Page 12 of A Charming Touch of Tarot (The Gin & Tarot Club #2)

12

Six of Pentacles

“What are you doing here?” I ask, finding Isla sitting next to me.

She squirms in her seat, a self-satisfied smirk adorning her pretty face.

“I’ve been here the whole time. Just decided to show myself to offer help,” she declares, her tone brimming with confidence.

I shake my head, exchanging a glance with Corinne in the rearview mirror, noticing her puzzled expression.

“Who’s here?” she inquires, turning to look at the empty space beside me.

“Isla,” I reply, gesturing vaguely. “She’s here to offer her assistance, apparently.”

Corinne turns back to Nina. “Who’s Isla?”

“Nick’s ex-fiancée,” Nina whispers.

“Dead ex-fiancée,” Isla corrects with a ghostly chuckle. I clear my throat, opting not to share that particular detail with Corinne and Nina.

“What’s your suggestion then?” I ask, refocusing on the reason for Isla’s appearance.

“If you walk around the cemetery, there’s a shorter wall,” Isla suggests, motioning toward the graveyard.

“How short are we talking?” I ask, eyeing the direction she pointed to.

“Short enough for all of you to scale over it with a boost. That tall girl out there could probably do it on her own.”

“How is she here?” Corinne’s head tilts to the side, a picture of perplexity.

“You shouldn’t be here…but you are.” I glance toward the cemetery. “Are you buried in there?” I ask, coming to the most logical conclusion.

“Yes, but that’s not how you’re seeing me,” she says cryptically.

Nina turns around, her expression questioning, and I respond with a casual shrug, returning to the specter.

“So…enlighten me.”

A mischievous grin stretches across her delicate features, and instantly my senses prick with apprehension. What is she up to?

“Check your purse.”

I rummage through the contents of my purse, my fingers sifting through the usual clutter until they brush against something cold and made of metal. With a curious furrow of my brow, I extract the object, revealing a man’s wedding ring.

“How…how did that get in here?” I murmur, my voice tinged with bewilderment.

Isla shrugs nonchalantly, an enigmatic gleam dancing in her eyes. “I put it there.”

My eyes widen in realization, a sudden clarity washing over me. This is Nick’s. Without uttering a word, I glance at Isla, and she responds with a subtle nod, a twisted glimmer dancing in her eyes. Her satisfaction is palpable.

“Why?”

“I had a theory.” She picks at her pink fingernail, not elaborating, continuing to leave her motives shrouded in mystery. But I’m in no mood to speculate on her intentions.

“Spit it out, Isla,” I snap, done with the games.

Her lips purse, a clear indication of her displeasure with my tone. Her confident demeanor slips, replaced by an air of uncertainty.

“I don’t think it’s Nick that I’m attached to, but the ring,” she confesses, her gaze drifting down to the object in question, her smile tinged with sadness. “He wasn’t supposed to see it until our wedding day. When I died, he took it. He’s had it tucked away in his back pocket.” She clears her throat. “Until recently. That’s when I realized I couldn’t follow him anymore.”

I nod, understanding her train of thought. “So, by process of elimination, you concluded that it’s the ring you’re attached to.”

She bobs her head in confirmation. “Yes. And I placed it in your purse so that I could attach myself to you.”

“Why?” My voice is full of frustration. “Why would you try to attach yourself to me?”

“Because I have to know you. I have to figure out if you’re the one,” she explains earnestly.

“Jesus, Mary, mother of god, Isla,” I exclaim, feeling overwhelmed. “We just started dating. What’s with you trying to push?” My head falls back as I let out a sigh. “I’m not going to marry him anytime soon, if ever. You forget I’m forty years old, and I’ve already been married. We’ve just started dating,” I repeat, trying to emphasize the point.

She shrugs, seemingly unfazed. “Call it a gut instinct.”

“You shouldn’t have instincts. You’re dead,” I snap.

“Ouch, that was harsh,” Corinne says, head whipping around as though she’ll get a peek at the affronted ghost. “What is she saying?”

“It’s a long story. We don’t have time.”

Corinne harrumphs, twisting back around.

“I’m sorry, Isla,” I say. “I didn’t mean to be insensitive, but seriously, you’ve got to stop prying into Nick’s and my relationship. And for the record, I don’t think Nick would approve of me hanging out with you.”

She waves a hand in the air. “Then don’t tell him. He rarely knows what’s best for himself. I’m here to help.”

I close my eyes and inhale deeply.

“Why does it sound like there’s a problem?” Nina asks.

“There is no problem. Just a misunderstanding,” I assert, redirecting my attention to Isla and forcing a smile onto my lips. “If it’s the ring you’re attached to, then we simply need to figure out how to unattach you from it.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t think you can.”

My head falls back against the car seat. “I’m going to tell Lanie about the wall,” I say, exiting the car, desperate for fresh air.

I approach Lanie as if she’s a wild beast, ready to turn on me at any moment. She kicks the gate, growling, only furthering my worry.

“Hey now, no need to alert the police before you’ve even stepped foot on hallowed ground.”

She purses her lips, hands landing on her hips. “Are you mocking me?”

I blink a couple times, recognizing that it did sound like that, but it wasn’t my intention.

“I’m sorry, Lane. I didn’t mean to come off that way.”

She gulps, her shoulders slouching. “I know this all sounds nuts, but I’m really freaked out, Ally. Like really freaked.”

I take a tentative step forward and place a hand on her shoulder. “Is there something else going on? Something you need to tell someone?”

She stiffens, giving away that there might just be more to this dream.

“No,” she snaps, jerking away from me.

I’ve known Lanie long enough to identify when it’s a losing battle to pry. She’s not going to tell me anything, and I have to be all right with that for now.

“I came out here to tell you that Isla says there’s a short wall around the back. You should be able to scale it.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “Isla? Who’s Isla?”

“Nick’s fiancée,” I say, clenching my teeth together.

“The dead one?”

I pull a face, disturbed by Lanie’s less-than-tasteful way of describing her. “Quiet. She’ll hear you.”

“What does it matter? She knows she’s dead. Why is she here anyway?”

“She’s attached herself to me,” I say, sounding as though it doesn’t bother me. “It’s…convenient at times.”

Lanie’s face contorts. “Not.” She takes a step toward me, leaning down to whisper, “Nobody wants to hook up with someone when his dead ex is hanging around.” She looks around the area. “No offense, ghost girl.”

“None taken,” Isla calls out, appearing beside the gate. “Except, tell your tall friend to not call me that. It’s offensive.”

She’s not being serious. I’m coming to find Isla sarcastic and witty, and it’s no wonder she was to be Nick’s wife.

I relay the message anyway, and Lanie scoffs. “Her very existence is offensive.”

Isla titters.

“I’m sorry, but I’m still out,” Nina says. “I can’t take the chance of getting myself in trouble with all the Richard issues surrounding me. I’ve already got a spotlight on my back.”

“She’s right, Lane. There is no way Nina can do this, and we can’t allow her to stay out in the dark alone.” I tap my chin. “So I’ll stay with her, and you two can go mingle with the spirits.” I motion between her and Corinne, who’s joined the party at the gate. She’s clutching a bottle of champagne in each hand.

“Then you won’t have completed the rituals, and your New Year will be crap,” Lanie quips.

“News flash, love. You said it was your New Year in jeopardy, not ours. I’m simply doing this as a friend. One who loves you enough to tag along.”

She grunts. “Fine. Cori…you with me?”

“I’ve scaled a wall or two. I’ll play sidekick for the evening.” She lifts her bottles of champagne. “I’ll drink while you scour for your guilt .”

I crinkle my nose at Corinne’s random word.

“What is she guilty of?”

Corinne huffs. “Please tell me that I’m not the only one who worked out that the graves she needs to find are an anagram for guilty .”

She isn’t wrong, and that leads to a host of questions. Could the letters that Lanie seemed to choose at random not have been random at all? And furthermore, if she feels that she’s guilty of something and this is to be her penance, what is she guilty of?

“Coincidence,” Lanie says, waving Corinne’s words off, but I’m not buying it.

“We’ll stay out here, and if anyone comes along, we’ll hoot like owls,” I say, making the sound and drawing two looks of amusement and a snort from Isla.

“Classic,” Isla chuckles. “You are definitely perfect for Nick.”

I ignore her, refusing to feed into her delusions surrounding Nick and me.

“We’ll see you two in a bit,” Lanie says, grabbing Corinne by the arm of her black sweatshirt that says I’m wicked in bold white letters.

“What do we do?” Nina asks.

“First? Grab a bottle of the champagne from the car.”

Nina nods vigorously. “We might as well not lose our buzz.”

We take a seat on top of the car, and I pop the cork from the bottle, taking a sip and passing it over to Nina.

“This feels a lot like the summer before our senior year,” she says, smiling. “Nights spent at the lake.”

“It does,” I say, bobbing my head.

I recall that summer with perfect clarity. It was a year that lives fondly in my memory. We spent nearly every night at our friend Liv’s cabin, located down a dirt road, situated next to a small lake. We’d drink strawberry Boone’s Farm and take reckless swims, oblivious to the danger of mixing the two. Looking back, it’s a wonder we all lived to tell about those days.

I thank god on the daily that Ava is nothing like me. She’s smart, but more important, responsible. These days a simple app allows me to monitor where she is at all times. Not that I check often, because I know she makes good decisions. She’s typically at the library or in her room, and that gives me peace of mind.

“This is not how I envisioned tonight going,” Nina says, looking up into the starless night. “New Year’s has never been my favorite.”

“That’s why we need to make new memories.” I pass the bottle back to her.

Her head lolls toward me, a lazy grin spreading across her face. “I’d say that tonight will definitely be a night I won’t forget.”

“Me too.” I take a pull of the fizzy drink and sigh. “This is all a lot.”

“Leave it to Lanie to come rushing in, freaked out by a dream.”

“It’s odd, isn’t it? I mean…I’m not a therapist, but the way she’s reacting, it seems a bit much.”

Nina’s quiet for a minute, and I think she’s going to let my comment go, but she doesn’t.

“There’s something going on with Lanie. Her behavior suggests that the walls are closing in on her.”

“What do we do? We have to help, right?”

She lets out a weary exhale. “I think this is something we need to allow her to come to us about.”

Isla paces in front of us, head lowered to the ground as she mumbles something unintelligibly. “What’s wrong with you?” I ask.

“It’s just…I want…” She shakes her head. “Never mind. You wouldn’t understand.”

I sit up. “Try me.”

She makes a strangled noise, and my eyebrow arches in curiosity. I haven’t known Isla long, but she hasn’t struck me as overly dramatic. Right now, her entire demeanor is theatrical.

“I know I’m dead. I’ve come to terms with that. But my body is in there,” she says, jutting her hand toward the cemetery. “My final resting place. I’m right here, and a morbid part of me wants to see my gravestone. Wants to see what others do when they visit me.” She sighs heavily. “Am I crazy for wanting that?”

I chew on my bottom lip, wholly unprepared to answer that question.

“I can’t claim to understand, but who am I to say it’s crazy? You should go in there.”

Her face lights up. “You’ll go in? You’ll take me with you?”

“Umm…no. I didn’t mean to imply that.” I shake my head, angry with myself for not thinking my words through before voicing them. “I can’t, Isla. It’s illegal, and if I were caught, it would ruin my plans.”

Her entire demeanor shifts, shoulders sagging in resignation. “I understand. I…shouldn’t have asked that of you.”

I lick my bottom lip, contemplating how I could make this happen for her without doing it myself. An idea hits me.

“If you’re connected to the ring, you only need someone else to take it in there.”

Her eyes light up, and she claps her hands together. “Who?”

“What’s she saying?” Nina asks, head flopping from me toward the ghost she can’t see.

“She wants to see her gravestone.”

Nina’s mouth pops open, forming an O. “Are you sure that wouldn’t help her move on?”

My eyes narrow in on Nina. “She thinks she’s stuck because Nick needs to be happy.”

Nina purses her lips. “Seems to me that if she’s connected to that ring, she might be here for a different reason.”

My eyebrow lifts.

“Was she buried with her ring?”

I turn toward Isla. “Were you buried with your ring?”

She nods. “I’m sure I was. I wore it at all times.”

“Maybe the rings need to be together?” I suggest, not having any clue if there’s validity to the idea.

“You think? Could that be it?”

I shrug my shoulder. “I can’t claim to have any clue about these things, Isla. But it’s worth a shot. That is…if you want to move on to the next life.”

She laughs, but it’s full of sadness. “I don’t want to stay here,” she admits. “No offense to you, Alyssa, but as much as I want Nick to be happy, and I think you might be the person who could make him very happy, I don’t necessarily love watching you two together. I try to put on a happy face and pretend that it’s easy for me to push the love of my life toward someone else, but it’s not. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, in life or death.”

I swallow the lump in my throat, feeling terrible for Isla.

“I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine what that must be like. It’s not what I’d want for my husband to have to see.”

She shrugs one shoulder. “No need to apologize. You’ve done nothing wrong. I’m not supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be on the other side, basking in the light with my baby brother.”

I pull my mouth to the side, considering Isla. “Are you truly ready for that?”

She bites her lip. “I think so.”

I glance at Nina and groan. “What do you think?”

Her eyes go wide. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Ally.”

“I’m not even sure if it will work, but I have to try to help her. Nick would want that.”

Nina smiles sadly. “I think you’re right, but I also think he’d want to know before you do it,” she says, baring her teeth in an expression that tells me she’s nervous about my reaction to her words.

I sigh heavily. “You’re probably right. I’d be pissed if I missed out on a chance to potentially say a proper goodbye to Garrett.”

She nods.

“I get it, and I agree,” Isla says before I’ve had a chance to speak. “You’re making the right decision.”

I glance at my watch and groan. “Lanie’s about to miss her window to burn the scarecrow.”

Hopping down from the hood of the car, I open the back door and grab my purse, pulling my phone from the inner compartment I typically store it in for ease in finding it.

I have six missed calls from Lanie, and I quickly call her back.

“I need help,” she says, voice trembling with fear. “Corinne twisted her ankle and can’t walk. It’s almost midnight.”

I’m struggling to determine if it’s Corinne’s ankle or the time that has Lanie panicking.

“Where are you?” I ask, not sure how we’re going to hoist Corinne over the wall if necessary.

There’s a moment of quiet on the other end, but when she speaks again, her words hit me like a revelation. “We’re right in front of Isla Craft’s grave.”

Is this some sort of sign from the universe that I’m supposed to take Isla to that gravestone after all?

No.

The universe is supposed to work with me, not against me, and me stepping foot in that cemetery cannot be for my greater good.

“We need help,” she says, sounding frantic.

“What do you want me to do?” I say, resigned to the fact that we have to do something. We can’t very well leave them trapped in the cemetery.

“Burn the scarecrow. But before you do, I need you to write out my words on the little pieces of paper I brought and stuff them inside.”

I shut the car door and make my way to Nina, who’s peering down from the hood of the car with a worried expression. She mouths the words what’s wrong .

I close my eyes, shaking my head, hoping to convey I need a moment and then I’ll tell her everything.

“What should I write?”

I hear her exhale. “ Fear on one. Let go of the past on another. Regain my power on the third, and finally, stop running on the last.”

The questions mount with each and every request she makes. What does she fear? What happened in her past, and most concerning, what is she running from?

“Alyssa, did you hear me?” Lanie bites.

“Yes. I heard you, and I’ll do this. But, Lanie…you and I are going to have a long talk come tomorrow.”

She doesn’t say a word, and it’s my turn to ensure she’s heard me.

“Okay?”

“Okay.” It comes out a whisper, indicating that Lanie really doesn’t want to have that conversation with me.

“What are you going to do with Corinne?”

“She’ll be fine. She just needs to stop whining.”

I hear Corinne grumbling in the background, quibbling with Lanie’s words.

“We’ll be back to the car as quickly as we can.”

With that, the phone goes dead.

I relay everything I’ve just learned to Nina, and she doesn’t speak, choosing to guzzle the remainder of the champagne left in the bottle she has clenched in her hands.

“How the hell are we going to burn this scarecrow?” I say, hoping to get a response.

“We can’t do it on the ground. It’s too wet.”

I nibble at my bottom lip, trying to formulate a plan, but it’s no use; my mind is blank.

“You could always burn it on top of that wall they climbed over,” Isla says, drawing my attention to the gate. She’s leaning against the steel bars, appearing human in every way except for the slight glow emanating from her.

Ten minutes later, we’ve written out the words that Lanie asked for, added our own to the stomach of the doomed scarecrow, and made it around the back of the cemetery to the wall.

I’m tall enough to reach the top, making it easy enough to light the stuffed ornament on fire.

“Someone help me lift her over,” Lanie’s voice sounds from the other side of the stone divider.

Nina and I share a look, and a part of me deflates knowing that one of us is going to have to put ourselves at greater risk for the group.

“I’ll do it,” I say, turning toward the wall.

A dainty hand lands on my shoulder, and I turn to see Nina.

“We’re going to need someone on this side that can help lower Corinne. I’m not strong enough to do it on my own.”

I purse my lips, preparing to scold her, but she shakes her head.

“I’m doing this.” She moves around me, preparing to climb the wall. “Help me over.”

I don’t like this. Not at all. But I also know that determined look on Nina, and there is no talking her out of it.

I lift her up so that she can grasp onto the top of the wall and hoist herself over. On the boost up, I’m apparently a little too strong, and Nina damn near catapults over the wall, falling on the other side.

“Oh my god. Nina…are you all right?” I shout, a little too loudly for what’s supposed to be a stealth operation.

“I’m fine, Hercules. Would you hurry up, Corinne? It’s dark and creepy in here,” Nina says, but I’m not entirely sure what’s happening on the other side.

She’s not wrong though. This entire place is dark and creepy.

“Alyssa, light that sucker on fire,” Lanie commands. “It’s 11:58.”

I huff, dropping to my knees to rifle through my purse for the matches, when a bright light shines down on me.

“What do we have here?” a male voice says from behind me, and I freeze in place.

“Hurry up,” Lanie shouts. “You’ve got to do it.”

I do as she says, trying and failing to find the matches.

“Stop. Whatever you’re doing, just stop,” the man commands.

My arms fly up into the air, and I know that we’re all in trouble.