Page 9 of Stealing Infinity (Stolen Beauty)

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“They want everything,” Elodie says. “Your bag, your cell, all of it.”

I glance between Elodie and the girl working the counter. “Not happening,” I say. “My phone stays with me.”

Elodie rolls her eyes. “Stop being such a drama queen. You’ll get it back when it’s over.”

“When what’s over?” I ask, still clutching my bag.

Exasperated by my not wanting to give all my stuff to a stranger in a very strange place, Elodie grabs my backpack and cell and plops them onto the desk. In exchange, I receive a glare from the attendant and a black rubber bracelet with a number attached.

“This place is totally off the grid,” Elodie says. “It’s like, pre-selfie, old school. That’s what makes it so cool.” She leads me down a flower-lined path that ends at a small shelter crafted entirely of tree limbs and twinkling fairy lights. Inside, a woman sits behind a table covered by a blue silk cloth. Going by the crystal ball to her right, and the smoldering smudge stick to her left, I’m guessing she’s a psychic.

Or, you know, posing as one.

The woman flips her long red hair over her shoulder and gestures toward the purple velvet stool just opposite her. “Are you familiar with tarot?” she asks, handing me a deck of cards, her questioning brown eyes settling on mine.

Just like with the name of the club, at the mention oftarotit’s like a wire gets tripped in my brain. After years of ignoring all thoughts of my dad—since he clearly doesn’t think about me, I refuse to think about him—I’m startled by the series of images that suddenly sparks in my head. The vision is so clear, it’s like I’m watching it unfold through a thin pane of glass.

I’m young, somewhere around nine, and my dad and I are hunched over an ancient tarot deck he’s spread across the table before us. One by one, he works through the cards, explaining all the hidden secrets within those strange illustrations.

Though I don’t understand most of what he says, I listen, transfixed, wanting to soak up as much as I can. But he makes it only to the final card in the Major Arcana, the World card, when my mom’s car pulls into the drive, and he sweeps the deck out of sight. Seconds before she walks through the door, he turns to me with a finger raised to his lips…

It was the last time I ever laid eyes on those cards.

One of the last times I ever saw him.

A few days later, he walked out of my life and was never heard from again.

Arcana. Of course. The name of the club makes perfect sense.

The tarot is made up of seventy-eight cards, twenty-two that comprise the Major Arcana, and fifty-six that make up the Minor Arcana, the ones he never got a chance to reveal.

To the woman, I say, “It’s a pictorial key to the universe—an allegorical journey of life.” Then I shuffle the deck like an expert, the cards moving so fluidly, it feels like I’ve been at it for years.

When I return the deck to the reader, I watch as she fans the cards in a half circle before me. “Choose one,” the woman says. “And use your left hand.”

“The Hand of Fate.” The phrase instinctively leaps off my tongue, and I know it’s an echo of something my dad once said to me.

I choose a card and watch anxiously as the reader flips it over.

“Your life is about to change,” she says, then, using the pointed tip of her nail, nudges the card closer to me. “From this day forward, nothing will ever be the same.”