What the Cards Said

by Isobel Bird

  “Look at you!” her aunt said, shutting the door and coming into the living room, where the girls had momentarily set their packages down.

  “Isn’t she gorgeous?” Kate said proudly.

  “Both of them are,” Annie’s aunt said. “It’s so different. It’s just great.”

  “As great as San Francisco?” Annie muttered, but her aunt was too busy checking out Cooper’s hair to hear her.

  “What was all that about potential buyers?” Annie asked. “I thought you were doing work on a website.”

  This time her aunt did hear her. “Oh, we are,” she said. “It’s a website where people can buy things. That’s what Marcia meant. She wants it to be just right when customers start looking at it.”

  Annie looked at her aunt. “Let’s go upstairs,” she announced suddenly as she snatched up her bags and walked into the kitchen.

  Kate and Cooper followed her up the stairs and into her room, where they deposited their purchases on the bed.

  “I can’t believe her!” Annie said angrily as she shut her door. “She brings that woman here and then pretends like nothing is going on. Does she think I’m totally stupid and don’t notice?”

  “I really think you should talk to her,” Kate said. “You’re getting more and more upset about this.”

  “What good is talking to her going to do?” Annie said. “She’s already made her decision. You heard the realtor talk about potential buyers. If she’s not selling the house, why would they even be talking about that?”

  Her friends didn’t say anything. Annie realized that she was making them both feel bad, and she didn’t want to do that. Things had been going really well, and she wanted the evening to be fun. She tried her best to sound cheerful.

  “At least we still have fingernail polish,” she said. “You guys ready to play dress up?”

  They poured the contents of their bags onto Annie’s bed and started trying on different things. Kate looked through the makeup she’d bought and selected various colors to experiment with. As Annie checked out how she looked in the stretch skirt and tank top Kate had convinced her to buy, Kate did Cooper’s face.

  “There,” Kate said, admiring her work. “T.J. will never be able to resist you now.”

  “What’s going on with T.J. anyway?” Annie asked, referring to one of the guys in Cooper’s band.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Cooper said.

  “You never want to talk about it,” Kate teased. “That’s why we’re asking you.”

  Cooper groaned. “He’s fine,” she said.

  “Has he kissed you yet?” Kate pressed.

  “Look,” said Cooper. “I know this is supposed to be all about girl talk and all of that, but I have to draw the line somewhere.”

  “That means he hasn’t kissed her,” Kate said to Annie. “If he had, she would have just told us he hadn’t. It’s reverse psychology.”

  Cooper reddened. “What about you?” she asked. “How are things with Tyler?”

  Kate smiled. “Great,” she said. “Despite Annie’s little prediction, he hasn’t dumped me for some other witch.”

  Annie started to say something in protest, but Kate stopped her.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I was just teasing you. I’m sorry I overreacted at the party. It’s just that it was so strange seeing Sherrie and Tara and Jessica there. It reminded me of the old days, and I guess that was harder than I thought it would be. But today has been really great. I know you guys did it to make me feel better, and I appreciate that.”

  “Does that mean I can dye my hair back to its unnatural color?” Cooper asked hopefully.

  “No,” Kate said. “If you really want to make me feel better, you’ll leave it just the way it is. At least until school is out. Then you can go right back to being your old freakish self.”

  “Ten whole days of this,” Cooper said. “I don’t know if I can do it.”

  “Can you believe there are only ten more days until summer?” Kate said. “Then I get to spend my time helping my mother with her catering business. What fun that will be.” She groaned.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” Cooper said. “Probably giving tours of historic Welton House while trying to get in some practice time with the band. We’re hoping to actually play some gigs this summer.”

  “I can’t wait to hear you guys,” Annie said. Then she remembered that she probably wouldn’t be around to do that. “If I can come visit,” she added.

  “You’ll hear us,” Cooper said, trying to sound optimistic. “Even if we have to come to San Francisco to play for you.”

  There was a knock on the door and Meg came in. “Aunt Sarah wants to know if you guys want any spaghetti,” she said. “She made a big pot of it.”

  “I do,” Cooper said. “I’m starving.”

  “Me, too,” Kate seconded. “Glamour makes you hungry.”

  Meg was looking from Cooper to Annie. “You look different,” she said.

  “Good different or bad different?” Cooper asked the little girl.

  “Just different,” Meg said. “I like you both ways. It doesn’t matter how you look.”

  “Now, there is a woman who knows real beauty,” Cooper said as she followed Meg out of the bedroom.

  Annie didn’t want to get any spaghetti sauce on her new clothes, so she changed into an old shirt before going downstairs. When she got to the kitchen, everyone else was sitting at the table, twirling the long strands of pasta around their forks.

  “I just can’t get over how different you look,” her aunt said as Annie sat down. “Your mother used to wear her hair just like that.”

  “No she didn’t,” Annie said snappishly.

  Everybody stared at her, surprised. They’d never heard her speak to her aunt in that tone of voice.

  “Annie, is something wrong?” her aunt asked.

  “I’m just tired of you telling me how things were,” Annie said. “I remember San Francisco. I remember my mother. And I don’t remember any of these things the way you do. So stop telling me what they were like, because they weren’t that way for me.”

  Her aunt looked at her, shocked. “I didn’t mean to upset you,” she said.

  “I’m not upset!” Annie said loudly.

  Her aunt was quiet for a minute while everyone sat silently. Then Meg said quietly, “I don’t remember what Mommy looked like.”

  Sarah smiled gently at her. “Stay right there,” she said.

  She got up and left the kitchen. A few moments later she returned with a box.

  “I was going to save these for later,” she said. “But I think maybe now is a good time to show them to you.”

  She took the lid off the box and pulled out something that she passed to Annie. It was a photograph. In it a smiling woman was standing in front of a half-finished painting. Both the woman and the canvas were spattered with yellow paint.

  “This is my mother,” Annie said, surprised. “Where did you get it?”

  “I’ve been going through some old boxes,” her aunt told her. “Doing a little cleaning. I found these mixed in with a lot of papers and things I was throwing out. I almost tossed the box by accident, thinking it was trash.”

  “And you didn’t show them to me?” Annie said accusingly.

  “I was going to have them duplicated,” her aunt explained. “A set for you and a set for Meg. I wanted to put them in albums as a surprise.”

  “Oh,” said Annie, her tone a little softer. “Thanks.”

  “I still will,” Sarah continued. “But you can look at them now. Although you might want to wait until you aren’t around spaghetti sauce.”

  Reluctantly, Annie put down the photograph and returned to her dinner. But she barely tasted her food as she wolfed it down, anxious to finish and take a look at the other photos in the box. She couldn’t take her eyes off the photograph of her mother, and she was anxious to see what other treasures were waiting for her.

  It seemed to ta
ke forever for the others to finish, but as soon as they were, Annie herded them all into the living room and sat on the couch with her aunt on one side and Meg on the other. She held the box on her lap and began to look at the pictures one at a time.

  “That’s Mom and Dad in our garden,” she said as she showed Meg a photo.

  “Is that you Daddy’s holding?” Meg asked.

  Annie laughed. “No, that’s you. If I remember, I was hiding under the porch.”

  Meg stared at the picture, mesmerized.

  “We only have a few photos of our parents,” Annie explained to her friends.

  “And who is this?” Meg asked, holding up another picture, this one of an old woman and a little girl.

  “That’s Grandma Helen,” Annie said. “You never met her. She was Mommy’s mother. She died before you were born. And that little girl is me.”

  “You looked like me,” Meg said.

  “Almost exactly like you,” her aunt said. “Which means you’ll be just as pretty when you’re Annie’s age.”

  “Just don’t let Kate do your hair,” Cooper said.

  Annie continued to go through the photographs in the box. Each one brought back new memories. There were pictures of her father putting Christmas lights on a tree, of her mother sitting in a canoe, and of her and Meg wearing what looked like Halloween costumes.

  “I remember this,” she said, showing everyone the Halloween picture. “Mom thought it would be fun if I dressed as a mouse and Meg went as a piece of cheese. They dragged us all over San Francisco showing us off to their friends.”

  “How come I don’t remember that?” Meg asked sadly.

  “Because you were just a baby,” Annie reminded her. “That’s why Mommy’s carrying you.”

  Looking at the pictures in the box made Annie feel many different emotions. Seeing her parents’ faces so happy made her feel happy. But it also made her incredibly sad, because she knew that she would never see them that way in real life. She was thrilled that her aunt had found the box. If it had been thrown away she never would have seen the pictures.

  But it also meant that her aunt was probably cleaning things out in preparation for moving, and that made her sad all over again. Maybe she should tell her aunt that she knew about the move. Maybe then they could talk about it and Annie could tell her how she felt.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of the phone. Her aunt went to answer it and came back a moment later.

  “Annie?” she said. “It’s for you.”

  Annie took the phone. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Annie. This is Archer.”

  “Oh,” said Annie, surprised to hear from her. “Hi there. What’s up?”

  “I just wanted to tell you that we’re doing something a little different for class tomorrow. We’re meeting at someone’s house. Do you think Cooper can drive you?”

  “I think so,” Annie answered, intrigued. “Let me ask her. She’s right here.”

  She put the phone down and turned to Cooper. “It’s Archer,” she said. “We’re having class somewhere else tomorrow night. Can you drive?”

  “Sure,” said Cooper.

  “We’re good,” Annie told Archer. “Where are we meeting?”

  Archer gave her the directions, which Annie wrote on a piece of paper. “Oh, one more thing,” Archer said before hanging up. “Be ready for walking in the woods.”

  “Walking in the woods?” Annie repeated. “Why?”

  “That’s the surprise,” Archer said mysteriously, and hung up.

  CHAPTER 9

  The members of the Wicca study group stood in the garden, wondering what was going to happen next. When they’d arrived at the address given to them by Archer, they had each been handed a flashlight and told to go to the garden. No explanation had been given for why they were holding class outside or what they would be doing.

  “All she said was that we should be ready to do some walking,” Annie told Kate and Cooper for about the fifteenth time. Everyone else had been told the same thing, and none of them had any clue what was going on either.

  A few minutes later Tyler appeared, walking toward the garden. But he was dressed strangely, in a cape and a hat with a long feather in it. When he reached the garden he stopped and bowed.

  “Greetings,” he said. “I am the Page of Wands, and I bring you a message. You are all fools.”

  “What?” Cooper said. “What kind of message is that?”

  Tyler grinned. “Tonight,” he said, “you will take the journey of the Fool. You will venture into these woods, and there you will meet the cards of the Tarot. Each will have a message for you.”

  “We’re going to meet all of them?” Kate asked.

  “How many you meet depends upon the path you choose to take,” Tyler said. “There is no right path and no wrong path. There is only the path that you are on.”

  “What if some of us want to take a different path than the others?” Annie asked him.

  “You will each travel alone,” Tyler told her. “You may run into other travelers on your journey, but you must go by yourselves. The cards will not speak to you if you are with someone else, for their messages are for you alone.”

  “This sounds kind of fun,” Cooper said. “When do we get started?”

  “Right now,” Tyler answered. “Since you are anxious to begin, you may be the first.”

  He motioned for Cooper to follow him, and the two of them left the garden, walking around the house and toward the woods. The others couldn’t see where they were going, and had to wait, wondering what was going to happen.

  “How do you think this will work?” Kate asked Annie.

  Annie shrugged. “I have no idea,” she answered. “But it does sound fun. I wonder which cards we’ll see.”

  Tyler reappeared a few minutes later. “Who will go next?” he asked.

  “I will,” Annie said, surprising herself.

  Kate gave her a pat on the back as she left the garden. Annie was surprised to discover that she was a little bit anxious as she walked with Tyler. What exactly was she going to find in the woods? What kinds of things were the cards going to tell her? The idea of setting out on a journey into the trees both excited her and made her a little apprehensive.

  Tyler didn’t say anything as he led Annie to an opening in the trees at the edge of the forest. When they reached it, he pointed into the woods and said, “This is the entrance to the Fool’s path. Enter, and travel well.”

  He turned and walked away, leaving Annie to look into the open space between the trees. She thought that she could see something colorful moving behind the branches, and she walked inside. To her surprise the first thing she saw was a large tree from which were hanging a lot of jester’s hats. They were made of many different colors of cloth, and the three long points that fanned out from the top of each one had bells sewn to the ends.

  Annie guessed that the hats were for each of the Fools to wear. Smiling, she found one she liked and put it on. It was made of contrasting blue and silver material, and the points bobbed around her as she walked, the little bells jingling softly. There was only one path leading away from the first tree, and she followed it. She was glad that it was still light out, so she could see where she was going. When the sun set, it was going to be more difficult, and she was glad that she had a flashlight.

  The path went straight on for a little way and then branched in two directions. Annie had no idea what awaited her down either path, so she took the left one for no particular reason and followed it. When it turned sharply and went around a big pine tree, she followed it, almost tripping over someone who was sitting under the tree.

  It was a man. Annie recognized him as Thatcher, one of the members of the Coven of the Green Wood. His big white beard flowed over a dark purple robe, and he was holding a staff with three pieces of wood like a ladder across the top part. Two large keys hung from a cord around his neck.

  “Greetings,” he said to Annie as if he had ne
ver met her before. “I am the Hierophant, he who unlocks the doors of the mind and teaches the secrets of the universe. Why have you come to me, Fool?”

  Annie didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t come looking for the Hierophant. She had just stumbled across him. But he was waiting for her to say something, so she thought fast.

  “Which way should I go?” she asked.

  The Hierophant looked at her with solemn eyes. “That depends on what you seek,” he said. “What is it you most want to know?”

  Annie paused again. She’d thought that this was going to be some kind of game. But Thatcher didn’t sound like he was playing a game. In fact, she wasn’t even thinking of him as Thatcher. He definitely was the Hierophant. And he wanted an answer from her. She thought of a lot of different things she could say, but none of them sounded right.

  Finally she heard herself say, “I want to know how to use my gifts in the best way I can.”

  The Hierophant nodded. “A very good question,” he said. “I will give you part of the answer. You must know when you are truly helping others and when you are trying to help only yourself. And now you may continue your journey.”

  He pointed past the tree, and Annie saw that once again there were two paths. Again she chose at random, taking one that disappeared over a small rise. As she walked along it, she thought about the Hierophant’s message. Was she using her gifts to help others? She thought she was. The people she did readings for seemed happy with what she was doing.

  Her thoughts were cut short as she went over the rise and came upon two people standing with their arms around each other. One was Rowan, Tyler’s mother, and the other was another man from the coven. They were dressed in white clothes, and they had garlands of flowers on their heads.

  “We are the Lovers,” they said in unison. “Welcome.”

  “What do you have to tell me?” Annie asked them. “I want to know how I can use my gifts the most wisely.”

  “Using your gifts means making choices,” Rowan said. “Just as you chose to come down our path, you must choose which of the many paths you walk down every day.”