Page 89 of A Resistance of Witches

Lydia’s heart stumbled in her chest. “By the Gestapo?”

“No. Friends. Hers, if I’m not mistaken. A betrayal. Now they’ve escaped.” Evelyn’s hand rested on the six of swords, showing two passengers huddled inside a boat. She reached for the next card, the eight of swords, but hesitated. On the card, a dark-haired woman stood bound and blindfolded, surrounded by swords. A castle loomed in the background. Lydia knew without having to ask that the woman was her. Evelyn’s hand hovered briefly over the bound woman, then moved on, picking up the final card, Death.

“Something’s happened. One of them is going through a great change. Him, I think.” She picked up the Hermit and held it next to Death. “He’s transforming. Getting stronger, embracing his true nature.” She set down the two cards. “I think he has a little magic in him, your Henry.”

Lydia frowned. “I never told you his name. Did the cards tell you that?”

Evelyn paused, the hint of a smirk curling her mouth. “The walls are thin, and you talk in your sleep.”

“Ah. Well. Thank you.” Lydia wished she weren’t so inclined toward blushing. She reached for her own deck, but Evelyn stopped her.

“You get a second question. Remember?”

She remembered. This had been their arrangement, years ago when Evelyn had first started teaching her to read the cards. Evelyn’s way of teaching was to have them take turns reading for each other, but Lydia always felt exposed when it was her mother’s turn to read. She saw too clearly, knew too much. It was just like the tea leaves, but so much worse—Lydia’s whole inner life, laid out in full color on the kitchen table. Evelyn had been the one to suggest a solution. Each time Evelyn read for Lydia, Lydia would get to ask a second question—no cards this time, just the truth. She could ask anything she liked, and Evelyn wouldhave to answer. This way, they were always on even footing. This was how Lydia had learned about the birds and the bees, and about her father, run off when Evelyn was six months pregnant, too much of a scoundrel to be any kind of husband, let alone a parent.

Lydia looked her mother in the eye. “Why did you hate Isadora?”

Evelyn knit her brow. “I didn’t hate Isadora.”

“No lies, that’s the rule. I want to know why.”

Evelyn gathered up the cards from the table and shuffled them back into the deck. “That’s the truth. I never hated Isadora. She was a strong woman. A leader, principled, intelligent. She cared for you like her own, challenged you.”

Lydia was bewildered. “Then why—”

“Do you remember the first time you came home from that school? You’d been there, oh, a few months I guess, and they sent you home for winter break. And it was like you were a different child. Everything I did filled you with disdain, everything I did embarrassed you. You weren’t interested in herbs, or cards, you called themlow magic.You were only interested inhigh magic, academy magic. We had a terrible row that week, and do you remember what you called me? ‘Dirty old hedge witch.’ I don’t know where you even heard such a thing. I barely recognized you.” Evelyn didn’t look at Lydia as she refilled her teacup. “I didn’t hate Isadora. I hated the academy.”

“But every time I said her name…”

“Youworshippedher, love. I was jealous. I wanted my daughter back. But I didn’t hate her. Not at all.”

Lydia felt ashamed. For years she had taken for granted that Evelyn had loathed Isadora. Now she realized that it was Lydia herself that her mother had resented. Not the girl who left for the academy all those years ago, but the person she had become.

“And Sybil?” Lydia asked.

“That’s another question, love. No extras.” Evelyn held out her hand, waiting.

Lydia handed Evelyn her own deck of cards. Evelyn gave them an expert shuffle and a cut. “Will business pick back up after the war?”

It was a meaningless question, and one Evelyn could have answered just as easily as Lydia, but that wasn’t the point. It was the ritual, drawing Lydia back into their familiar routine. Lydia opted for a simple spread, unable to remember any of the more complex arrangements Evelyn had taught her as a girl. She pulled a single card for Evelyn and smiled.

The Empress.

It was a card that had a way of appearing in most of Evelyn’s readings. She stood for motherhood, fertility, bounty. Evelyn smiled, too, like seeing an old friend.

Lydia pulled three more cards. The eight of pentacles appeared first, then more pentacles, the seven this time, followed by the Wheel of Fortune, but the final two cards had landed upside down.

“Well?” Evelyn looked at her expectantly.

Lydia hesitated. “I told you, I barely remember how to read them anymore.”

“Nonsense. You know as well as I do what they say. The cards don’t lie. Don’t you start lying for them.”

It was one of Evelyn’s favorite sayings. As a child, Lydia was always trying to soften the truth, make the readings more favorable than they were. Evelyn had always insisted on brutal honesty.

“No. Business does not improve after the war.”

Evelyn appeared utterly unbothered. “Well then, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

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