Somehow, she convinced me to take her to a local botanica yesterday to get some spiritual cleansing supplies. Or more like she demanded it, claiming there was a demonic presence in the house. To be honest, I’ve been feeling the same thing.
“For bitches who test my peace. Be gone, uninvited, unseen.” Alma sprays the Florida water spray in front of her. “My aura is sealed, my spirit clean.”
Squinting, she reads the instruction card that came with the spray.
“Bye, bye, bitch, blessed be,” she finishes.
She repeats it several more times as she goes by every room in the house, stopping at Esteban’s closed door.
“You want me to do it?” I offer.
“Could you?” She looks up at me, her eyes pleading with mine.
She walks back down the hallway, and I open the door. The last time I’d come here, I was hiding evidence because I knew it would break her. The night she came into my room, I could tell her memory was vague, but I didn’t think it would stay that way. Spraying theFlorida, I repeat the ridiculous chant then move to the closet and spray more.
“Rot in hell, Esteban,” I murmur.
When I get back to the kitchen, Alma’s sitting at the table with her legs crossed, shuffling a deck of tarot cards. I made the mistake of telling Alma that while I was in prison, I taught myself to read tarot cards. She laughed and called me Bruno, but I saw the way her eyes lit up. Witchcraft is Alma’s love language.
“Okay, pick a card,” Alma says.
“You pick for me,” I reply.
“Ahhh the lover boy.” Alma shows me the Knight of Cups card she pulled.
I raise a brow. “You already knew I was a lover boy. We didn’t need a card to tell us that.”
“Well let’s ask the cards to tell me something you don’t want me to know.” She smiles wickedly and pulls another card. This time it’s The Lovers card, and her eyes flick to mine, amused. “Typical,” she murmurs. “This means you crave connection, but only when it doesn’t threaten your need for control.”
“I’m pretty sure that card means we’re soulmates, Kitten.”
“Soulmate? Right ” she rolls her eyes.
My eyes catch on the Knight of Cups in front of the Lovers card. Tarot is a form of divination, and the message varies from reader to reader. I interpret the cards telling me what Alma is unwilling to accept.That we are soulmates.
These cards aren’t rooted in some faraway future but in the present. This is the story of my life. A romantic tragedy in which I play the fool for her.
“Your turn,” I tell her. “Pull for yourself.”
She exhales, nervous now. Her hand hovers over the cards laid out between us before she picks one and flips it over. The Ten of Swords. Neither of us speaks. Her lips purse to the side as she looks over the card and the image of a man lying face down with ten blades in his back.
“Well that sucks,” she finally says.
“What do you mean it sucks?” I laugh.
“Seriously, isn’t this like the death card?” She frowns, looking down at the card.
“Not always. Sometimes it’s deeper than that.”
“What do you think it means?” she challenges me.
“I think it’s your spirit guides encouraging you to release what’s been hurting you.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
A selfish part of me doesn’t want her in his bedroom. The thought of her lying in his bed has always enraged me andbrings up memories of having to accept that they were together. But it’s the only way she’ll be able to face the truth.
“You stay in that room.” The words taste like bile leaving my mouth.
