Page 48 of Until the Stars Fall

“No, I’m fine. Go ahead.”

He frowned and watched me a second more before he removed his hand and turned over the second card. “Four of swords, your present.” He let out a one-breath laugh but didn’t smile. “I swear I didn’t fix the cards.”

A witch with long dark hair lay sleeping with her cat curled up against her. The four swords displayed beside her were full of cobwebs, as if the witch had lain there for a long time.

“Oh Lord, is she dead? That can’t be good.”

“No, she’s just resting. Kinda recharging. Right now, you’re going through a period of withdrawal from the world. A self-imposed isolation. An exile, while you convalesce.” He tapped on the present card, then on the past. “But you have to learn to accept help from others. Tell what’s real, from what’s not real. That’s what got you into that fragile life of the past. You had to break out of it pretty spectacularly. She may look asleep, but she’s dreaming. Trying to sort things out.”

“I guess leaving Earth in a spaceship through the middle of interstellar nowhere qualifies as exile,” I said. “But what’s my future?” I tapped on the third card.

He turned it over, nodding in approval. “Three of pentacles.”

“That’s good?”

He nodded. “It is. I don’t think you’ve ever recognized your own worth. All that driving toward perfection might have been a way to keep up appearances for other people. But that’s already changing. You have these extraordinary innate talents, beautiful abilities that you’ve been pushing down and hiding away.”

Madam Indigo-related guilt tugged at my belly.

He wagged a finger playfully at me. “But no more bushels over your inner light. Your journey has a metamorphosis. You’ve got something really special, and you’ll take pride in work that you wouldn’t have been humble enough to do before. And besides all that, you’ve tried to isolate yourself from others, but not anymore. No more solitary work or life for you.”

“But that still doesn’t answer any of my questions.” I folded my arms on the table. “What am I supposed to be doing in exile? Sleeping the whole way to Gaia? ’Cause I can do that, no problem, but that means you’re on your own for the next candlepalooza.”

He gestured toward the deck with a nod. “Cut it again.”

I did, and he took the top card off and laid it on the table beside the others.

A witch with striped stockings stood astride a broom at the edge of a cliff, one foot on the ground and her arms in the air, triumphant. One of her feet was poised to step off the cliff, but her face showed only joyful excitement.

I did a double-take. “Does that say ‘The Fool’?”

“Yeah it does,” he said emphatically, his tone excited.

“First I’m a snob, now I’m a fool?” I balked, halfheartedly, and a little flirtatiously.

“It’s a fantastic card. It’s not about lack of intelligence. It just means you gotta take risks. You may not know what the next steps are, so have fun with it. You have to stop evaluating every possible outcome. There’s no right or wrong. Maybe you’ll fly, maybe you’ll fall. Either way, you’ll learn something about yourself.”

I leaned in and spoke softly. “But taking risks is scary.”

“I know,” he answered, leaning in and matching my tone. “But no risk, no reward. Maybe think of it as a leap of faith.”

He was entirely too attractive to be that close to. I pushed away from the table and went into the kitchen. “What if I don’t even know what to believe in?” I drained the last of my water and set my empty bottle down.

He joined me in the kitchen and leaned back against the counter. “You can believe in anything you want. That’s the beauty of starting over. You get to decide. But you might start by believing in yourself.”

I turned to really look at him, smoothing down my dress. “Thank you.”

He looked at me sideways from under a thick, raised eyebrow. “For what?”

That look always sent chills through me. He was always so respectful. Always so honest. But I didn’t even know how to properly express what I meant.

“I’m so grateful to have a friend like you on this trip. I’d have been so lonely if you weren’t here.”

He peered into his bottle for a few seconds, then brought it to his lips. “Same,” he said finally, taking a sip.

My heartbeat sped up, and I play-kicked his shoe with my bare foot. “What, you don’t want to be my friend?”

He smiled, looked down at his water again, and was silent for an eternity. I held my breath, but then his eyes met mine.

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