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“Come in, dear!”
I swept the curtains of the tent back with my hand and ducked under the purple-red velvet. It smelled of incense inside, and I searched for the source. A small bundle was propped up inside a gold figurine–a tigress holding them up with her looped tail.
“Hi, um…” I started, unsure what the protocol was when entering a fortune-teller’s tent. “I’m um, here for a reading?”
I pulled back a thinner veil hanging from the ceiling and spotted the fortuneteller. She was an older woman decked out in scarves and golden jewelry, just as I always imagined fortunetellers to look like.
“Of course you are, Rosalie. Come! Sit!”
I took a seat across from the woman, a deck of cards sitting in the middle of the deep blue tablecloth. The piece of fabric seemed to shift even when neither me nor the woman were moving.
“How did you know my name?”
“You look like a Rosalie.”
“It’s not a common name. And I haven’t been called that since I was a little girl.”
The woman only hummed and started shuffling the deck of cards intricately. When she was finished, she asked me to cut the deck.
I hadn’t noticed the cards’ colour or design before. They were the only silver things in the room and they seemed to clash with everything around them. Well, besides the tablecloth.
As soon as I touched the cards, they came to life with energy, glowing and the designs shifting. I let out a gasp, but chalked it up to a trick of the light as the cards calmed down when I set the top half back onto the table.
“These next cards will tell your future,” the fortuneteller said breathily with a flourish over the cards. I wanted so badly to roll my eyes, but I didn’t want to be rude.
She flipped the first card. It was facing me, so I could read its title clearly. Seven of Swords.
She flipped the second card. I couldn’t read that one, but it had a goblet on it.
When she came to the third one, it looked like she’d flipped it, but it was still the same design of the back of all the other cards. I glanced to the fortuneteller to gauge her reaction.
She frowned and stopped, placing the deck back on the table.
“What? What’s wrong?” I asked, leaning forward in my seat, blue tablecloth coming more alive as I caused it to move.
“I’ve…I’ve never seen this before.”
“Just flip the card over?”
“I did.”
“The other side has to have something on it.”
She met my eyes, staring deep into my soul. Her eyes, which I realized matched her jewelry, were searching mine for something.
“I…I’m not sure what this means.”
“Well, aren’t you supposed to do five cards total?”
She was still looking at me, but I was looking intently at the cards. “Yes, but I can’t do the rest of the reading with this card blocking the rest’s energy.”
“Sure you can.” I said, reaching for the deck on the table, starting to flip my own future into being.
The cards interacted instantly, coming alive as I touched them.
I flipped the last two cards, and there was a transparent film over top of the designs so I couldn’t read them fully. Two sixes of something.
and the third card was still two sides of liquid silver churning like the sea.
“Come back tonight. Midnight.” the fortuneteller stood from the table, resting her palms on it. “I need to figure this out.”
“Figure what out?” I asked, mimicking her motion and concern fluttering in my chest.
“Why the cards aren’t deciding what your future will be.”
And that only made me more frightened.