The Spread
Shuffling the cards always soothed him. The feel of the cards slipping through his fingers, card slapping against card. The soft susurrus with each cut, shuffle, cut, shuffle. Even when he didn't have a client, he would frequently spend hours shuffling the deck while paying half his attention to something else.
Laying out a spread was almost as satisfying. Almost. Whether a simple 3-card layout or a traditional Celtic Cross, or one of the special spreads he'd developed over the years, the cards springing free of the deck was gratifying, but not as much as when they remained whole, together.
He looked up as a gentle chime rang in the front room. A client, so soon? He wasn't expecting anyone until at least dusk, the in-between time when the cards were most potent. He lay the deck into its cedarwood box before walking out through the curtain. Oh, her.
He bowed slightly to the tall, stocky, stormy-clothed woman waiting for him. "Greetings, Ms. Gray. I was not expecting you to return for quite some time, given how you looked after last time. What brings you to grace my domain this day?"
The grimace on the woman's face faded into a neutral expression, then a faint smile. "Greetings to you as well, Mr. Seerson. I had not expected to return so soon, myself." She sighed, then continued. "Unfortunately, my path has become tangled again and I can't see my way forward to the ends I desire. I would greatly appreciate guidance, and yours is the best around."
He snorted in amusement at her flattery, then waved her into the back room. "Go, take a seat. I'll get us some iced tea. You prefer lemon, as I recall?"
"Yes, thank you." She waited for him to clear the doorway, then walked into the back room. A stereotypical fortune-teller's den, this was not. True, there were gauzy curtains covering the large windows, but they were a calming white cotton instead of something intended to convey a sense of mysticism. The small desk in the corner held a laptop computer and an open three-ring binder instead of a crystal ball. The walls were sparsely decorated, with a pair of half-filled bookcases gracing one wall, a few black-and-white photographs framing the doorway in, and a framed child's crayon drawing hung on the wall behind the desk. Ms. Gray knew from prior visits that it has been given to the Seerson by his niece several years ago, and he prized it.
Even the work table in the center of the room spoke more of hearth and home and comfort rather than the occult or divine. It was a solid, round oak table about two-thirds of a meter in diameter, but was covered in a cheery butter-yellow tablecloth with an occasional thread of bright blue or green woven through it. The intricately-carved wooden box that was sitting on the table was the only real sign of anything out of the ordinary. She took a seat in the wicker-backed wooden chair with her back to the door and waited patiently.
Seerson walked into the room, his short, compact frame briefly shadowing her from behind. He carried a small wooden tray bearing two glasses, a pitcher, and a small bowl of lemons. He set the tray down on the table and passed Ms. Gray a small cork coaster before pouring her a tall glass of sweet iced tea and giving her it and the bowl of lemons.
He poured himself a glass as well, sans lemon, and said "I'm sorry it's so warm in here. I'm trying to save on electricity and the breeze can only do so much."
She waved off his apology. "Oh, it's fine."
He sat in another wooden chair across the table from her and took a sip from his glass before opening up the box and pulling out the deck of Tarot cards.
"So what level of detail would you like? Remember that the more detailed, the longer the session."
Ms. Gray took a sip of her tea in turn, brushing a lock of her graying brown hair out of her face while taking a moment to gather her thoughts. "As I said, I'm feeling blocked, like there's a path open before me that I'm just not seeing. I'm not seeking anything terribly in-depth, but I'll leave it up to your judgment."
Seerson steepled his fingers and hmm'd. "I think I know something that should work. Here."
He handed her the deck of cards. She shuffled them once, twice, three times, then handed them back.
Seerson placed the deck on the table between them, slightly off to the side, and lay his hand on the top card. "Let us begin. This first card represents you and your present circumstances."
He turned over the card and lay it in the center of the table. An armored man riding a horse, a bowl held by both hands. "The Knight of Vessels. A messenger, a dreamer, a diviner of truths." The space above the table began to waver slightly, like looking through heat waves above a desert road.
"Next is the path behind, that which brought you to your current circumstance." He drew and placed another card to the left of the first, from her perspective. A shrouded figure laying on a mortuary table with a hunting rifle laid across its chest, three large cleavers hanging from a rack above the scene. "The Four of Weapons. Vigilance, retreat, and exile."
The shimmer deepened, hints of color appearing in it.
"Next is the destination sought, that which you have as your goal." Another card, placed to the right of the original. A black lighthouse against a blue sky, four rays of light illuminating the dry plain below it. "The Lighthouse. Change, danger, the rejection of absolutes."
The shimmering space pulsed, slowly, shapes slowly forming and fading.
"The obstacles you have to overcome." The card is laid horizontally across the first and third cards. A doorway barred by a portcullis, with a white-jacketed figure reaching through the bars to a pair of shadowed figures within. Three discs bearing an emblem familiar to Ms. Gray were above the door. "The Three of Discs, reversed. Emotional or spiritual restrictions, confinement, and overzealousness."
The space expanded outwards, obscuring each person from the other's vision. Distinct images of hallways and jewels appeared before tumbling away.
"Finally, the key issue you need to confront." The card is laid across the fourth, depicting eight wooden staves, carved to look like different serpents, with a sense of stilled movement. "The Eight of Implements, reversed. The stinging of your conscience, foolish haste, and jealousy."
With the placement of the last card, the space between the two expanded down to meet the table as it became a perfect hexagon, the images within sharp and clear. A stone hallway leading towards a silver door inlaid with gemstones. Metal branches growing out of the walls, copper-colored leaves gently rustling in an unfelt breeze. A row of fluorescent lights extending the length of the ceiling, steadily glowing and leading towards the distant doorway.
Seerson heard Ms. Gray's chair scrape against the floor as she pushed back from the table. "You know the drill. I'll be waiting here when you get back."
"Thank you. I'll try to be quick."
The table jostled slightly as she climbed onto it, and then stilled when she walked through the portal. As soon as she did, the abnormal space collapsed, with no trace that it had existed. Seerson pushed back his chair and stood, then collected the half-drunk glass of tea and bowl of lemons back onto the tray. He hummed as he tidied up, then picked up the remainder of the deck and sat down at his desk.
He waited for the portal to reform above the reading and shuffled the rest of the deck. Cut, shuffle. Cut, shuffle. Cut, shuffle.
The Reading
Walking through the portal wasn't uncomfortable or shocking, per se, but was definitely an odd sensation that she couldn't get used to no matter how many times she did it. It was like having something lightly brush every part of her, inside and out, all at once. At least it was brief.
Claire steadied herself as she entered and inspected the hallway. It was important to keep in mind that this was a largely symbolic environment and that first impressions were just as important as deeper introspections. It was hard, though, to maintain a balance between dismissing seemingly irrelevant details and obsessing over every little thing, trying to ferret out meaning.
She suspected that this hallway was more of a staging ground than anything deeper, as she'd seen variations of it in two of her past readings. The copper branches were new, though. Copper tarnished into green, an imitation of true plants. A simulacrum of living things. Interesting.
No! She was already trying to read too much into small details at the very beginning. This place was too responsive; it would give her finer and finer details the harder and longer she looked for them. She had to fight her instincts and metaphorically unfocus her eyes.
So. Hallway. Branches, ceiling lights, door. She walked down the hallway, her strides covering more distance than would be expected, until she stood before the door, now a set of gates made of twining silver bars with sapphires and rubies inset at the intersections. They were held closed by a fine silver chain locked into place by a brass-colored lock. The keyhole was slightly smaller than the tip of her pinky finger. Claire patted herself down in case a key had appeared in a pocket, as sometimes happened. Nothing.
She gave a tentative tug at the chain, but it held strong despite its delicate appearance. The bars weren't loose and the hinges were on the other side of the gates, where she couldn't reach them. How was she to open this?
Oh, of course! She plucked at one of the branches at random and a twig easily separated, the broken stem resembling a skeleton key, if you squinted and looked at it at an angle. Her methods were all about using the overlooked to her advantage, after all. She inserted the twig into the lock and the bars of the gates thinned finer and finer until the weight of the gemstones snapped the silver threads, leaving the way ahead open.
Claire passed through into a chaotic scene. She was now standing in the eye of a vast windstorm, too large to be a simple tornado. Branches, no, whole trees went spinning by, a cinder block wall disintegrating before her eyes as it hurtled around before retreating further into the storm, a flock of starlings somehow maintaining formation as they darted as one being. The flock-beast burst free into the calm space around her and started flying around her in the opposite direction of the larger storm. Bird calls, deafening, wings buffeting her as the flock grew closer and closer.
She dropped into a crouch, arms held up to protect her face from the storms of wind and birds. Greenery started hitting her. She wasn't sure which storm was throwing them, but as they touched the ground at her feet, they sprouted. Yellow roses and sweet mint sprouted and entangled her feet, her ankles, her legs, rapidly climbing her body. The smell of them was so strong, her head started swimming.
The smell, the birds, the storm… they were all trapping her, buffeting her, wanting to keep her in one place where she could be attacked. Claire tried to pull off the vines, but the thorns stabbed her hands and the mint stained them green where she ripped them away. Blood and green, dripping from her hands. The scream of the storm and the high piping of the birds.
She raised herself as much as the plants would allow and screamed, no, roared her defiance at the chaos that surrounded her, that which dared to keep her trapped, to force her to inaction against her will.
The windstorm died, immediately, everything it carried crashing to the plain surrounding her. The flock continued its circling, though, its mad cries growing shriller and shriller, as if to tell her that though she may have roared away the wind, her cries had nothing on its.
The roses and mint slowed their climb as they reached her hips. She was more firmly bound in place, but at least her arms were still free. The strong redolence of mint and roses rose strong and fierce, though. She was losing her concentration, which she couldn't afford to do here. She had to defeat both the birds and the bower, and needed to keep a tight focus on anything that could help her.
Or wait. She had already admonished herself about keeping too tight a focus, of encouraging the landscape to give her more and more until she couldn't take it. Her senses were being overwhelmed and her instinct was to fight it, to fight her way free. But to struggle, fruitlessly. To fight even when doing so only encouraged more violence. This wasn't a winning strategy.
She closed her eyes and tried to still her breathing. She flinched as a wingtip flicked across her forehead, then another against her ear. She kept her eyes closed, though, trying to ignore the distractions. She felt a rose vine brush and then grab her left arm, a flower blossoming against her elbow. The thinner shoots of a mint vine grabbed her right arm and both vines crawled up to her shoulders, and then her head. A torque of roses around her throat, a circlet of mint upon her brow.
She kept as still as she could throughout it all, fighting to not fight, struggling to not struggle. And none of the thorns pricked her. And none of the vines tightened to strangle. And as she felt the leaves grow down over her closed eyelids and the blossoms grow up over her mouth, the flock descended.
At first only one starling, then another, then so many she couldn't tell them apart. They landed on her bound body. A single bird would be so light as to not be noticed, but this many weighed her down, binding her to the ground as sure as the plants that covered her. But then.
But then she felt a purpose in the jostling hops of birds over her body. Mint was plucked, roses were broken, vines were pecked loose. In a matter of minutes, she was freed, but for her crown and her torque and her mask. Claire gently lifted her arms, birds hopping out the way, and felt at the remaining greenery. It was smooth and metallic now. She couldn't open her eyes with the mint leaves pressed against them, but there was negligible weight to the metal plants.
She tried to pluck it free, as she'd plucked the twig in the hallway, but it was solid and stubbornly resistant to her fingers. She put her hands to the ground and slowly pushed herself up into a crawling position. Sweeping her hands back and forth, she started to explore the area around her, now that the environment wasn't actively trying to hinder her. Birds hopped around on her back and in her hair, disregarding her motion. Their cries were softer now, and more melodic than shrill.
She made her way slowly across the expanse, the grit of dirt or coarse sand beneath her. The ground slowly became grainier and grainier as she felt a heat upon her exposed forearms and the back of her neck. It felt like sunlight, like she was at the beach, but there was no sound of waves and she couldn't see.
Her sweeping hand bumped into something, a pole of some sort that felt like pitted stone. She pulled herself to her feet as her hands carefully traced the pole upwards, until she reached… an arrow sign. No, two, pointing in different directions. Rather more pointedly on-the-nose than she would have expected. They felt like they were made of the same stone as the pole supporting them, and she couldn't tell if there was anything written on them. It didn't feel like anything was engraved on them.
She was frustrated with this whole thing and let her head fall against the pole. This was not a terribly wise decision, as her mask thunked back against her face. It may be light, but it was still solid metal. She tried to rub her forehead where it had jolted her, but aborted the motion. The definition of insanity, after all.
She heaved a sigh through her nose and drummed her fingers against the pole as she took a moment to just think. This place was literally made just for her. What did she need to do to master, no to understand it? Time always felt strange in here, and she couldn't tell whether she'd been at it for hours or days or forever. She could be here forever, if that's what it took to understand. She didn't know everything about the deck that opened the way here, but she did know that not everyone came back.
But she couldn't doubt herself. She had gone through this before and emerged stronger and wiser. This place was a test, yes, but one she placed before herself. Any opposition was her own doing, as much so as any strength she used. It was easy to forget, when things became externalized.
And if this place was all and only hers…
Claire blinked and opened her eyes as the mask came off in her hands. Silver filigree with tarnished copper leaves and yellow gold rosebuds, all of a piece. Beautiful. She cradled it as she looked up.
The arrows weren't actually signposts, but rather the feet of a much taller caricature of a scarecrow, all graying stone and angles. Its arms were pointed upwards in a V and its head hung down to stare at her, stony spines making a ruff around its neck. She recognized it, though. It didn't look like her predecessor, but it carried the impression of him. The blankness, the lack of self… She didn't envy the bare fraction of a life that he'd allowed himself. The fact that she now carried his burdens as well as her own had always rankled. Being reminded of it was annoying. His strengths were hers now, his ways hers, and unfortunately, his enemies hers too.
She may not have envied his pale imitation of life, but she did almost envy that he was allowed to leave. She couldn't yet. Not until she allowed herself to. And she had too much to do before she could afford that luxury.
She banged her fist against one of his arrow-feet and watched as the pole spun slowly in a full revolution. The face of the scarecrow was different now. Her own. Or at least her face from when she'd held her own name instead of that of some nobody off the street. She struck the arrow-foot again, harder. It wasn't fair to taunt her like this!
The scarecrow spun twice this time, stopping to face her again. The face was now a literal vacancy, an open cavity into the rest of the head, just begging for someone new to fill its place.
Claire glanced at the mask in her hand and nodded, then began climbing the pole. She had to do it mostly one-handed, as she didn't feel comfortable putting the mask back on in order to climb, so it was slow going. The scarecrow seemed to get taller and taller as she climbed, too, and by the time she was able to sit in the V of the arms, she had to be at least a dozen stories above the gritty ground of the black plain below.
She carefully placed the mask into the cavity, crown, torque and all. It was too small. It rattled around like a dried pea in a drum. But either it grew or the head shrank, until eventually it seated itself properly in the space. Just as it settled, a bright light burst from behind the mask and the scarecrow's arms jerked downwards. She slid and fell, her grasping hands unable to gain purchase before she slipped off the thing's shoulders.
As she fell backwards, she steeled herself for the sharp impact and hoped that nothing major would break.
There was a soft thud as she landed gently on a wooden floor.
"Welcome back, Ms. Gray. Would you like another glass of tea while you gather yourself?"