Page 43 of Witches of Honeysuckle House
After the deck was fully incorporated, Regina fanned it out in front of her. She held a hand over the cards until she felt a warmth in her palm that ran all the way up her arm to the center of her chest, so much like the heat she felt when preparing a candle. She let it sit there, flames brushing up against her heart for a few seconds, a reminder of her power.
“Ready?” she asked.
Violet nodded, and they flipped their cards.
“Oh!” Violet said with a soft gasp. Regina glanced at her sister’s card before looking at her own. In the center, two hands had been lovingly detailed. They held each other, nails cut short and painted bright red, a six along the top. Regina tilted her head, trying to make sense of the image.
“The lovers?” she asked. It was different than the illustration on the Rider-Waite-Smith deck Regina used.
The card most often represented romance, but that was impossible. Regina had made sure of it, which pointed to only one thing: platonic soulmates. It had to be about Regina and Violet. For the first time since Violet broke the news about Tillie, Regina felt the fear in her heart melt away. She looked up to find her sister’s eyes locked on Tillie’s, her cheeks flushed. Tillie bit her lip.
“Regina …” Violet started, but as she looked away from Tillie to the card Regina had revealed, she stopped short.
“So Violet will be lucky in love,” Tillie said, a smile in her voice, when Violet stilled her with a hand on her knee.
Both Tillie and Regina followed Violet’s gaze, and Tillie let out a soft, “Oh.”
Regina lifted her own card to get a better look at it. Vines entwined the carefully painted heart. Three sharp thorns dug in deep, dripping with blood. This might not be the exact illustration she’d grown up on, but Regina knew right away what card she held: The three of swords. A sign of betrayal, heartbreak, or both. The last time she’d pulled this card had been the night before her parents’ accident.
She traced a finger over the vines, wishing the card would tell her more. Regina didn’t put her heart at risk, she’d made careful work of that over the past thirteen years. But betrayal? She looked up at her sister.
“I suppose it’s a good thing I’m not in love.” There was only one person Regina loved, and she knew her sister would never break her heart.
“It doesn’t have to mean future heartbreak,” Violet said. “It could be pointing to a past loss.”
Regina nodded slowly. In a few days it would be thirteen years since their parents’ death—half of Regina’s life spent without them. She couldn’t imagine a worse heartbreak.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Regina, 1960
After Regina pulled the three of swords the night Tillie moved in, her mind was a mess of worry and overthinking. She made herself a cup of tea, lit a blue taper, and went to bed early, not even bothering to wash her face or wrap her hair. In the candle smoke, the house had conjured up images of a young Regina and Violet tending to the hives with their mother and father. It was a nighttime ritual the house had begun not long after her parents died, give Regina a chance to see her parents’ faces and hear their voices again thanks to the house’s magic. Those quiet, easy moments brought Regina peace, but tonight that wasn’t enough. She lay beneath her quilt for what felt like hours, the soft music winding its way up the stairs, but sleep wouldn’t come.
The walls creaked in her bedroom, as though the house sensed her unease, and when she finally sat up in bed, giving up on sleep altogether, the bedside lamp switched on.
“What should I do?” The question was for the house as much as herself.
Her new deck of cards sat open on the bedside table—not on the dresser where she’d left it. A slow smile spread across her face. She lifted the box and flipped it over, depositing the deck in her hand.
“You always know exactly what I need.”
The curtains fluttered at the compliment.
She hadn’t taken the time to look at the cards closely, had been almost afraid of them after her draw, but the beautiful thing about tarot was the deck always offered clarification. Before she pulled another card, she fanned the cards face up in front of her, marveling at Tillie’s work. Regina might not care much for the woman, but she couldn’t deny her talent. The care she’d taken into hand-painting the cards and the detail were unmatched. Regina imagined Violet running her fingers over the same cards, the decks now yet another thread in the magic that bound them together.
The blue candle still burned where she’d left it on the windowsill, wax spilling down the edge and pooling at the base. She’d dipped the candle specifically to help with sleep—she had a full stock of them thanks to the nightmares that plagued her, reminding her of every detail of her parents’ deaths—but blue also fostered intuition. It brought clarity, and clarity was exactly what Regina needed.
She shuffled the cards, taking care not to bend the backs. Then, with a deep breath, she spread them out on the quilt. As she lifted one, her bed frame rattled, the floorboards shook, and it slipped from her hands. She narrowed her eyes.
“I thought you wanted me to do this.”
The window cracked open, and a breeze stirred the hair around Regina’s face. She reached for the card she’d dropped. Once again, the bed began to shake, but this time she held tight.
“You don’t want me to have this card?”
The window opened and closed in response.
“Unfortunately for you, this is the card I drew.”
