by Skylar Finn
I bit my lip, picturing Peter. “Yes, but he’s also intelligent, and kind. To be honest with you, the fact that he’s attractive is probably the least important thing about him. He’s the first genuinely nice man I’ve ever dated.”
“But it’s still a little important, yes?” She smiled. “You don’t have to feel shallow about it. We’re all animals, at the end of the day.”
I smiled back and didn’t say anything. The conversation was shifting into that uncomfortable zone: one that people like Bridget, who relished discussing her sex life in explicit detail, seemed to love, but which I found mildly revolting when spoken out loud to anybody but the person I was with. Lindy apparently sensed my discomfort and changed the subject.
“What brings you here today, Sam?” She crossed her legs at the knee. “You seemed a little adverse to the possibility of having a reading when I saw you last. If you don’t mind my saying so, that is.”
“I was.” I shifted on the milk crate, imagining the diamond pattern I’d find embedded in my thighs after I left. “I’m not really comfortable with being open with people I’ve just met, especially not…in this way.”
“I understand,” she said, studying me with her penetrating gaze. “Many people aren’t. What changed your mind?”
“Peter,” I admitted.
“Ah, the things we do for love.” She smiled knowingly. “Especially a new relationship. All the nervousness and insecurity of wanting to impress someone you’re just getting to know. Wanting them to see only the best of you and to think highly of you.” It was as if she was pulling the thoughts directly from my mind.
“Well, yes. But it’s more than that.” For some reason, I wanted to impress her. I didn’t want her to think I had the same obvious and mundane desires everyone that had. “His job can be dangerous, sometimes. I want to protect him. To keep him safe.”
She regarded me, her expression compassionate. “Of course,” she said. “Maybe I can provide some insight. It’s what I do.”
“I’d really appreciate it.” I paused, unsure how to ask what I was thinking. “Um, how, though?”
Lindy reached deep into the pocket of her baggy jacket. She withdrew a shimmering velvet pouch of indiscriminate color. The harder I tried to look at it, the less I seemed to be able to focus on it. I blinked. Lindy withdrew a deck of cards from the pouch and tucked it back into her pocket.
“Is that…tarot?” I asked uncertainly. I flashed back on Tamsin’s scornful words in her dorm.
“No, not tarot,” she said. “Not exactly.” She began to shuffle the cards, humming softly under her breath. “I’m not such a fan of tarot, honestly.”
“Why is that?” I watched her hands flash rhythmically as she shuffled the cards.
“Too accessible,” she said dismissively. “You can buy a deck at Target. All kinds of people messing with things they don’t understand, giving bad readings. Trying to make something clear when they barely have reception. You know?” She smiled at me, looking shrewd. “I think you do.” She cut the cards on the crate.
I was both hypnotized by the gesture and more than a little bit spooked. Did she know about me? Everything she said was similar to what Tamsin had declared, and not unlike things my mother had told me about our craft. I was becoming more and more convinced by the moment that whatever Lindy was, it was the real deal.
She laid out the cards in three rows of three. Each card was delicately embossed with the same design: a picture of a woman with two faces in profile. When she finished laying them out, she tucked the remaining cards back into her pocket. She dragged her right hand through the air over the cards as if there was a current in the air resisting the motion.
“The top row represents The Is,” she said. “This is your life as you know it now. The second row represents the Never Was. It’s the paths your life could have taken, but for whatever reason, didn’t. And the third row represents the Could Be: the likelihoods of your life that haven’t yet come to pass.”
She glanced at me, staring at the backs of the cards, my eyes fixed and riveted. “Incidentally, only you will be able to see what’s on the cards. To me, they will appear to be merely blank. You’ll have to turn them yourself.”
Hesitantly, I reached out, my hand hovering over the first card in the first row. Recklessness seized me and I flipped it over abruptly, half expecting not to see anything at all. What I did see filled me with shock: it was like a window into my memory, like watching a high-definition movie of myself the previous evening. I watched myself on the couch with Peter, his hands tangled in my hair.
“I love you,” he said, gazing into my eyes.
“I love you, too,” I said.
I immediately flipped the card back over. It was too deeply personal a scene to witness on a flimsy piece of cardstock, on top of a milk carton, in front of someone else. I looked up, thunderstruck. My eyes locked with Lindy’s, who stared back at me knowingly.
“Remember, I can’t see what’s on the cards,” she reminded me soothingly. “Only you can.”
Hesitantly, I reached for the second card. Some dim awareness in my mind was warning me against this, reminding me that I needed to be cautious and wary. I had thought there might be something to Lindy based on my meeting with her yesterday, a certain feeling or sense that I had, but this was beyond anything I anticipated.
Whatever these cards were, they were far beyond the ordinary human perception of foresight; Magdalena in her tea shop with her busted clock and unicorn candles. Lindy was capable of things I’d never conceived, things my family had never explained to me, and that made her powerful in a way I’d never anticipated—powerful, and potentially dangerous.
Even though I’d just met Lindy yesterday, something about her demeanor caused me to trust her completely as I would an old friend. More than that, her magic—if that’s what it was—was clearly real. These cards could show me what I needed to know. These cards could help me protect Peter.
Maybe I could even save Tamsin, and Bridget. Who knew? I could know. But only if I kept going.
7
Premonition
I flipped the next card over and saw myself with Tamsin, laughing in her room. I felt guilty and reminded myself that Lindy couldn’t see us or hear what we were talking about. The third card was us in the tea shop, gathered around the table. Without even looking at Lindy, I went to the next row.
At the sight of the first card, my heart constricted. It was me, blowing out sixteen candles on a pink frosted birthday cake. I was surrounded by my mother, who kissed me on the cheek, a young Tamsin, Minerva clapping, and my grandmother, looking formidable as always. Tears sprang unbidden to my eyes.
“The second row is always the hardest, I find,” came Lindy’s mild voice from somewhere just above my line of sight. I was unable to look away from the miniature scene playing out before me. I couldn’t stand to turn the card over and lose sight of what could have been, my life with my mother and my family—the life I had never known until six months ago, when I tracked them down in Mount Hazel for the first time since my father took me away as a child. “That strangeness,” he called our craft. He thought my mother was crazy.
I left the card face up as I turned the second one over. It was equally heartbreaking: Tamsin, Minerva, my grandmother, my mother, and me, all gathered around a roaring fireplace. We were drinking from steaming mugs and bantering good-naturedly. The me that Never Was laughed. I looked so carefree and happy, in a way I’d never been, not in the life that I knew now. My eyes filled with tears.
The third was utterly mystifying, and also kind of terrible. The scene itself was beautiful, but I was astonished by what it depicted. I wore a long, white gown. It was delicate and simple, and I carried a bouquet. I was in a backyard filled with flowers—I squinted, and it took on the appearance of my mother’s—walking in between two rows of wooden chairs as a dozen faces turned, only some of whom I recognized: Tamsin, Minerva, my best friend from college, Jill. At the end of the aisl
e was Les Rodney.
It was hard to say which was worse: the fact that I could have married Les Rodney, or the fact that I looked overjoyed to do so. Even worse—as if that was even possible—while I thought upon first glance I just looked a little fat (one more reason not to wear white), upon closer inspection, I was clearly knocked up with Les Rodney’s hell spawn. So much so that it looked like the kid might come flying into the aisle at any second and hit one of the guests in the face. Talk about a shotgun wedding.
“Ugh,” I said with a little shudder.
“It’s not always bad,” Lindy said, and I looked up. I still had tears in my eyes from the sight of the other cards. “Sometimes, the things you see in the second row…well, you might find that you’re relieved that they didn’t come to pass.”
Lindy hadn’t told me to, but after the final card in the second row, I went back and flipped the first one on the top. Instead of seeing myself with Peter, I saw myself in the bar where we met. Peter was bartending, favoring me with his confident, easygoing smile while I glared at him. It was almost as if the cards were sequential, like I could go from what Never Was to what happened instead.
“Is this normal?” I demanded.
Lindy shrugged. “It’s different for every person,” she said vaguely.
I turned back to the cards. The next two on the top had shifted in a similar way to the first: the second and third were moving memories of the moment I found out that I was a witch and the first time I kissed Peter.
In the first, I sat in a kitchen filled with light. My mother sat across the table from me and poured me tea. A robin flew in through the window and landed on the table. In the second, I saw myself with Peter in his apartment on the couch, much as we were last night. He whispered in my ear and leaned over me as I wrapped my arms around his shoulders.
Addicted, I flipped the card facedown and flipped it over again: Peter caught me up in a sweeping embrace in the train station and kissed me, while everyone in the background blurred to nothingness, as if we were the only two people in the world. All my greatest memories, like what you supposedly see before you die when your life flashes before your eyes.
I stared at the images, fascinated. It was like seeing the inside of my head, externalized. A broad grin crossed my face and I felt like I could devour the cards, like poor Charlie Bucket gobbling up a Wonka Bar on the rare occasion he actually got to eat candy. I felt consumed by greed and desire.
I didn’t even bother to glance at Lindy as my hand flew eagerly, obsessively, toward the third row. I had to know what happened. Would I stay with Peter? Would he be okay? Would we be okay? Or was something conspiring to hurt us, to drive us apart? Were Tamsin and I in danger?
After the unexpected joy of seeing my life as it currently was, a joy that swept away all the negativity and fear I’d felt recently, I wasn’t prepared for what I saw in the third row. My happiness fled and darkness stole over my heart.
The first card depicted my greatest fear: Peter picked up the barista downstairs, Amelia, twirling her in a circle before setting her down and kissing her passionately. The scene was too horrifying, and I flipped the card back over immediately, enraged. The second card was even worse: I watched as Peter fell, as if from a great height, into darkness and disappeared. It was as if he never was. My fury was replaced by terror.
“No!” I exclaimed out loud. I’d forgotten Lindy was even there. I turned it facedown, as if the action alone could keep Peter safe. I flipped the third card over, and all I saw was myself, alone: curled up and grief-stricken on the floor of my living room.
“Peter,” I said, covering my mouth with one hand. I began to cry silently, and stayed that way for a while. Lindy didn’t say anything.
After several minutes, I became self-conscious, remembering myself and my surroundings. I glanced around, confused and almost surprised to see that I was still in the half-empty room, surrounded by dusty boxes. I looked up through my haze of tears to find Lindy watching me solemnly.
“Are you all right?” she asked me.
“I…I think so,” I said shakily, barely unable to get the words out. “I’m sorry, I feel like I lost control. I just—”
Lindy shook her head, placing a calming hand over my own. “You don’t have to apologize to me, Sam. The cards are extremely powerful. It’s nearly impossible to prepare yourself for what you may or may not see. I could have warned you, but…” She shrugged. “Most people have to see it to believe it.”
I understood what she meant. If she had tried to explain what the cards truly were, what I might see before I turned them over, I would never have believed her. Even I, having witnessed the supposedly impossible in my own life, would have dismissed her as a maniac.
“I should go,” I said, getting to my feet. I was so shaky I could barely walk.
“Are you sure?” Lindy eyed me with concern. “Maybe you should sit down for a minute. We could go get tea.”
I shook my head. I had to get to Peter. Something terrible was going to happen. I had to talk to Tamsin, or my mother. I had to tell someone what I just saw.
“You might want to keep this just between us.” I looked up to find Lindy staring me directly in the eye. I had that hypnotized feeling again. “People don’t always understand about the cards. They’re not like other things, like having your fortune told at a carnival or something you can laugh away. If you tell people that I showed you the future, they might think that you’re insane.” She paused. “Or that I’m insane.” She gave a little laugh, but looked at me intently.
“Of course,” I agreed immediately. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“Good.” She smiled. “Well, you have my number now, Sam. Please feel free to use it any time you like. Even though you can’t tell anyone else what you’ve seen, you can always tell me. I can help you work through it. We can get through it together.”
“Okay. Thank you, Lindy.” I turned to go, my head abuzz with the things that I’d seen.
“Oh, and Sam?” I turned back to see Lindy watching me avidly.
“Have you tried the cheesesteaks downstairs?” she asked.
“No,” I said, startled. “Why?”
“You really should,” she said. “They’re exceptional.”
I texted Peter to see if he was still alive and waited tensely for his response, which took the entire crosstown bus ride. I waited impatiently for the dots to appear and when he responded asking if I wanted to get dinner, I finally let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. I texted him back that I would and got off at Broad Street, practically running to Tamsin’s dorm.
I told Lindy I wouldn’t tell anyone, but I had no intention of keeping this from Tamsin. Tamsin wouldn’t think there was anything insane about it. She would know it was real, too. She could help me figure out what to do.
I didn’t want to appeal to my mother because I had the strong feeling that I wasn’t supposed to hang out with strange magical people I didn’t know whose magic I couldn’t discern the source of. Somehow, I knew without asking that my mother would not approve of allowing a stranger to reveal my future with little to no questions asked. But she was the one who told me about the ominous threat in the city in the first place. It was one of the many incidents leading up to my overall bad feeling that something might happen, which had spurred me to act in the first place.
I skidded to a stop in front of Tamsin’s door after practically running down the long hallway. I knocked on the door before I noticed the white marker board sign hanging on it. I read it with dismay. PHOTOGRAPHY was written in capital letters over an elaborate dry marker sketch of a camera. She was with Cristo, of course.
I paced back and forth in front of the door. Who else could I talk to? I jumped about three feet when the door opened.
“Hello?” An owlish-looking girl in round glasses with a brown bowl cut stood in the doorway. “Can I help you?”
“Are you Tamsin’s roommate?” I’d never actually seen her and heard Tamsin mak
e only vague allusions to her. She was apparently never there.
“Yeah, I mean, kind of. I’m usually not here,” she said.
“Do you know what time her photography class ends?” I asked.
“No idea,” she said with a shrug. “I didn’t even know they offered photography here. Did you want to wait for her till she gets back?”
“Yes, please,” I said gratefully. She stood aside so I could pass. I sat in Tamsin’s cushy red armchair next to her desk. Her roommate shut the door and meticulously arranged a rolled-up towel under the crevice between the door crack and the floor. I watched her curiously.
“I’m Sam, by the way,” I said as she rummaged around in her drawer, pulling out an empty paper towel roll and stuffing it with dryer sheets. “What are you studying?”
“Ceramics,” she said matter-of-factly, rubber-banding a final dryer sheet around the end of the cardboard tube and peering through it.
“Oh,” I said politely. “Is that for an…installation you’re working on?”
“Installation?” She laughed. “For ceramics? Um, no. This is for my bong.” She pulled out a three-foot bong from beneath her bed. I watched, startled, as she lit it. She exhaled the smoke through the paper towel roll. It smelled like dryer sheets. I looked back at the towel under the door, understanding dawning.
“That’s very resourceful,” I remarked. “Have you considered getting a patent?”
She studied me through half-shut eyes. “You don’t go here, do you?”
“No, I went to Wharton,” I said, oddly flattered that this stoned girl thought I looked young enough to be an undergrad.
“Oh,” she said, sounding like Eeyore. “Yeah, that sounds about right. You definitely seemed a little uptight to be in art school.”
Insulted, I turned away and busied myself making tea. “Did you want some tea?” I asked without turning around.