Page 10 of Bewitched & Bewildered
I’ve been unemployed for two weeks. Fourteen and a half days of lounging around the frozen house and wishing I had the money to install central heating. Fourteen days of having only Laurel, my equally unemployed sister, to keep me company.
How unbelievably low I have fallen. Laurel is allowed to be unemployed. She’s taking a break from school, and she’s still a baby.
What’s my excuse?
Maple tells me I can take as long as I need. Rowan, our second youngest, says nothing, but her silence speaks volumes.
Enough is enough. It’s time to get back to work.
This tarot reading will be the start of that… I hope.
“Stop!” I say.
Our mother taught us to wait until we feel a tingling and pulling. Once it comes, the deck has the answers we’re looking for. I tend to feel it like a gut instinct.
Laurel stops and slams the thick deck onto the coffee table.
“You’re here for a money reading, right?” she asks.
I nod, on the edge of my seat. “I want to know what to focus on next. If there’s a specific job or any guidance you have, I suppose.”
Going to Laurel for advice may sound silly, but she’s one of the best tarot readers in the family. This includes our vast extended family. I would have gone to my mother before her passing, but Laurel is a good second choice.
She is still deciding which form of magic she wants to pursue, but I know she’ll be a great divinatory witch if she chooses that path.
My sisters each have a specialty—every witch does. Maple is, fittingly, a kitchen witch. She made a career of it, though her jobs rarely let her charm the food. Aspen is a love witch. Rowan is a cosmic witch and an expert in astrology.
As for me, I whip up a mean potion, but I haven’t been focusing on my potion-making lately. I can’t remember the last time I brewed something more complicated than a cold remedy.
Laurel cuts the deck into three piles and picks the top cards from each.
“This,” she says, flipping over one card, “is where you’re coming from. It’s what you’re leaving behind.”
The ace of cups in reverse. I tilt my head to the side, trying to understand the card. It’s the worst thing I can do. Laurel is the reader, and I’m supposed to trust her interpretation, not come up with one of my own.
Witches make for the worst kind of reading client.
Laurel flips the next card. “This is where you are now. Three of cups.” She lifts a brow. “Very fitting.”
“I suppose…”
“And this!” She flips the last card with gusto, brandishing it in the air before she slams it on the table. “Is where you’re supposed to go. It’s your next step.”
“The six of cups? No way.”
“Hush. You’re not the reader. I am.” She inhales and inspects the cards. “These are all cups cards. That’s interesting…”
“Is it?”
“That means it’s a matter of the heart, not money.”
I roll my eyes. Matters of the heart are not a priority right now—and they haven’t been for… well, for about a year.
“You better find a way to make it about money,” I say.
She quietly inspects the cards. Several moments later, she slams her hand on the table. “I got it.”
“Go on.”
