Page 17 of Little Etheldreda Riding Hood

“Hey, you guys! Come on. I’ll let you in the back,” I tell them as I step off the porch and head around the side of the trailer. This must be a familiar thing to them because they step off the porch carefully and follow me to the back gate without hesitating. I unlatch it for them and then follow them inside, curious as to why they want to hang out in Darla’s backyard.

Darla’s backyard is exactly like the inside of her house–neat and well-kept. There’s a picnic table next to a huge outdoor heater like the kind they have in restaurants. The pigs flop around it even though it’s not on. I try to find some way to turn it on, but can’t figure out where the power button is, so I’m stuck waiting for Darla.

She appears moments later. One of the pigs, a large pink and gray one, lifts her head as Darla approaches, standing slowly once Darla is close by. She nuzzles Darla’s hand with her nose and waits patiently until Darla scratches under her chin. Darla pulls out a remote with her other hand and turns on the heater.

“I’ll be honest with you; they’re not normal pigs.”

I smile, uncertain if Darla’s just teasing.

“This one is Porshetta,” she says, still scratching the large pink and gray pig’s chin. “She is super protective of women. The little pink one is her daughter, Frigg. The dark one is their rescue pig, Chad.”

The name makes me grimace. “Chad was an unfortunate choice of names.”

She chuckles. “I know. I work at the animal clinic he was brought into and we all cringed a little bit at that on his intake form. Want to sit for a bit?” she asks, indicating the picnic table. “I can read your cards.”

“You read cards?”

She nods. “And oracles, too. I have my own deck that I prefer to use. I made it myself. I hope you don’t mind.”

I shake my head. “No, not at all.”

Darla unfurls three fluffy blankets–one for each pig–and drapes each animal with one as they snuggle up close to each other before she joins me at the table. Out of her pocket, she pulls out a pair of fingerless gloves, puts them on, and then hands me a deck of small white cards. On the back of each card is a picture of a handsome dark pig that looks suspiciously like Chad.

“Mix them up, face down. Make sure you touch each one.”

I do as she asks. The face of a happy dark pig stares back at me from the back side of the cards. “Are these pictures of Chad on the back?”

“Yes. It’s the Choracle. The Chad Oracle,“ she says as if that’s supposed to be obvious.

Once I’ve got the deck back in a stack, she takes them from me and lays them in a spread that I could swear looks like a pixelated cock. A 90‘s video game cock. I shake my head.

Quit acting like you’re thirteen.

You had a one night stand and now you’re seeing dick everywhere. Would Mrs. James be disappointed or proud?

Darla sucks air through her teeth in a way I don’t think is promising as she surveys the cards she’s laid out.

“Okay, so the current energy around you is that of Confusion,“ she explains, pointing to the tip of the cock.

“The path you were on was very certain, very clear-cut, but now it’s very unclear.”

No kidding, I want to say, but I keep my mouth shut.

“Your focus is Acceptance, so my guess is that you are doing well on the road to recovery as far as your breakup is concerned. With your growth card being Boredom I’d guess that things feel very stagnant now. You’ll need to work hard to work your way out of that one. Your tomorrow card is Curiosity. I’d say that you’re going to have to take some big chances and allow your curiosity to lead you in order to get to where you want to be or who you want to be with.”

Who I want to be with?

I raise an eyebrow at Darla. She has yet to bring up Zach walking me to the truck–no doubt she overheard some of our conversation.

Darla clicks her tongue and takes a deep breath. The little pig, Frigg, turns and burrows herself under her blanket a little more.

“What is this card for?” I ask, pointing to the left side of the spread. A card titled Revelation sits in one of the “ball” spots.

Darla sighs. “That is your struggles card. Your struggle will be the truth or a moment of truth or a secret. I’d suggest when the time comes, not to keep whatever secret you hold to yourself.”

When the time comes? What secret? Do I even have a secret? “How will I know when that time is? I don’t even have a secret. I’m boring…that’s why Morgan left.”

Darla clicks her tongue. “That’s not why he left. It’s not a you problem; it’s a him problem. You’re not boring. You are reliable. He’ll come to regret his decision in the coming days and you’ll have to stand firm in your decision to walk away from him,“ she says ominously.

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