She lays the first card down. The Three of Swords, the same as last time. A death in the past. Chloe. But also maybe Lissa herself – her previous deaths.
She points at the second card. ‘The Ace of Swords,’ she says. ‘I’d say this means you are on the verge of a breakthrough. That you’re close to freeing yourself from whatever is trapping you.’
Something in Lissa’s gut rolls. ‘Does that mean I haven’t yet?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Saskia says. ‘But it could mean you’re on the right track.’
Right track? Does that mean that walking away from Ash is the right thing to do? Or that it’s the right thing to see him again at the funeral?
Saskia lays out the third card, a figure with angelic wings, the sun as its backdrop. ‘Temperance,’ she says. ‘This card can often mean that things are out of balance, reversed as it is like this. But I’d say this is also about timing.’
Lissa frowns at the three cards, not sure how they help her all that much. ‘So,’ she says slowly, ‘does this mean the timing is right for me to be with him?’ She can’t help it – her heart leaps a little. Because maybe she’s wrong. Maybe this life will be different.
‘Maybe not right now,’ Saskia says. ‘You need to have patience. Some day soon, things will get back into balance, and then maybe the time will be right.’ She bites her lip as she looks at the cards. ‘I think there’s something you need to do first.’
Lissa makes an impatient noise. ‘Butwhat?’ Honestly, what’s the use of being a bloody fortune teller if you don’t have all the answers?
Saskia taps at the past card, the Three of Swords. ‘I still feel this is something to do with your sister.’
Lissa frowns. ‘You mean I need to learn to stop her dying?’ That was one of her earlier theories, after all – that there is something she needs to learn in this life so that she can stop her sister dying in the next.
‘No,’ Saskia says gently. ‘I don’t think you’re supposed to stop that, Lissa.’
‘Why not?’ It’s hard to keep the accusation out of her voice.
‘Because it’s in the past, and we can’t change the past. We can accept it, learn from it and grow, but we can never go back in time. And from the sounds of things, in each of your lives it was an accident. You’ll never be able to stop accidents from happening – and you’ll never be able to change what was.’
‘Then I don’t know what it has to do with Chloe.’ She used to think it was all about her sister, but she knows it’s about Ash now. And more importantly, Ash is still alive. She might not be able to change what happened to Chloe, but shecanchange what happens to him.
‘I don’t think it’s only about her. I think it’s about you. Often we need to come to terms with what’s in our past,’ Saskia taps the card again for emphasis, ‘in order to make the timing right in our future.’ She taps the future card.
Lissa stares at the three cards again, then shakes her head. ‘SodoI need to stay away from him?’ That’s all she needs to know right now. The why of it all she might be able to figure out in the future – she just needs to stay alive in order to get there.
Saskia smiles that gentle smile of hers. ‘I can’t answer that for you. You’re the one who has to make the choice, Lissa.’
Lissa swallows. ‘But what if I make the wrong one?’
‘Then that too becomes the past – and at some point, there will be another choice to make.’
Lissa stands next to Mark at the funeral, surrounded by twenty or so people, all dressed in black. They are in a woodland, sunlight filtering through the gaps in the trees. A cool breeze rustles the leaves, and in the distance she can hear birdsong, a musical backdrop to the celebrant’s words.
When it’s Ash’s turn to speak, he talks about how he chose this place so his dad could be at peace somewhere outdoors, without too many people nearby. That because he spent so long trapped within four walls, he doesn’t want him trapped inside a coffin. He talks about his dad’s life. How he joined the army because he wanted to do something for his country but never fully recovered from what he’d experienced there. He talks a little of his mum, and the fact that his parents always said how lucky they were to find someone they loved so completely. He tells a joke about his father bashing a screw right into the neighbour’s house on a botched DIY job. He somehow keeps it together the whole time.
Lissa tries not to cry. She doesn’t think she has earned the right to cry, having only met Jack once. But it’s Ash she wants to cry for. Ash who has lost the last of his family. Another reminder of how fleeting life is.
It is only at the end that he breaks, just a little. A crack in his voice, the shimmer of a tear as he says the final words. ‘Goodbye, Dad.’
Lissa’s vision briefly blurs as a tear breaks through. She has a fleeting image then of another funeral, in a churchyard, with a man who looks different to Ash, but is still the same person, speaking in front of a small crowd. Is Ash’s dad’s death another of those things they can’t change – something else that is destined to keep happening? She supposes death comes for them all in the end.
After his speech, Lissa goes to Ash without thinking, without wondering if it’s her place. She takes his hand in hers, standing next to him. She doesn’t speak. She’s just there.
At the end of the ceremony, she goes to the wake, in a café at the edge of the woods. She makes small talk with a few friends of Ash’s from school. She watches as Ash smiles at everyone who comes up to him offering condolences. About forty minutes in, she sees him heading back outside. She tells Mark she’ll see him later, gets a vague nod in reply.
Ash is out the front of the café, bracing his hands on the wooden gate and staring out at the woodland.
She comes up behind him, pulling her jacket on as she does. It’s early August, but it’s getting later in the day now, and a slight chill coats the air.
‘Are you okay?’ she murmurs. Then she shakes her head. ‘Sorry. Stupid question.’
