What the Cards Said

by Isobel Bird

  “Your mother did amazing work,” Cooper said. “These are just beautiful.”

  They were walking around and looking at the different paintings. Annie remembered some of them from when she was little. Some had even been in her bedroom in her aunt’s house, at least until that morning when the movers had come to pick them up. Now, hanging on the walls, they looked a little out of place, at least to Annie, because she was used to seeing them in a different way. But they were beautiful, and she was enjoying hearing all of the nice things that people were saying about them.

  “The way she uses color is just astonishing,” a woman said to the man standing beside her.

  “Some of them are almost like photographs,” said another man, pointing to the portrait of Annie with the flowers, which made Annie and her friends laugh so hard he looked at them disapprovingly.

  “Hey, guys.”

  Annie turned and saw several familiar faces. Tyler was there with his mother, and Sasha and Thea were with them.

  “Your aunt invited us,” Tyler said when he noticed Annie’s look of surprise. “Archer and Sophia are here, too. They headed right for the cheese table, but they’ll be in in a minute.”

  Annie couldn’t believe how things had turned around. One moment she had been terrified that her whole life was being torn apart, and now all the people she liked best in the world were there looking at her mother’s paintings.

  It’s like that old woman said, Annie thought. I just had to be willing to look at things differently. As soon as she’d accepted her fears and been willing to face them, she’d discovered the truth. It was like seeing a light in the darkness and making her way toward it.

  A light in the darkness. Hadn’t Hecate said something about that in the woods? Yes, she’d told Annie that there was always light within the darkness. The old woman had been that light for her. She’d helped Annie see what she needed to do.

  Just like Hecate shows travelers which road to take, Annie thought, an idea forming in her mind. No, she told herself as the realization dawned on her. That old woman couldn’t have been Hecate. Or could she? Annie pictured her face, round like the full moon and covered in snow-white hair. Yet her eyes had been black and sharp. Was it really the goddess coming to her again, offering her a final clue to solving the puzzle? Her rational mind told her that it was just coincidence. And maybe it was. But another part of her pictured the old woman’s face and saw there the reflection of the moon as it ended one cycle and began another. Besides, the woman had known her name. Had Annie introduced herself? She didn’t think she had. The more she thought about it, the more she wondered who she had really been sitting beside on the bus.

  Her friends were scattered around the room, looking at the paintings. Annie took the opportunity to pull Kate aside and whisper, “So what’s up with Tyler?”

  “I haven’t told him anything,” Kate said. “Do you think I should?”

  Annie thought once more about the old woman’s advice. “That depends on what you want,” she said.

  Kate frowned. “I think I liked it better when you just asked the cards,” she said. “Then I could have something to blame.”

  “No more cards for me,” Annie said. “At least, not for foolish reasons. I’ve learned my lesson about that.”

  She’d been thinking a lot about the Tarot cards since her conversation with Archer. She really did find them fascinating, and she knew that she had a talent for reading them. But she’d also learned the hard way that there was a time and a place for them, and that she needed a lot more practice before she could start giving people advice based on what she saw in a reading.

  Tara was a living reminder of that. Like the old woman on the bus had told her, there were some problems that took a long time to solve. Sherrie was definitely one of those problems. Annie still didn’t know how that situation was going to turn out. But at least Tara was starting to become a friend, and that was a good start. Besides, Annie had the whole summer to come up with a plan for dealing with Sherrie. Right now she just wanted to enjoy the evening.

  For the next couple of hours she was busy showing different people the paintings. She never got tired of telling stories about her mother. It seemed that each time she did, her memories became clearer. She started to remember bits and pieces of things her mother had done or said, things that she had kept hidden away for many years. It was as if by showing the paintings to people Annie herself was learning to see her mother all over again.

  Finally people started to leave and the gallery emptied out. Annie said good-bye to her friends and waited for her aunt and Marcia to finish talking to the last guests. When those guests were gone, Marcia shut the door and locked it.

  “That was one of the best shows we’ve ever done,” she said. “Everyone just adored Chloe’s work.”

  “It’s too bad she’s not around to see this,” Sarah said. “She would have been thrilled.”

  “I’m glad you did it anyway,” Annie told her. “At least Meg and I got to see it.”

  “That reminds me,” her aunt said. “Meg is asleep in the back office. She passed out about an hour ago.”

  “I’ll go get her,” Annie offered.

  “Just a second,” her aunt said. “I want to show you something.”

  She walked away, and Annie followed her, confused. What could her aunt possibly have to show her?

  Sarah walked to the far end of the gallery and turned the corner into an area Annie had somehow missed.

  “I thought you might like to see this,” she said, pointing to the wall.

  Annie gasped when she saw the painting. It was beautiful. It was much larger than most of her mother’s canvases, and it was unlike any of the others.

  “I found this in the storage space,” her aunt told her as they looked at the painting together. “Somehow I think Chloe meant for you to have it when you were ready.”

  The painting depicted a little girl who was clearly Annie. She was standing at a window looking out at a full moon. The moon had the face of a woman, but the way her mother had painted it, Annie couldn’t tell if it was a young woman or an old woman. It seemed to be both at once, and it changed depending upon how she looked at it. But whether it was young or old, the face was beautiful, and Annie knew exactly who it was supposed to be—Hecate.

  Then she noticed that someone was standing behind the little girl in the picture. There was a hand resting on the girl’s shoulder. The rest of the body was out of the picture, but Annie knew that the hand belonged to her mother. The ring on one of the fingers was exactly like a ring Annie had in her jewelry box at home. It had been given to her by her aunt after the funeral.

  She and her mother stood looking out at Hecate’s face. But why would her mother have painted such a picture? Was it something they had actually done, or had she just made it up? Annie couldn’t ever remember standing by a window looking out at the moon with her mother. But perhaps it had happened.

  Still, it didn’t explain how her mother would have known about Hecate. The face seemed too much like the one Annie had seen in her dreams and in her journey through the woods to be an accident. But if it was supposed to be the goddess, that would mean her mother had to have known something about witchcraft. Was that possible?

  “Several people tried to buy this one tonight,” Aunt Sarah told Annie.

  Annie’s heart froze as she imagined the picture hanging in a stranger’s home. She could let go of some of the others, but she knew that this painting had been done especially for her. It was like her own personal version of the Moon card from the Tarot, and it had been painted by the most important person in her life. She didn’t know how her mother knew—ten years before it happened—that Hecate would play such an important part in her daughter’s life. But she had.

  “I’m going to go get Meg,” Sarah said. “I’ll meet you in front in a minute.”

  She left Annie alone with the painting. All Annie could do was stare at it. Her eyes moved from her own face to that of the
moon and back again. Hecate’s eyes looked into hers, and she saw in them mystery and magic and darkness. For a moment she could feel the touch of a hand on her shoulder and the comforting feeling of someone she loved standing close behind her. Then she heard, like the whisper of the night air through her bedroom window, a voice.

  “Good luck to you, Annie.”

  The Tarot Diary

  Tarot cards are a wonderful tool for helping you see what influences are acting on a situation. As Annie discovers in What the Cards Said, however, the cards don't really tell you the future; they tell you what might happen if the different things affecting the situation continue unchanged. For example, if you draw a card that seems to suggest that a situation is being strongly influenced by a particular person, it may be possible to change the outcome of the situation by dealing with that person in a different way than you're currently doing. Or if a card indicates that a difficult challenge is coming, you can change your attitude about that challenge in order to meet it head-on instead of being overwhelmed by it.

  In other words, don't assume that what you see in the Tarot cards is set in stone. Think of the cards as a script for a play that hasn't been finished yet. They show you what the various characters are thinking of doing, and they indicate the setting and the action involved, but it's up to you to bring the play to life, to act it out.

  It's important, when reading Tarot cards, to know what they mean to you. The cards do have basic meanings, but their true power is really unlocked when you learn to relate to them as symbols that you connect to on a personal level. The Moon card, for example, generally indicates that strong magical forces are at work in a situation and that hidden things may soon be revealed. But that is just a surface meaning. One person reading the cards may also see the Moon as suggesting that the person for whom the reading is being done is afraid of something having to do with the situation being addressed, while another may see the Moon and think of change, or growth. What the Moon card means to me is different than what it might mean for you, and our different relationships with the card affect how we interpret a reading in which it appears. So it's important to have a personal connection with the cards if you want to use them effectively.

  If you're interested in learning about Tarot cards, I suggest doing the following exercise. You will need a deck of Tarot cards, a notebook, and something to write with.

  Step 1: Purchase a deck of cards that speaks to you. There are many, many different types of Tarot cards. It's important that you choose one that you're really drawn to. Don't just pick one up at random. Go to a store (most bookstores have them, and you can certainly find them at New Age and Wicca-related stores) and look at the selection. See if any of the decks appeal to you more than others. If one does, buy that one. If you don't have a particularly strong reaction to any one deck, try one whose images strike you as being the most interesting. I also suggest getting a deck in which every card has a picture, and not just the Major Arcana cards. It's important to have images to go with the Minor Arcana (the "number" cards) as well.

  Step 2: Take your deck home. Pick a time when you won't be disturbed for an hour or so and sit quietly with the cards. If you want to, set the mood with candles, incense, and music, although this isn't necessary. It just makes it more fun. Take the cards out and hold them in your hands. Now imagine the energy from your body flowing into the cards as white light, infusing them with your personal essence. This small ritual marks the cards as being yours and no one else's, and psychically it forms a first connection between you and the deck. By the way, it's also a good idea not to let anyone handle your cards but you, as that keeps your personal connection to them stronger.

  Step 3: Go through the deck a card at a time, looking at each one. If the Tarot deck you've purchased comes with an instruction book, DON'T READ IT YET. The point of this exercise is for you to begin forming your own interpretations of the cards. The instruction book contains someone else's interpretations. These will be helpful to you later, but right now you want to see how you react to the different cards. Hold each one and look at the image on it. What does it say to you? Do you like it, or does it make you feel uneasy? Remember, Tarot cards tell a story. What part of the story does each card tell you?

  Step 4: When you've gone through the deck and looked at each card, pick one of them. You can either start with the first card or choose one at random. This is the card you're going to work with first. Put the others aside and concentrate on the one you've chosen. Open your notebook and write the name of the card at the top of the first page. Now write down everything you can think of about the card. Start with the images. What do you think they represent? How do they relate to each other? What kind of story do they tell? Now write down your reactions to the card. Does it make you feel happy? Sad? Afraid? Notice that right now you aren't concerned with what the card "means." You're just writing down your observations about it. When you've written everything you can think of, then look at the card some more and see what images come into your mind. Write those down as well. These are the things that will help you make connections between your subconscious and the card. As you do this exercise, you'll be forming connections between your mind and each card, and these connections will grow stronger every time you study the card. Then, when you begin using the Tarot cards to do readings, you'll find that all of these connections begin to form a larger picture.

  Repeat this exercise for each card in the deck. You might want to work with one card every day, or perhaps with the same card for several days, until you really feel that you've studied it. Again, don't worry about doing this the "right" way. There is no right way. You're just finding out how each card in the deck speaks to you personally.

  When you're finished with a card, then you might want to look at the instruction book that came with the deck, or in another book about Tarot cards. See what they have to say about the card and its meanings. See if your own are similar, and don't worry if what you feel about a card or see in its images doesn't match what you find in a book. If your own reactions to a card are much different from what you find in other books, work with it some more. You might find that your feelings about it change somewhat once you've read more about it. But even if they don't, don't assume that you're doing something wrong. What's important is your reactions to a card and what feelings and related images it brings up when you see it.

  Your Tarot diary is a very important tool. As you learn more about the cards, and as you begin to use them to do readings, keep notes about your readings and your experiences. If particular cards or combinations of cards keep coming up, note that. Also note if your reactions to cards change over time. Having a written record of your relationship to your Tarot deck will be invaluable, and you'll see how your ability to read the cards and interpret their relationships to one another grows stronger and stronger the more you use them.

  — Isobel Bird

  About the Author

  Isobel Bird has been involved in the world of paganism and witchcraft for many years. She lives and dances beneath the moon somewhere in New England.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Credits

  Cover art by Cliff Nielsen

  Cover © 2001 by HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  WHAT THE CARDS SAID. Copyright © 2001 by Isobel Bird. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by
any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Adobe Digital Edition June 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-175651-1

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  About the Publisher

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

  25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)

  Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia

  http://www.harpercollins.com.au

  Canada

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900

  Toronto, ON, M5R, 3L2, Canada

  http://www.harpercanada.com

  New Zealand

  HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited

  P.O. Box 1

  Auckland, New Zealand

  http://www.harpercollins.co.nz

  United Kingdom

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  77-85 Fulham Palace Road

  London, W6 8JB, UK

  http://www.fireandwater.com

  United States

  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  10 East 53rd Street

  New York, NY 10022

  http://www.perfectbound.com