Page 67 of On the Way to You
“I do. Now be quiet, you’re disturbing my chi.”
He chuckled, shaking his head like I was ridiculous and bending to pet Kalo on the head.
“So, you two want a card reading, yeah?” Her voice was light on the breeze, yet she held herself in a manner that demanded attention, her posture straight, chin high. If I could only use one term to describe her, it would have beenbadass.
“We would.”
“Shewould,” Emery corrected. “I’m just here to watch. And occasionally roll my eyes.”
“Emery,” I scolded.
Melina smiled, her eyes on her cards as she shuffled them before she met my gaze. “It’s all good. Let Mr. Macho Pants stay skeptical, if that’s what he wants. Receiving a message from the universe is a purposeful thing. If he comes into a reading with a closed mind and heart, he’ll receive nothing, and in turn feed his belief that nothing is all that exists.”
Emery eyed her then, but said nothing.
“Here,” Melina said, handing me the deck. “Shuffle ‘em up, buttercup. You can move cards around on the table, shuffle like a normal deck of playing cards, or whatever else feels right. And when you’re ready, hand them back to me.”
I did as she asked, closing my eyes and feeling the cards in my hands as I moved them around. I focused on centering myself, on opening myself to the possibilities, and then I handed them back to her with a calming breath.
“You practice yoga and meditation,” she mused when the deck was back in her hands. “You’re very spiritually open, and you identify with your zodiac sign.” Melina paused, tilting her head a bit. “You strike me as a very curious person, and a giving one, too. Are you an air sign?”
I nodded. “Aquarius.”
“Ah,” she said with a smile. “Makes sense.”
Emery’s attention had been pulled from Kalo and the beach to our table then, and he watched me curiously as Melina laid out the first three cards.
“These first three cards represent your past,” she said, spreading them a few centimeters apart. “This first card, The Five of Cups, it represents a great loss you experienced.”
A phantom pain numbed my left leg, as if it recognized itself in the card, and I massaged the thigh of it gently as she continued.
“But see how it’s reversed? That represents an acceptance of that loss. You were at peace very quickly, which allowed you to move on, and that brings us very symbolically to The Ace of Swords. Mental clarity. It seems that the loss you endured centered your mind to your innermost desires, to what you want most in this life.”
Bastyr.
Her eyes met mine briefly before her index finger tapped the final card. “The Two of Wands. The Wands are tied to the element of fire, which ties, of course, into determination. This card tells me that you took that loss and that mental clarity and you transformed it into a plan, into a strategy. You made a goal, or perhaps multiple goals, and you’ve spent a great deal of time in your life actively pursuing those goals over all else.”
I thought about the diner, about Bastyr, about how my entire life had been spent in Mobile, Alabama, just planning my way out. I’d saved up, I’d studied, I’d done everything I could on my own to make the journey to Washington.
My eyes found Emery’s, and he cocked one eyebrow as if he understood. He leaned in toward Melina, just a little bit, but enough to tell me he was curious.
Melina flipped three more cards, explaining that they represented my present, but when they were all laid out, her brows tugged inward as she studied them. “Interesting.”
“What is it?”
She shook her head, tapping the first card. “I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start here. The Page of Cups symbolizes a sort of messenger in your life, something or someone who brought you clarity in a new way. And since this card is followed immediately by The Fool,” she said, moving her finger to the second card. “I sense that this messenger helped you begin a new journey recently, one you’re on now. It can be a physical journey or a spiritual one, but either way, you are experiencing new sights, new experiences, and in turn, discovering new truths.”
I smiled up at Emery, who was still eyeing the cards skeptically, but he smirked in my direction anyway. “You saying I’m your Page of Cups, Little Penny?”
“I’m saying it’s possible.”
“Probably more likely that he’s a fool,” Melina murmured playfully, throwing him a wink.
Emery squeezed my right knee with one hand, sending a wave of chills up that thigh. He followed the line of them, his eyes trailing slow and purposefully up over the bare skin under my shorts, up more over the fabric of my sweater, until his gaze landed on my eyes, smirk still in place.
I flushed, ripping my eyes away and back to Melina, who was studying the last card with concern etched on her face.
“So, this is the card that perplexes me,” she said, tapping the final card. “The Seven of Swords. If it were turned the other way, if it were reversed for you and upright for me, then it would make sense — it would mean you were overcoming a challenge, breaking old habits and starting anew. But the way it sits right now, it symbolizes deceit.”