Fourteen – 02

Phelan gave me a tight smile and a slight nod before he turned and slipped out. I sat on the edge of my bed for a long, aching moment, hands limp in my lap, fingers tingling.

Steady, I told myself. Steady. Don’t be afraid. You can’t be afraid—this is part of your gift and it always has been. You don’t have to be afraid of it.

The problem was that I wasn’t exactly afraid of my ability to read that old deck of Tarot cards. I was afraid of what they would tell us when Phelan asked his questions, of what they would say and terrible news I would have to give him.

Try to be optimistic, Marin. It might not be awful news.

I closed my eyes and sighed. It was hard to be optimistic when things so often went in the direction we didn’t want them to go in.

With a sigh, I reached for my deck, tucked inside a box of dark wood. My hands tingled as I unwrapped the box from the old, soft sarong I used as a cloth to do my readings on and I took a slow, deep breath.

For better or worse, you agreed to do it. No choice now.

The cards stared up at me as I opened the box, the white and green and black of the knotwork pattern on the back of the cards gleaming faintly in the lamplight. I ran my fingers over them, a familiar shiver working its way up through my fingertips to my shoulder. They’d seemed almost alive since the end of everything—but when everything else in the world had changed, why not my tarot deck, too?

I shuffled the deck, slowly at first, willing myself to relax. Settle down. Relax.

Everything’s going to be fine. It’s just the cards. Just another reading.

Nothing to worry about.

“Gods and monsters,” I whispered. “At least I hope not.”

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