Page 57 of The Sister's Curse

“All right, then.”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

Viv smiled. “But I want something from you first.”

“What is it?”

She blew smoke out. “I want to read your cards.”

“Why?”

“I’m curious about you. I’m not curious about most people. I want to know what your motives are. And Sinoe likes you.” She looked down at the fox, who was gazing at me with half-lidded eyes.

“My motive is to solve this case.”

“Everyone has many motives, and I want to know I can trust you. Besides, you’re interesting. You have a lot of old energy about you, and I like poking at things.”

My knee-jerk reaction was that tarot cards were bullshit. Reading them was just some con she was running on gullible people with turbulent romantic lives. Or maybe she believed in them herself; I wasn’t sure. It felt like she was trying to roll me in a scam, but I was willing to let her try, to open myself a sliver to that magical life she led and see if she could tell me the truth.

“All right.” I’d play the game.

Viv set her cigarette in the ashtray and went into the house. Sinoe rolled over onto four feet and watched me with suspicion. I was just as suspicious of her mom.

Viv came back with a small parcel wrapped in a scarf. She unwrapped it, revealing a deck of cards with black-and-white designs. She handed the deck to me.

“Shuffle.”

The cards were worn, their edges curling. I felt the paper whir in my fingers as I shuffled once, twice, three times. They felt a little sticky, like the paper was humid and wanted to cling to itself.

“Please cut the deck three times with your left hand.”

I did as instructed, then handed the deck back to her.

Viv bent over the coffee table. “First question I’ve got is…who are you?”

She drew a card and put it on the table. She turned it over, revealing a picture of the moon rising over a mountain. A woman’s face was in the moon, and it wept on the land below. A dog and a crayfish rose out of a river, the dog baying at the moon.

“You see things that others don’t. If you listened to your intuition, a whole dark world would open to you, the primeval connections between things.” A smile played at the corners of her lips.

I leaned back in the swing, mentally refusing to participate further.

“And what do you want?” Viv asked. I let her talk to herself. This required no input from me.

She pulled a card with a woman holding scales and a sword. “Justice, reversed—your own vision of the truth, which may or may not be fair or just.” Viv gave a small shrug. “That doesn’t necessarily bother me. I’m more about the end than the means.”

She returned her attention to her deck. “And how will this whole thing turn out if I trust you?”

She pulled a card with the Grim Reaper riding a white horse over open graves. “Death. That’s excellent.” She smiled sunnily at me. “I couldn’t hope for more.”

“Are you satisfied?” I asked quietly, feeling uneasy to be pulled into this delusion. Especially since the delusion whispered truth back to me.

She nodded sharply. “Yes. Go ahead. Talk to my mom.” She pressed forward, her elbows on her knees. “But I have to warn you: it’s at your own risk.”

The fox cackled from the floor.

—

I’d promised I’d take Gibby out on a proper walk, and I thought I might be able to kill two birds with one stone. I headed by thehouse to pick him up, then drove out toward the river, down the curvy roads into the forest, to the site where the Hag Stone kept watch. It was still somehow fresh from my dream nights ago, and I couldn’t shake the hold it still had on me even in daylight. I had dreamed of it, and my subconscious felt it was important.