Chapter 6
Lauren
Amanda’s antique store envelops me in a silence that surrounds me like a hug. As soon as the door closes behind me, the familiar scent of lavender, lit candles and old wood hit my nostrils.
I still remember the first time Nic and I set foot in here, navigating around ceiling-high towers of furniture that threatened to fall with every creaky step.
We helped Amanda, the owner of the store and resident Wiccan, turn the death-trap labyrinth that her store was into a place that wouldn’t have you fear for death by falling objects.
One by one, more people from town joined us, and by the end of the afternoon we were chatting with them as though we had known them for years already.
That was two months ago. Now I still help out here from time to time. Whether it’s helping Amanda source antiques, running the website we set up for her or carrying stuff around that her shoulder won’t allow her to anymore, I’m her girl.
This store is where I go when I can’t bear to be in the chaos that is my home and Nic has Henry over. Helping out here is more of a hobby than a job, but honestly? It gives me a sense of usefulness and as if there’s at least something I can accomplish, while my house is in disarray.
I love it here. I’m surrounded by antiques, each one holding an untold story that I can discover. Or make up. For example, how that scratch got into that wooden dresser, or how a splash of color made it onto the picture frame to my left.
At least when I’m here, I’m doing something other than failing to put my own furniture together or drinking coffee and bemoaning that fact.
With my two new, fluffy roommates, I’ll have to get my home put together, rather sooner than later. For now, I’ve banished some of the chaos, namely unpacked Ikea bags and pieces of unassembled furniture, into the room that will one day be my library. I’m manifesting it.
My living room is still stacked with boxes that I can’t unpack unless I have bookshelves to unpack them onto, though.
I’ll get to it. One day.
“Hey Amanda,” I whisper-shout and walk past boxes of old home decorations that must have come in early this week. An old wooden cuckoo clock peeks out from the cardboard box, a doll’s dead creepy eyes follow me as I pass by her.
I never quite know what I’ll find her doing. Last week I came in here, and she was cleansing a new antique with burning sage and reciting a protection spell.
Another time, Nic and I found her trying to learn a new way to shuffle her tarot cards, which ended with most of them on the ground.
Most of the time, and apparently today is no exception, I find her in the cramped adjacent room to the shop, carefully placing tarot cards on the table in front of her, a focused crease between her eyebrows and a stern expression on her face.
“Oh, there you are,” she says absentmindedly when I peek inside. Her unruly, fiery red curls are contained with a claw clip fighting for its life, the sleeve of her dark green blouse a bit too close to one of the candles for my comfort. “Come in, come in. The cards have something to tell you.”
“They do?” I arch an eyebrow, but enter tentatively.
God, I really don’t like this room. It’s small, dark, basically the physical manifestation of my claustrophobia. Sitting at the table makes it feel as if the walls start closing in.
Old pictures are hung from top to bottom on the wall behind Amanda, with barely any space in between. And not just any pictures. All of them are black-and-white portraits. Some are twenty years old, others hundreds, yet there is one thing they all have in common: disapproving frowns on their faces.
I don’t think she even knows any of these people. The disapproving stares drill into my skin whenever I’m in here. It doesn’t feel much different from being at any of my family functions.
But similar to the disapproval directed my way during family get-togethers, I’ve gotten used to it.
Hell, on a slow afternoon, I’d even tried to find out who these people are, though not very successfully.
I only learned that one of the children is called Victoria, and she died in 1871, about three states over.
Amanda, however, is the opposite of my family. She radiates warmth. Not the loud kind that demands a room’s attention, but the quiet, steady kind that lingers. Any problems you have, any questions, she’ll listen to you without judgement and help you sort your thoughts.
Even when her own thoughts seem miles away, she somehow makes you believe that you are the most important person in the room.
She listens, truly listens, even beyond what you say.
Sometimes I swear she can reach right into my mind and read my thoughts.
It’s a little unsettling, but honestly, kind of amazing.
As always, the room is illuminated only by Amanda’s signature black candlesticks. The soft scent of evaporating wax and smoke in the air always reminds me of Christmas.
“What do they want to tell me?”
“I don’t know,” she says, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes, as if she’s trying to listen for something. “Have some tea.”
Without looking up, she pushes the teapot and a cup on a blue porcelain saucer with a white pattern my way. I pour myself a cup of Earl Grey.
“Okay. Thank you.” I don’t dare raise my voice above a whisper. As I blow on the hot liquid to cool it, I watch her over the rim of the mug. Her eyebrows furrow in focus, gaze fixed on the moving cards in her hands.
Nic doesn’t believe in tarot. Even though she was quick to accept that she had a ghost cat haunting her house. One moment it was ‘Huh, why are my picture frames sliding off the walls?’ and the next moment she was already scolding us for not believing that she was haunted by Chaos.
Kind of hypocritical if you ask me.
Amanda has given me a card reading twice before. The first one was a week after we helped her organize the store, and I wanted to know if moving to Wayward Hollow was truly a good idea. The answer was an enthusiastic ‘yes.’
From the second reading, I hoped to get some answers about whether I’d find happiness. It was a broad question, and the answers I received were equally broad. I’m not even sure if the consensus was a ‘yes, you will’ or ‘no, you’ll stay miserable.’
But neither of those times has she been this focused, or seemed as low-key worried, as she does now.
“Relationships,” she whispers absentmindedly, before shuffling her cards.
“You know the drill.” She puts them down in a neat stack, then fans them out across the table.
“Pick your cards, Lauren, and I have a gut feeling you should keep a question about the future of your relationships in your mind as you do.”
“Okay.” I take a deep breath. Relationships. Is there even one in my future? I pick the first card, pulling it out of the fanned-out stack with my fingertip, then turn it around.
It shows a golden wheel over a sky-blue background and surrounded by clouds. Symbols I can’t decipher line its outer edge.
“The Wheel of Fortune,” Amanda whispers, nodding slowly.
“As I thought.” Her eyes dart to me. “Changes are upon you,” she whispers, and I gasp when one of the candles suddenly flickers in the corner.
“The universe has a plan for you, but you have to work with it.” Her eyes jump to me. “Draw the next card.”
I reach for a random card and pull it out of the stack and turn it over. My heart is beating in my throat. The silence is suddenly unsettling. Each flicker of the flames sends shivers of unease down my spine.
“The Hanged Man,” I read out the letters on the bottom of the card. It shows a figure hanging upside down off of one leg from a wooden, T-shaped crossbeam. The free leg is angled, giving him the shape of a four. “That doesn’t seem cheerful.”
“Life rarely is,” Amanda says in a low voice and slides the card next to the first. “This isn’t a card of punishment, Lauren, rest assured.
It’s a card of pause. Of surrender. The world turns upside down, letting you finally see what was always there.
” She fixes me with kind eyes and a reassuring smile.
“The ties you nurture can quietly strangle the light you carry.”
She motions to the stack, and I turn over the final card.
“Oh, I’m liking that one,” I whisper, but Amanda’s face remains stoic. “Wait. Is it bad?”
“It’s not bad.” Softly, she shakes her head.
Her voice softens, almost a whisper, but every word hangs in the air.
“This is the card of choice, but not in the way you think. Upright, this card means union, alignment, harmony. Reversed… it asks you to face the truth that sometimes, love is tangled. Conflicted. Bound by fear or old wounds that won’t heal without scars. ”
I reach for my cup, the porcelain of it clinking against the saucer as I lift it with trembling fingers to take a sip of the now lukewarm tea. Of course, it would have been too easy had the card been upright, I guess.
“So… what does that mean?” I ask her, gingerly setting the cup down again. “This sounds similar to one of those Korean movies where everyone stares meaningfully at each other for two hours, and at the end you’re supposed to feel enlightened, but really you just want popcorn.”
She looks at me. Calm, collected and with an unreadable poker face.
“The cards remind you that life and love are never simple.” She reaches for my hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze. “The past, the pain, the choices — they’re all here. But the way forward is yours to shape.”
I try to make sense of her words. What I’m taking away is, the universe has a plan for me, yet I have to guess what it is as I make my own decisions?
“Be patient and honest with yourself.” She lets go of my hand.
“You’re basically telling me to do the opposite of everything I normally do. No pressure.” I pout. Does that mean I’m supposed to sit around and wait for the universe to reveal what its plan for me is, yet I’m also to let my decisions shape my future? That sounds pretty contradictory.
“The cards are only guidance, not a manual to your future. I think that’s all I have for you today,” Amanda answers, and her eyes dart to me.
Her stoic face changes into a gentle smile within the blink of an eye, like a veil has suddenly lifted off her and now she’s back in reality. “Are you alright?”
My thoughts are running a hundred miles a minute, and the flickering candlelight is still giving me the creeps - but I nod.
“Sure,” I try to say, but it comes out as a squeak.
“Great! Let’s get started for the day. I got a few new vinyl’s that the two of us need to catalog today.”
“Of course,” I say, and get up, sticking out my tongue at the disapproving faces on the wall for good measure.
Yet my thoughts are anywhere but on the Rolling Stones vinyl she puts in front of me. I go through the motions, typing the names into a chart and taking pictures, while my thoughts are still stuck with Amanda’s words.
‘Letting me see what was always there.’
I take a shaky breath. Does that mean by moving here has shown to me that I’m lacking the ability to do things independently? Then again, what does that have to do with relationships?
But in what other ways has my world turned upside down? My cats?
Am I taking this too literally. Or am I not taking it literally enough?
How I wish the universe’s cryptic messages came with a manual. Maybe then I could make more sense of the reading.
Here I thought I’d leave the store this evening, knowing Prince Charming is waiting on my doorstep. Instead I’m questioning my whole existence.
Then again, she did say the universe had a plan. And if that’s the case, who am I not to trust it?