Page 40 of The Sun and the Moon
“I’m ready,” I say with a nod.
She brushes the cards with her fingertips before flipping the first one over toward me. It lands upright. The first thing my eyes grip is the name.
Two of Cups
The words are written in a cool, deep blue, and there’s a treatment on the card that makes it look antique. Not sepia, but just a careful fade that feels vintage. The border is done in the samevines as I noticed on the other side of the cards, but within the border the background is a soft pink-and-blue-and-purple wash. At the center of the card are two figures—two women, I realize upon closer inspection—each holding a cup in hand as they face each other.
My eyes jump back and forth between the two women as heat creeps up my neck where it warms my ears. Something about this card is giving gay love. Love is love. You are about to be in love.
I don’t love this for me. But still, my heartbeat patters. A faster beat, the yearning kind.
Without saying anything about the first card, Moira flips over the next one.
The Sun
The words are written in a soft, shimmery gold this time, and they have been given the same antique treatment, that same winding vine border, and the background is done to look like a soft blue sky, below which rolling hills expand to the horizon. In the center of the card is a woman curled into a ball, the long gold tendrils of her hair fanning out in a shape that mirrors sunbursts. She glows, her face illuminated as if from within. I stare into her face. Her expression set in a smile, her eyes focused forward, on the future.
Moira flips over the next card.
The Moon
Shimmery silver letters, antique treatment, winding vine border, only the background of this card is the inky blue of a nightsky. There are purple and silver swirls at the edges and what looks like tiny starlike dots in the deep color. In the center is a woman curled into a crescent moon shape, cloaked in her raven hair, illuminated from behind with a silver glow.
I look between the three cards, fighting the thoughts in my head as they scream,This reading is about you and Cadence!Me, the Sun. Her, the Moon. Us, together in a romantic way, with our cups running over with…lust? Desire?
Love?
I swallow the panic and hope it will stay down long enough for me to get through this.
“Interesting spread,” I say with a frog-like croak. I will myself to look up at her face. She’s not looking at me, though. Her attention is on the cards, her expression pensive. “I have no idea what any of this means,” I prod, the panic threatening to rise back up.
“Where would you like me to start?” she asks, looking up at me finally. I know she can read the fear on me. I just hope she can’t pinpoint why.
“How about this one?” I point to the first card I pulled out. “Start at the beginning, I guess?”
She runs her finger over the edge of the first card. “The Two of Cups is a soulmate card.”
“You sure you haven’t rigged this deck?” I say with a scoff. Her smile is Cheshire.
I’m playing it cool, but inwardly I’m screaming. Idobelieve in coincidence. Happenstance that leads to moments that feel like they were meant to be. After all the questioning I’ve been entertaining despite my better judgment, it seems now I can’t escape my very own Madame Moira soulmate prediction.
“You’re not in the market for a soulmate?” she asks. There’salmost no inflection in her voice. Unlike yesterday, when she prodded me toward a conclusion through our conversation, right now, she has an almost neutral tone. Like she actually wants me to make my own mind up.
I shrug. Match her energy, keep it neutral.
This nonanswer is enough to send her eyes back to the cards.
“You’re the Sun here, and this person you’ll love, they are the Moon,” she says, moving the cards closer in proximity. “There is a story here that describes that push and pull, the give and take, much like these two forces in our skies. One cannot exist without the other.”
Moira’s words stick in my head, brambles of a rose with thorns aplenty.
“So, like, opposites attract?” Cool as a cucumber, even if my brain is on fire.
The first thought I have is a dangerous one.
Cadence and I aren’t just extroverted and introverted. I don’t just have sunny blond hair, and she doesn’t just have hair the color of an inky starless sky. We aren’t only opposites who could very easily attract. We’re opposites who could very easilygo together. Like sweet ice cream and salty French fries, like laughing so hard you cry, like pairing leather with lace or polka dots with stripes. We don’t make sense, but we may be even better together than apart.
Moira sits back in her chair, looking me over with eyes like an X-ray. She’s got this calm that feels otherworldly.
