Page 1 of Scythe & Sparrow
ACE OF CUPS
Rose
If you hit someone in the back of the head hard enough, you can pop their eyeballs right out of their face.
Or at least, that’s what I read somewhere. And that’s what I’m thinking as I shuffle my tarot deck, glaring at the sketchy-looking asshole thirty feet away as he pours alcohol from a flask into his soda and takes a long gulp. He wipes away the excess from his chin with the sleeve of his plaid shirt. A burp quickly follows, and then he shoves half his hot dog into his fuck-ugly gob before he takes another swig.
I could whack that big ol’ egghead so hard his marbles spring right out of their sockets.
And the woman sitting across from me? I bet she wouldn’t mind one bit.
I tamp down a dark grin and hope to fuck she hasn’t noticed the devious glint in my expression. But even despite the murdery vibes I’m probably giving off, and the distractions of SilveriaCircus beyond the open door of my tarot tent, her attention seems stuck on the cards, all her concentration glued to them as I shuffle. There’s no light at all in her eyes, one of them rimmed with a fading black bruise.
Blood surges in my veins as I force my gaze not to creep back to the man.Herman.
When her attention finally lifts from the repetitive motion of my hands, and she starts twisting in her seat to catch sight of him, I abruptly stop shuffling to slap the deck down on the table. She startles more than seems normal, just like I thought she would. Just like I hoped she wouldn’t.
“Sorry,” I say, and I mean it. She looks at me with fear in her eyes.Realfear. But she gives me a weak smile. “What’s your name?”
“Lucy,” she says.
“All right, Lucy. So I won’t ask you what your question is. But I want you to keep it in mind.”
Lucy nods. I turn over the first card. I already know what it will be. Its edges are worn with use and the image has faded with time.
“Ace of Cups,” I say as I lay the card on the table and push it closer to her. She looks from the image to me, a question in her crinkled brow. “It represents following your inner voice. What does it tell you? What do you want?”
There’s only one thing I hope she’ll say:to take flight.
But she doesn’t say it.
“I don’t know,” she says, her voice barely more than a whisper. Disappointment lodges itself like a thorn beneath my skin as she twists her fingers on the table, her simple gold wedding band scratched and dull. “Matt wants to buy another plot of land to farmnext year, but I want to put some money away for the kids. Maybe it’d be nice to get out of Nebraska for a week, take the kids to see my mom and not be fretting about the price of gas. Is that the kind of thing you mean …?”
“Maybe.” I shrug and pick up the deck, giving it another shuffle. This time, I won’t guide the Ace of Cups to the top of the pile. I’ll let it tell her whatever she needs to hear. “What’s important is what it means toyou. Let’s restart, and you keep that in mind.”
I do Lucy’s reading. Seven of Cups. Page of Cups. Two of Wands. Signals of change, that choices for her future are there, if she’s ready to have faith and embrace them. I’m not even sure if she’s open to receiving a message from my cards. I’ve barely finished the reading when her three kids pile into the tent, two girls and a boy, their faces sticky and stained with candy. They talk over one another, each wanting to be the first to tell her about the rides or the games or the upcoming performances.They have clowns, Mama. Mama, did you see the fire-breather? I saw a game where you can win a stuffy, Mama, come see. Mama, Mama, Mama—
“Kids,” a gruff voice interrupts at the entrance of my tarot tent. Their thin bodies go still and rigid at his sharp tone. Lucy’s eyes widen across from me. She doesn’t let her gaze linger, but I still see it. The dull smear of chronic terror in her eyes. The way it deadens her expression before she turns away. I look up to the man in my doorway, his spiked soda gripped in one hand, a fistful of ride tickets in the other. “Go on, take ’em. Meet your ma at the big top in an hour for the show.”
The oldest child, the boy, reaches for the tickets and grasps them to his chest as though they could be torn from him just as easily as they were given. “Thank you, Papa.”
The kids edge past their father, where he stands unmoving in the entrance of the tent. He watches them disappear into the crowd before turning his attention our way. Bloodshot eyes fixed to his wife, he drains his plastic cup and drops it on the ground. “Let’s go.”
Lucy nods once and stands. She places a twenty-dollar bill on the table with a brittle smile and a whisper of thanks. I’d like to give her the reading for free, but I know men like hers. They’re volatile. Willing to jump down a woman’s throat for the smallest perceived slight, like pity or charity. I learned a long time ago to stick to the exchange of value, even if he might yell at her later for spending money on something as frivolous as a message from the universe.
Lucy leaves the tent. Her husband watches her go.
And then he turns to me.
“You shouldn’t go fillin’ her head with crazy fuckin’ ideas,” he says through a sneer. “She’s already got enough of those.”
I pick up my tarot cards and shuffle them. My heart scrapes my bones with every furious beat, but I keep my movement fluid, my outward appearance calm. “I take it you don’t want a reading.”
“What did you tell her?”
The man takes a step into my tent to loom over my table with a menacing glare. I lean back in my chair. My shuffling slows to a halt. We pin our gazes to each other. “Same shit I tell everyone who comes in here,” I lie. “Follow your dreams. Trust your heart. Good things lie in your future.”
“You’re right about that.” A dark smile tugs at the corners of the man’s lips as he whips the twenty-dollar bill off the table and makes a point of folding it in front of me. “Good things do lie in my future.”
