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For Non-Blondes
When I woke up the next morning, however, I wasn’t feeling quite as dejected as I had during dinner. That might have been because the sun was shining and I’d slept like a rock the entire night before, but it also could have been because I realized I wasn’t quite as without resources as I wanted to believe. I’d consult the Tarot, possibly my pendulum, and, if all else failed, roust my Grandma Ellen from playing canasta in the afterlife so she could offer her own input on the situation, even though she’d made it clear on previous occasions that she didn’t want me bothering her over every little thing.
Despite that minor complication, I was smiling when I kissed Calvin before he headed off to work a little before eight, and why I hummed to myself as I tidied the kitchen following breakfast, then went into my office, determined to get some answers.
Even if I didn’t know for sure what they might be.
Sadie watched me from her bed as I lit some copal incense, hoping the purifying nature of that particular scent would help to clear my mind. For some magical workings, I liked to keep the drapes closed, but this morning, I opened them wide so the clear light of morning could blow away the cobwebs in the corners of my brain and allow me to focus all my intent on discovering exactly who had put that atropine in Victoria’s creamer.
As always, I reached for my Tarot deck first, mostly because it was the one tool that gave me the most definitive answers. Rather than waiting for that little tingle to tell me I’d gotten to the right card — since I knew it probably wouldn’t happen, not with the way I’d been so blocked over the past few months — I instead shuffled them for a full minute, then deliberately cut them seven separate times. I hoped that using that magically charged number would give this reading a little extra oomph, even if I was sort of flying blind here.
The first card was the Queen of Cups, reversed. The general meaning of that card was emotional immaturity, but I couldn’t help noticing the hair color of the woman in the illustration, which was bright blonde.
A tip of the hat toward the unknown blonde woman who’d been spotted coming and going from Jeffrey Sellers’ apartment?
Maybe.
Frowning, I drew the second card. There was Old Faithful, aka the Ten of Swords, the card of ultimate betrayal.
So, were the cards telling me Jeffrey Sellers had been murdered by an emotionally immature woman with blonde hair?
Considering that the third and final card I pulled was the Lovers reversed, the answer to that question appeared to be a big old yes.
Problem was, I still had no clue who the blonde woman was, and while this card pull reinforced my belief that she was the one who’d killed Jeffrey, it wasn’t helping much when it came to giving me any clues as to her actual identity.
Time to try again.
I picked up the cards and put them back in the deck, then shuffled them for another full minute and cut them the ritual seven times, since that seemed to have worked fairly well on my first attempt.
The first card was the Two of Cups, followed by the Seven of Wands and the Page of Pentacles. No matter how I tried to look at it, this particular combination of cards made little sense, especially when I tried to apply it to my current situation.
Well, you couldn’t win ’em all.
Two more follow-up attempts resulted in more of what I called “minor arcana mishmash,” so I tucked the cards back into the deck and slid it into the green velvet pouch that kept them safe when I wasn’t using them.
Clearly, I needed to try something else, because my success with that first card pull didn’t look as though it wanted to repeat itself.
I went over to the bookshelf that held my pendulums and my scrying mats, and chose my favorite, the round one with a beautiful illustration of a luna moth emblazoned on it. In the past, I’d had slightly more luck with my fluorite pendulum than any of the others, so I picked up that one and took it and the mat back over to my altar.
The key problem with pendulums was that it was hard to get anything out of them beyond simple “yes” and “no” answers. Every time I’d tried to have it spell out a name, the pendulum had swung back and forth without settling on any particular letters, telling me that, while some people might have had the talent for coaxing those sorts of answers from their pendulums, I wasn’t one of those lucky few.
Instead, I tried to fix what I hoped would be a helpful question in my mind.
Is Jeffrey Sellers’ killer the blonde woman who was seen at his apartment?
I held myself as still as possible, knowing that my own movements could jeopardize the reading if I wasn’t careful. No, this reply needed to come from the universe and nowhere else.
The pendulum swung back and forth, slowly and deliberately. Hardly daring to breathe, I waited until it had come to a complete stop.
Yes.
I released my breath. True, it was something I’d already suspected, but having the fact confirmed this way told me I was definitely on the right path.
Problem was, I didn’t know where that particular path was supposed to lead from here. Without knowing the identity of the woman, I was going to have a hard time bringing her to justice.
But all was not lost. I could still do my best to narrow down where we might find her.
Does the woman live in Mesa?
