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I don’t feel like any of this is helping. In fact, I’d rather stop, but there’s still four more cards to turn over.
“This card represents your problem…” Helena flips the center card, revealing the image of a man dangling upside-down from one foot. “The Hanged Man…that means you’re unable to help yourself.”
My stomach sinks. That’s exactly how I feel—like I’m dangling by my ankle over an abyss, and no matter what I do, no matter how hard I work, it never seems to get better…
“So, what am I supposed to do?”
Helena flips the last three cards:
Three swords stabbed into a bloody heart.
Two lovers wrapped in an embrace.
And finally…a grim reaper in a dark cloak, riding on a skeletal horse.
“These represent your future,” she says.
“My future is death?”
Helena gives a slightly nervous laugh. “Not always. Not usually! The Three of Swords means a separation or the breakup of a significant relationship. The Lovers represent choice as well as romance. And Death…that could mean the death of a project, plan, or relationship, not always physical death! The reaper’s scythe cuts the cord to the past, allowing us to move forward because we have nothing else to lose…”
I really don’t see how any of this is supposed to help. I’m more confused than ever and more depressed.
Emma sees my gloomy expression and tugs me up from the table.
“Come on! Let’s go dance!”
“Don’t you want your cards read?”
“Helena’s done mine a million times.”
I let Emma pull me along. By the time we’ve split a bag of kettle corn and danced for an hour in the city square, I’m starting to feel a little better.
??Hush - The Marías
Selina joins us, dressed as Ursula in a strapless gown with a tentacle hem that shows off the impressive sleeves of tattoos running down both her arms. Tom tries to dance, but his crutches get in the way, and he ends up sitting on the sidelines, sulky until I buy him an orange and black snow cone.
“Sorry about your leg.” I apologize for the hundredth time, steeped in guilt.
“Ah, it’s not so bad…only two more weeks of these things.” He kicks at one of his crutches, knocking it over. I pick it up for him and rest it against the pile of hay bales he’s using as a chair.
Across the square, the plague doctor watches me again.
The party’s getting crazy, people packing into the square until there’s barely room to move, let alone dance. The smell of pumpkin cider is thick in the air. The whoops and shouts from the park have become wild as a pack of wolves.
Someone slaps me hard on the ass.
“What the fuck!” I whip around and see a Mr. Bones grinning at me.
I’m considering punching his creepy skeleton face until he pulls up his mask and I realize it’s only Jude.
“I almost decked you, you idiot!”
“Then you wouldn’t get your drink.” He passes me a bottle of cider with the cap already popped.
“Where have you been?”
“Getting into trouble.”
