Page 39 of The Sun and the Moon
“Diana.” She says my mother’s name in the same thoughtful tone. “I saw her—Rick keeps family photos around of the three of you.” She sets her teacup down and picks up the deck of cards sitting out on the table. In all the conversation and preliminary snooping, I didn’t notice she had set them out.
The backs of the cards are a pale green with a cream border that looks like vines. In the center of that is a tree with a thick woven trunk, deep roots that connect to the vine border below, and a lush crown that spills into the border at the top and sides.
“That’s not the same thing as knowing her.”
Moira’s hands flick, sending a cascade of cards up in a controlled arc. Her long fingers work the deck into a rhythmicshuffle, and my eyes drop to the movement, sticking like glue as the cards sift into and through the spaces between one another.
“So how does this work?” I ask. I wish I could get the focus off me and onto her but that doesn’t seem likely as long as I’m supposed to be the subject of this tarot reading.
“You’re the querent, and that means you can ask whatever you like of the cards,” Moira says, pausing her shuffle to rap her knuckles against the bottom of the deck like she’s knocking on a closed door.
“What if I don’t have a specific question?” Or, more accurately, a question I can say out loud.
“It’s not required,” she says, leaning forward in this conspiratorial way that puts me on edge and makes me instinctively want to mirror the move. With all her clear narcissistic tendencies and my blinders-off awareness of her ability to utilize her charm to bend the will of those around her, my resistance isn’t nearly as strong as I would like.
My understanding of how she hooked my dad is starting to get more defined.
“But if I may be so bold…”Ha!She doesn’t do coy well. My brows jump, and she sets the cards on the table between us. “I sense you have some unease about the future.” Her eyes are pools of endless dark water. “Cut the deck.”
My hand moves, my brain screams, and the only thing on my mind isWhat if she’s right?Not just my unease about the future, which feels fucking plausible and like it shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone at all that I reek of uncertainty like it’s bad BO. What if she’s right about Cadence and me? What if Ranger Girl is my goddamn soulmate?
You don’t believe in soulmates.
Questioning things is a good instinct.
Shut up!
I lift the cards without grace. A chunk comes up, a few slipping from the bottom back to the stack below, and then I set down the cards in my hand. Why is my hand trembling? I curl my fingers into a fist and shove it between my thighs.
“Which one?” she asks. “The stack you pick is the one we draw from.” She’s guiding me more than I expected she would, but she isn’t giving me the answers, either. This is in my hands, not hers.
I let my eyes drop to the two stacks. I don’t know why this feels like a critically important decision—it’s just tarot cards. A parlor trick akin to one my dad would do in our living room. A coin behind the ear, a bunny in a hat. Tarot itself was invented as a playing-card game, glorified only by the adaptation of the deck into occult practices. (Yes, my deep dive on Moira Connelly led me to the tarot page on Wikipedia.)
This isn’t fate. The universe isn’t speaking. Yet the weight on my chest reminds me of the first time I set foot in a cockpit. Newly minted badge on my breast, 160 souls in my hands. Destiny right at my fingertips.
No, not destiny.Obligation.
My eyes flick up to Moira again, and I point to the stack that was on the bottom—the one the few cards dropped onto after I cut them. She touches the stack I point to, and I can’t tell by her face if she approves or not. I inwardly scold myself for caring. She lifts the stack and sets it on top of the other one, pulling it back toward her but leaving it resting on the table.
“Does the order they come out in have a specific meaning?”
“Oftentimes I’ll do a three-card reading for general energy. It could represent past, present, future; it could be the potential onyour path.” At the wordpotentialmy skin tingles. Just the fingertips, but it’s potent enough to notice. “That one?”
She flicks her eyes over my face.
“I mean, who doesn’t want to hear about their potential?”
“Well, the potential of your path, currently, as of this moment in time,” she corrects.
“You mean, what we see could change?” I ask the question—breathless for the answer.What is happening to me?This spiritually curious person is not me. I’ve never even read a horoscope, though Joe insists I amsuch a Libra it’s scary.
“Depends on you—what you do with the information the cards present.”
“And not what you tell me to do?” My lips leap into a smirk. She isn’t swayed.
“I’ll have my own interpretation, but it’s up to you what you do with it.”
To me she extends agency. To the girl out front, Lola, she tethers a long leash. But to her daughter she narrowed the vision. Claimed ownership of her future. Told her, point-blank, that her soulmate would only ever cross Cadence’s path because of her.
