Sent

Caricatures weren’t really his style, but it paid the most. The charcoal stick he’d started with was only half a knuckle shorter in the half a day he’d been sitting out here on the misty, crumbly Atlanta sidewalk. It wasn’t often that the city fogged up like this, and people were letting their curiosity draw them outside. They came upon him at random, their opaqueness his only warning that he heeded about half the time. He figured there was a secret game that passersby were playing on him, ‘startle the homeless artist and I’ll pay to let him draw you’.

At least it wasn’t cold, just humid enough to make the charcoal dust stick to his fingers and peek out just a bit as stains on his jeans. Colby picked at a spot of caked-on black. He wished his folks would have at least let him do his laundry one last time before disowning him. They barely allowed him to go to art school instead of business, but when his now-ex tipped them off that Colby liked both genders, that broke their tolerance. His parents stormed on campus, into his room, caught him snuggling with a pretty boy in a post break-up sex hangover, and that was the end of it. He sighed, a high tenor, raspy thing, pondering on how much money his parents had got out of selling his clothes and whatever else he owned.

He was terribly bored, so between tourists, he’d been working on an old, half-dreamed face. A woman with tumbling waterfalls for hair that still held the bend of an updo. A smile that yielded to dimples if it went deep enough, brown eyes that told of subdued suffering and infinite solutions to all his problems. He would call her Cassandra when it was finished.

Colby was pondering on Cassandra’s hairline when he caught a small figure bounce-walking in the mist. They held a little box in one hand, and a bag in the crook of their left—no, right—arm. As they came closer, Colby noted they were a woman, quite short and soft. Pear shaped from the waist down. There was a bend in her hair, as if she’d just let it down from a tight updo. He toyed with the idea of pretending to be startled, if he could act it well enough to get her to pay him or not.

The mists shifted, clearing with an unnatural quickness to make room for the sunlight. Colby snapped the charcoal stick. Cassandra? No. He was projecting, hallucinating. He needed to sleep. Not-Cassandra kept coming closer, a purpose in her steps now. Colby fumbled with the charcoal, swept the dust off his hands and jeans only to end up smearing and caking it everywhere. Shit. Damn. Not-Cassandra sat on the small stool provided for customers, just to the left of the easel he’d propped the giant sketchbook meant for caricature drawings on.

“Hey there, stranger. Your sketch bag looks pretty empty. Not a lot of interest today?”

Not-Cassandra even sounded like he’d imagine dream Cassandra to sound like. A warble of accents from every home Colby remembered presenting with a Georgia peach. Like the silk rope to tether him to this home. Colby swallowed roughly, managed a weak customer-service laugh.

“Yeah, the mist probably made them skittish. You, uh, you want a drawing?”

“I always thought caricatures were meant for ugly people to feel less outlandish, and for pretty people to mock the ugly ones. Are you saying I’m one or the other?”

Colby wished the mists were back so he could choke on them. Panic made his toes curl in his soggy boots. “No? Neither? I didn’t mean to imply anything—”

Not-Cassandra laughed, an arc-ranged, wheezing bell. “I’m kidding, but I would like to be drawn, yes. But not as a caricature, lemme see what you can really do, stranger. Also, because I think you could use it, how about I do you a service, too? Not as a way to replace payment, of course, I wouldn’t think of cheating an artist that way.”

What else could he do but agree? As he traded charcoal for pencil and took down the caricature sketch paper for his personal sketch book, he watched Not-Cassandra unwrap and open her little box through the spacing in the easel. It was her tarot box, he realized after the fact. Not-Cassandra used the wrapping to cover her lap, then she drew a quarter-stack of cards. The edges of the cards were gold foil, the backs a conglomeration of Spartan warrior shields. Colby squinted, trying to remember why that pattern was familiar.

Not-Cassandra shuffled her quarter-stack, tapped them into a neat pile, and then, with a papery ‘slick-slip’, put down seven cards across her lap. Her very Cassandra-like eyes flicked up at him and Colby blushed, turned his eyes back to his sketchbook as he turned to the Cassandra on the paper. He knew exactly how he’d draw her hairline now.

His first pencil mark went wild in surprise when Not-Cassandra recited at him, “The Devil, restrictions, bindings, vices. You carry an obligation that has no longer become necessary, and it has poisoned your happiness.”

He settled himself, let her reading wash over him like when his Nana did the same—that was why those cards were so familiar.

Colby drew Not-Cassandra’s eyebrows. “Reversed Seven of Swords, guilt, regret, following your moral compass. The treasures you once coveted have soured, and you have returned them, or it was discovered that you’d taken them without consent. Despite the pains, you’ve done the right thing in returning that which doesn’t serve you anymore.”

Her lips now. “Queen of Pentacles, love, help in abundance, a person or aspect in touch with nature and reality. She will remind you of the joys of home, of taking care of yourself, of healthy relationships.”

The apples of her cheeks. “Queen of Swords, quick wit, insight, counsel, a person with strength of body and mind. She will be your rationale when you are overcome with emotion. The answer to your biggest problems.”

Colby’s hands shook as he carved her jawline. “Eight of Wands, travel, efficient communication, good news. It’s time to go, the opportunity for growth is right in front of you, you can’t resist the urge to move and find it.”

Not-Cassandra’s strong neck and slender shoulders. “Reversed Magician, trickery, deception, intentions without action. You know what it’s like to be deceived by others, don’t do it to yourself. Seize your willpower or that opportunity will wither and leave you wallowing in regrets.”

The very tip of her straight-edged nose. “Ace of Cups, an emotional restart, healing, creativity, companionship, a gold-rimmed offering. Love is given and shared, with it comes freedom of self-expression, a healthy relationship with the self, supported by a partner. A lucky card to end on, stranger.”

“Colby.” He mumbled, blowing lingering graphite dust away. He didn’t know why he’d told her.

Not-Cassandra hummed as if she was waiting for him to tell her what she already knew. “Call me Mina.”

Colby scribbled ‘Mina’ and the date at the bottom left corner of Cassandra—no, Mina, it was always Mina—and gently tore the page free from his sketchbook. He already mourned the loss of the original face; he would only be able to do imitations after this day.

Mina accepted his drawing with honey-sweet gratitude, he watched as she tucked it into her tarot box, separating the spread she’d done for him from the rest of the stack before she closed the lid and wrapped it nice and neat.

Then, she reached into her bag and pulled out a wad of $20s. He balked. On the back of one, she scribbled an address and rolled it into a neat scroll. She leaned in with no shame, slipped it into his stained shirt pocket before putting the rest of the wad in his sketch bag. Colby could cry, or die, or piss.

“You should come visit sometime, I do these readings all the time for myself, having a new face for my cards to pester would be a relief.”

He didn’t say an explicit yes or no to that, but he remembered his Nana’s words as Mina walked away.

“If a pretty woman offers to read cards for you, Starlight, you follow her to the ends of the earth. She’s Sent.”