Page 11
The next card isn’t much better. A different man, standing on a similar cliff, facing out to sea, with three thin spikes firmly placed into the ground around him.
Three of Wands.
“High desire and intensity,” Delphine trills, coiling a lock of her auburn hair around her slender fingers in a move that borders on flirtatious.
“I don’t need a running commentary, thank you. I’m quite capable of reading them myself,” I bite out, throwing the card back into the center.
The Three of Wands is associated with deep-seated desire, anticipation, readiness. The way I’ve drawn the cards means that this is my obstacle. I can look at it in two ways: either the cards are telling me that growth will come as I heal from my divorce, or they are calling me out for my wayward fantasy. I choose to ignore the second, accepting the first as gospel.
“What use would one be as a spirit guide, if not offering guidance?” She flourishes her hands in front of her.
“And what guidance do you have to offer me, oh wise spirit?” I say sarcastically, leaning against the bottom of the couch and crossing my arms.
She makes a show of tapping her lip and thinking. “Oh, well. It’s obvious that you very clearly would like to bed Sunday again, but you are pretending you do not. The heart wants what it wants, Bellamy.”
I scoff at her. “I don’t think my heart has anything to do with it.”
“Well, your brain is not doing a lick of good either. You know, because the blood has traveled south posthaste.”
“You’re very filthy for a demure lady, you know that?”
And she is. For someone who died an unmarried virgin, she has a mouth on her. It makes me wonder if she’s somehow consorting with an incubus between realms, collecting ways to tease and embarrass me.
Her joyous giggle makes the candle flames flare, shadows dancing with one another.
The last card looms.
I glare at it for a few moments before I finally find the courage to flip it over.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” My eyes land on an image of a crumbling tower, lightning striking it from above.
The Tower: my solution. The lightning bolt: the striking force, representing shocking change. Once again, it might be referring to my ex-husband or an old flame. Once again, I choose to ignore the image of the tattooed menace my brain supplies.
The crumbling tower.
Collapse.
A necessary destruction of the past.
Old views, beliefs, feelings.
In the image, people fall from the tower.
“The ending of ignorance,” Delphine helpfully chimes in. I shush her aggressively as she chuckles and stretches out on the floor like a cat in the sun.
The last part of the artwork: dark storm clouds. Conflict residing within which must be resolved in order to move forward. All in all, The Tower represents a period of dramatic upheaval. It demands the embrace of change, to let go of what no longer serves, to trust that the chaos is necessary for growth.
“And don’t forget, Bellamy dearest, by facing the truth, you open the door to deeper, more fulfilling love,” Delphine says sagely.
I throw a pillow at her ineffectually—she’s mastered the art of making her corporeal form transparent at will. She just squeals and throws it back at me, hitting me square in the face.
“Don’t make me get the sage out again.” It’s a weak threat, and she knows it.
“Bellamy Parris, you are a terrible host.”
“And you, Delphine Montgomery, are a terrible lady.”
Chapter Six
