The Queen and the Tower

by Shannon Page

  Besides, none of this meant that my heart was resolved about Raymond. I hadn’t stopped loving him, just because I was seeing, more clearly all the time, why we were not a viable couple. How much I could not tell him.

  I was forty-five years old. It seemed high time that I be able to make my own decisions about my life…and my body.

  And yet, I had not decided to conceive. I knew that. Even as I was more certain every minute that I wanted to keep this baby, I could not ignore the fact that I had no idea how she had come to be.

  If such things were possible, just how much agency could any witch ever have?

  Apparently, pennyroyal is dangerous for a growing child. Yet another thing I didn’t know about pregnancy, despite my being a biologist. Chamomile is highly recommended.

  Chamomile tastes like stale lawn clippings that have blown through a paddock, then been swept up with a dirty broom and brewed in the horse’s drinking water, before being left outside for a few days.

  I hate chamomile tea. Just in case that wasn’t clear.

  I sat in the solarium of my parents’ elegant Pacific Heights home—a house that put my own wonderful home to shame. Mom had settled me on the couch and produced a cup of the nasty stuff. She had taken my news thoughtfully, quietly.

  (Except for her absurd, heartless insistence on chamomile.)

  “Do you love this warlock?” she asked, after we’d gone through the No, I don’t want to miscarry the child and No, I don’t want to rush into a union conversations.

  “No, of course not, it’s too soon.” I stopped and thought a moment. “I don’t know, maybe I could in time. I’ve never met anyone quite like him.”

  “That’s not the same as love.”

  “I know.” We sat silently for a minute, sipping our tea. Elnor curled near my feet, snoozing. “He seems fond of me. I do like him a lot, and we get along very well. But it’s way too soon.”

  She nodded.

  “He’s really something,” I went on. “Powerful, and gorgeous. And there’s no arguing with the family he comes from!” Was I trying to talk myself into him?

  “Indeed.” She gazed out the window, a ghost of sadness on her face. The sun, hiding behind its veil of fog, was making its way higher in the sky; it would soon leave us in even deeper shadows, taking a lot of the charm of this room with it. “A good warlock to make a daughter with.”

  “The best I’ve ever met.”

  “What about the human? Have you told him?”

  “Um…I actually haven’t seen Raymond in a while. We’re…” I trailed off.

  “You’re not seeing him anymore?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing’s been said precisely, but…I think it’s over. And I think we both know it.” Well, if Raymond hadn’t known it before, he was clearly figuring it out now.

  She nodded again, sympathetically. “You know, Callie—”

  “I know,” I said, before she could go on. “It could never be serious, we’re too unalike, this was bound to happen sooner or later so it’s better that it was now, I know, I know.” I softened my outburst with a smile. “So how are you doing? You look…” I had been about to say good, but in fact, she looked tired, and a little pale. I’d been so caught up in my own problems, I hadn’t really looked at her. “Is everything okay? How’s your essence?”

  “Oh, I’m fine, it’s strong as ever,” she said with a smile. I shifted my vision to check; yes, she was right, pretty much. “Lucas has had a number of late nights this week, helping with Gregorio’s new clinic, some of the setup and research. I’ve taken on more of the work around here. I must have grown quite lazy to be finding just the general maintenance of wards and housekeeping spells a bit of a drain.” She gave a self-deprecating laugh.

  “You ever think about getting another cat?” I asked. “With Dad so busy?”

  Mom shrugged. “His allergies…”

  “Yes, I know. I’ve told you I can help with that. And the cattery has a bunch of cute kittens ready to adopt.”

  “Not just yet.”

  Well, she would be ready when she was ready. “I can’t believe they’re letting Dad help at the clinic.”

  She gave me a puzzled look. “Why not? He’s a brilliant researcher, and one of Gregorio’s closest colleagues.”

  “They’re not letting me even walk through the door,” I said, chagrined at how churlish I sounded, but unable to help myself.

  “Callie, I’m sure it’s not wise to expose the baby—”

  “But that’s just it,” I interrupted. “Nobody knows I’m pregnant.”

  “You just told me you’ve talked to Jeremiah Andromedus about it,” she said, softening her words with a gentle smile. “And Leonora.”

  I snorted, frustrated. “Sure, yesterday, and the day before. But they haven’t let me near the place since it opened, weeks ago.”

  “Oh, Callie,” Mom said, “I’m sure they have very good reasons for doing so.”

  “Well, I’m sure they think they do,” I muttered, sipping my tea. It was even worse as it cooled. Did I have any sugar in my bag? I poked at it with one hand as Mom rather pointedly changed the subject and started telling me about some work she was doing in her herb garden. Since I wasn’t looking, of course I knocked my purse over. Everything toppled out, lipsticks and tissues and amulets everywhere. Logan’s box of tarot cards tumbled to the floor with a thud, waking Elnor, who shot to her feet with a squawk, then stood glaring at the pile of clutter.

  “Are you working with tarot cards?” my mother interrupted herself to ask, a surprised smile on her face.

  “Gosh, no, these are Logan’s. I…looked through her apartment, and found them. I didn’t want to leave them there.”

  “May I see them?”

  “Sure.” I retrieved them and handed them over.

  Mom opened the box and held the deck loosely in both hands. Then she shuffled them a few times, cut, reshuffled, then turned the deck face-up and spread it on the coffee table.

  She sat staring at the fanned-out cards for a minute. “This is a good deck. How long had Logan used it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s not very old. The cards are a little stiff; the colors are bright and unworn. I would say, if she used them much, that she acquired this deck less than a year before she departed.”

  “She made her living telling fortunes for humans. She used them a lot.”

  “Then she may have had these only a few months.” Mom ran her hands over the cards, spreading them out the length of the coffee table. “The energy is still fresh, too, very strong.” Her hand hesitated briefly over the Devil.

  I chuckled. “That Devil guy, he’s something.”

  Mother smiled. “He frightens you?”

  “No, no,” I said. “It’s just—his eyes follow you across the room. He’s cleverly drawn.”

  “No, he frightens you,” my mother concluded, after gazing at me. “Which only goes to show how little you understand the tarot—no matter how much I tried to teach you, and Logandina after me. The Devil doesn’t represent any outside evil. He’s an aspect of yourself, the negativity and hubris that holds you back. Look at the chained figures beneath him. They could step right out of their bonds, but they don’t. They believe they’re captive, therefore they are.”

  “So evil is just our imagination?”

  “No, there is indeed evil in the world, but it’s not embodied in the cards. If you will have the patience and open-mindedness to honor them, they can tell you a lot.”

  “Logan always said the same thing. But I’m a scientist, Mom. Wild magic—that’s not my thing.”

  “I think it’s finally time for you to really learn the tarot,” she said brightly, gathering the cards together.

  “Gosh, no. No need for that.” I reached out to take the deck from her, but she did not hand it over.

  “Callie, what are you afraid of?” Mother began shuffling the deck again.

  “Nothing.”

  “No, of cours
e not,” she teased, then glanced at the grandfather clock at the end of the room. “Lunch is set to be ready in forty-five minutes, which gives us plenty of time for a quick lesson.”

  I sighed and settled back. “I’m not hungry,” I grumbled.

  “Of course you are. Now, the cards are organized into four suits, plus the major arcana…”

  My resistance soon fell away: Mother was a good teacher, and I did enjoy spending time with her. She first gave me a review of the use of the cards and the meanings of each suit—things I’d already learned from being forced to sit in on her regular tarot circles with her friends when I was growing up, not to mention Logan’s occasional readings for me since then, but Mom insisted on going over it all again.

  “Each suit has a theme. The cards numbered ten represent the logical conclusion of these themes,” she said, laying down the Ten of Swords.

  “That one is just horrifying,” I said. It was a picture of a thoroughly dead man, lying face-down in the dirt, ten tall swords stuck in his back.

  “Yes, and the usual meaning is some catastrophic event, arising out of an excess of negative, destructive power. But it can also be a card of hope. See here, in the background?” She pointed. “The sky is growing lighter, in anticipation of sunrise. That signifies that the worst of the blackness has ended, and a new dawn is beginning. It’s an opportunity to learn from one’s mistakes and go forth anew, keeping the hard lesson in mind. Seen from this perspective, it’s a card of action, despite the ostensibly dead imagery. It can mean a fresh start.”

  For everyone except that poor dude with the swords in his back. “So, the theme of Swords is action?” I asked, trying to remember past lessons.

  “Yes, and rationality. It’s a very mental suit. Cups, on the other hand, has to do with the emotions.”

  “And relationships,” I said.

  “Of course. Relationships have everything to do with emotions, do they not?” She pulled out the Ten of Cups and set it beside the first card.

  “That’s pretty positive.” A happy couple, arm in arm, their children frolicking nearby, and a rainbow of golden cups across the sky.

  “If it comes up reversed, however, it can mean the opposite—a broken home, an end of love.”

  “What’s reversed?”

  “Upside down.”

  “Logan did readings for me,” I said. “But I don’t remember cards ever coming up reversed.”

  “Some practitioners shuffle their decks in only one direction, to prevent that,” she said. “Especially for, ah, less experienced querents.” She smiled.

  “Querents?”

  “The querent is the subject of the reading. That would be you.”

  “That isn’t cheating?”

  “Not at all; just a different way of asking questions.”

  “Okay.”

  “And much in tarot is down to the skill of the interpreter, in any case. The cards do contain many layers.”

  As we continued to go through the deck, it seemed like most of the cards we examined had at least two meanings, even without being reversed. An end of something meant the beginning of something else; too much of anything, even a positive trait, turned it negative. Nothing was clear-cut; all depended on the situation in which each card appeared, and the intuition of the reader.

  “See,” I said after a while, “this is my whole problem with the cards. If they can be interpreted however best fits in the moment, then what are they good for?”

  “What do you mean?” Mom drew the cards together and shuffled them again.

  “Well, if all these ‘negative’ cards can mean a horrible ending but also the hope of new life, and all the ‘positive’ ones are full of cautions and warnings—well, which is it? How is this any different from real life, from just deciding what you want to do on your own? What are we even learning here?”

  Mother smiled. “You’re being deliberately obtuse.”

  “I’m not meaning to be,” I said. “When I run a Genara Goldbane assay, the results come out purple if it’s negative and bright gold if it’s positive. When I culture a new strain of bacteria in LB and agar, it either lives or it dies—and if it does live, I can measure exactly how long, and quantify the amount that grew. But this? This just seems”—I waved my hands—“made-up.”

  “Callie, you’re focusing on only part of the story. Yes, your biological science is measurable and precise and tidy like that. Is life that way—real life?”

  “No.”

  “So is life made-up? Meaningless?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Or creating your golem. How much of that was a scientific recipe and how much was your intuitive sense?”

  “I followed a very precise formula for her,” I said. “I studied a long time to figure out how.”

  “And yet no one else has managed to create one, not for centuries. You know many have tried. Did they just not study hard enough, or did you bring something extra to the mix?”

  I gave her a helpless shrug.

  “You know as well as any witch the power of the unseen energy that surrounds us all, and the individual differences within each of us,” she went on. “Despite your scientific recipes and formulas, real life does not offer such clear sign posts: we are possessed of free will, and we must respect nuance, interpretation, and intuition. We must consider all the ramifications of any decision, if we wish to act wisely. The tarot aids us in tapping into the unseen, and helps guide our thinking. It is a tool, and a very powerful one in capable hands.” She smiled again. “Wild magic is real magic too—at least as much as scientific magic.”

  “Well, I suppose,” I allowed. She was right: I did not understand everything in my science. Yet the presumption of understanding was always there, in research. That which you did not know was discoverable. You just needed to find the right tools, ask the right questions.

  “Do you not meditate?” Mom asked. “Or seek messages from dreams?”

  “Not really.”

  She smiled. “And to think you’re my daughter… Though, of course, you’re even more your father’s daughter.”

  I didn’t respond, just smiled back at her. It was undeniable.

  “What about at your coven?” she went on. “How do you contact your ancestresses in the Beyond?”

  I looked at her, puzzled. Surely she knew how this was done? “In a Circle, all thirteen of us, every Tuesday night—”

  “Yes, yes,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “I mean the magic itself. Does it always work precisely the same way? Does it always take the exact same amount of time? Are the results always identical?”

  “Of course not. But that’s usually due to something different on our end—someone’s energy is lower or higher, someone is in a bad mood, the cats might be squabbling. Although Nementhe might also be more or less responsive depending on what she’s doing over there.” I thought a moment. “The same with science, for that matter. What I said earlier, about the tests and stuff—it only works that way if I’ve controlled the variables. If my flasks are dirty or my herbs are stale, I’ll get different results.” Or if I’ve been using off-brand pneumative, I thought.

  “Tarot isn’t really much different from that,” she said. “You just need to open your mind a little, think about it all differently. Let go of your preconceptions.” She pushed the deck toward me. “Here—just draw a couple cards, we’ll work with them.”

  “Mom, we don’t have time to do a reading.” I pushed a strand of hair behind my ear. It had started to fidget; I’d have to bind it if it was going to keep this up.

  “It’s not a reading. We’re just practicing. Go on—two cards, and you will interpret them.”

  I wanted to resist further, but knew that would only make it take longer: when Mom dug in her heels, she couldn’t be budged. I plucked the first card off the top of the stack and turned it over on the table: the Queen of Wands. The Queen sat comfortably on her throne, holding a sunflower and, of course, a wand. Images of lions a
nd more sunflowers decorated her throne. A black cat perched at her feet.

  “What do you see?” Mom said.

  “It’s a good card, I think,” I started, then went on before she could tell me that each card was intrinsically neither good nor bad. “I see… um, strong female energy?” She nodded encouragingly. “And, creativity maybe, and some spirit. Is she a witch?” I looked at the black cat as I absently scritched Elnor’s ears—my familiar having moved to the sofa next to me sometime during the course of the lesson.

  “Perhaps, perhaps not. Creativity for sure, though: she does represent fertility.” Mom gave me a significant look. “The Queen is also a natural leader, independent and charismatic. It’s interesting to me that this card chose you.”

  “I just picked it up off the top of the pile,” I said. “The pile that you shuffled.”

  “So pick another.”

  I reached into the middle of the deck, trying not to guide my awareness at all. My fingers chose a card; I pulled it out and turned it over. The Tower. On a dark and stormy night, a lightning bolt hits a tall tower, knocking a golden crown from its top and sending the inhabitants plummeting to jagged rocks below, amid flames and smoke.

  The same card that had come up in the final position in Logan’s last reading for me.

  “Oh, Blessed Mother,” I whispered.

  Mother looked grave as well, but only said, “What do you see?”

  “Um, very dark. Chaos and destruction, the sudden falling apart of everything.” I looked up at her. “Which pretty much describes my life these days.”

  “Now, don’t say that,” my mother chided. “Yes, certainly one aspect of your life—but that is only if you focus on the negative.”

  “Losing my best friend is pretty negative!” My hair fluttered again, picking up on my emotional disturbance.

  “Remember that when things break, it’s the chance for new beginnings,” Mom said gently, and nodded at my belly.

  “You think Logan had to move on for me to get preg—wait, you think this could be Logan’s spirit in here?” I gasped.

  Mom shook her head. “That is vanishingly unlikely; you have not sensed her at all, have you?”