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I pulled cards here and there, or I laid out a spread where the spirits of my ancestors could offer answers to particular questions. Many of the cards themselves were so familiar, each pull was like seeing the face of an old friend, or regressing into an old habit that I’d thought I’d kicked.
I’m looking at you, Four of Swords, reversed.
I sighed and replaced the deck in my herb cabinet and poured the boiling water over the tea to steep. I’d tried to blend the perfect herbs to celebrate our day of new beginnings.
Lemon balm for friendship, rose for love, spearmint for courage, orange peel and wild bergamot for clarity. The loose petals and leaves swirled in the pot. A fragrant mist eddied around me. It was too hot for tea, but it was more symbolic than anything. It certainly wasn’t doing anything for my nerves.
I nestled the mugs on the tray. The more I fiddled, the worse my anxiety grew.Would Gus notice if I didn’t join him after all? How bad of a wife would I be if I faked a headache on our first night of marriage?
Most of me wanted to rush out to him. Jump in the deep end and swim for my life. But there that was that other part. A tiny splinter of a part. The kind that slides right through a nerve in your fingertip and rubs it so raw you can’t concentrate on anything but the incessant, pricking discomfort. That part of me wanted to grab my keys, jump in my car, and drive somewhere where everything made sense. Work. My lab. A construction site where the digger disturbed an unmarked casket. Anywhere but here.
“Dec?” Gus’s deep voice called from the door.
“Coming.” I transferred the little cinnamon cakes I’d baked—dripping with luscious honey to represent the traditional honeymoon that we both decided it was better to forgo—to one of the old china plates I’d inherited, and added it to the serving tray with the tea to bring outside to enjoy our honeymoon bonfire.
I’d light it this time. I really would.
Tonight, I just wanted a little bit ofspecialto mark the occasion. Maybe ours wasn’t a traditional marriage, but it wasn’t something either of us took lightly.
“Looks like it’ll be a good fire. I didn’t know if you knew how to build one.”
“Please. How could you doubt me?”
“Why? Because you’re a man and it’s a skill leftover from your Homo erectus days?”
“No, because I’m an Eagle Scout.”
“Really? You were a Boy Scout? I can’t see it.”
“Not Boy Scout. Eagle Scout. And I am one. It’s present tense. Once and always.”
“Oh.”
“You learn something new every day.”
“Gus, we’ll both be learning something new about each other every day for a very long time.”
“Should make for an exciting marriage.” He smiled and picked up a mug of tea, offering me the one in my favorite cup before going back for his. I played off his comment with a laugh. Then I remembered the Four of Swords, reversed.
He reached into his back pocket. Something blue twirled in his fingers once, twice, before he opened his palm to show me.
The lighter.
“Nice night for a fire. You ready?”
I bit my lower lip. My hand twitched at my side. The last time I lit the logs, I’d had to bring Granny out here in a wheelchair. She was seeing things by then. Talking to her Great Uncle Asenath in the flames. She introduced me to a cousin, Kizzie, I’d never heard of, laughing and chasing him through the apple orchard in her memories—or in another dimension. Back on Earth, the light of the fire had erased decades off Granny’s face.
It was then when I realized her body had already started shutting down for the long haul. She died two days later. In her bed. Me and some of her friends around her. It was a good death. At the time, I was content and at peace with her slipping bodily away from me. But I couldn’t help but dwell on how alone I was in the world.
“I—“
Lighting the fire tonight would be the perfect way to counter the memory. I wasn’t alone anymore. I had Gus. I had a family of sorts. I wasn’t alone before, either. Not with Bethany and Soula, but I was still the only Crowley left in my family, and that felt meaningful at the time.
Still, I couldn’t seem to lift my hand to take the lighter. My arm was too heavy, my muscles weren’t taking orders from my brain.
My eyes trailed from Gus’s hand to his eyes. He understood. He didn’t judge. Or maybe he did judge, and he was just too good of a man—too good of a priest—to let it show.
He smiled widely, his eyes crinkling in the corners in the way I loved. “Honestly, I’m a little relieved. It’s like, ninety degrees out here. I’m sweating in places I didn’t know I had.”
