Freeks(29)

“I’m all right.” He stood up rather abruptly. “I should get changed before we do the reading.”

Mom nodded and watched Gideon until he disappeared into his bedroom at the far end of the trailer. Then she took a fortifying breath and sat down at the table. With the cards in her hands, she began to shuffle them slowly, but her gaze rested on me.

“How are you doing, qamari?”

I shrugged, unsure of how to answer. “I’m okay.”

“I’m sorry about last night,” Mom said, referring to her outburst before everything had happened with Seth. Her cheeks reddened slightly with shame, and she lowered her eyes so her dark lashes rested on her cheeks.

“It’s okay.” I tried to ease her worries. “I understand.”

“It’s not okay, Mara,” she said harshly, and shook her head, then she looked back up at me. “But I’ll do better. I promise you. Things will get better.”

I forced a smile. “I know.”

“And I’m sorry that you found Seth like you did this morning.” She set the cards aside. “I know the two of you were friends.”

Seth had been traveling with us for five years now, so we’d practically grown up together. Two summers ago, we’d briefly tried our hand at dating and exchanged a few kisses, but it felt wrong to me, like dating my brother. But Seth had always been kind to me, and quick to help anyone who needed it.

I’d often thought of him as a gentle giant, and I could still remember the strength of his arms when he had pulled me to him for a kiss. He could’ve crushed me if he’d wanted to, but I’d never felt anything but safe with him.

And something had attacked him, something strong enough to take him down and leave him so weak he could barely squeeze my hand.

“All right,” Gideon said as he came back, pulling me from my thoughts. “Shall we do the reading, then?”

He sat down across from my mom, and I felt weird just standing and gawking at them, so I sat down in the chair beside my mom. I was careful to be as quiet as possible, because if I proved to be a distraction, I knew they would send me away.

“It’s been so long since I’ve done a reading for you,” Mom mused as she handed Gideon the deck. Whenever she did readings, she always made sure her clients handled them first. She said they needed to get a feel for the cards, and the cards needed to get a feel for them.

“It has been,” Gideon admitted.

Years ago, before the readings had begun taking their toll on my mother, she would do readings for him often, getting a sense of where we should go and helping make decisions for the carnival. But once Gideon saw how badly they affected her, he’d stopped.

“What kind of spread did you have in mind?” Mom asked as he shuffled the cards.

“Just a simple three-card one.”

“Do you know what you want to ask?” Mom asked.

He nodded. “I have a question in mind.”

“You don’t wish to share with me?” she asked, trying to keep the pain from her voice.

He set the deck in front of her. “Not this time, love, if that’s all right.”

“If it’s what you wish.”

She broke the deck three times, so it sat in three piles before her. With a three-card spread, the first card would represent the past, the middle card the present, and the final card the future.

Mom took a card from the first deck, and laid it in front of Gideon. It depicted a full moon in a dark purple sky, shining above a few trees. Hidden in the very bottom corner of the card was a white wolf, right above the name of the card—The Moon.

The second card my mom flipped over was upside down, so it faced her, which meant it was in the reverse position. It showed a man draped in robes of gold and purple, holding a ball of lightning above his head—The Magician.

The final card she turned over, she saw it before Gideon did, and I heard her breath catch in her throat. It showed a skeleton in a black robe riding a white horse over a graveyard—Death.

Mom folded her hands before her, staring down at the cards. “Do you know what the cards mean, or shall I do the reading?”

“Do your reading.” Gideon leaned back in his chair. “I want to know what you’re sensing.”

“I’m not sensing as much as I’d like, but I’ll do my best.” Mom tapped the first card with her long fingers. “The Moon in your past represents a confusing, dark time. You may not have always understood your actions, and the world may have put a heavy burden on your shoulders.

“On its own, it means nothing negative,” she continued, moving her fingers to the next card. “But when paired with the Magician, it means that someone or something destructive is manipulating your choices, and you may pay a price.”

Her shawl had slipped off her shoulder, revealing the large sun she had tattooed on her dark skin.

“The Magician is a man of great power and talent, with the ability to cross between the spirit world and the world of humanity, but in reverse, it represents a blockage of that path,” Mom went on. “And if the Magician is not careful, he can lose everything that matters to him.

“Death, as you know, does not usually mean death,” she said, but she didn’t touch this card. She’d tapped the first two, but this time, instead, she pulled her shawl up around her again. “It simply means that something is coming to an end. It can be a positive, that the darkness and financial loss that have plagued us these last few months might be lifted.”