Page 27 of In the Light of the Moon

With the thought of Orion turning me over and shattering me from behind, my back arched and brows turned up in ecstasy. I whined through clenched teeth while it flowed and settled, and my mind floated back to the warmth of the shower and tile behind me.

With shaky arms, I finished washing and climbed out. My towel was fluffy, and I wrapped it around my body. After biting at my lip and hyping myself up, I picked up my phone to find another two texts from Orion.

Your handle of setting and voice is quite masterful. The images you paint are unique in the depth of fear and foreboding they invoke in your reader. As someone that doesn’t read horror, I felt just as engrossed in the story. And I left the world you built still pondering the gruesome fate of all those involved. Well done.

I’m also having a hard time not imagining you in the shower. Are you available for coffee tomorrow?

I grinned and typed out my reply while I walked back to my bedroom.

Thank you for your totally unbiased review, Dr. Gealach. And for being an honorable gentleman in the face of my relentless teasing. Coffee tomorrow sounds great.

He took a moment to respond, and my mind whirled with the implications of why.

It is unbiased. If it wasn’t good, I would tell you.

And I’m happy to be teased. I told you, I’m in no rush.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Sylvie

“Okay, so, the card you chose is the High Priestess,” I held it up to Josie, who craned her neck from her reclined position. She squinted from behind her sunglasses and peered up at the card.

“All right, so what’s she got to tell me?” Josie took the card and continued to examine the intricately colored illustration.

“Well, based on your question of ‘What’s holding me back in life?’, the High Priestess can symbolize a reminder to look inward and trust your own intuition. Do you feel like you’ve been ignoring that lately?”

“Hm. Not really. I tend to be pretty go-with-the-flow.” It was a fairly cloudy day, and though Josie had long ago graduated from Antler Pointe, she suggested we have lunch together on campus. In addition to the pair of perfectly greasy burgers, she’d also shown up with a blanket to spread out on the grass.

“Take what resonates with you,” I shrugged and took the card back from her. “But I think your question may be indication enough that you’re not being as intuitive as you think.”

Josie snorted and popped a handful of french fries into her mouth. She worked from home most days, her job as a graphic designer at a small local firm flexible enough to where she could meet up with me in the middle of the day. “Okay,” she wiped her hands together to clear off the salt and crumbs, “I wanna try.”

“All right, but really wipe your hands and put sanitizer on. I don’t want you getting them dirty.” Josie sat up with a scoff but commenced to do just what I told her. I shuffled the still-stiff cards and took a deep breath to ground myself again after the single-card pull for my friend.

Legs crossed, she held out her hand, and I gave her the deck. “All right, so you’ll want to knock on the cards three times, then shuffle while speaking your intention for this reading. We’ll just do a single card like I did for you. And my question’ll be, ‘What’s one thing I can still expect to come this year?’”

With her fingernails chewed nearly to the quick, Josie moved the cards back and forth between her hands in a moment of hesitation before she did as I instructed. I was honestly surprised that she’d even asked at all. Most of the time, when I talked about anything I’d been learning from Granna, Josie seemed amused at best, frightened at worst.

But today, her curiosity seemed to be getting the best of her, and she knocked on the cards with her knuckles like I told her to. “I’m, uh, doing this reading for Sylvie who wants to know one thing she should still expect this year.” She shuffled quickly and spread the cards as I’d done for her. After I picked one toward the middle, Josie pulled the card. Instead of presenting it to me, though, she held it up to herself and shielded me from seeing what it was. “Okay, I’m going to guess, and you tell me if I get the meaning right.”

“Ah… okay.”

“All right,” she cleared her throat, “so, when I look at this card, I get the sense that something big is brewing. Some kind ofchange that you might be apprehensive about, but it’s inevitable. It’ll, like, completely shift how you view the world around you, but you’ll be able to find your footing.”

I frowned towards her, “Wow. That’s pretty in-depth for someone that doesn’t believe in this stuff.”

Josie pushed her sunglasses to rest on the top of her buzzed head that was the color of creamsicles today. “Well, you told me to trust my intuition, and that’s what my intuition’s telling me. Who knows if it’s even remotely what this card means. It looks ominous enough, though.”

She unceremoniously placed it upright before my legs, and when she retracted her hand, I sucked in a breath, releasing it in an impressed, slightly uneasy chuckle. “Actually, you were spot on.”

Josie picked the card up again, though she held it lowered so I could still see the dark tower facing me with all its lightning and chaos. “I was?”

“Yeah,” I said before launching into the meaning of the card and its significance in the upright position. She didn’t ask any questions, but when I looked up to check that she was still paying attention to my lengthy explanation, her eyes were still on the card. I watched her take a nervous swallow and look at the rest of the deck with even more trepidation than I was used to her showing around my cards. “We can be done, if you want?” She nodded gratefully and reached beside her for another bite of her burger.

I gathered my cards together and placed them back in the slim, wooden box I typically kept them in. Josie was still acting a bit skittish, as if she was the one that got the ominous reading, not me, but I did my best to steer the conversation in a lighter direction.

Munching on the rest of our food, we continued on in the same way as Granna and Roz. We gossiped, since talking of workand school soon grew too dull to keep on, and I let Josie finish my fries in exchange for the last bite of her burger.

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