Page 52 of Hairpin Curves

“Well, no, I mean... I just...” Scarlett floundered for words, but he just laughed and waved a hand.

“It’s okay. I get that a lot. But it’s really me. My name’s Gaelen.” His grin was infectious, knocking down all her defenses and concerns. “I promise, I’m an actual Tarot card reader.”

“Is that a profession? Did you go to school for that?” She was flirting a little, maybe, but that was her default in new situations.

He folded his hands together. “Actually, I learned Tarot from my grandmother. My degree is in archaeology, but it turns out that it’s really hard to get a job as an archaeologist these days. So, now I read Tarot in Salem. And word on the street is that I’m pretty good at it.” He pulled a deck of cards out from below the counter, one that was worn around the edges, and held it up. “My rates are reasonable.”

Scarlett wasn’t going to be called back to meet with Megan for a while, so what did she have to lose, right? “What’s the dollar amount on ‘reasonable’?”

A few minutes later, she was sitting at a small table behind a curtain in the back of the shop, with Gaelen shuffling cards across from her. This was ridiculous, and she knew it, but she hadn’t expected the way her cynicism and amusement melted away as he set the cards down in front of her and instructed her to cut the deck. She did, and Gaelen finished the cut and began to flip cards out in a spread like the ones she’d seen on the internet and movies. He studied the whole layout, and then smiled at her.

“Good news. You’re not going to die tragically today.”

He startled a laugh out of her. “Was that something I should have been worried about?”

“Nah, but I like to break the ice.” He swept his hand across the cards, gesturing to the whole spread. “Some people use Tarot to tell the future, or at least anticipate future events, but I find it helpful to give people a reading of where they are now, and what is standing in their way of the dreams they want to achieve.”

“Okay.” The cards laid out before her were colorful, with striking images, but they didn’t make any sense on their own. “You’re going to explain that to me, then?”

“I am.” Gaelen folded his hands, and his attention was on the cards as he spoke, tapping certain ones to indicate where he was getting his information. “This part here, it’s the current situation: where you’ve come from, where you are, what you’re facing. These cards indicate you’ve got a lot of missed opportunities in your past. You have run away from things instead of confronting them. And you’re at a crossroads right now.”

Scarlett wanted to jump in with a rude comment about everyone being at a crossroads of some kind, but she quelled her own inner defensiveness and let Gaelen speak. It was easier to look at the cards than at him, so she focused on those bright pictures. Maybe she could see her story in them.

“It’s all starting here in the center. The card that represents you, is a card of someone fleeing or escaping. And the one on top of it, that’s what you’re up against right now. For you, it’s this one.” Gaelen held up a card with a tall stone tower being struck by lightning, people leaping from its windows.

“Great. I’m facing plummeting to my death?”

Gaelen smiled. “Not necessarily. The Tower is one of the Major Arcana cards. Those are the most significant in the whole deck. The Tower is change and upheaval. The lightning is the force of change, which isn’t always pleasant or fun. What’s on the other side is going to be different from what came before.”

Discomfort settled on her skin like a prickly blanket. Sure, maybe everyone was at a crossroads in their lives at every point, but the giant burning tower was a hard sign to ignore. Was this about her career, or something else? “Okay. So what does that mean for me?”

Gaelen steepled his fingers. “Well, from what I can see on the table, you’ve spent your life avoiding and running from periods of major change like this. And now, you have to decide if you’re going to run away from this one, or confront it.”

Scarlett leaned back in her chair and folded her arms, needing the way it seemed to bar her from what lay on the table before her. “What does it mean to confront change? Change happens.”

“I don’t know what your situation is, specifically. I’m not a mind reader. I read the cards. This part of the spread here, this is the staff.” He tapped the vertical column of four cards alongside the cross. “The staff is the context for your current situation: your hopes and dreams, your suggested actions, the possible outcomes, depending on how you confront these challenges.”

“What do those say?” Scarlett leaned in, drawn in despite her attempts to pull away.

“Right now, in your spread, these four cards are all about relationships.” Gaelen passed his hand across the whole staff. “Some of them are subjective, but it implies that your actions and outcomes are intertwined with the people in your life. That might also be your challenge. I don’t know.”

Scarlett focused on the card at the top of the staff, one of two people drinking together from matching goblets. “Is this about romance?”

“Usually, yes, but it can also be a deep intimate friendship.” Gaelen looked up from the spread, hesitancy in his expression. “Does one of those explanations make more sense than another?”

Scarlett laughed. “If I knew that, lots of other things would be clear.”

“Well, whichever it is, your outcome and path are not solitary.” Gaelen shook his head slowly, scanning the cards. “You need people.”

“Everybody needs people, Gaelen.”

“And yet you run from them.” He met her eyes, and the hesitancy was gone. “You can’t run forever.”

Scarlett tried to smile, but it felt twisted on her face. This wasn’t fun anymore. With her heartbeat ratcheting up in her chest, she felt that familiar drive to escape, to flee. The irony of feeling it right now wasn’t lost on her. “Gotta tell you, Gaelen, this is way less enjoyable than I was expecting.”

“You shouldn’t have expected it to be enjoyable.” He smiled, though, softening his words. “But is it helpful?”

Scarlett stared at the cards. She could fill in the gaps. “I guess.” Hearing her failings reflected so accurately by this stranger was unnerving, but also oddly liberating. Regardless of how much she might want to complicate her own dilemmas, they boiled down to this particular challenge: confront her feelings, and be vulnerable, or avoid and run away? “I don’t like it, though.”