by Elia Winters
Heat rose up in Scarlett’s face. “It’s fine. I’m having a good time.”
“No, you’re not. You think all this is dumb.”
“A little, maybe.” Self-conscious, Scarlett scuffed her toe on the step. “But it’s still fun.”
“I agree. You don’t have to believe in it for it to be fun.”
“Do you believe in it?”
“What, witchcraft? Wicca? All of that?”
Hearing her say the word like that made Scarlett feel silly for asking. “Sure.”
Megan shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. I know people practice it as a religion. I know there are things in the world I don’t understand. This might be just one of those things. And the possibility is interesting.” She tucked her hands into her pockets. “I like possibilities.”
This whole trip was nothing but possibilities. It was appealing to be optimistic rather than cynical for once. “I like possibilities, too.”
The next shop was different than the rest: smaller, less decorated, situated on a less-populated side street rather than one of the main streets. In the window was a hand-lettered sign that read “Custom Spellwork done here.” Scarlett had been expecting something dark and eerie from the look of it outside, but the shop itself was bright and cheerful. It was just small. The young woman behind the counter looked up from her book when they walked in. Scarlett tried to see what the book was, but it was leather-bound with no clear visible title. The clerk herself looked a few years older than them, maybe, with a streak of bright blue in her short black hair. She smiled warmly and adjusted the glasses on her nose. “Hi! You folks looking for anything special?”
Megan walked over to the desk. “Could you tell me what custom spellwork is?”
The woman leaned forward and rested her forearms on the counter. “Well, it depends on what you want it for. It could be some incense to burn, or a candle that’s been engraved, or something to put under your pillow, all kinds of things. What are you interested in?”
Megan hesitated. She glanced toward Scarlett, who immediately knew she wasn’t wanted in this conversation. A little stab of disappointed pressed inside her stomach, but she ignored it. “Why don’t you talk it over, and I’ll just go down the block?” Scarlett offered. “I’ll go to a coffee shop or something. You can text me when you’re done.”
Megan’s smile was filled with gratitude and relief. “Thanks.”
“Give us a half hour,” the clerk chirped, and Scarlett walked out despite the nagging temptation to eavesdrop.
The cold February air hit her as she walked out onto the street. She definitely didn’t want to stay outside long. She could find a coffee shop, but Megan’s words about possibilities made her want to try something else. A little door a half block down was advertising Tarot readings. That could be interesting. She opened the door and went in.
The shop was small, smaller than the others, with only room for a counter and a few displays of books for sale and some Tarot decks. The guy behind the counter was startlingly handsome, with a few strands of silver mixed in with his black hair, but a face that couldn’t have been more than thirty or so. “Hi,” he greeted. “Are you looking for a Tarot reading?”
“Maybe?” Scarlett wasn’t about to say what she was thinking, which was that she’d been expecting an old woman with a lot of scarves. “Are you the one who does the readings?”
He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the edges, and maybe he was a little older than she’d thought. “You were probably expecting someone else, right?”
“Well, no, I mean... I just...” Scarlett floundered for words, but he just laughed and waved a hand.
“It’s okay. I get that a lot. But it’s really me. My name’s Gaelen.” His grin was infectious, knocking down all her defenses and concerns. “I promise, I’m an actual Tarot card reader.”
“Is that a profession? Did you go to school for that?” She was flirting a little, maybe, but that was her default in new situations.
He folded his hands together. “Actually, I learned Tarot from my grandmother. My degree is in archaeology, but it turns out that it’s really hard to get a job as an archaeologist these days. So, now I read Tarot in Salem. And word on the street is that I’m pretty good at it.” He pulled a deck of cards out from below the counter, one that was worn around the edges, and held it up. “My rates are reasonable.”
Scarlett wasn’t going to be called back to meet with Megan for a while, so what did she have to lose, right? “What’s the dollar amount on ‘reasonable’?”
A few minutes later, she was sitting at a small table behind a curtain in the back of the shop, with Gaelen shuffling cards across from her. This was ridiculous, and she knew it, but she hadn’t expected the way her cynicism and amusement melted away as he set the cards down in front of her and instructed her to cut the deck. She did, and Gaelen finished the cut and began to flip cards out in a spread like the ones she’d seen on the internet and movies. He studied the whole layout, and then smiled at her.
“Good news. You’re not going to die tragically today.”
He startled a laugh out of her. “Was that something I should have been worried about?”
“Nah, but I like to break the ice.” He swept his hand across the cards, gesturing to the whole spread. “Some people use Tarot to tell the future, or at least anticipate future events, but I find it helpful to give people a reading of where they are now, and what is standing in their way of the dreams they want to achieve.”
“Okay.” The cards laid out before her were colorful, with striking images, but they didn’t make any sense on their own. “You’re going to explain that to me, then?”
“I am.” Gaelen folded his hands, and his attention was on the cards as he spoke, tapping certain ones to indicate where he was getting his information. “This part here, it’s the current situation: where you’ve come from, where you are, what you’re facing. These cards indicate you’ve got a lot of missed opportunities in your past. You have run away from things instead of confronting them. And you’re at a crossroads right now.”
Scarlett wanted to jump in with a rude comment about everyone being at a crossroads of some kind, but she quelled her own inner defensiveness and let Gaelen speak. It was easier to look at the cards than at him, so she focused on those bright pictures. Maybe she could see her story in them.
“It’s all starting here in the center. The card that represents you, is a card of someone fleeing or escaping. And the one on top of it, that’s what you’re up against right now. For you, it’s this one.” Gaelen held up a card with a tall stone tower being struck by lightning, people leaping from its windows.
“Great. I’m facing plummeting to my death?”
Gaelen smiled. “Not necessarily. The Tower is one of the Major Arcana cards. Those are the most significant in the whole deck. The Tower is change and upheaval. The lightning is the force of change, which isn’t always pleasant or fun. What’s on the other side is going to be different from what came before.”
Discomfort settled on her skin like a prickly blanket. Sure, maybe everyone was at a crossroads in their lives at every point, but the giant burning tower was a hard sign to ignore. Was this about her career, or something else? “Okay. So what does that mean for me?”
Gaelen steepled his fingers. “Well, from what I can see on the table, you’ve spent your life avoiding and running from periods of major change like this. And now, you have to decide if you’re going to run away from this one, or confront it.”
Scarlett leaned back in her chair and folded her arms, needing the way it seemed to bar her from what lay on the table before her. “What does it mean to confront change? Change happens.”
“I don’t know what your situation is, specifically. I’m not a mind reader. I read the cards. This part of the spread here, this is the staff.” He tapped the vertical column of four cards alo
ngside the cross. “The staff is the context for your current situation: your hopes and dreams, your suggested actions, the possible outcomes, depending on how you confront these challenges.”
“What do those say?” Scarlett leaned in, drawn in despite her attempts to pull away.
“Right now, in your spread, these four cards are all about relationships.” Gaelen passed his hand across the whole staff. “Some of them are subjective, but it implies that your actions and outcomes are intertwined with the people in your life. That might also be your challenge. I don’t know.”
Scarlett focused on the card at the top of the staff, one of two people drinking together from matching goblets. “Is this about romance?”
“Usually, yes, but it can also be a deep intimate friendship.” Gaelen looked up from the spread, hesitancy in his expression. “Does one of those explanations make more sense than another?”
Scarlett laughed. “If I knew that, lots of other things would be clear.”
“Well, whichever it is, your outcome and path are not solitary.” Gaelen shook his head slowly, scanning the cards. “You need people.”
“Everybody needs people, Gaelen.”
“And yet you run from them.” He met her eyes, and the hesitancy was gone. “You can’t run forever.”
Scarlett tried to smile, but it felt twisted on her face. This wasn’t fun anymore. With her heartbeat ratcheting up in her chest, she felt that familiar drive to escape, to flee. The irony of feeling it right now wasn’t lost on her. “Gotta tell you, Gaelen, this is way less enjoyable than I was expecting.”
“You shouldn’t have expected it to be enjoyable.” He smiled, though, softening his words. “But is it helpful?”
Scarlett stared at the cards. She could fill in the gaps. “I guess.” Hearing her failings reflected so accurately by this stranger was unnerving, but also oddly liberating. Regardless of how much she might want to complicate her own dilemmas, they boiled down to this particular challenge: confront her feelings, and be vulnerable, or avoid and run away? “I don’t like it, though.”
“Lots of people don’t.” Gaelen smiled apologetically. “I think maybe I’d be more popular if I lied to people.”
Scarlett laughed. “Turns out, that doesn’t work out so well, either.” She rubbed her jaw, staring down at the cards again. Looking at the whole spread made her feel lighter. There it was. All the cards on the table, literally. “Is it weird that I feel better?”
Gaelen began gathering up the cards. “No. That’s normal.”
The cold air stole her breath as she walked out of the shop a few minutes later, a paper shopping bag dangling from her fingertips. The sky seemed grayer. There was no snow on the ground, but a look of snow about the air; she remembered the gray tinge to the sky and the smell of snow from her time living in New York. Come to think of it, she hadn’t checked the weather at all in a few days. Was it supposed to snow?
She was just pulling out her phone to check when Megan’s text came through, saying she was done. Tucking her phone back in her pocket, she headed back to the little witchy shop.
Megan smiled as Scarlett entered, holding her own purchase in a similar paper bag. “What’d you get?” Megan asked, gesturing to Scarlett’s bag.
“Tarot deck.” Scarlett held it up. “You?”
“Hand-carved candle.” Megan looked bright-eyed and happy. She’d been happy like that a lot lately, on this trip. It made Scarlett want to kiss her, and she resisted the desire by stepping back away. She fumbled her phone to check the time.
“We should go if you want to catch the show at the museum.” Scarlett nodded to the door, and then they were on their way, and she could put these feelings aside. There were still many miles to go, and big emotional confessions were not a great idea for long car rides. She could ignore these feelings as long as she needed.
The cards in her bag pulled on her fingertips. Maybe she couldn’t ignore her feelings forever.
* * *
Megan’s candle was on her mind all day. She still wasn’t sure how much of all this she believed. Liz, the woman working at the witchy shop, had been a completely non-judgmental listener as Megan unloaded all her complicated feelings. It had started with a few questions, and then Megan was pouring out all her history as Liz listened. Liz had suggested an engraved candle for direction and clarity, and Megan had agreed. For the next half hour, Liz had carved a tall orange candle while Megan had continued to brain dump about her dilemmas, her fears, her uncertainties. Now, sitting in a small restaurant in Salem, she couldn’t quite remember everything she’d said to Liz, but the candle sat beside her waiting to be burned, a physical manifestation of...something.
“You okay?” Scarlett interrupted her reverie, and Megan came back to herself with a start.
“What? Yeah, I’m fine.” She turned her attention back to the menu spread out in front of her, again looking but not really seeing. The candle weighed on her mind like she hadn’t expected. Liz had told her that once she started burning it, she should burn it every night, keeping it lit each time until the top was entirely melted, and to be open to whatever form direction and clarity might take. She hadn’t expected to feel this connected to a simple hunk of wax, and maybe that was a sign that she wasn’t sleeping enough or something. It took all her focused attention to choose something to eat and then order it when the server came by.
Scarlett started frowning at her phone when the server left. “We’re making the last leg of the trip tomorrow, right?”
“Right.” It was a six-plus-hour drive, first up through the scenic white mountains, then over the border into Canada, and finally the last few hours to Old Quebec.
Scarlett made a face. “How do you feel about moving that up a bit?”
“What?” Megan was looking forward to another good night’s sleep in the hotel. “What do you mean, move it up a bit? We just moved it back a day to get some sleep.”
Scarlett turned her phone around. The image on the screen was an image of mottled blues and purples superimposed on a map of the northeast. “Is that snow?” Megan asked.
“Yeah. That’s for tomorrow.”
“When tomorrow?”
Scarlett looked back at her screen. “Afternoon, it looks like.”
With a six-hour drive, if they left early enough, they should be able to cross the border and be in Quebec before the worst of the snow was falling. And she’d just gotten new tires for her car, so she should be fine, right? The mechanic had told her that with front wheel drive, she shouldn’t have any problems if they ran into snow. “Let’s leave really early, then.”
Scarlett nodded. “I’m really not up for doing that drive tonight.”
“Plus, we’ve already paid for the second night at the hotel here. I don’t want to pay twice.” This was a good decision. They’d get up early, get on the road before the snow, and cross into Canada in the morning. With any luck, they’d be in Quebec by lunchtime.
“I like this plan.” Scarlett put her phone away. “You ready to see your first new country?”
The border crossing felt like the culmination of their trip, even though they were planning to spend some time in Quebec. Once they crossed into Canada, things would change. They’d be heading for the wedding, turning their attention to Juliet, and getting a break from the car. Megan wouldn’t mind getting out of the car, even if it meant the end of her one-on-one time with Scarlett.
“Ready.”
Chapter Thirteen
Scarlett did not like this sky. She couldn’t stop looking up as they loaded the car, at the sunrise turning the horizon bright red despite the gathering clouds. “Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.” She’d known the rhyme since childhood, spoken often by her grandfather, a commercial fisherman off the Florida coast. He swore by those rhymes, and he would have told her that these weren’t skies for easy fishing. But they we
ren’t in Florida, they were driving north out of Salem, Massachusetts, and the snow was already starting to sift lightly out of those gray-washed clouds.
“I thought you said it was supposed to start in the afternoon.” Megan frowned out the window at the skies, eating a muffin from the hotel’s sparse continental breakfast spread that had been even sparser at six in the morning. “It looks like it’s starting now.”
“I see that.” Just what they needed. Megan talked the previous night about how she was pretty sure her car would be all right in the snow, but front wheel drive or not, Scarlett wasn’t excited about driving through a blizzard. At least it wasn’t supposed to be a full blizzard. A squall, probably, maybe a few inches, and they’d probably keep the roads clear. They were on a highway the whole way. The state department had to prioritize clearing the highways, right?
Megan had been pretty quiet since last night overall. Now, with Megan staring out the window, Scarlett had to physically grip the steering wheel with both hands to keep one hand from drifting over to rest on Megan’s thigh. Anything to touch her. Anything to keep this physical contact.
“So we’ll be in Quebec by the end of the day,” Scarlett said, breaking the silence. “It’s the end of the trip.”
“Well, the end of the first half.” Megan laced her fingers together in her lap. “We’ve still got to drive all the way home.”
That was true. “Do you still want to drive straight home directly? Anything we missed on the way up that you want to do on the way back?”
Megan opened her mouth, then paused, a few expressions flickering over her face. “I wouldn’t mind going back to New York. It’s on the way.” She looked down at her hands. “You’re probably going to want to get back to your normal life soon.”