The Reading

The incense was heady and heavy handed, but it didn’t bother her much. She liked the smell; like the focus and the grit of it. It made things clearer… and muddied things too. River liked contradictions. They were nothing but an annoyance to her caretakers… but she liked the intrigue- the feeling like a proverbial slap to the face of sense. 

Everyone needed a slap in the face sometimes- it helped keep things copacetic.

“Alright, is everyone ready?” Madelaine was giggly… but then, she was always giggly. The others shifted on the cushions uncomfortably; the flooring was hardwoods and the cushions were thin, tasseled velvet they’d stolen from the parlor. Madelaine's parents hadn’t noticed- they’d long since gone to bed, and it was just the 7 of them now. River was always last on the roster- the matter of her invitation had only been pressed because Helvetica would have thrown a fit at her exclusion.

River readjusted herself to spread out a little, pressing the cool wood to the flat palms of her hands as Anise took out the cards. They were long, flat cards, easily outsizing the flats of their hands, and the backs were dark and shimmery, even in the dark of Madelaine’s sitting room. They’d lit about a hundred wax candles, and the room was flickery with the ambient warm light, but the shadows grew in turn, and River couldn’t help but watch them twist and writhe in the corners of the room and under every knee and hand in the circle they’d composed.

They all watched with bated breath as Madelaine scanned them all; in the dark, her eyes were tenebrous and flat black in the dark, like the deep of space, where there was nothing but the cold and the death of stars. Helvetica swallowed, beside her, and it was audible enough that- like a few of the other girls- she tried to play it off by giggling in a mockery of excitement. 

River didn’t bother. There was nothing new to this game for her- and nothing nearly so exciting. For Helvetica, the Night Game might have been as adrenaline inducing and harmless as Bloody Mary. River couldn’t even find that much enthusiasm. 

“Would you pick someone, please?” She asked, a little tired of the performative theater Madelaine was clearly trying to put on. Her stare was unyielding and pitch-colored... but River wasn’t scared of Madelaine D’Arcy any more than she was scared of Helvetica’s mother. 

“How about you go first then, Pavati,” Madelaine’s smile was soft, but there was threat enough in her patience. River tried not to clench her teeth too hard. Madelaine knew better than to use that name… but she was trying to get a rise out of her, and it wasn’t going to work. River took the high road, however painfully precarious.

“It’s River, and sure, if it will get this thing going.” Pushing up to her knees, she grabbed her cushion and threw it down in the center of the circle, keeping her back to Madelaine and Anise. Helvetica was smiling, awkwardly and with too many teeth. They’d been working on that… but she’d never really learned how to smile with her teeth, and it was disconcerting to look at. 

Anise reached over the circle’s wide center and poked her in the back, setting the card stack face-down on the rug beside her. “Alright. Hel, you’re sitting in front of her, so you pick first.” 

“Alright,” she said, breathlessly, and the other girls were giggling, bouncing knees and tapping their hands in excitement. Their eyes met for a second, briefly, and in Helvetica’s River could see the antithesis of Madelaine- lambent and stone-gray and warm. 

River watched as her friend’s long-fingered, pallid hand reached out to slip the top card from the pile. Wordlessly, she set the card down face-first to the hardwood, and waited for the next person to draw. And so it went around the circle, as one by one they set the cards down, and brought the rotation all the way around back to Helvetica. 

“Alright, now you take one, Pavati,” Madelaine said, and River bit the meat on the inside of her cheek. It wasn’t worth a fight… not here. Not on such thin ice, after Helvetica had pushed for her invitation. 

“It’s River, Madelaine,” She said, reaching to pull her own cards, “-and I know how to play.” 

There was no forthcoming apology- not that she really expected one. The cards were cool in her hand, and she took them with none of the anticipation and bated breath that some of the others were. To her left, Jodie Martin had begun chewing on her nails, and Margaret Row was no better, leaning forward too far and tapping her foot in a jumpy rhythm against the floor. 

If this was really their idea of a thrill, she felt sorry for them. 

River flipped over the first card, and placed it securely against the hardwood, face up for all to see. Her fingers hesitated over the card’s laminate surface. “The Secretary… reversed.” 

Another ripple ran through the room. It wasn’t entirely odd, for this to be her first card… but it was indicator enough; despite herself, River felt the itch creeping up her spine and into her hands. What was this game going to tell her? A bunch of objective facts about her life? Hypotheticals she could lean into, or away from as she got older? 

“The Secretary, reversed.” Anise repeated, behind her ear, and the rest of the circle murmured. “Lack of obedience; the desperate grasp for independence and individuality.” 

That was fine… there was no surprise there. It was far from secret that she’d been a ward with Helvetica and the Archivists for the past year and a half… and she’d continue to be until her coming of age ceremony. She swallowed back her annoyance, and looked at Helvetica first, of everyone. 

When she reached for her card tepidly, River willed herself to focus. The candles were still flickering against the walls, casting six tall shadowmen on the gaudily-curtained walls. She could still smell the dense incense smoke, and there was a cloudy sheen on the back windows for it. Helvetica grabbed her card, and pinched it between her fingers like it was a dead thing.

Once it had been turned over, the silence only seemed to stretch for a second… but she could see that for Helvetica- and the rest of the room- it was an eon. Her fingers were perched hesitatingly over the card, as River’s had been, but they showed no signs of moving, frozen in place. The giggles were already going up, and River had to watch the way Helvetica’s cheeks darkened in the candlelight, flushed with embarrassment. 

“Oh my god,” Caitlyn whispered, snorting, “-it’s The Lover.” 

“The Lover,” Helvetica said, louder, and it sounded like she was chewing glass. “-reversed.” 

“Lay off. It’s just a card-” River felt the warm hot iron taste as she bit through the side of her tongue. Jodie and Caitlyn Thibodeaux were looking at her and Helvetica like they were some kind of circus act, and it was horrendously rude. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known… Helvetica wasn’t exactly subtle about it… but she wouldn’t take part in any cruelty they decided to bring from this. Besides… it was just a card game; an unfortunate coincidence had put that card in her hand, of all the girls in the room. 

Helvetica seemed inclined to voice this thought herself; her face had gone red with flush, and her eyes were even more strikingly clear as a result. When she turned her head to scold them, the candlelight caught them and for a second, they were wild and yellow with the reflection. “Shut up- it doesn’t mean that. You guys are the worst!” 

“The Lover, reversed,” Anise chimed in with perfect timing as always- forever the mediator. “Repression; the burying of one’s true feelings. Helvetica’s right. Just because she pulled The Lover in River’s life reading doesn’t mean they’re queer. Grow up, Caitlyn.” 

Caitlyn gaped- as though she wasn’t being a grade-a jerk and jumping to conclusions. Helvetica’s face still hadn’t gone back to pale, but she sat with a markedly more reserved nature as Jodie reached out for her card- hoping to defuse the tension. 

“The Prostitute!” She announced, like it was bingo, and River could have died. Instead, she fought the crawl that was working through her bones as this read continued. They weren’t even halfway through the reading yet… and this was how it was going? For her sake, she hoped this was all just Bloody Mary bullshit. 

“The Prostitute. Desperation; the search for control amid chaos.” Anise recited, but even she had begun to sound less than enthused. It seemingly had no effect on Caitlyn, or Jodie, or Margaret, though. They were all getting into it- looking eager to flip their cards, giggling at the blatant misunderstanding of the card’s connotations. 

Madelaine hadn’t said a word since the reading had begun… and even now, she heard the flip of the card behind her back long before she heard Madelaine’s voice, soft and light in a horrible kind of contrast with the words she spoke. “The Maid, reversed.” 

For a long moment… no one said anything. That one, they all knew. 

Anise said it anyway, after a long stretch of uncomfortable silence. “...Loss of Innocence: the death of childhood.” 

River’s palms were beginning to sweat, despite herself, and they were itching already with the eczema. She tried to wipe them on her jeans… but it didn’t seem to want to stop. It was just a game… just a silly prediction game using random luck-of-the-draw- cardsmanship. There was no magic in it… not really. None that any of them could have pulled off with their paltry 13-year-old understanding of reading circles. 

Helvetica was looking at her with a terse, serious kind of expression on her face; it was too complicated to read- too dense to pick apart as River felt the panic starting to quietly lace through her intestines. 

Behind her, Anise’s card hit the floor as she turned it over, and waited. Instead of a declaration… she simply heard Anise say, “...we should stop.” 

“Why?” River heard herself ask, before she’d meant to. She felt Anise’s hand on the back of her shoulder, her touch gentle, but dense. There was a seriousness in her tone that River didn’t like; it was just a game! It was something stupid that girls did to make up stories about each other, and manipulate each other into dating the wrong person or taking the wrong risk, or being less of a bully. It wasn’t real- it wasn’t real Tarot, and this wasn’t a real divination. 

Anise took her determination for reproach, and sighed the card more than she said it. “The Immigrant reversed. Loss of Culture; the severance of one from themselves and those around them.” 

Oh. Oh… “No. No, I want to know what comes next.” 

Jodie’s nail biting had stopped at the raw beds of each of her nails, but even she was looking a little apprehensive now. Caitlyn had stopped gossiping with Margaret, and both of them were staring at her now, too. River ground her molars. Was it worth it? What else was waiting for her… just three more cards? Three more cards to tell the story of her life…

Margaret took the leap before anyone else. She supposed she should have been pleasantly surprised, but then, Margaret had always had a mean streak- this was probably more for River’s suffering than her own curiosity. She slapped the card down face-up with little ceremony, and wasted no time in reading it aloud. In the increasing dark- as the candles burned down one by one- the planes of her face were elongated and jaundiced a sickly fire-lit yellow as she stared down at it, pensive and drawn. “The Salesman.” 

“Dishonesty; the foundation of a person built on falsehoods and lies.” 

“You can stop, River.” Madelaine said, still soft and light as ever. It surprised the group at large; it surprised River more that now she suddenly cared enough to remember her name. 

“Keep going.” She pressed, digging her fingernails into her jeans and willing the heat the ease in her body- willing the discomfort of this whole situation to dissolve and go back to the stupidity of teenage girl sleepovers it had been before. 

Caitlyn hesitated over her card, bead bracelets clacking and jingling as she reached for its edge. The gilding glistened in what light was left in the room, low and hot, dusty orange over them all as the candles died one at a time, leaving only the few closest to them all. The shadowmen they’d all made on the walls had stretched and widened to overtake the ceiling, and the walls, and the curtains. River swallowed hard, and willed the wild beating of her heart to ease in her chest as Helvetica fidgeted with her hands in her lap, darting glances up and down between them and her- like she wanted to do something about that- like she wanted to take her hand. 

River turned away, and looked pointedly at Caitlyn as she laid down the card.

“The Old Man, reversed.” She said, and seemed to breathe a little easier for it. Collectively… they all sighed a little bit with relief. It wasn’t the best card… but it was something a little less daunting than the others. 

“The Old Man, reversed,” Anise said, although she did not sound as relieved as the rest. “Regret. One’s reflection on life and the paths taken to reach its end.” 

The last candle flickered around them all, tremulous and flooding at the wick. Any moment it would go out, leaving them all in the dark. River steeled her resolve, and reached for her last card. Around her, all of the girls looked ghoulish in the low light, and River swallowed back the fear licking its way up from inside her rib cage, like a slow-dying fire of her own. The card was cool, the floor cooler as she turned it over. The last flicker of light caught the card, and she might have cried, looking at it. 

In the dark, Helvetica’s hand reached out and touched her knee, soft and long-fingered and tense. She flexed her fingers in a squeeze, and River could feel her heartbeat in her ears. 

“The Sacrifice.”