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"I am," the psychic confirmed, "but you're also one of three family doctors in town. It's not a stretch that people might recognize you. Plus, I know your mother."
"Lottie," Paige muttered, as if her mother was the root of all evil. In reality, she was a nice lady who owned the Muffin Tin in downtown Singletree, and who made the best pumpkin muffins I'd ever had. Lottie was also my boss.
"Shall we get on with it?" The psychic asked me.
"Um, sure."
"Fifty."
I felt the confusion draw my brows lower. "Fifty?"
"Readings are fifty dollars. You can Venmo me or I take Zelle."
Just then, a loud yowl screeched down the hallway, echoing from somewhere deep inside the house. Fear pricked a line down my neck and arms, raising each hair, one at a time. "What was that?" My voice was unfamiliarly tiny.
"That's Bruno." The psychic seemed unconcerned. "Take these." She handed me the deck of cat tarot cards. "Close your eyes and shuffle them. Infuse them with your being."
If that was a direction I was meant to follow, I was doomed. I did not know how to infuse anything with my being. But I tried, shuffling the cards between my hands.
"Yep, good. Now think about what you want to know. The cats will answer."
I continued moving the cards between my hands and focused my mind on the one thing in my life that wasn't going the way I'd like it to: my love life. I was considering moving away, maybe heading up to Washington DC or a bigger city in Virginia where there might be more eligible men, but I loved Singletree and didn't really want to leave my dad alone here. I just needed a man to magically appear.
I guessed if it was magic I needed, tarot couldn't hurt.
"Cut the deck." The psychic's voice cut into my deliberations.
I did as I was told.
"Place the deck in the center of the table."
After a moment, the psychic began laying cards out across the table, face down, setting up a cross shape with four cards to the side of it. She gave me a meaningful look, staring at me with bright clear eyes for a beat longer than I would have liked, and then she turned back to the cards.
"The current situation," she said, moving her hand over the cross in front of me. "Past to future," her hand drifted left to right. "Subconscious to consciousness," her hand moved bottom to top.
Well, that wasn't helpful at all.
But then something crazy happened. She began flipping over cards, revealing cats in various poses with Roman numerals and strange words on the cards, and she talked in a soft voice all the while.
The things she said, and the cards she turned over made it seem like she'd read some kind of personal history of mine, or my journals, and it was enough to make me a believer.
"You are in a holding pattern. Stuck," she told me. "But an upsetting force is moving into your path. What you choose to do with this is up to you, but it will put you on a new path, no matter what you decide."
The upsetting force she spoke of was represented by the Tower, a card she said shouldn't be interpreted as negative, despite the images of cats falling (or being flung?) from a tower against a background of darkness.
"The Empress is here," the psychic went on, even though I was still picturing myself being flung from a tall tower. A white cat sat primly with a heart at her feet, moon phases scattered in an arc over her head. "In this position, she symbolizes readiness for something new."
At the end of the reading, she flipped a card called The Hierophant.
"What's a Hierophant?" Paige stage-whispered, earning her a sharp look from the psychic.
"The Hierophant sees all, knows all," she said. "And she symbolizes ritual and ceremony, as well as rules." The psychic's eyes landed on my face as her hand hovered over a winking grey cat with doves over its head. "Is your lover going to propose?" She asked, then seemed to dismiss this idea. "No. Nothing so traditional. Is he moving in?"
"I don't have a lover," I reminded her. Maybe she was drunk after all. "That is the issue."
She nodded, looking calm, as if the universe was speaking to her.
"A change, then. A symbolic and very real change, and it is up to you to embrace or deny it. It could lead you down a path that results in everything you want. A promising and fulfilling relationship that will not be without struggle.” She pointed at the three of swords, showing a heart pierced by three swords hovering above a white cat.
