The Parting Glass (Caitlin Ross Book 4) (16 page)

“You need to give me something that means something to you.”

“I dinna keep much about me. A few stones, a bit of twine.”

I waited.

His gaze flickered to his right hand, to the silver and onyx ring. Oh, that would be interesting. Loaded, but interesting. Evidently too loaded and too interesting, for he lifted his eyes with a thoughtful frown. After a minute’s consideration, he reached up to his left ear, unhooked the obsidian point with the green gem, and proffered it to me.

“Will this do? Mitch gave it to me. And peridot is my birthstone.”

Peridot: August.
He’s a Leo
. I should have known.

“That will do very well,” I said, accepting his offering.

He gave a curt nod, grabbed his latte, and drank half of it off at a swallow.

I sat.

“You’re a very different person today,” he said, replacing his glass on the table.

“I know.”

We stared at each other across the table. He didn’t seem able to endure much of the contact, for after a moment he shivered and downed the rest of his coffee.

“All right. I’ve made the bargain. Let’s see what it’s bought me.”

Back at the shop, he glanced around the main showroom with some discomfort.

“You’ve changed things,” he remarked with a pointed look at the rune display, which he had last seen scattered all over the floor.

I didn’t answer, only led him back to the reading parlor.

“Have a seat.” I gestured to the client’s chair. He took it and clasped his hands in his lap. While I lit the candles and incense, I felt his eyes on me.

“Have you had a reading before?” I took my own seat and removed the cards from their pouch.

“Not cards. Not formally.”

Curious. But then, he had his own ways of obtaining information.

“We’ll start with a grounding. Do you want me to lead you through it, or do you want to do it yourself?”

“I’ll do it myself.” Closing his eyes, he commenced breathing deep, in and out through his nose. I watched him a bit to be sure he didn’t go anywhere weird, but I needn’t have worried. In short order, his energy settled and began to spread through his body in an even pattern. It was blue, I noticed with some surprise. Twilight blue, like his eyes, shot with sparkles. I had expected green.

The cards in my hands, I closed my own eyes and sought my own balance, positioning myself in the eternal Moment where reading was possible. I invoked my patron goddess, Cerridwen, and asked for her blessing. I didn’t know what gods Timber looked to, but I invoked Cernunnos on his behalf anyway. It seemed appropriate.

I opened my eyes a mere instant before my client. Again, I appraised him. Good. He was calm and present, and we were in tune.

I handed him the deck.

“Shuffle until you’re done,” I instructed. “Concentrate on your question while you do it.”

“Shall I tell you the question?”

I shrugged. “If you like.”

He didn’t.

Most Tarot decks are larger than playing card decks and most people have some trouble with them. The deck I had chosen for Timber was one of the bigger ones. He had no trouble at all. The cards seemed made for his hands.

After a time, he tapped the cards together and looked at me.

“Cut them in three with your left hand.”

He did so. I gathered them up, also with my left hand, starting with the section of the deck that had been on the bottom.

“I’m going to use a spread called the World Tree.” I smiled to see him twitch. I’d had an idea he might, the World Tree being a symbol of significance in a great many shamanic traditions. “It’s a bit more detailed than the usual spread I use for clients. But I did promise to get as much as I can.”

I tapped the deck. “I’ll lay out the cards one at a time and tell you a little about each one. Then I’ll give you an overview.”

Timber nodded, and I turned the first card.

“This is the significator. It represents you, where you are right now.” I almost laughed. This was going to be almost too easy.

The card showed a powerfully built, dark-haired, bearded man sitting in a chair carved with mystical symbols. A chalice and a sword lay at his left hand. Green oak branches wreathed his feet. The card was upside down—reversed, in Tarot parlance.

“That’s the High Priest. Look familiar?”

“Aye.” His faced paled and his voice came out hoarse.

“We already knew this was going to be about you,” I told him gently. “And there you are, in all your glory, ready to take your power. Ready to claim your place in the scheme of things. But you’re resisting. Why, I can’t tell yet. The next few cards will probably show us.”

I turned the second card: a woman, blindfolded and bound, surrounded by eight naked swords.

“This is the root of the problem. You have a decision to make. Several, in fact. Yet you feel you can’t make it. Or them. You’re afraid no matter which way you move, you’ll get cut—the consequences of your actions will hurt you. What you can’t see is the clear space ahead of you. There.” I pointed it out. “Five swords on one side, three on the other. Nothing barring your path forward.”

I turned the third card and laid it some distance above the first two. This one showed a nude man, again bound, suspended from a tree by one ankle. His mouth had been stuffed with oak leaves.

“The possibilities inherent in the situation. This is the Hanged Man. He represents willing sacrifice.”

“One I need to make?” He seemed to expect an affirmative.

“It could be. Or not.”

“What kind?”

“The one that comes.” My awareness expanded, taking in other images on the card. A field of wheat with a sickle nearby. A blackberry bramble, heavy with fruit. “Things come in their proper season. Beginnings. Endings. You sow and you reap. But harvest also means completion. Giving up what you are to become other is part of the cycle.”

The fourth card went beside the third, to the left. A man with a chalice in his hand gazed out the window at a pair of children playing. Five more cups lay between them. This card, too, was reversed.

“This is your obstacle. You’re too attached to the past. To experiences and trials that are over. They disturb your peace and make it hard to make decisions with a clear mind. You need to put the past behind you.”

“I dinna want to make a mistake,” Timber said. “I’ve made too many.”

“Risk is inherent in every action,” I reminded him. “Fear can bind you.” My hand drifted down to linger over the eight of swords. “Keep you from moving at all.”

I turned the fifth card, laying it below and to the right of the third.

“This lies before you.”

Timber drew in a sharp breath. “It looks like you.”

I glanced down, thrown for a moment out of my trance. It did look like me. A woman with long, auburn hair stood in the middle of a road, an inviting expression on her face. In her hand, she gripped a tall staff.

“It’s the Princess of Wands. Wands are the suit of fire. The court cards are often depicted with red hair.” My words came a little too quickly.

“What does she mean?”

“Inventiveness. Creativity. A gift for improvisation. Or a helpful person with those qualities.” I felt blood rising to my face. That didn’t sound like me at all. Of course it didn’t. “She can also indicate enthusiasm for new projects.” And new relationships, but I declined to say so. Reader’s privilege. “So once you’re through the current difficulty, quite a lot of opportunities will open up to you.”

I raised my eyes from the card to see Timber gazing at me with his scorching look. Crap. I’d put all that away. Flustered, I turned the sixth card and laid it below and to the left of the fourth.

“This lies behind you.” Another enthroned man, this one with a sword in his hand and a thoughtful mien. The King of Swords. Reversed.

“You’re used to going it alone. To taking all the decisions to yourself. It’s part of who you are and it gives you authority. Yet you find it burdensome, too.”

Timber sighed, and I knew I’d struck the mark.

“You don’t have to do that anymore.” I pointed back at the Princess of Wands. “The road before you is not empty. Give up a little control. You’ll get a lot back.”

“Is that the sacrifice you spoke of?”

“Maybe,” I said, but I didn’t think so. The Hanged Man, like the High Priest which had appeared first, was Major Arcana. Generally speaking, the Major Arcana indicated an important issue or turning point. The King of Swords, a court card, told me Timber’s control issues were significant. But not that significant. Not enough to bring the Hanged Man into it.

He retreated into a deeper state of contemplation. I let him alone for a bit, both glad and sorry to see his fire quenched. At last, he gave himself a shake and waved for me to continue.

“This is your fear.” The seventh card went below the arch of the third, fourth, fifth and sixth. They were the branches of the World Tree; now we began the trunk. The seventh was another reversed card, this one displaying another dark-haired, bearded man. He stood at the edge of a forest, gazing from its shadows out onto a green field with a road leading past it. Three saplings grew nearby.

“You’re afraid of being disappointed and of disappointing others,” I informed my client. “A common enough fear. Here you are with a whole new territory spread out in front of you, and you can’t take the first step toward it. Better the darkness you know than the light you don’t.”

“Is there any basis for it? For this fear?”

“All fear has a basis. Otherwise, we wouldn’t feel it. Sometimes fear is useful. If you’ve been burned once, you’ll hesitate to stick your hand into the fire again.”

Timber glared at me. We’d reached the stage where the client got irritated because he wasn’t getting clear enough answers. About time. They all had to go through that before they could open up to the real wisdom, and he’d held out longer than most. Stubborn git.

“You’re talking riddles.”

“I’m an Oracle. You asked for it.” I took pity on him. Not much. “You want to know how to proceed. You want to know if you’re going to fail. You want to know you’re doing the right thing. I can’t tell you that. I’m sorry. I wish I could. But even if I did, it wouldn’t satisfy you. You have to make up your mind to trust yourself.” I tapped the King of Swords again. “And before you can, you have to give up your need for control.”

He subsided, grumbling a bit. I turned the eighth card and placed it just above the second, in line with the seventh, to make the base of the tree trunk.

“This is your hope.”

A proud man on horseback, leading a troop of six men, all carrying garlanded spears.

“Well, this should be straightforward enough to satisfy you. You hope for victory. Not only in the task ahead, but over yourself.”

“I could hae told ye as much meself.”

I smiled behind my hand as his accent broadened. Time to start wrapping things up. Fortunately, we had just two cards to go.

“This is your path. The thing enabling you to engage the situation.”

I turned the ninth card and laid it just below the three of wands. It showed another red-haired woman. She knelt on a beach, where she was using a wand to draw a circle in the sand around her.

“Major Arcana again,” I murmured. Then I spoke louder. “This is the Wheel. Life has its ups and downs and that’s just the way it is. You can’t control it. Trust life to do what it does, and accept. And know that process, too, is sacred. The Wheel is a circle, and a circle defines sacred space.”

He very much did not like hearing about trust and letting go. It went contrary to his natural impulse. He liked to be dominant.
Except sometimes in bed,
I remembered, and hastily thrust the thought away. I’d done pretty well so far at not letting myself get sidetracked. One more card, and I could be as distracted as I liked.

The client was waiting for me to continue, impatient, steam all but pouring from his ears. Smirking, I turned the last card without looking at it and laid it in its spot beneath the Wheel.

“This is your solution.”

Timber went very red in the face. I glanced at the card I had just placed and my throat closed.

A nude man and a nude woman embraced in a forest glade. More than embraced. Their positions obscured some relevant pieces of their anatomy, but the card made what they were doing abundantly clear. He had dark hair. Hers was red. Why hadn’t I remembered that the illustrator of this deck had an obsession with red-haired women? When I looked closer, I realized every female character in the entire reading was a redhead, even the bound woman in the eight of swords. Shit.

“The Lovers,” I said, amazed my voice didn’t squeak or shake.

“What do they have to say to me?” Timber’s voice also had an abnormally steady quality.

I had to think about it a long while. The Lovers was a complicated card. One of the most complicated in the deck, in my opinion.

“Love has power,” I said slowly. “A power unlike any other. You know that?”

“Aye,” he replied, just as slowly. “I believe I do.”