Chapter 20 The Clairvoyant #2
This meant she would ask the cards about me and Battle, and Chassie changing at another appointment.
I understood her play.
“Let’s do me,” Chassie said excitedly.
“All right,” Ravenna agreed, did the card gathering and offered them to Chassie.
“Just shuffle and give them to you when I feel it?” Chassie inquired.
“Just that, luvvie,” Ravenna said.
Chassie started shuffling. “When do I know when I feel it?”
“You’ll know.”
Chassie kept shuffling.
“Oo, there!” she cried and handed the cards to Ravenna.
Ravenna gave her a kind smile and took them.
She threw down only one, looked at it then looked at Chassie.
“Yes,” she said.
“Yes?” Chassie breathed, her eyes bright, a blush stealing across her cheeks.
What on…?
The rest of us exchanged even more glances.
“Yes, luv,” Ravenna said gently, smiling in the same vein.
“Thank you,” Chassie said meaningfully.
“It is my absolute pleasure,” Ravenna replied.
And with neither of them giving the rest of us that first hint as to what they were on about, Ravenna picked up the card she dropped and offered the whole lot to me.
I took them enthusiastically.
I loved tarot. I read my own. I went to readers.
But this was the best reading by far I’d ever been involved in.
I didn’t ask a question. I just wanted the cards to feel how I’d fallen in love with these women, their home, their pets, and yes, okay, also their brother. It was new love, burgeoning love, but I knew what I was feeling was very, very, very, very, very…
Fond.
Once I felt I’d imbued all that goodness in the cards, I handed them to her.
She didn’t immediately throw any down.
She examined me for an awkwardly long time.
And then she threw them down.
One, two three…
Four, five, six…
Seven, eight…
What the hell was she doing?
Nine, ten, eleven, twelve…
And thirteen.
She set the rest of the pile aside, scrutinized the scattering on the table, shifted them this way and that.
And then she looked at me. “Choose the ring wisely.”
I blinked and asked, “Sorry?”
“When the time comes, choose the ring wisely,” she repeated.
“What ring?” I asked.
“The ring,” she answered.
“My precious,” Chassie joked using a lisp.
God, I cannot tell you how amazing it was to see Chassie blossoming.
I shot her a smile, and so as not to make a thing of it, I returned to Ravenna. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”
She sat back in the sofa with her tea. “Many don’t. Until they do.”
I flicked a hand at the table. “Thirteen cards, and that’s all it says?”
I knew she was lying, though I didn’t know how I knew she was lying, when she replied, “Yes.”
I gazed down at the cards, mumbling, “Maybe I should reshuffle.”
“You’re welcome to,” Ravenna said. “But you’ll have to ask a specific question, or the cards will tell me the same thing.”
I did my best to commit the cards on the table to memory, collected them, reshuffled and did that copiously, keeping my mind on nothing but what I had before (not hard), then handed them to her.
A chill raced right through me when she immediately threw down what appeared to be the exact same thirteen cards.
“Holy hell,” I breathed, staring at the table.
I could tell Prue, Chassie and Tempie were feeling the same way as they stared with me.
“My cards were blessed by a high priestess at Avebury,” Ravenna bragged. “They’re very powerful.”
“I’ll say,” Chassie whispered.
“Would you like to ask them a question this time?” Ravenna offered.
“Kinda,” I told her. “I want to see if my sister’s doing okay. Our mom died a little over a year ago, and it really hit us hard.”
“Of course,” Ravenna said softly.
I did the reshuffle, handed them to her, she took them, threw down three, and stated immediately, “She has a good husband. And she feels…” She tossed out another card.
“Blessed that she has what she has when your mother didn’t have it.
There is heaviness there, but mostly, she knows your mother was happy for her, and she feels grateful her life doesn’t have the challenges, but it does have the bounty that your mother’s life did. ”
That was Solène.
And me.
We’d always been taught to try to find a bright side.
And this made me feel better.
“Though, she’d like you to call her,” Ravenna finished.
I decided to do that this evening.
“Can you…talk to dead people?” I asked.
Yup.
In those words I asked that.
Ravenna’s expression got kind(er), but she shook her head.
“And anyone who tells you they can is full of it,” she advised. “The dead can speak, but they do their own talking.”
Eek!
We finished our tea chatting, and Ravenna elevated herself even further with Tempie when we all tried to pay, and she said, “One session, it doesn’t matter how many readings. I charge by the hour. So, same price.”
This meant Prue forked over fifty pounds, we thanked Ravenna, and Chastity said, “Can I come back?”
“Of course, love. I have openings.”
She shouldn’t.
The bitch should have them lined up around Boots, for shit’s sake.
“I’ll get your number from Prue,” Chassie peeped.
And I’d get it from one of them.
As we were walking out, and I was the last, Ravenna grabbed my arm.
I turned to her.
“Whatever you choose will be right, but it might not reveal the answers you seek,” she said.
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You will,” she replied, smiled at me, let me go and shut the door on me.
Everyone was silent on the way back to the Defender.
We all got in.
We all buckled up.
And then for some reason, we all sat there while Tempie did the same thing with her hands on the wheel, not switching on the ignition, just staring out the windshield.
Chassie, who was sitting next to her in the front (as she had on the way there), called, “Tempie?”
“I’m seeing someone, all right?” she demanded irately, like we’d been giving her shit for months about it. “And he’s a candidate, I think.”
“Can we meet him?” Chassie asked quietly.
“No,” Tempie answered.
“Why not?” Prue asked carefully.
“I don’t know,” Tempie said in a voice that made my heart squeeze.
“Leave it,” I advised quickly.
Chassie twisted in her seat to look back at me. “But—”
“Leave it, doll,” I said gently. Then to Tempie, “But you, sister, have three people in this car who will listen to you and support you. So don’t squander those resources. Hear me?”
She pulled out if it, started the car, and drawled, “My brother has fucked some bossy into you.”
“Euw!” Chassie cried.
I rolled my eyes.
“Ulk! I love them together, and I can’t love them together if I have to think about those things!” Prue complained loudly.
Tempie just smiled smugly at me in the rearview mirror.
Obviously, this made me roll my eyes again.
Tempie set us on our way.
* * *
“Wait, there’s a possibility my sister might be a duchess?” Solène said in my ear.
I was grinning loopily when I replied, “Maybe. He’s very fond of me. And I’m likewise fond of him.”
“Am I missing something with your emphasis on fond?”
“If you’re missing that I’m falling in love with him, and he’s not hiding he’s doing the same with me, but he says he’s fond of me when he’s a sex god, thinks Elizabeth the First was the greatest politician in history, and I agree, screw all those Roman senators, though Lincoln obviously had chops.
Further, he’s an amazing brother and has been since he was a kid through some pretty extreme odds.
And he thinks I’m smart, talented, and has a serious fascination with my ass.
Therefore, fond doesn’t cover it by a long shot for either of us.
But it is very sexy and also very English.
They do tend to master the understatement. ”
“There was a bit of TMI in all of that, but…wow, Vivi. I don’t know what else to say but wow.”
“Wait until I send you a picture of him.”
“So he’s hot.”
“Yes. Scorching. And I thought that when I first saw him. But he makes me laugh, Lenny. He thinks I’m funny. I don’t know…”
It was late.
I was in my bed in the main house, papers and my laptop and my cats (Prue’s, but yeah, mine, and Baby Blue had taken to hanging with me with Battle gone) strewn across the coverlet, but since I was at a loss for words, I fell back onto my pillows.
And admitted, “I could probably talk about him for the next three hours and not explain how amazing he is.”
“You’ve only been there a few weeks, honey.”
“When did you know with Alex?”
Heavy pause then, “Point taken.”
I grinned to myself because she called me the day after their first date and announced she was going to marry him.
My sister was an engineer. She was STEM. She got her jollies from quadratic equations (or whatever).
She was not a romantic like me.
But she knew with Alex immediately.
And she was right.
Just like I knew it was with Battle.
“Would Mom like him?” she asked.
Instantly, I said, “Yes. She’d spend five minutes with him with his sisters, and she’d know what I was going to get for a lifetime and be very happy for me.”
“This is really cool, Viv. Alex and I were talking about taking the kids out there in June or July. It’s expensive, and they’re too young to remember much of such a momentous vacation, but they miss you, and Alex and I do too.
Maybe we need to talk about that more seriously, when it comes time to meet him? ”
It was already time, as far as I was estimating.
Though, I should probably give it more and talk to Battle about it.
Even so, I said, “Yeah, maybe talk seriously with Al. But I don’t think I’ll have to try too hard to get Battle to fly home to visit me when my visa runs out. You can meet him then.”
“Let me share this news with Alex. I’m really happy for you, Viv. You sound…” She let that lie for a spell and finished, “Like before Mom died.”
Yeah.
Ugh.