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“That’s fine,” Tanith said as brightly as she could. Ursalina appeared genuinely upset that it had taken her this long to sneak into Tanith’s gallery, through a locked door, so she could perform a bit of antiquated fortune telling. If it meant that much to her, Tanith wasn’t about to chase her off or laugh. “I’d love to hear what the cards have to say.”
“First, your hand,” Ursalina ordered, holding out hers, palm up.
Holding back a sigh, Tanith spared a quick glance at the front doors—still locked, as far as she could see—then placed her hand in Ursalina’s. The warmth of her palm surprised her, and, had she not dated a man who burned as hot as Blake did most days, she might have worried Ursalina was in the throes of some fever-induced fit.
But, despite all the weirdness, Ursalina appeared in total control of her faculties. She closed her eyes for a moment, flipping their hands over and pressing her pointer finger hard onto the pulse-point on Tanith’s wrist. Nearby, Tanith’s phone chirped again, then twice more—probably Blake wondering where she’d disappeared to.
Like she would stop all this just to answer a text. Tanith waited, patient as ever, and kept her breathing even. Across the table, Ursalina appeared to be muttering something under her breath—and not in English. Moments later, she released Tanith and got to work on shuffling her clearly custom-made tarot cards.
From the flashes of color and designs she saw, Tanith thought they were stunning, and even considered floating the idea of commissioning a set from the woman to sell here at the gallery. However, before she could get a word out, Ursalina began pulling out cards and arranging them in a classic nine-card spread.
“Yes, yes, yes, yes…” Ursalina’s hands hovered over each card for a moment, then flipped it over. While Tanith had some knowledge of tarot—like the death card never actually meant death, but rather new beginnings and change—she wasn’t skilled enough to read anything from the other side of the table. So, she just waited, watching as the woman worked.
“Well?” she asked when Ursalina sat back in her chair with a sigh.
“Your future is clear,” the woman remarked, her voice sounding duskier, raspier. When she didn’t continue right away, Tanith’s eyebrows lifted, prompting her, and she hastily began gathering the cards again. “There is happiness. Much happiness.”
“Oh. Well. That sounds nice—”
“But also disaster,” Ursalina told her, shuffling the cards all together again and plopping them back in her bag. “Disaster that will impact your family. The cards are unclear whether that impact will be good or bad—”
“Not sure how disaster can be good,” Tanith said shakily. Even if she didn’t put much stock in these sorts of things, hearing that something terrible lay in her future, specifically for her family, wasn’t a nice feeling. In fact, it made her feel like someone had taken a crowbar and pummeled her in the stomach with it.
The only family that mattered to her was Hayley, and if there was any truth in all this, then her health was in jeopardy. She probably wouldn’t ever get her bone marrow transplant. Tanith’s eyes watered at the thought, suddenly feeling the need to puke her guts into the nearest trash can.
“The cards work in mysterious ways,” Ursalina remarked, and Tanith lifted her watery gaze to the woman and suddenly found herself scowling.
“Please go.” Even if it was all bullshit, this uninvited distraction had just reminded her that her daughter was ill, potentially terminally, and her bank account couldn’t keep up with her treatments and managing the gallery for much longer. “I don’t mean to be rude—”
“Think on it,” Ursalina murmured. While her words were whispered, Tanith somehow heard them loud and clear at the back of her mind. “Do not forget the happiness. And do not forget that disaster can clear the board. Bring forth change. It can be for the better.”
“Can you just…” When she looked up again, the woman was gone.
Tanith sat there wondering if any of it had really happened at all. As tears rolled down her face, she sat up and scanned the empty gallery, wondering if all that time with screaming kids had actually driven her insane.
***
“It’s always been my understanding that tarot cards don’t predict an exact future, but rather a possibility of certain events taking place,” Blake said from the living room.
Tanith set their empty wine glasses in the sink—only half a glass for each of them tonight—and then let out a long sigh. Blake had sensed something was wrong with her as soon as he arrived after work that night, about a half hour after Hayley had gone to bed. Although it had taken some prodding and snooping on his part, Tanith had eventually given in and told him about her odd experience with Ursalina at the gallery. Ever since then, he had been trying hard to cheer her up—and for that, she couldn’t fault him. For that, Tanith thought she might love him.
But it wasn’t the reading that had put her in such a sour mood. No, it was the fact that the reading reminded her of everything that could go wrong in her life, all the problems she had been pushing down, down, down in her mind.
Ursalina’s reading had brought each and every one of them to light, and Tanith had spent the rest of her day ruminating as she researched bone marrow transplants—not for the first time—and tried to leave messages for her doctor asking if Hayley had moved up the transplant list yet.
At this point, she had no idea what else she could do with herself besides menial tasks to keep busy. Thankfully, she had a boyfriend who hated to see her frown—and that would be more than good enough for now.
“Your actions are said to be able to change the tarot card readings,” Blake continued as she strolled back into the living room and plopped down on the couch beside him, curling up against him with another sigh. “I mean, I bet if you redid those readings, knowing what you know now, things would be different.”
“While I appreciate the support,” Tanith murmured, then tilted her head up to press a kiss to his cheek, “I find it a bit odd that a man of science puts so much stock in fortunetellers and card readings.”
“Well, I don’t…” He cleared his throat. “Normally, I wouldn’t. I just…I had a friend in college who did tarot. A…a roommate. Seeing it with my own eyes changed things. For all we know, it might be a placebo effect, but if it helps give a person perspective on their life, why disparage it? I see them as nothing more than a tool to help you think about issues that are already pressing on your mind.” She closed her eyes when he planted a sweet kiss on the top of her head, his hand rubbing up and down her back. “That’s all.”
Tanith pursed her lips, digesting his little speech. A roommate in college who did tarot? For some reason, that struck her as a bit convenient. If Blake believed in tarot, even as a man who practiced medicine, he could just tell her. Sitting up, her hands on her chest, she was about to tease him over it, maybe weasel out the real story, but her phone went off just as she started to speak.
“Oh, sorry, just a second…” She would have ignored it, but Dermot Howard’s office number splayed across her flashing screen. To be calling so late at night, she could only assume something terrible had happened. She answered right away, snapping the phone to her ear and hurrying out of the living room. “Hello? Dermot? Is everything okay?”
“Of course it is, dear heart,” he boomed from the other end. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
