“Oh god,” I groan. “I’m becoming my mother.”
Headlights gleam against the slick sidewalk, and I look up in time to see the bus drift to the stop two blocks ahead.
“Wait!” I raise my hands, flapping like a seagull as I run to meet the bus, wet boots slipping in the ice-covered snow, purse swinging like an anchor around my shoulder.
Through the windshield, I lock eyes with the driver, and I’m almost there, only a block away, when I hear the mechanical squeak of the door.
“No!” A fresh sob grips my throat as the bus pulls away from the curb and lumbers down the street. I slow to a stop and dig through my bag, searching for my phone to check the schedule even though I know there won’t be another bus for twenty minutes.
As I paw through my oversize purse, the delicate handkerchief slips out and is caught by a stiff gust of wind. It flutters away, straight into a pile of dingy snow a few feet in front of me.
“That’s literally the nicest thing I own.” I sigh and shuffle forward to retrieve it.
Just as I’m about to reach it, my boot hits an unsalted patch of sidewalk. My legs fly out from under me, and I crash onto my back. Pain explodes through my body as my head smacks against the unforgiving concrete.
“Ow! Fuck!” For a moment, I just lie there, defeated, the cold seeping into my bones, the sky above a slate-gray blur.
I finally roll onto my stomach, my vision swimming as I push myself up onto my hands and knees. “This night can’t possibly get any worse,” I choke out, snow biting my fingertips.
The edge of the linen handkerchief flutters just in front of me, and I reach for it, pausing as a glint of silver shines amid the gray snow. My hand is red and stiff withcold, but I can’t stop myself from digging for the coin. Hysterical laughter climbs up my throat while I scramble for loose change.
You’re so desperate.
I let out a barking laugh at Chad’s judgment that’s now become my own, adding itself to my arsenal of internal critiques that have always been better at knocking me down than building me up.
I snatch the silver from the snow.
I am desperate.
So very clearly desperate that I need any bit of money I can find. But it’s not a coin.
I tilt my chin and wince at the pain jabbing the back of my head.
“The tarot card.” Foreboding squeezes my chest as my fingers trace the shimmering silver pentagram from the back of the card, glinting in the streetlights.
I rise to my feet, almost in slow motion, my movements weighed down with confusion and a throbbing headache that pulses in sync with my heartbeat. My balance wavers, and I sway on my feet like I’m at sea. I take a breath and steady myself. I know what it’s going to say. I know it’s going to tell me to see the door and open it. I know that it’s all nonsense. Isn’t it?
I smooth down my rumpled dress and bite the inside of my cheek. I can’t shake the apprehension tightening my chest, quaking through my limbs.
This time when I flip the card over, words do not appear. Instead, it’s a clear and vibrant image of a woman on a throne. Her expression is still and serene as she gazes into a mirror. Her flowy dress is a vibrant red that matches the swollen pomegranates framing her, and a delicatetiara rests on top of her braided hair. Surrounding the throne is a lush garden that bursts with yellows, blues, and greens against a deep-cobalt sky speckled with twinkling stars.
I stare, transfixed, warmth seeping into my fingertips in a gentle swell that washes up my arm like the first rays of sun after a snowstorm. It pours into my chest, comforting yet unnerving. My vision starts to blur, and the edges of the world soften, the colors bleeding into one another.
Beneath my feet, the solid concrete shudders, and the mantra—my mantra—the one that didn’t work, the one to which I pinned all my hopes, echoes loudly and insistently in my ears, its words a buoy keeping me afloat as the world around me comes undone.
See the door and open it.
As if bewitched by my thoughts, the snow-covered Chicago sidewalk swings open. The world tilts, and I stumble forward and fall head over heels into endless velvety black. A scream catches in my throat. The card falls through with me, the image of the woman on the throne flashing in and out of focus, her eyes following mine, a Cheshire smile stretched across her lips.
Four
The world spins around me, melting into a chaotic blur of maroon and gold as I tumble down, down, down…
Thwack!
I land on my side, the air forced from my lungs as my bag slides across the…soft carpet? I push myself up on one elbow. Wobbly as a doe, I squint into the low lighting. My vision is black around the edges, dancing and spinning like I’ve had too much to drink. My stomach clenches, and I roll onto all fours, dry heaving over the thick fibers of a lush burgundy rug.
Where am I?
