The woman held up her hand, cutting me off. “Always stop with your first instinct, my dear,” she said. “Purple it is.” She pulled three decks in purple boxes from the shelf and returned to the display counter. I hoped she didn’t expect me to buy all three sets—I only needed one. It wasn’t like I was going into tarot reading full time.
She opened the boxes, pulling a thick stack of cards from each. She turned the cards face up on the glass display case, fanning them out a bit. “Which deck do you find most visually appealing?”
I looked down at the three decks. The first had bold, modern graphics in rich colors. It was the sort of art I’d pick out in a gallery. The second deck had digital art puppies dressed in a variety of medieval costumes. Definitely not that one. The third deck had intricate Victorian-looking drawings on pastel backgrounds. It was beautiful and feminine, but somehow sad. The woman on the top card of that deck was wearing a dress with full skirt. I looked closely at the skirt and saw it was covered with designs: apples, pentacles, cherubs and more.
“I like this one best,” I said, gesturing at the third deck. “I’ll take it.”
“Let’s just make sure,” said the woman. “Close your eyes and I’ll hand you one card at a time. Tell me which one of the three gives the most positive vibration.”
I closed my eyes, feeling ridiculous. This seemed like a lot of effort to buy something. Paper felt like paper—it didn’t give me “vibes.” Nonetheless, I held out my hand for the first card. I held it for a moment and then she took the card away. She placed the second card in my hand, and as I was waiting patiently for her to remove it, I felt a warmth creep up my arm, a feeling of familiarity. I felt slightly reluctant to let go. She placed the third card in my hand, and the warm feeling receded. I handed the card back to her.
“So which one?” She was still smiling very wide; I was beginning to wonder if she was totally sane.
“The second one, I guess.”
“I knew it!” She practically sang. “I could see the contentment in your aura. This was the second card,” she said, holding up the Victorian-looking picture of the woman in the dress again. I saw that the card was titled “The Empress.”
“Both tests pointed you to this deck. It will always work well for you,” the woman said, re-packing the cards and tapping a price into her register. “So tell me, what made you interested in the tarot.”
“I think that my grandma was into the cards, and she…well, passed away recently, so I thought that by learning the tarot it would help me know more about her.” Saying this aloud sounded ridiculous, but the woman was nodding as if I’d said something very wise.
“You will learn a lot about her, about her mindset, how she might have viewed the world. But mostly you’ll learn about yourself.” She handed me a small bag and my receipt. “My name is Aurora. If you have questions, stop back by anytime.”
I thanked her and headed for the door. As I pushed the door open, I turned suddenly to face her. “Have you ever heard of a tarot guild?”
She fixed her eyes on me. “A tarot guild? I don’t think I’ve heard of any tarot group but maybe you could start one. I think it could give great insight and—“
“Well, goodnight,” I interrupted her before she could talk much more about insight or auras. I wanted to get home and learn my cards.
Chapter 8. Seventy-Eight Mysteries.
I cranked up my iPod and sat cross-legged on my bed with my new cards spread in front of me. The cards had come with a brief instruction pamplet, and I also had my laptop with me for a reference.
The best way to learn to mysteries of the Tarot, the instruction book stated, is to choose a card each morning and reflect upon its meaning throughout the day. You should then record your reflections in a journal, providing you with a rich and multi-layered understanding of each of the cards.
Hmm. Well, that might be the best way, but I really didn’t want to take seventy-eight days just to finish the first run-through. I’d always considered myself to be pretty sharp, so there had to be a way to learn sooner. I flipped ahead a few pages in the instruction book.
You can receive the answers to many questions by choosing an appropriate spread for your questions. A spread is an arrangement of cards, wherein each position addresses a certain aspect of the question. The beginner would do well to start with the single spread; that is, pulling a single card in response to a querent’s question. From there, one can easily progress to two-card spreads and popular three-cards spreads such as the Past, Present, Future spread.
Wow. This sounded really dumb. I couldn’t believe my grandmother would have been wrapped up in something so superstitious and flaky. Still, though, I had to admit I was intrigued. I shuffled the deck, thinking of a question for a single card spread.
“What is coming up for me in the near future?” I asked as I shuffled, feeling glad that no one could hear me talking to myself. I set the deck down a turned over the top card.
I’d drawn a card labeled “The Hierophant.” Accordingly the instruction pamphlet, the Hierophant represented tradition or religion. Hmm. I didn’t really picture any upcoming problems with either. Maybe I’d shuffled wrong or something. I held the card closer, inspecting its picture. I wanted some sort of meaning to jump out at me, and suddenly, it did. As I looked at the figure on the card, I first noticed his gown and that he was wearing some sort of unusual hat, almost like a Pope’s hat, but not quite. A cap and a gown. Graduation, tradition, ceremony. And graduation was indeed coming up for me in the near future. It clicked completely. Ha! This was kind of cool.
I immediately tried to think of another question. I didn’t have a crush on anyone to ask about. I had plenty of money now, almost a scary amount. I knew who my friends were and---ah, I’d call Angie. She could bombard anyone with questions.
I fished my cell phone out of my messy bag and dialed Angie’s cell. She answered with her standard greeting. “Hello! Tell me something exciting.”
“You want exciting? What if I told you I could read the future?”
“I’d say that it was awesome that you already knew I was going to hang up ‘cuz I’m out on a date,” Angie said.
“No seriously,” I said. “I need you to come over so I can test out tarot card questions on you.”
“What? Tarot reading? Are you going mystic-y on me? Are you wearing black lipstick and feeling emo right now? Don’t cut yourself—eat a hamburger, feel joy, you have soo much to live for.” She laughed again. Sometimes the rambling free-association of her chatter was tiring.
“Just come over, ok? I need your help,” I said. “You can bring Blake with you and it’ll probably be more fun than whatever you’re planning.”
“Ooh, did you see that in the cards?” She giggled again. “Just kidding Lucy-puff, I’ll be there in a few.”
Fifteen minutes later, I heard a loud cantankerous-sounding engine and looked out my window to see Angie hopping out of Blake’s ancient jeep, then pulling his hand as she skipped across the walk to my front door. She was wearing a poofy faux-fur yellow vest that made her look like a sexy yeti, and a very short black shirt with gladiator sandals. Blake looked like he always did: hot, muscular and dumb.
I opened the door and both Angie and Blake made a beeline to the fridge.
“I thought you guys just went to dinner,” I said.
“We did but we didn’t get dessert so it didn’t really count,” said Blake, opening both the fridge and freezer. “But dude you have nothing good. Like no ice cream or anything.”
“Well I just moved in last week and I haven’t really had time to shop. I think there are some cookies in that jar, though,” I said, pointing at the ceramic jar where my grandma had always kept a stash of Oreos.
“Sweet,” said Blake, grabbing the entire jar and taking it to the kitchen table to sit by Angie, who had taken my last six-pack of Diet Coke from the fridge. I was going to have to go grocery shopping more often, I realized. Food didn’t just materialize in there the
way it had when I’d lived at home with my mom.
I went to my room and grabbed the tarot cards and the instruction pamphlet, bringing them to the table and placing them in front of Angie.
“So how this works is you have to shuffle the cards and then hand them to me,” I said. “Then you’ll ask me a question and I’ll arrange the cards in a way that answers it.”
“Sounds fun,” said Angie as she began to shuffle the cards. “Hmm. What is a good question? Ok—my question is this: tell me oh wise spirit of the cards, how dost thou think I became so awesome?”
“That’s a dumb question,” said Blake, but Angie and I both chose to ignore him.
Angie handed the deck of cards back to me. “You could try to take it at least a little seriously,” I said. “But I’ll answer the question you gave me. I’m going to try the Past-Present-Future spread.”
“Ah, the amazing Past-Present-Future spread,” Angie teased, but I could tell she was interested. I laid the cards out in three even stacks, like the spread shown in the booklet, and turned over the top card in each stack.
I turned to Angie, “Your question was basically to ask what makes you so cool. Which is really thought-provoking stuff, Angie, I mean you really dug deep on that one, but let’s see what it says.”
I gestured at the first card, “OK, this card represents past influences, so in this case, I guess that would be what in your past led up to you being cool today.” Blake rolled his eyes.
“The card you drew in this position is the Ace of Swords, which means,” I flipped to the chart in the book, “Well, among other things, it means mental fortitude. Well, that does actually make sense—part of what I’ve always liked about you is that you’re no airhead.”
Angie thumped my arm. “Thanks, Lucy-puff, that’s really sweet.”
I pointed at the second card. “This card represents your question in the present. I don’t need to look this one up because I remember it. So, what makes you awesome in the present is this Ace of Wands, which means creativity. And you’re going into a pretty creative field, so that’s good.”
“This stuff is really general,” Blake said through a mouthful of Oreos. “Like you could probably make it apply to anyone.”
“Well, if that’s the way you feel,” I said, “I won’t bother you with a reading. Otherwise, you get to be next.” Blake leaned back and didn’t say anything.
“That’s what I thought,” I told him. “Be a good boy and it’ll be your turn in a sec.”
I pointed to the third card in Angie’s reading, after peeking at the pamphlet again. “This card,” I said, “Is called the Eight of Cups. It represents sacrifice in your future. So sacrificing for someone else’s sake will be what makes you awesome in the future.”
“Which means I’ll be wildly rich,” Angie said.
“Um, the booklet doesn’t really say that…” I replied.
“It’s a no-brainer. If I am wowing people with my sacrificing nature, it must be because I’m loaded. Which in turn means I’m a wildly successful designer. So yay me.”
I grinned and turned to Blake, handing him the cards to shuffle. He now had black Oreo crumbs at the corners of his mouth. He asked a question about himself and I followed with an extremely boring reading in which we all discovered he really liked dirt bikes and didn’t like to travel. Riveting. Blake was definitely one of those guys who had nothing to offer but good looks. Brains weren’t his strong suit. One time Angie’s dad was telling us about studying pharmacology and he’d replied that he wouldn’t like that major because he hated the smell of farms.
“Are you guys going to do this the rest of the night?” he asked.
“You bet your cute butt,” Angie replied. “Lucy here is a natural. She’s going to figure out all sorts of stuff, you know, mysteries of the universe and so forth.” Blake’s face took on an expression of deep agony.
“If you want to leave, I can take Angie home later,” I said. Blake looked relieved and said his goodbyes as he headed for the door.
“Sorry I ruined your date,” I told Angie.
“Not to worry,” she replied. “This will probably be more fun than spending the night telling Blake to stop reaching up my shirt. Speaking of which, have you and Matt”
“No, not yet,” I said. “Matt’s great, but. . .I don’t know.”
“I was just curious, is all. Don’t stress it.” Angie drummed her nails on the table, “What should I ask next?”
“I don’t know. Relationships, money, career, family, enemies…it says you can ask about any of that stuff.”
“Ok, who hates me?” she asked.
“Angie, you already know who hates you. You don’t need a reading for that.”
“Well let’s just see if it matches up then,” she said.
We finished the reading and confirmed that Angie was disliked by a fair-haired gossipy girl, whom we both already knew was Michelle Adkins. Michelle and Angie had disliked one another since grade school for reasons we’d all long since forgotten.
We spent the rest of the evening and late into the night asking and answering dozens of questions, some ridiculous and some serious. By the time we went to bed, I felt as though I knew each of the cards pretty well. Tarot reading was more fun than I’d expected, though it was a little scary how accurate the readings seemed to be. I crawled into bed, and as I sleepily pulled the duvet around me, I wondered why I’d never seen my grandma with a deck. It was only as I was slipping into the warmth of sleep that my mind again prompted, the comet, remember about the comet.
Chapter 9. Fired Up.
THE FOLLOWING MONDAY I’D JUST ARRIVED at school and was headed toward my locker when I was accosted by a skinny dark-haired junior girl whom I barely knew.
“Lucy!” she squealed. “I so need to talk to you.”
I couldn’t understand why she’d want to talk to me. I didn’t actually like her very much—she was a girl who created drama in every situation, whereas I felt drama was more trouble than it was worth.
“I heard from Cassidy that you can do fortune telling and I really need help for Saturday. I bought two different dresses but I don’t know which one Kade will like better so I need you to tell me.”
I sighed. “I’m not really that good at the, uh, fortune telling, but I’m off tonight so if you want to come by my house I can try to help. But I’m not guaranteeing anything,” I added as she smiled a large fake smile. “My house is on—“
“Oh I know where you’re at. It’s the house that you inherited from your grandma a few weeks ago, right?”
“Um, yeah, that’s the one…see you later tonight,” I said, feeling disconcerted. I hadn’t realized people would know about me inheriting the house. But then again, this area of Boulder was a fairly small community, and people did talk. Still, it made me uncomfortable, realizing that I was being discussed without my knowledge.
I pulled my books from my locker and headed to English and Calculus. I was halfway through math when my phone began vibrating in my pocket. Trying to avoid my teacher’s notice, I surreptitiously pulled it out and saw that I had a new text message. I pushed the button to view it and saw can u do cards 4 me about my competition? The message was from Kevin, who was sitting across the room from me. I slid my phone back into my pocket and looked over at him. He was looking at me eagerly. I nodded a “yes” to him and he smiled, returning to his book. I had no idea what kind of competition he was talking about.
At lunch, Angie and I met up as we usually did. We grabbed some snacks and headed to outside to sit on the lawn and eat. I sat on the grass, stretching my legs in front of me, relishing the feel of the sunlight. “Angie,” I asked, “How many people did you tell about my tarot stuff?”
“I don’t know, just a few people in first period and a few that I ran into yesterday. Was I supposed to keep it a secret?”
“No,” I said. “It seems to have gotten around, though. Kade Walters’ girlfriend, what’s her name—“
“McKe
nzie?” Angie supplied.
“Yeah her.” I said. “She asked me this morning if I would use the cards to help her choose between two prom dresses. I mean, not that I mind assisting in such a noble humanitarian cause, but you know.”
“Oh brother,” Angie said. “If she knows about your cards, you can guarantee she’ll have told everyone, whether they wanted to listen to her or not.”
“Probably so. But I guess if I do get bombarded for requests, the upside will be that it’ll help me learn the cards faster.”
Angie pulled two sticks of gum from her purse, handing one to me. “Lucy, you never did tell me what made you interested in tarot cards all of a sudden.”
“I didn’t? Well, in a nutshell, I’m trying to figure something out about my grandma. You know that letter we found in the quilt?”
“Yeah yeah yeah. The magical mystery quilt, how could I forget?”
“I ended up taking the whole quilt apart and there were three other letters inside. I’m guessing that all four letters are from my grandpa to my grandma.”
“Were the letters about tarot cards?” Angie asked.
“No, but I noticed that they were written on letterhead for some group. I can’t really find anything about the group, but their logo seems to be tied to the tarot.”
“So you think your grandparents were in that group?”
“I think so. And I’ve realized lately how much I don’t know about my grandma, so I thought learning the cards would be a good start. It seems like a kind of weak link, I know, but it’s a starting place.”
Angie nodded. “Just don’t get too caught up in the whole thing, Lucy, or you’ll end up being one of those weird old ladies with twenty-two cats and a bad-smelling house. Don’t let it swallow you.”
“It’s not swallowing me. It’s just cards.”
We picked up our bags to head inside the school. We were just past the set of double doors when we were approached by a girl from my Chemistry class, asking if she could come to my house with McKenzie that night, since she wanted a reading, too. Oh, boy.
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