Page 106 of The Black Table
Morgan opens her mouth as if to protest, then snaps it shut. “Fine, fine,” she sighs. “What’s another to add to the collection?”
“You know how to read tarot?” I say. I’m impressed, although not surprised.
Morgan scoffs. “Oh, it’s not that hard.”
“Don’t be falsely modest,” chides Lucinda. “Morgan’s got a great talent for the cards.”
“Yeah?” I say, kind of intrigued now. Having grown up largely friendless, I’d never gotten into the whole Ouija board, MASH, light-as-a-feather-stiff-as-a-board kind of slumber party stuff that a lot of other girls did. I’d certainly never had my fortune told. “Can you do me?”
“Oh yes!” Lucinda insists, giving a happy little clap of her hands. “Go on now.”
“Sure.” Morgan cracks open the box with the tips of her long lavender nails and expertly snaps the cards, sending them arcing from one hand to another like she’s a Vegas dealer.
My eyes go wide. “Holy shit, Morgan. When do you find time to practice that?”
She shrugs, shuffling deftly. “Like I said, just a little hobby. Now focus your mind on a question you want an answer to.”
“Okay,” I say.
Where do I start?I think, but I close my eyes and focus and try to let something come to me. Lucinda, meanwhile, clears a little space on the counter, looking on with intrigue.
“We’ll do just a quickie mini-cross spread,” Morgan says, flipping the cards out into a kind of compass formation: north, south, east, west, and then one in the center.
Morgan frowns. “That’s…I don’t know what that is.” She looks at Lucinda. “Have you ever seen that?”
Lucinda shakes her head, earrings swinging wildly. “Very curious.”
“What?” I say, my heart lurching. “What is it?”
“That’s the thing,” Morgan says, biting her lip and putting a hand to her chin. “I’m…not sure.” She closes her eyes and inhales sharply, a little reset. “Okay, so, this is your basic cruciform spread—cross-shaped,” she explains.
“I know whatcruciformmeans,” I retort. “I’m in Emrys’s class with your stepbrother, remember? It’s from the Latin.”
“Right, right, right.” Morgan waves a dismissive hand. “Anyway—it’s a cross. The intersections of the conscious and unconscious, the past and the future.” She makes a little plus sign with her index fingers to illustrate. “As above, so below.”
At her words, a full-body shiver courses through me, scalp to toes.
Quod est inferius est sicut quod est superius, et quod est superius est sicut quod est inferius.
“I see,” I say, but my voice sounds uneven, wobbly, like I’m underwater. So I focus instead on the cards, frowning, pretending to study them. The illustrations are intricate and curlicued, like woodcuts or engravings, with a decidedly old-fashioned aesthetic: billowing feathers, curling ferns, doublets and ballooning sleeves. Renaissance, maybe? Slightly later?
Kai would know, I think. Then shake away the thought.
“Look at that,” Lucinda says, hovering a fingertip around each of the four framing cards in turn. “What are the odds—one of each suit?”
I follow her gesture:Cavaliere di Spade, Cavaliere di Coppe, Cavaliere di Bastoni, Cavaliere di Denari.
Knight of Swords, Knight of Cups, Knight of Wands, Knight of Pentacles.
“I don’t know,” Morgan murmurs again, sounding vaguely irritated. “That’s a math question. It’s…the knight is the headstrong one,” she adds, to me. “They express their suit’s essence to the extreme.”
“Swords for intellect,” Lucinda interjects, “cups for emotions, wands for charisma, and pentacles for groundedness. Air, water, fire, earth.”
“Right,” Morgan says. “But to have them all in the spread, kind of focused in on the center like that…”
She trails off, her gaze fixed on the center card. That one is less ornate—almost boring, actually, a simple round slab of wood with a column-like base.
The caption beneath it reads, in spidery Italian,La Tavola.
