Chapter Two Nora #3
“No,” Nora said. “I don’t. I’ve always been interested.”
The woman nodded. “You have to wait until a deck speaks to you.”
“I guess that’s my problem. No deck has spoken to me yet.” Nora released her hold on the box and walked back to the counter.
“Do you have questions?”
Nora looked up at the older woman, at her faded blue eyes surrounded by innumerable wrinkles.
She wanted to have questions. She wanted to ask her those questions.
Get some of the wisdom of the elders she’d been told existed but had never actually experienced.
Her grandmother hadn’t contained wisdom. Only bitterness.
“I don’t,” Nora said.
“I’d like to pull a card for you,” the woman said. “For all of you. Since you’re among my first customers, I can give you an idea of what I do here.”
“Oh.” Soraya looked nervous. “I can’t—”
“You don’t have to receive it,” the woman said.
Receive it.
The words lingered inside Nora like a cloud of mist.
“I’d like a card,” Daisy said, in that calming, peacekeeping way of hers. Obviously trying to undo the rudeness of Soraya’s response.
The woman reached beneath the counter and pulled out a stack of cards.
They were gilded on the edges, with midnight blue on the back and large yellow moons.
She shuffled them quickly, her crooked hands moving deftly as she did so.
She spread the deck out in front of her and looked at Daisy with a steely-eyed gaze.
Then she carefully took a card from the deck fanned out before her and turned it over.
The image on the card was a tower, on fire, with people either falling or jumping from the crumbling structure to the ground below.
“I thought there was big energy here.” She looked at Daisy. “That’s a significant card. It feels like things are falling apart, doesn’t it?”
Daisy stood still, but Nora could see tears gathering in her eyes. She nodded slowly.
“The Tower can feel brutal. It’s destructive, and it’s painful. But the secret of the Tower is that what falls away doesn’t need to be.”
“But those people are going to hit the ground and . . . die,” Daisy pointed out.
“They won’t die. That doesn’t mean they won’t be hurt. But being down there is better than being where they never belonged.”
Nora’s heart started to beat faster. It was so . . . apt. Too spot-on, in fact.
The older woman looked at Soraya next and pulled out a card. She turned it over so its face was showing, but Soraya didn’t move any closer.
“The Hierophant.” The woman pointed at the card, which had an image of a man in robes, who looked like a priest or cardinal or something. “Structures and systems are very important to you. Maybe even religious systems. But sometimes those systems that once served you can hinder your growth.”
Soraya opened the door to the shop and slipped outside without saying a word.
“Sorry about her,” Nora said. “She—”
The woman didn’t seem bothered at all. Instead, she turned her startling eyes to Nora.
She flipped a card over, and a soft smile crossed her lips.
“The Moon. It’s a complicated card, the Moon.
The moon is light, but it’s darkness too.
It moves in cycles. It changes the tide.
Though it may not seem clear now, it will in time. ”
Without thinking, Nora touched her purse, her fingers skimming across the embroidered moon.
“This is just where you are right now,” the woman said. “It’s the energy you brought into the store with you. When it comes to matters of tarot, nothing is fixed. Everything, life and the future, is on a continuum.”
Nora swallowed hard. “Right. Well. My present continuum blows.”
The woman laughed, a deep, hearty sound that came from low in her belly. “It can certainly be like that. For a while. The universe has a way of taking away what isn’t needed and providing what is.”
Platitudes. Good guesses. She probably did this for everyone who walked in.
Daisy was the walking embodiment of someone going through a crisis, and Soraya looked like she’d stepped straight out of an LDS influencer’s Instagram, so guessing that religious structure was part of her life wasn’t really difficult.
As for Nora . . . things being unclear but becoming clear could apply to anyone.
“Well. Thank you.”
“Of course,” the woman said, then turned away. “If you know of anyone who needs a job . . .”
“I might . . .” Daisy stopped. “I’ll let you know if I hear of anyone.”
“Thank you,” Nora said.
“Of course.” The woman fixed her gaze on Daisy. She didn’t say anything, but Nora felt like something significant passed between them.
“Bye.” Daisy turned away, and Nora followed behind her, out the door and onto the street.
Soraya was standing as far away from the store as possible without falling off the sidewalk, her arms crossed tight. “No surprise she said weird stuff about religion,” she muttered.
“It’s just a little bit of tarot,” Nora said. “It’s harmless.”
“It’s how the devil gets a foothold,” Soraya responded.
Nora scoffed. “Is that how the devil got a foothold in your husband? Tarot?”
Soraya narrowed her eyes. “No.”
“It seems to me he was able to get a pretty good hold on him at church.”
“Well, there’s no use tempting bad things to happen.”
“She’s hiring. And you need a job.” Of course, Soraya had probably just made the worst first impression in history.
It was a coincidence of the highest order, one that was almost too good to be true, and definitely too good to pass up.
“I don’t have any experience working in a store.”
“But you bake,” Nora said.
“I . . . I don’t know.”
“No one from your church would know. Anyway, if they did, they would have to admit they walked into the store,” Daisy pointed out.
Soraya seemed to consider that.
“She needs a bookkeeper, Daisy,” Nora said.
Daisy sighed heavily. “Yes. She does. But if I’m going to take a new job, I have to quit my current job, and that’s . . . complicated.”
“I once played with a Ouija board at a slumber party,” Nora lied.
She hadn’t been to slumber parties. But she had gotten a Ouija board at a yard sale when she was twelve, and she’d played with it one evening, until her foster mom had found it and thrown it out. Because of the devil. The devil was a big concern around these parts.
“You did?” Soraya asked.
“Yes,” Nora continued seriously. “The devil came out and said if I gave him my soul, he’d give me something shiny.”
“Nora . . .” Soraya looked both frightened and annoyed.
“It was bullshit,” she finished. “Satan wasn’t in the Ouija board, just like he isn’t in the apothecary, Soraya, because nothing but herbs are in the apothecary.
She’s probably a very intuitive person who does card tricks.
The end. But she has books that need keeping and bread that needs baking, and it sounds like it would be perfect for the two of you. ”
“What about you?” Daisy asked.
“Ben will be home in three weeks.” Maybe. He hadn’t exactly given a definitive time frame. And she didn’t know what he’d decide when he did come back.
“There’s no harm in taking a job until he comes back,” Daisy pointed out. “Just in case.”
It wasn’t a mean thing to say. She was trying to keep Nora safe, and Nora knew that, but it felt like being stabbed, even if shallowly.
Why would Daisy think Ben would come back? Her own situation was so dire, she was projecting onto Nora.
But Nora also knew there was merit in protecting herself.
“It’s been a very long, sad day,” Soraya said. “I’m tired. I need to go home, and I’m never going back there.”
Nora sighed. “Fine. I was kind of thinking we really received some divine intervention there.”
“You just said it was all bullshit,” Daisy said.
“I said the Ouija board was bullshit. Not every spiritual thing.”
Daisy’s phone buzzed, and she looked down at it, then growled. “Oh, shoot. I have to go get Alden. He threw up.”
Alden. Alden. His name was Alden, and he was a boy, so Nora wasn’t the worst person ever.
“I have to run, but we need to make sure we all have each other’s numbers,” Daisy said. “Whatever happens . . . we’re not going to be Alexandra. I just keep thinking about how she withdrew from everything and everyone, and was so exhausted and under so much stress . . . And who was there for her?”
“No one,” Soraya said sadly.
It was what they’d all been feeling all day. It was clear then. If Alexandra, a woman who had so much in her life, could be so undone by her divorce, then anyone could.
“We’re not going to be Alexandra,” Nora repeated.
Soraya nodded.
Before they headed to their cars, they started a group chat.
Discarded Wives Club.
It was a little depressing. But also a little funny.
It had been that kind of day.
“We’re not going to be Alexandra,” Nora whispered as she got into her car.
It was strange, but it felt more than a little bit like a spell.