The Death of Mrs. Westaway(62)

“It’s okay,” Hal said. She smiled, almost in spite of herself. “I’m not offended. And actually . . . I don’t really believe in it myself.”

“Really?” Mitzi said, her voice slightly doubtful. “How does that work, then? Don’t you feel guilty taking people’s money if you think it’s all rubbish?”

Hal felt her cheeks flush. She rarely admitted this to people she didn’t know—certainly never to clients. It felt like a doctor admitting that he had no faith in conventional medicine, or a psychiatrist dissing Freud.

“That probably sounded more cynical than I meant it to—but . . . I’m not superstitious. I don’t believe in knocking on wood, or crossing fingers, or crystal gazing, or any of that. I don’t think the cards have any special occult power, though I’m not sure I’d say that outright to a client. But they do . . .” She found herself struggling to articulate something she rarely dissected, even to herself. “They do still have meaning—even if you know nothing about tarot, you can see the richness of the symbolism and the imagery. The ideas they represent . . . they’re universal forces that bear on all our lives. I suppose what I believe is not that the cards can tell you anything you don’t already know, or that they have magical answers to your questions, but that they give you . . . they give you the space to question . . . ? Does that make sense? Whether the statements I make in a reading are true or false, they give the sitter an opportunity to reflect on those forces, to analyze their instincts. I don’t know if I’m explaining this right.”

But Mitzi was nodding, a frown drawn between her neat brows.

“Yeees . . .” she said slowly. “Yes, I can see that.”

“So will you do one?” Kitty asked. She sat up, her eyes wide with anticipation. “Do me! Oh please, do me first!”

“Kitty,” Mitzi scolded. “Harriet is not at work.”

“Nonsense,” Ezra said. He grinned across at Hal. “She didn’t have to bring her cards, did she?”

Hal folded her arms, uncomfortably unsure what to say. After all, it was true. She had chosen to bring her cards, those cards in particular. But she didn’t want to give a reading, not here, not now, with these cards. For reading the cards was revealing—and not only for the client. Hal knew that she gave away almost as much about herself in the remarks she made as she found out about her clients.

But Kitty was looking at her pleadingly, her hands clasped with anticipation, and Hal didn’t have the heart to refuse, or the skill to do it gracefully, in this house where she was a guest.

“Okay,” she said at last. “I’ll do one for you, Kitty.”

“Awesome!” Kitty said excitedly. “What do you need? Do you need a special table or anything?”

Hal shook her head.

“No, an ordinary table is just fine. Sit opposite me.”

Kitty knelt on the rug opposite, and Hal opened the tin, and drew out her cards.

“Oooh . . .” Kitty breathed, as Hal spread them on the table. Her eyes darted from one card to another: the two of wands . . . the Hermit . . . the queen of cups . . . “What’s that one?” she asked, pointing at the Star.

“This one?” Hal picked it up. In her deck, the Star was a woman bathing in a forest pool at night, pouring water over herself beneath the light of the stars. It was a beautiful card, serene and tranquil. “It’s the Star,” Hal said. “It means . . . renewal of faith, peace, communing with yourself, serenity. Or reversed, it means the opposite—discouragement, dwelling on the bad things in life.”

“And what about this one?” Kitty pointed towards a card at the edge of the deck. It showed a girl crawling across a snowy landscape. Snowflakes fell from a dark sky, their tranquility a sharp contrast to the scene below, where the young woman was poised in her endless struggle. Her bloodied fingers had scored deep grooves in the snow as she dragged herself towards some unseen goal, and in her back were nine daggers, each of a different kind, some long, some short, some polished with finely wrought hilts, others no better than wooden stakes. The tenth, a piece of glass, or perhaps ice, was in her own hand.

“That’s the ten of swords,” Hal said. She knew the card off by heart, but now she picked it up, studying it afresh, before turning it so that Kitty could better see the image. It was one of the darkest cards in the pack, and it was one that always made Hal flinch a little when it came up in a reading. “It means . . . betrayal, backstabbing, ending . . . but it can also mean that an ordeal is coming to a close. That you’ll be given peace, though the price may not be one you want to pay.”

“Because she’s going to die, you mean?” Kitty’s eyes were wide.

“On the card, yes,” Hal said. “But you shouldn’t take them literally. Now . . .” She picked up the cards, shuffled them together. “I’m going to spread the deck out facedown, and then ask you to choose ten cards. Don’t touch the cards—just show me with your finger.”

There was something comforting in the familiar ritual. Hal could do a Celtic Cross reading almost in her sleep, and as she laid the cards out and ran through the familiar commands and explanations she always used, she felt her own mind clear.

It was true what she had told Mitzi. She didn’t believe in anything mystical, but she did believe in the power of the cards to reveal something about the querent, both to the reader and to the sitter themselves.