Chapter 14
GRANT
I only went to the Summer Solstice Festival once as a kid. My dad thought all the ”hullabaloo” was ridiculous. But one year he was out of town, so Mom took me and Kelsey. I think I was nine. I remember it being fun, but most of what I remember was being with Mom without Dad”s imposing presence. I couldn”t tell you a single thing we actually did that day.
For my second trip, I arrived at seven in the morning, three hours before the gates opened. And Sirona”s mom and aunts have had me working ever since.
It”s a perfect summer day, low 80s and sunny. Exactly what you want for a festival celebrating the arrival of summer and the longest day of sunlight. And my birthday.
Nana assigned me to work at a booth with Sirona”s cousin Chessie. She”s wowing the crowd by conjuring various cheeses using the vats of milk and cream in a nearby refrigerated truck. Festival goers can then sample and purchase the cheese. This being Wisconsin, it’s a big hit, and the line doubles back on itself several times.
I”ve lost track of time as I handle the payments for Chessie. But the sun is high overhead, so it must be right around noon when Angela, Sirona”s mom, approaches with a skinny teenage girl who looks startlingly like how I remember Sirona in high school.
”Grant, we”re here to relieve you of your duties. Jackie is going to take over for you.” Sarah nudges the girl in my direction.
”Nice to meet you, Jackie,” I say, because it”s polite.
She doesn”t meet my eyes as she mumbles, ”You too.”
She”s gonna have a rough time with this job if she doesn”t warm up to the crowd. I”ve been chatting and joking with them, and the tip jar is full. But I see Sirona heading our way, a smile lighting up her face. Jackie is not my problem.
”Have fun,” Angela says as I leave the tent.
”Thanks.” I give Angela a small wave, then head straight for Sirona. She”s in one of her flowy sundresses and my first thought is how easy it could be to pull that skirt up and?—
Nope, not going there. Can”t get a hard-on in the middle of a family-oriented event.
”Hey!” Sirona puts her hand on my chest and stands on tiptoe to kiss my cheek.
I contemplate turning my head so her lips land on mine. But again, family event.
”You hungry?” she asks, sliding her arm around my waist.
I wrap mine around her shoulders and hold her close to my side. And because I can, I kiss her temple. I could spend the rest of my life kissing Sirona, any and everywhere, and not get tired of it.
”I skipped breakfast and have been handing out cheese all morning. I”m starving.”
She turns her head, looking in all directions. ”Let”s start with my aunt”s grilled veggies. They”re delicious.”
We chat as we wait in line for the food. By the time we get to the front of the line and her Aunt Betsy hands us each two wooden skewers full of grilled tomatoes, red peppers, yellow peppers, yellow squash, and carrots, my stomach is rumbling and my mouth is watering. I try to slow down and enjoy the fresh flavors, but in about three minutes I”m left with empty wooden sticks and a happy stomach.
Next we get fresh-squeezed lemonade and colorful fruit salad, some rosemary scones, and we finish it off with honey cakes. By the time Sirona is licking her fingers clean, my appetite is fully sated.
Well, one appetite. A different appetite is getting very awakened watching her suck on her fingers, then pull them from her mouth. I”m half hard by the time she”s done.
She catches me watching her and practically drooling. Her smile turns saucy. ”See something you like?”
I want to take those fingers and suck them into my own mouth. But I behave. All I say is, ”I have so many plans for you tonight.”
Her nostrils flare. ”As do I.”
How long do we have to stay at this festival? I”d be happy to start tonight right now.
”Unfortunately, I have to be here until at least eight,” she says, as if reading my mind.
”Then at eight-oh-one...”
She giggles and reaches for my hand. ”C”mon. The battle between the Oak King and the Holly King is at one, and I have something I want to do first.”
”The battle between what now?” I lace our fingers together. I love the feel of her hand in mine.
”I”ll explain it when we get to that.”
She leads me to a black tent with sheer black and dark purple fabric draped around it to form walls of sorts. At the table is a white person with black hair in a messy ponytail, wearing a black tank top, a black choker with a pentagram charm, black sunglasses, and a ”they/them” pin. Their nose is pierced three times, their lip once, and their ears have too much jewelry to count. Their skin is covered in tattoos, all black and gray.
They”re sitting at a table draped in dark purple, with a deck of cards resting on it. Lying at the end of the table is a black cat with its left eye missing, a slash of a scar over the eye socket. It”s wearing a black collar with silver spikes.
The two make an intimidating pair.
”Grant, I”d like you to meet Lex and their cat, Ajax.”
Lex raises an eyebrow as they assess me. ”Hey,” they say in a husky voice.
”Lex, this is my boyfriend, Grant. He needs a tarot reading.”
”I do?”
In answer, Sirona pushes me into the customer chair on the opposite side of the table from Lex.
Lex picks up their worn deck of cards. They”re dark blue with gold stars and a black cat on them. They begin shuffling, so fast their hands are like a blur.
As they shuffle, they assess me further, dark eyes narrowed. ”What are you thinking?” they say, clearly talking to Sirona even though they”re looking at me.
”I think a three-card draw would be good.” Sirona”s behind me, hand on my shoulder.
Lex closes their eyes, still shuffling. If I tried to do that, I”d scatter cards everywhere.
”Yeah, OK, I”m getting his energy.” They open their eyes again and stare at me. ”You need to relax, dude. I”m not gonna bite. You”re not my type.”
Sirona snort laughs.
I roll my head around, shrug my shoulders a few times, trying to release some tension. It”s not like I”ve never seen goth people before. Though the cat with the studded collar is a first. It”s watching me with its one eye and that”s unnerving.
”Give me your hands.” Lex reaches toward me.
I let them hold my hands and they again close their eyes.
”That helped. Easier to feel your energy when you”re relaxed,” they explain.
After a minute, they release my hands and pick the cards back up. More shuffling. It”s practically hypnotic. Is that part of the reading?
Abruptly, they stop and set the deck in front of me. ”Cut it.”
I”ve never had my tarot cards read, so I”m oddly nervous. This isn”t like Kelsey pulling a random Oracle card out of one of her decks to give me a small dose of wisdom. This is an actual witch, with actual powers. They can probably tell me real things.
Do I want to know real things? Can they, like, see my future?
Sirona”s fingers squeeze my shoulder. ”Grant,” she whispers.
”Right, sorry.” I pull a chunk of the cards off the top and set them to the side.
”I”m going to draw three cards,” Lex says. ”The first card represents your past, the second your present, and the third a possibility for your future. This isn”t like I”m seeing your future, and nothing is set in stone. It”s just guidance from the deities.”
So that answers that. I nod.
They take the cards I pulled off and put them at the bottom of the deck. From the top, they draw three cards and lay them in a line. ”Do you want to turn them over, or do you want me to?”
”Uh, I guess I can.” I reach and turn over the card they drew first.
It shows five women, each holding a wand, standing around a bubbling cauldron. They look like they”re mad at each other. There are five cats on the floor of the room. A small part of the floor is on fire. At the bottom of the card is a ribbon that reads, ”Five of Wands.”
Sirona”s hand tightens on my shoulder and she lets out a little ”oh.”
Lex taps a black fingernail against their lower lip. ”Huh.” They”re quiet for a minute. ”Yeah, OK, that matches your energy.”
They adjust themself in their chair and clear their throat. ”This card represents your past. There was a lot of tension, a lot of battles you had to deal with.”
My chest tightens.
”You had goals, but you ran into constant opposition. And no one listened to you.”
It”s like they punched me in the stomach. How can they know my past so clearly? I”ve never met them before. And I know Sirona wouldn”t do something as cruel as to set this up in advance.
”Uh, yeah. My dad was kind of an ass.” To put it mildly.
They nod. ”Makes sense. The thing with the Five of Wands is, there”s always a positive side to even the worst cards. This one, it sees your ability to get out from under that conflict. And being a fire card, it”s rather enthusiastic about that. Change is possible.”
”Well, he”s dead, so probably not.”
They cock their head to the side. ”But you still carry all that baggage around with you, right? Five of Wands is saying you can change that. You can let it go.”
I nod tightly. I appreciate that Lex is just doing their job and telling me what they interpret. But they”re just cards. They don”t really know me.
Again, as if she read my mind, Sirona leans down to softly say in my ear, ”The deities use tarot cards as ways to send messages to us. Magical or nulla. So just think about it. Don”t discount it right out.”
I close my eyes and take a slow breath in and out. When I open them, I cover her hand with my own. ”I”ll do my best to keep an open mind.”
I came to a witch for a magical healing spell for my hand. I guess if I believe she could do that, although turns out she can”t, I can believe in messages from tarot cards too.
The second card I flip is upside down. It shows a witch on a path in the woods, looking over his shoulder at the cat at the other end of the path. The ribbon at the bottom reads, ”Page of Wands.”
”Interesting,” Sirona says.
”I”ll be damned,” Lex says. ”I was right about your ability to change. You”re starting to feel change within you, but you don”t know what to do with it.”
I resist the urge to squirm. That”s kind of spot on. All kinds of changes have happened in my life since my accident, but I definitely have struggled to know how to handle it.
They point at me. ”You tried something, and it wasn”t quite right. But that doesn”t mean you should discount it entirely. Look at it from another angle, or a different approach. Don”t let your fears get in the way, because you absolutely can be on the path to achieving your dreams.”
Are they saying there”s a way to fix my hand?
”OK, great.” I nod. ”New perspective, I can do that.”
The last card I flip shows a family of very blond white people on a picnic, on a checkered blanket in the grass, with a stream in the background. Food spills out of the picnic basket and the parents are gazing at each other like they”re about to kiss. The ribbon tells me it”s the Ten of Cups.
”Oh!” Sirona”s voice is almost surprised.
”Hot damn.” Lex taps the edge of the table. ”I told you, you can have everything you want and achieve your dreams.”
This card looks more like a family card than career. ”That”s what it says?”
”Listen to your emotions and trust your intuition, and you”ll have all the happiness and abundance the family in this card has. Joy, love, contentment. Everything in alignment.” Their expression is almost sappy. Which doesn”t seem in alignment for them.
OK. That sounds good.
”So, taken as a whole, the best way for you to achieve this happy future with your family surrounding you is to find a way to move past the conflicts of the past, look at things from a new angle and play around with it a bit, and you”ll be on your way to this harmonious future with your family.”
Family? That doesn”t seem right. If I fix my hand, and they”re telling me I can find that if I look at things differently, I won”t be with my family. And I”m not sure what I think about getting married and having a family of my own. I”m not sure I have the time to be a good husband and father.
So how does family fit into all this?
”Really interesting,” Sirona says, tapping her fingers on my shoulder. She sounds very thoughtful. ”I”ll definitely be thinking about all this way too much for the next few days.”
If I have anything to say about it, she will be spending a good portion of the next few days too blissed out of her mind to think about it. Then again, eight o”clock is still several hours away.
”It was a pleasure meeting you, Grant.” Lex smiles as they scratch the cat”s head.
I stand and reach for Sirona”s hand. Except she”s pulling out a small coin purse. She tugs out two twenties and puts them on the table. ”Thank you so much, Lex.”
Lex takes the money and puts it in a pouch they produce from under the table. ”No problem. You need change?”
Sirona shakes her head as she tucks her purse into her pocket and immediately reaches for me.
As we walk away, I say, ”You didn”t have to pay for that. I could”ve gotten it.”
She shakes her head. ”I had to get you something for your birthday.”
I can”t help it, I have to have a taste of her. I press a kiss to the side of her neck, which is easily accessed since she”s got her hair up in a clip. Then I brush my lips over hers. ”Thank you. But you know I don”t have a present for you for tomorrow.” It”s still weird to me that our birthdays are a day apart.
”You can give me my present when we get back to my house tonight,” she murmurs against my mouth.
Pure lust surges through me, wiping away any lingering confusion over my tarot reading.
”Count on it.”