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“Really?” Joyce stared down at the cards, blue eyes intent, as if she wanted to memorize each one and engrave it on her memory so she could pull it out and recall this moment if ever things should get tough for her.
“Really,” I repeated. “And I would love for you to come by my shop with some of your samples next week.”
She straightened in her chair, chin lifting a bit. Right then, it almost looked as though she planned to go into battle.
Which might be exactly what happens if Henry gets wind that she’s going to start doing business with you,I thought, and then told myself not to borrow trouble. Henry Lewis might have been an ongoing pain in my rear end, but I’d never heard even the faintest whiff of a rumor that his marriage to Joyce was anything but a very happy one.
“Absolutely,” she said, her tone as firm as her chin. “How about Wednesday?”
“That would be great,” I replied, which was only the truth. Tuesday and Wednesday tended to be my slowest days at the shop. Having Joyce drop by with her candles could only help to break up the monotony. “Does two o’clock work for you?”
“Yes, that’s fine,” Joyce said. “I’ll see you then.”
“See you then,” I echoed, and she got up from her chair while I reshuffled the deck.
A moment later, Terry Woodrow appeared and took the seat that Joyce had just vacated. Terry looked a bit hesitant, as if she wasn’t quite sure whether or not she was on board with the whole idea of a Tarot reading.
But when I asked her what she wanted to focus on, she seemed relaxed enough as she informed me that they were awaiting word on getting a second mortgage on their house so Brett could do some major overhauls of the kitchen and master bath. I pulled a series of cup cards, all of them appearing to indicate that they’d breeze right through the approval process — and that the remodel itself would also go smoothly.
Terry smiled and thanked me, and said she’d find Danny and send him over. I managed to smile and tell her that would be great, although inwardly, I couldn’t help hoping she wouldn’t be able to find him, or that maybe he’d left the party early, although I knew that particular scenario was a bit of a stretch. I’d probably only exchanged twenty words with the guy, but it was enough to tell me Danny Ortega wasn’t the sort of person to ever bail out on a party before it was over.
Sure enough, he came striding up to my table a couple of minutes later.
Why was I not surprised he’d dressed up as Zorro, complete with flat-brimmed black hat, black cape, and a black shirt that was a little too open down the front, revealing more dark chest hair than I really needed to see?
However, I made sure I sounded crisp and professional as I said, “Hi, Danny. Are you ready for your reading?”
“Absolutely,” he replied as he sat down with a completely unnecessary flourish of his cape.
Holding back a sigh, I started to shuffle my cards…and shuffle them. For some reason, I wasn’t getting the inner ping or vibe or whatever you wanted to call it that told me it was time to stop messing with them. “What do you want to focus on tonight?” I asked him.
For a second, his gaze slid toward the faint hint of cleavage the scooped neckline of my dress revealed, and I had to clench my teeth and force myself not to kick him in the shin under the table.
Violence is never the way, Selena.
He grinned, apparently oblivious to my annoyance. “Oh, I don’t need anything fancy. Just let me know what to expect in the near future.”
Great. I hated open-ended readings like that. The cards worked so much better when the querent had some kind of clear intention in mind.
But if that was what he wanted….
I shuffled the deck some more, then decided the hell with it. The worst that could happen was I’d get a jumble of mismatched minor arcana and court cards, and I’d have to do my best to cobble together a story that connected them and made their sequence somewhat plausible.
One card was sticking out slightly, so I pulled it loose and laid it down face up.
Oh, great.
The Devil stared up at me, eyes squinted into a leer as he leaned over two children, tempting them with ice cream. The Everyday Witch deck had probably the most benevolent-looking Devil card out there, but the artwork couldn’t change its meaning.
Temptation.
Before Danny could comment, I pulled out another card.
Ten of Swords. Seriously? I tried not to stare too hard at the image on the card stock, of a witch lying face down on the ground with ten swords sticking out of her back. The card always signified some kind of calamity approaching, although some practitioners tried to soften the message by saying it also could mean a person merely needed to be on their guard against treachery or betrayal.
And then….
I laid down the Death card and tried not to sigh. And all right, its usual meaning wasn’t literal death, but some kind of major transformation and change. Even so, it generally wasn’t seen as something you wanted to have turn up in a reading.
