by Vivian Venus
“Palms, cards or crystal?” Heather asked as her friend Rachel pulled out a bottle of wine from a paper grocery bag and set it on the table.
“Mm. Let’s do cards, for old times’ sake.”
Except for her height, Heather had always been a pretty average girl throughout her younger years, never going too far out of her way to learn how to do makeup or dress cute, happy that she was able to at least attract people with some of the things she did. She loved to read, she loved to run, and she loved fortune telling. It was the last one that she had been most proud of during school.
Even though she wasn’t the kind of girl who would ever become popular, Heather found people coming to her to ask her to read their fortunes. She had always been so “freaky accurate”, as her friends used to tell her. Whether it was if they were going to ace a big test, or get with a certain boy, Heather’s fortunes usually told the truth.
She had no idea how she did it. She couldn’t even remember when she first got a deck of tarot cards. But she knew she had always loved it, and she was good at it.
But sometimes things that you enjoy doing the most end up getting the love sucked right out of them. Life just worked that way, at least that’s how she felt.
She never went to college. When her mother and father died in a tragic accident, Heather was forced to work several part time jobs to keep herself afloat. It was at the suggestion of one of her old friends that she decided to open her fortune telling business.
It had been a wonderful idea at first, and Heather found herself feeling positive about things for the first time in a while. But once her expenses started growing, and she started getting older, and all her friends started to get married… Then day after day of answering the same old questions, telling the same fortunes to the same spacy customers started to wear on her. Heather’s life had ground to a halt. She wasn’t going anywhere. The future had nothing in store for her.
“So this is it, huh?” Heather said with a sad smile as she brought out the worn out tarot cards and placed them on the table in the middle of the living room-turned-fortune telling salon. “Turn off the sign please, Rachel?”
“You sure? I don’t want you to lose any business or anything.”
“It’s okay. No one is coming in today anyway. Besides, I want our last little hangout together to go uninterrupted.”
“Aw, Heather! It’s not like I’m leaving the country or something, I’m only getting engaged.” Rachel pulled the string on the glowing ‘OPEN’ sign and clicked it off. “Anyway, I need to run some errands so I can’t stick around too long.”
“Okay, sure. Pour me some wine?”
Rachel grabbed two glasses out from the cabinet and set them on the table, then uncorked the bottle of wine and filled them up, giving Heather a wink. Heather laughed and fanned out the cards, and Rachel sat down across from her and selected three to use in the spread while she sipped from her wine glass. She set them down in front of her, face down.
“So what do you want me to read? And don’t say, ‘the marriage’.”
Rachel gasped with fake offense. “Heather! Don’t tell me that!”
“I already told you, it wouldn’t be a good idea to read your marriage. Nothing good could come out of that.” She touched the ocean blue gemstone of the ring on her right index finger, feeling its smooth, cool surface. A nervous habit of hers, ever since she had inherited the ring from her grandma.
“Okay, fine. Why don’t we do a reading to see if we really are never going to see each other again,” Rachel teased.
“That’s even worse!” Heather laughed. “Okay, okay. You asked for it, I’ll read your marriage.”
Ever since high school Rachel always had Heather do readings about her love life. In fact, she had been the one to help her and her fiancée get together. If only she could help herself get a man…
“Yay,” Rachel said, scooting in her chair.
Heather took a small drink from her glass and let out an exaggerated sigh. “Don’t blame me if the reading is bad, though.”
She flipped over the first card. On it was a print of a robed bearded man sitting in a throne.
During readings, Heather always followed her first intuition, the first notion that popped into her head. Right now she got the feeling of sadness, confusion. “The Emperor. You both have lost something. Something important to you. You’re fighting to understand how it was lost, and you both rely on each other’s strength to get through it.”
“What could that mean?” Rachel pondered.
Heather turned the next card. On it was an angel pouring water from one cup to another.
“Temperance. You both struggle with the loss, but it’s you that will struggle the hardest to come to grips with it. You’ll need to find balance within yourself to understand that it wasn’t your fault.”
“This is kind of freaking me out, Heather,” Rachel laughed nervously.
“Maybe it’s a job loss or something,” Heather suggested. “I mean, it could be anything. You could’ve lost your iPhone. Should I stop?”
“Fuck it.” Rachel gulped down the rest of her wine. “Hit me with it.”
Heather flipped the last card. A child riding a horse beneath a golden sun.
“The Sun. There’s resolution. You’ve come to terms with the loss and things are finally on an upturn in your life. The marriage is stronger, and you both are stronger for it.” She smiled at her friend and drank her wine. “Nothing like a happy ending.”
“I’ll say. God, maybe I’m going to lose my wedding ring. You know how I am.”
The two girls chatted and drank until they both were feeling a nice buzz, and reminisced about the days in high school when they would watch boys and wonder which one would end up being their prince charming.
Heather had a boyfriend in high school, but that relationship ended in tatters. He cheated on her, and Heather could see why. That new girl was far prettier, she was fashionable and she knew how to do her makeup well. She was like the complete opposite of Heather. Heather was on the running team, she was on the cheer squad. Heather was lanky, she was petite and voluptuous in the right places. Heather was reserved, she was bubbly and outgoing.
She just didn’t have any luck with guys. At this point, she considered just getting a few cats and living as the crazy fortune teller cat lady in the run down old house on the corner.
“So, no new guys in your life?” Rachel asked, emptying the rest of the wine into Heather’s glass.
“I’ve given up on men,” Heather announced as she drank a mouthful, her cheeks flushed pink. “They’re nothing but trouble to me at this point.”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so fucking dramatic, Heather. Someone will turn up. You’re a good looking girl, and you’re interesting. I mean, you’re a fortune teller for God’s sake.”
“Rachel, I’m hitting my thirties, I’ve got no education, I’m getting fatter every day, my skin is practically translucent because I can’t take a break from work. The best chance I have for meeting a man is if he walks in the front door. And you know how those men are.”
“Maybe you’ll get lucky.”
“Or maybe I’ll just a get a repeat of the same douchebag.”
“Anyway, Heather. You’re not fat, you’re as tall as most guys, and guys like that. You could be a model. All that running in high school really toned up your legs. And it’s hot to have fair skin, you know.”
Heather appreciated her friend’s reassurances, even though she definitely felt like towering, pale white giant sometimes.
“Why don’t you…read your own fortune?” Rachel suggested hesitatingly.
“You already know how I feel about doing that,” Heather said. “Besides, wouldn’t it be depressing if I did and learned I was going to be single for the rest of my life? That would just suck.”
“You never know.”
Rachel’s phone chimed, and she dug it out of her purse. “Oh, shit! It’s already five! Jesus, how did the time pas
s so quickly? I gotta run and take care of more of the wedding stuff. I’ll see you later okay? Don’t worry about anything. Even after the wedding I won’t be moving for another two weeks, we can get together plenty.”
“Okay,” Heather said, hugging her friend. “You sure you’re good to drive? We just split that entire bottle.”
“I’m good, I’m not a lightweight,” she grinned, patting her stomach. She hurried to the door. “Should I turn the sign back on?”
“No, it’s already close to closing time anyway. Go, Rachel, go! It’s late!”
Rachel slipped out the door, waving behind her as she left. The door swung closed, the bells hanging from the doorknob ringing as it clicked shut.
Heather sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. Her face felt warm from the alcohol. Rachel may be able to handle half a bottle, but she certainly felt it.
Sitting down at the table, she ran her fingers over the tarot cards laid out in front of her. Rachel’s voice sounded in her head.
Why don’t you read your own fortune?
Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the extra feelings of loneliness she had from Rachel leaving, but something guided Heather’s hands against the rule she had set for herself years ago. It was like she was acting on impulse. A voice in her head reminded her what a bad idea it was, but still she gathered the cards up, still she shuffled them together. Still she laid them out on the table.
Up till now, Heather had made it a point to never to do a reading for herself. Never since she was really little. Having that knowledge as a young girl, knowing that her father was having an affair before her mother even knew…
The house was growing darker with the fading sunlight, and Heather stood and walked around the room, flipping the lights on. The table remained within her vision, the cards waiting for her to make her choice.
She sat back down in her chair, her hand hovering over the cards.
The house was quiet. It seemed like even the regular ticking of her wall clock had dulled down to nothingness. The usual traffic of cars driving down the busy street by her house seemed to be empty.
Stillness.
“This is stupid,” she said. “I should just make dinner and get ready for bed.”
But then she reached down and grabbed a card from the spread, then another, then the last. With a strong thud in her heart, Heather flipped over the first card.
On it was a drawing of a tower struck by lightning and aflame, with a man and woman plunging from the top.
“The Tower,” Heather said softly. She had a strong sense that something was going to change drastically in her life, and thought of her friend leaving. “That’s a pretty big change,” she said to herself, but her mind told her it was something greater than that. She felt uneasy, but her fingers grasped the next card and flipped it over.
Her heart did a flip as her eyes settled on the image on the card.
A black clad skeleton knight riding a white horse.
The card of death.
CHAPTER TWO
Heather steadied herself.
She knew that the card wasn’t necessarily a bad omen. Whatever change was going to happen in her life, it was to be huge. A clearer image formed in her mind. She pictured a foreign land, and herself caught up in a situation she didn’t quite understand. She felt fear, uncertainty. She felt herself at the center of attention, caught in a spotlight not meant for someone as small and unimportant as she was.
Heather realized she was trembling as she reached for the final card. Her fingers grasped the edges, lifting it up and flipping it onto the table.
A winged figure with its arms raised benevolently above two naked figures, a man and a woman.
“The Lovers,” Heather whispered.
BAM.
The heavy thud on the roof of the house nearly sent her tumbling out of her chair in shock. “What the hell was that?” she said, looking slowly up at the ceiling. She shrieked as she heard more dull thuds, like something was walking around on her roof.
She stood up and tugged down the ends of her jean shorts and threw a hoodie over her red plaid shirt, and then pulled on her running shoes. She opened the front door and walked outside, crossing her hands over her chest and staring up at the roof. She strained to see what was up there.
Heather stumbled back as she heard the jangling of metal, and out of the darkness on the roof of her house a man wearing grey plate metal armor charged down the shingles.
“What the fuck?!” she screamed as the man leapt off the roof and over her head. He tucked and rolled as he landed, and Heather’s eyes widened as she saw the man holding a long straight bladed sword. She backed up slowly, moving towards the front door. She had a can of pepper spray sitting on a table by the door. All she had to do was run in…
The man turned and looked at her. He was around her age, his face covered in dirt and sweat, his dark hair matted over his forehead.
“Who the hell are you?” Heather shouted at him. “This is my house! You were on my roof!”
He relaxed his stance, and held his sword loosely by his side. “Don’t tell me you’re the prize? I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting a person.”
“Are you drunk?” Heather said, standing in the doorway, her hand resting on the can of pepper spray. “Look, I’m guessing you’re from some comic book convention or something, so I’m just going to give you the benefit of the doubt before I call the cops. Put the sword away and get the hell away from my house. I’m not going to even ask how you got up on the roof.”
The man raised an eyebrow. “What are you babbling about?” He suddenly tensed up, his face narrowing fiercely. “Unless…I haven’t succeeded. That’s it! You must be some kind of creature that takes the form of a beautiful girl.” He grinned wildly. “You won’t have me tricked.” He raised his blade and pointed it directly at her.
“What’s wrong with you?!” Heather shrieked, and she whipped the can of pepper spray in front of her. “Don’t come any closer or our spray you!”
A shimmer of light gleamed off of Heather’s blue gemmed ring, freezing the man in his tracks. “That ring,” he said. “It is you.” With a flourish he sheathed his sword. “I have succeeded.”
Heather squeezed the pepper spray tightly in her hand as the man walked towards her, but she couldn’t bring herself to press the trigger. The man’s vivid blue eyes locked with hers, and for the first time since he had leapt from her roof she saw just how incredibly handsome he was. She felt frozen by his stare. He was so close to her that she could smell him, a masculine musk of sweat and metal and leather. Heather was so shocked by him that she didn’t notice the light emanating from her ring.
“Come,” the man said, and he took her hand. The can of pepper spray clattered to the ground. Her hand felt tiny, engulfed by his armored gauntlet. He lifted her hand up, and only then did she notice her ring’s luminous glow. She thought he was going to kiss her hand, but he brought it up to his forehead and touched the gemstone to his skin. As it made contact, Heather felt a surge of energy move through her body, like she had been touched by an electric wire. Her hair lifted, and she realized her entire body was floating upwards. A light extended from the sky, engulfing the two of them, and her body was filled with warmth. They were floating, moving higher and higher above the concrete.
There was a deafening crack like a bolt of lightning.
A flash of pale blue light.
Blackness.
Warrior’s Destiny: A Sci-Fi Alien Shifter Romance (Link)
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