. Homecoming along with the realization that one can never truly go home again, for the home of your childhood no longer exists, for you are no longer a child.”
“Nothing will ever feel like home again,” she agreed in a near whisper.
“It is good to remember those happy memories of our past, but it does not do to dwell within them. The passing of traditions down in the upright card in the reverse might be tainted with unwanted obligation. The realization that the path set out for you in childhood may not be the one you are meant to follow. Breaking the bonds of family to forge one’s own future. You see, my sweet one, we can basically take our pick.”
At that, Harper burst out laughing. Her shadowy host knew most of her story at that point. They did not linger long at her table each time she visited, but theydidlinger.Longer than they do at anyone else’s table.
She had noticed, several weeks earlier, that while the tea shop varied in its business, the patrons who sat to enjoy their lunch did so without the complement of conversation from their host. She had never before seen another guest talking to the empty corner of their table, had never seen any of them being given instruction on which book to select for the day, had never overheard anyone talking about themselves, answering the perceptive and prescient questions asked by the shadows. They only talked to her, and she relished the singular attention.
After that first disclosure of her father’s death, they asked about where she lived. How long had she lived there, and what prompted her family’s move to Cambric Creek? The fluffy, paranormal romance she’d picked off the shelf had been paired with a warm, spicy cinnamon chai, and each sip was balmy and comfortable, a perfect counterpoint to the autumn backdrop of the story.
They asked if she was a student at the university as they topped off the hot water for her lovely citrus-rose blend, the pairing chosen for a book of non-Euclidean poetry. They were surprised to hear she had completed her undergraduate degree several years earlier, lightly quipping that they were a terrible judge of age when it came to humans.
Harper’s eyes would follow where she perceived them to be, convinced she was able to pick out a weight to the shadows, a slightly deeper tone in the darkness, owing to the fact that she was an expert at matching blacks, she thought with pride.
