![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
This is the second chapter of my cozy mystery with tarot cards and psychic powers- if you haven't read the first, you might want to jump back and check it out.
Chapter 2
I woke up the next morning to the sound of rain, and for a moment I just enjoyed it- we really needed the moisture. Then I remembered I had left the box of tarot cards on my front step the night before, so they could get “cleansed” by the sun this morning. I honestly had no idea it would rain- it hadn’t rained all July, so why would it today?
I got up off my futon and reached up to the window to slide it shut- it was a little chilly. That’s a nice change. Peeping out the window, I was at eye level with the concrete slab that was my so-called patio. There was the box of cards on my folding lawn chair, slick with rain.
I pulled on a pair of silk boxers over my undies, and took the risk of walking outside without my bra on, in just the oversized tee shirt that I had slept in. I went up the half flight of stairs to the landing and cracked the door.
Nope- there was my neighbor.
“Hey Willow, good morning. Wake and bake?”
“Hey Rossi.” Ordinarily, I loved seeing my neighbor, but not necessarily when I was braless and first thing in the morning. And when I had recently given up smoking weed. “Nah, I’m good. I’m kind of, not smoking anymore.”
“Ah, trying to make me look bad, huh?”
“Always, Rossi, it’s all I ever think about. Giving up smoking is entirely based on making you look bad.” I had walked over to the folding chair and grabbed the cards. The rain was just a light sprinkle, it felt kind of good. Although not for long- we had a wet tee shirt contest going, and I was winning.
“Yeah, you’ll be back.” Rossi took a hit off his bong and looked the other way. Polite, not looking at my increasingly wet tee. Gentleman.
I slipped back in the door and went downstairs into my living room. Which is actually where I sleep in the summer. It’s cooler half underground. This place was built before air conditioning was common, and now that the electricity is so unreliable, it is just as well I don’t have AC.
I set the cards onto the coffee table and went into the kitchen. I didn’t need to spray down the screen today- I have cardboard in my kitchen window that I squirt with water, so as it evaporates it cools off the kitchen. Free air conditioning. That, along with sleeping in the basement in the summer, makes it tenable to live here. Not really a basement, garden level, they call it. I store my inventory in the upstairs, on racks and shelves, organized until I can take it around to sell. In the winter I switch, sleeping upstairs where it’s warm and storing my stash downstairs.
I flick the light switch- no power today. Rolling blackouts rolling earlier than usual. Oh well. Out of coffee anyway. I got a glass of water from the tap and took it with me back to the living room. .
Sitting cross-legged next to the coffee table, I looked at the cards to inspect the damage. I opened the box. It was damp, and the cards inside were stuck together. They were made of some sort of plastic, though, so they didn’t seem too bad off.. There was a little book with a white cover, the same size as the cards. The edges of the pages were damp and wrinkly. I flipped through. The first pages had a picture of a card each, with a description, then the rest of the pages had more than one card each, with a brief description. It looked like they were divided into suits, except instead of diamonds, spades, hearts and clubs, they were pentacles, swords, cups and wands. And every card had a picture, not just the kings and queens.
In the back of the little white book, , there were descriptions of different kinds of layouts- four corners with a card in the center,6 cards arranged in the points of a star, with one in the center. There was a celtic cross, with a total of 10 cards laid out, each card representing something or someone. I sipped some water. Wishing it were coffee. Too complicated. The final layout was something I could get behind- 3 cards, dealt out in a line, representing past, present and future.
I took the deck and shuffled it the way Jenna had- they were so sticky from the damp, it was hard not to drop them. I held them in my left hand, and used my right to divide out a section, then drop that section into a gap in the rest of the stack. I did that several times, thinking, “what do I need to know today?”
I cut the cards into three decks, and flipped the top card off the top of each.
OK. We have a happy little person with a hobo bundle and a little white dog, about to walk off a cliff, then the six of pentacles, with a picture of a rich person giving money to poor beggars, then the queen of pentacles.
I grabbed a notebook from a stack of books near my futon and opened it. Jenna had said to write down the cards, and the interpretations, and then compare my day to my interpretation. “Don’t take it too seriously,” Jenna had said. “Just because you get a death card, doesn't mean someone is going to die. It will mean endings and new beginnings, Trust your intuition but don’t freak out. Falling towers doesn’t mean the world is coming to an end.”
I read the descriptions in the book- the fool is starting a journey, innocence, encouraging curiosity and an open mind. That checks out, I guess that’s me. Then generosity, with a sense of equilibrium and balance. The pentacles can represent material wealth, or physical health. The final card represents a nurturing woman, symbol of security and sharing of wealth.
Crud. It might not mean the world is coming to an end, but it did mean I needed to go talk to my mom.
Chapter 2
I woke up the next morning to the sound of rain, and for a moment I just enjoyed it- we really needed the moisture. Then I remembered I had left the box of tarot cards on my front step the night before, so they could get “cleansed” by the sun this morning. I honestly had no idea it would rain- it hadn’t rained all July, so why would it today?
I got up off my futon and reached up to the window to slide it shut- it was a little chilly. That’s a nice change. Peeping out the window, I was at eye level with the concrete slab that was my so-called patio. There was the box of cards on my folding lawn chair, slick with rain.
I pulled on a pair of silk boxers over my undies, and took the risk of walking outside without my bra on, in just the oversized tee shirt that I had slept in. I went up the half flight of stairs to the landing and cracked the door.
Nope- there was my neighbor.
“Hey Willow, good morning. Wake and bake?”
“Hey Rossi.” Ordinarily, I loved seeing my neighbor, but not necessarily when I was braless and first thing in the morning. And when I had recently given up smoking weed. “Nah, I’m good. I’m kind of, not smoking anymore.”
“Ah, trying to make me look bad, huh?”
“Always, Rossi, it’s all I ever think about. Giving up smoking is entirely based on making you look bad.” I had walked over to the folding chair and grabbed the cards. The rain was just a light sprinkle, it felt kind of good. Although not for long- we had a wet tee shirt contest going, and I was winning.
“Yeah, you’ll be back.” Rossi took a hit off his bong and looked the other way. Polite, not looking at my increasingly wet tee. Gentleman.
I slipped back in the door and went downstairs into my living room. Which is actually where I sleep in the summer. It’s cooler half underground. This place was built before air conditioning was common, and now that the electricity is so unreliable, it is just as well I don’t have AC.
I set the cards onto the coffee table and went into the kitchen. I didn’t need to spray down the screen today- I have cardboard in my kitchen window that I squirt with water, so as it evaporates it cools off the kitchen. Free air conditioning. That, along with sleeping in the basement in the summer, makes it tenable to live here. Not really a basement, garden level, they call it. I store my inventory in the upstairs, on racks and shelves, organized until I can take it around to sell. In the winter I switch, sleeping upstairs where it’s warm and storing my stash downstairs.
I flick the light switch- no power today. Rolling blackouts rolling earlier than usual. Oh well. Out of coffee anyway. I got a glass of water from the tap and took it with me back to the living room. .
Sitting cross-legged next to the coffee table, I looked at the cards to inspect the damage. I opened the box. It was damp, and the cards inside were stuck together. They were made of some sort of plastic, though, so they didn’t seem too bad off.. There was a little book with a white cover, the same size as the cards. The edges of the pages were damp and wrinkly. I flipped through. The first pages had a picture of a card each, with a description, then the rest of the pages had more than one card each, with a brief description. It looked like they were divided into suits, except instead of diamonds, spades, hearts and clubs, they were pentacles, swords, cups and wands. And every card had a picture, not just the kings and queens.
In the back of the little white book, , there were descriptions of different kinds of layouts- four corners with a card in the center,6 cards arranged in the points of a star, with one in the center. There was a celtic cross, with a total of 10 cards laid out, each card representing something or someone. I sipped some water. Wishing it were coffee. Too complicated. The final layout was something I could get behind- 3 cards, dealt out in a line, representing past, present and future.
I took the deck and shuffled it the way Jenna had- they were so sticky from the damp, it was hard not to drop them. I held them in my left hand, and used my right to divide out a section, then drop that section into a gap in the rest of the stack. I did that several times, thinking, “what do I need to know today?”
I cut the cards into three decks, and flipped the top card off the top of each.
OK. We have a happy little person with a hobo bundle and a little white dog, about to walk off a cliff, then the six of pentacles, with a picture of a rich person giving money to poor beggars, then the queen of pentacles.
I grabbed a notebook from a stack of books near my futon and opened it. Jenna had said to write down the cards, and the interpretations, and then compare my day to my interpretation. “Don’t take it too seriously,” Jenna had said. “Just because you get a death card, doesn't mean someone is going to die. It will mean endings and new beginnings, Trust your intuition but don’t freak out. Falling towers doesn’t mean the world is coming to an end.”
I read the descriptions in the book- the fool is starting a journey, innocence, encouraging curiosity and an open mind. That checks out, I guess that’s me. Then generosity, with a sense of equilibrium and balance. The pentacles can represent material wealth, or physical health. The final card represents a nurturing woman, symbol of security and sharing of wealth.
Crud. It might not mean the world is coming to an end, but it did mean I needed to go talk to my mom.
