Chapter Thirty-Three Daisy
Chapter Thirty-Three
Daisy
I heal my body,
I heal my mind,
I draw on the power of those who stand with me,
I heal the sacred within me,
I heal the ones who stand with me,
I am whole.
And so it is.
—A spell for healing
Daisy couldn’t have been happier with the way that the tarot night came together.
They’d had twenty-five women sign up for the event since they’d first posted it.
Soraya had made cream cakes with Maibowle wine, topped with strawberry slices and sweet woodruff sprigs, lemon honey cakes with candied citrus slices on top, and savory scones with herbs from Aggie’s garden.
The shop was decorated with bunches of flowers, swaths of flowing fabric, and woven ribbon that mirrored the look of a maypole.
They put three folding tables together to make a long banquet table, with a brightly patterned cloth covering the whole thing.
Candles in golden holders were placed down the length of it, and malachite and rose quartz were scattered in a line like glimmering stardust.
“Daisy, I’d like for you to give readings tonight.” With only two hours until the event, it was a surprising request for Aggie to make.
“I don’t know if I can give a reading,” Daisy said.
“Why not? You’ve become very familiar with the cards.”
“But I don’t know if I . . . I’m not like you.” Daisy looked over at the deck of cards just to her left, a strange, burning sensation in her chest.
“It’s intuition,” Aggie said. “Everyone has intuition. Everyone has magic. All you have to do is tap into that voice inside of you. You can do it for yourself, and you can do it for others.”
“You think I can?”
“Daisy, I know you can. The way you have always planned for everyone, cared for them, that’s been you using your intuition to discover what they need. This is something you already know how to do.”
Daisy had never thought of any of that as intuition, but it made some sense. “Okay. I’ll do it.”
Soraya was busy behind the counter, fussing with baked goods, and even though Nora had seemed a little bit off ever since her fight with Sam, she was better than she had been before their bonfire night. Soraya, for her part, seemed cheerful.
“How was your date?” Daisy asked.
Soraya smiled. “It was very good.”
“Oh, I recognize that face,” Daisy said. “It’s the exact same face I made after Zach absolutely rocked my body for the first time.”
Soraya shrugged. “Well, it wasn’t the first time, but I’m growing. And changing. And enjoying the incredibly handsome man who likes me.”
“Good for you,” Daisy said. “You.” She turned to Nora. “What are you going to do about Sam?”
“I just need to fully let go of all my terror at changing things with him and screwing us up.”
“I think you’re in just the right place to get the energy you need.” Daisy squeezed her shoulder.
Nora sighed, and they stood in the back while the room slowly filled up.
There were several groups of young women, girls that none of them knew, and then, much to Daisy’s surprise, a group of moms from the school.
But the real shock came when one of the women from Soraya’s church came in.
She looked a little bit intimidated but made a beeline for Soraya.
“Kristi?”
“Well.” Kristi was looking around a bit nervously, like Soraya had that first day.
“Since you work here, I thought I would see what it’s all about.
Also, since the church is . . . I don’t think it’s going to make it.
There’s been a big divide over everything, over David and how John handled it and all of those things, and it’s just . . . It’s never going to be the same.”
“I know how hard it is to lose your community,” Soraya said.
“I know.” Kristi was almost whispering, like shame had stolen half her voice.
“I’m really sorry. I was so . . . prideful.
I just thought I knew the way everything worked.
I thought I knew who was good. Who wasn’t.
I thought I was being kind by coming to your house and telling you all of that.
I thought it was tough love. But it wasn’t.
I didn’t listen to you. That’s what I keep feeling so upset about.
How uncurious I’ve been for so long. So I’m here. Being curious.”
“I can relate,” Soraya remarked. “But I’m glad you’re here. Maybe we can have coffee sometime.”
“I’d like that,” said Kristi.
The room was filled with laughter and conversation, and everyone took their seats around the table.
Aggie was at the head, and she stood, her long white hair hanging freely, her eyes sparkling.
“Welcome to our first tarot night. This is the night for all of us to explore our intuition. To tap into our needs, physical and spiritual, and to offer help to one another in whatever form it might take.”
A woman wearing a blue blazer and a pencil skirt slipped into the room and sat down at the table.
“That’s my lawyer,” Nora whispered.
“All are welcome here. All your hopes are welcome here. All your fears. Tonight, we are filling this space with good energy and sharing it with one another. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be tears or there won’t be difficult conversations. But we are making this place safe for all of that.”
Aggie picked up a piece of palo santo, the slender chunk of wood glowing bright as she touched it to a candle at the center of the table, a stream of smoke that smelled sweet and fragrant filling the air.
“I banish all negative energy. I call all good energy to us. That we may give and share and hope. I ask that only truths come into this place. That all lies be expelled. I ask for protection from any energy that seeks to do us harm, I ask for only good to be done here tonight. I ask for peace. And so we begin.”
Aggie had a small station set up for making flower crowns, and Soraya had a space where she could talk to people about tea blends and remedies. Nora was helping with simple spell bags.
Daisy pulled a deck of tarot cards to her, and soon there were different groups rotating through her space, taking readings.
She was nervous at first, afraid she was going to say the wrong thing.
Tarot was interesting, because you couldn’t control it.
While she was well studied in the cards, she didn’t know what would come up, how it might relate to the person across from her, or if what she was saying was completely wrong or not.
But she surrendered to it. To her intuition, rather than a detailed plan. To the idea that she did have magic within her. It had to be true, didn’t it?
Zach had fallen in love with her from the first moment he’d seen her.
That thought made her stomach feel hollow. Zach. He loved her. He hadn’t said it, but right then, with her hands hovering on the tarot cards and all the shared wisdom in the room, she felt it.
She felt a voice in the air telling her to accept it. Not to push it away. Because life was strange and miraculous, and there was so much that couldn’t be understood, including the timing of all this. Except maybe it was the path she had to be on to get here.
Jonathan was an integral part of her story. They had created the three most wonderful kids she could have asked for. He had helped her at different points in her life. And he had given her baggage. It had all come together to make her who she was. To make her into the woman Zach admired.
The woman who appreciated him so much.
She could never regret it, or wish that things had unfolded differently, because if even one thing had changed, would she be who she was now?
Sitting here, in the full knowledge of her own magic, with Soraya and Nora and this wonderful apothecary, she smiled as she finished her reading.
The woman who sat across from her next looked like she was near tears.
“I’m Daisy. What’s your name?”
“Angela.”
“What do you need help with?”
Tears slid down her cheeks. “Everything.”
“I’m sorry,” Daisy said. “Do you have a question for the cards? I can suggest a simple past, present, future spread.”
“Is there . . . any way to know how to . . . fix my life? What am I supposed to do?”
Daisy’s heart thundered as she started trying to think of a spread. “Okay . . . the problem, the action, the outcome.”
She laid out her first card, the Devil, then the Three of Cups, followed by the Star. “Your problem is that you’re being kept down by something. Someone.”
“My husband,” Angela whispered.
Daisy nodded. “The solution is to seek help.” She looked at the art on the card, at the women dancing together.
“To seek friendship and a community.” Goose bumps broke out on her arms. “The Star is the outcome. It’s hope.
In the major arcana, the Star comes after the Tower.
The Tower is a period of disruption and sometimes destruction.
The Star is the clarity and the goals reached afterward. ”
“I need help,” Angela said. “He’s . . . It’s not safe for me to be with him, but I don’t have anywhere to go, and I can’t afford a lawyer.”
Daisy looked back where the woman in blue had sat, Nora’s lawyer. Nora was looking at her too. Then she stood and made her way to Daisy and Angela.
“I’m Elisa Patrick. I overheard. If you need my services, I’m happy to help you. Pro bono.”
“But . . . no, you can’t do that.” Angela looked genuinely shocked. “It’s your job, you need to get paid.”
“I do get paid,” she said. “Enough that when there’s a situation like this, I can afford to help.”
“It’s so embarrassing.” Angela’s face crumpled.
Daisy put her hand on Angela’s. “There’s no shame in this, not for you. He’s the only one who should be ashamed.”
Elisa wrapped her arm around Angela. “Come over here, we can talk.”
This was basically Nora’s prophecy being fulfilled. That if they did this gathering, people who needed help would come. If they filled a room with women, there would be those who needed help, and the helpers who were ready to give it.
Daisy did more readings, heard more stories, and found more ways to meet needs. By the end of the night, people had found caregivers for ailing family members, jobs, tenants, and more.
As the evening was winding down, Madison looked at her phone and gasped. “Oh God. I have to go.”
“What happened?” Daisy asked.
“My mom had a brain aneurysm. They’re rushing her in for surgery to try to stop the bleeding.”
Daisy’s blood went cold, her heart thundering sickly in her chest.
“Ladies,” Aggie said, standing at the head of the table. “Tonight, we’ve made magic in this place, and now we need to make more. Because Alexandra needs us. She needs us all to use our magic.”
There was a rumble in the room, and Daisy could see some women shift in discomfort, doubt. Disbelief.
Aggie continued. “You all came here because you want this to be possible. Because you want to believe in your own magic. In your intuition. Because you want to tap into your power. Use it now. Use it now for Alexandra.”
Daisy stood up, grabbed a candle, and set it at the center of the table. She lit the flame, burning conviction guiding her. Intuition.
She closed her eyes. “May healing descend upon Alexandra Stone. May all the darkness that attempts to bind her be locked away. May it be bound. I call forth healing from all who have the power to will it to her. She must survive. She must wake up.”
Daisy felt pressure in her head, and she touched her forehead. Nora moved to her and took her hand. Then Soraya came to her other side and held on to her. All the other women around the table joined hands.
“The truth must be revealed,” Daisy said.
“Only through healing will the truth be revealed.” She was going off book, deviating from the healing spell exactly as it had been written.
But it was like truth was flowing through her.
Vision. Insight and intuition. She hadn’t ever imagined such a thing was possible, but she couldn’t doubt it now.
She had been there the night they’d cast the revenge spell. She knew what it felt like when magic was in the room. It was like that now. “Everyone say this with me. We call for healing on Alexandra Stone.”
“We call for healing on Alexandra Stone,” the women repeated in a chorus, the sound of their voices unified leaving goose bumps on Daisy’s arms.
“Only if she wakes can the truth be revealed,” Daisy said.
“Only if she wakes can the truth be revealed.”
“Healing will be given.”
“Healing will be given.”
“The truth will be known.”
“The truth will be known.”
“And so it is.”
She picked up the candle and blew it out.
The silence that followed was heavy, weighted by the profound sense of what had just happened.
There was power here. There was power in this group of women. They had all gathered tonight because they needed something. Desperately.
They needed to know that this power lived inside them.
That they were magic. No matter what their parents, their partners, their teachers, their friends had told them.
That search had brought them together for this.
Daisy had to believe that it was true. That when they came together, women were powerful.
That this was the greater good they had been searching for all this time.
She turned and looked at Nora.
“I have to go,” Nora said.
“I understand.”
She did, without Nora having to tell her. It was like real, true clarity had descended on everyone here. The moment she realized Zach loved her, things had become sharp. She could see it was true now for Nora.
She knew exactly what Nora had to do.
“Let me know if you hear anything about Alexandra?” Nora asked.
“Of course I will.”