Page 192 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
“No, love,” she uttered. “Death comes for all of us, regardless of the warnings. When it’s time, it’s time. No amount of sputtering from me was going to stop that.”
“Then tell her I love her,” Liv whimpered mournfully. “Tell her I love her and that no matter where I go, I’ll be waiting for her.”
My heart thundered in my chest as Dove spoke. I watched Rachel and Liv and knew just how easily this could have been me with my own mother—goodbyes tearing from unwilling lips as the threat of death loomed, taking young lives too soon.
“Can I ask you something?” I asked hoarsely, wiping my eyes with shaky hands. “How did you… how have you been… how have you coped since losing her?” I sniffed loudly. “What did you hold on to?”
Rachel’s eyes softened as she looked at me.
“Nothing at first, love,” she said gently. “I hardly left my bed. I got to know my bedroom ceiling really well. But I knew I couldn’t just lie there, and I imagined what Liv would be thinking if she was watching me. She’d be screaming at me to get up. So I started small. I started making coffee again. Making my bed. Showering. Small steps that led to bigger ones. I did things we had once enjoyed together. I made wind chimes, went back to pottery, and I talked to her—even though I couldn’t be sure she was here. Lying in bed depressed was never going to bring her back, and I was squandering life when she had lost hers. It didn’t seem fair.”
I swallowed and nodded, and Dove brushed her thumb along my knuckles once more.
“What happens then?” Rachel asked Dove expectantly, as if it were normal for her to reunite ghosts with loved ones.
“We have no idea,” I said softly.
“You’re into tarot cards?” Dove asked suddenly, glancing at Rachel. “I see you have a few decks.”
“Oh yes,” Rachel said with a watery smile. “For years and years. My first ever reading was as a young woman, down on the pier in Santa Monica, from this beautiful woman who said some things that just… blew my mind. I had Liv with me for that reading, actually. Well, she was in my stomach at the time.”
I let out a soft laugh, and Liv smiled up at her mother with a shake of her head.
“Do you want to see the deck we used when Liv appeared?” Dove asked, eyeing my handbag. I frowned. Had she put them in there?
“Oh, absolutely,” Rachel said with interest.
Dove gestured to my bag, and I shook my head in disbelief before handing it to her. She rifled through it, pulled out the faded velvet pouch, handed the bag back to me, and held the cards to her chest.
“These were my grandmother’s,” Dove explained. “I’m retiring them once we get home, but it just seems fitting for you to see them, I guess.”
Rachel nodded, her eyes expectant, as Dove drew the old, faded cards from the pouch and placed them on the table between us. Rachel leaned forward, eyeing the cards with a spark in her gaze.
“May I?” she asked, gesturing to the deck.
“Of course.”
I watched as Rachel picked them up, her hands a little shaky as she held them, a small smile tugging at her lips.
“These are very old,” she murmured. “Look how faded they are.”
“They were my grandmother’s first deck,” Dove explained, her eyes shimmering. “She passed recently.”
Rachel’s lips thinned, and she looked at Dove. “I’m sorry.”
Dove shrugged with a small smile, and Rachel continued to inspect the cards, an air of ease around her as she handled them. Liv watched with rapt attention, soaking up any time she had left with her mother.
“Oh,” Rachel murmured, her brow furrowing as she stopped at a card, her eyes practically zeroing in on it. She pressed her lips together and frowned, her mouth moving inaudibly before I caught her whisper. “It can’t be. No.”
“Is everything okay?” Dove asked nervously, and Liv looked down at the card with a frown.
Rachel looked back up and held the card in front of her, her gaze locking on Dove.
“Was your grandmother Margaret Mystique?”
DOVE
Tip #32: The universe loves an ensemble cast. Don’t be surprised when you were all in the pilot episode.
