Dare. His loss is just as painful.
She sticks her nose back in the cards.
“The Six of Wands.” She glances up. “The fruits of your labor will pay off somehow. Your efforts will be successful.”
“My efforts with what?”
She doesn’t answer. She’s already on to the next card.
“Hmm, interesting.” She peers at the card in her hand, then glances up at me. “The Nine of Cups. It’s sometimes referred to as the Wish card. Something you desire will bring you fulfillment.”
“What do I desire?” I ask quietly. There’s one thing I desire more than anything, for Finn to still be alive. And her freaking cards can’t help with that.
A small smile dances across her lips.
“The cards don’t tell me that. That is for you to know.”
She picks up the next card.
“Ah, this one I would expect. The High Priestess. It symbolizes a duality of forces, the moon and stars. The High Priestess can access the psyche and the conscious, she can defy natural laws. But she also represents mystery and secrets.”
“And what does that mean in English?” I ask dumbly.
“It means that you and Finn are halves of a whole. It also means that you don’t know yourself yet, that you have many parts. The rest you must discover on your own.”
I sigh.
I feel her gaze on me. “This one is interesting. The Lovers.”
My head snaps up. “And that one means?”
Sabine looks back at the table. “It’s self-explanatory.”
Heat flushes my cheeks and I drum my hand against my leg. “That one must be a mistake.”
“I don’t make mistakes,” she answers. “Use care with him, child. He’s a good boy, but he’ll be your ruin.”
A flash of white hot fire rages through my gut in surprise. He’ll be my ruin? How overly dramatic.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” I deny, knowing full well who she means. She glances at me but for a second.
“Of course you do,” she murmurs, but she doesn’t say anything more because her attention is already on to the last card, and I only get a brief glance at a black skull before she very quickly flips it over.
“What was that?” I ask her curiously, but when I look at her expression, my stomach sinks. She looks positively stricken.
“It’s nothing.”
But it was very definitely something. The calm old woman is visibly shaken as she clears the cards and straightens them into a pile before putting them into a drawer.
“Come back next week,” she suggests, her voice thin. “We’ll read them again, child. Your tarot can change.”
She sounds almost hopeful that it will.
Curious.
I leave Sabine to her room, and return to my own. Booting up my laptop, I can’t help but do a search for tarot cards, so that I can find out what that last mysterious card meant.
It’s only a matter of minutes before I find a similar card, a muted one with a dark skull in a black hood.
My heart quickens when I read the meaning.
It’s the Death card.
Chapter 15
There are a million clocks.
They cover all the walls and they’re all tickingtickingtickingticking. I cover my ears and spin around, trying to get away from the ticking, trying to get away from all of the hands and minutes and seconds. But there aren’t any doors. There’s no way out. I don’t know where I am, I only know that time is my enemy and the clocks are taunting me.
And then the clocks all turn into Dare’s face. His smile is mocking me, and it is replicated a million times, and then there is his voice.
“Ask me, Calla Lily.”
“I can’t,” I tell him. “I’m afraid.”
“Don’t be afraid of me,” he answers. “I’m not the enemy. Time is.”
“How do I get out?” I ask him, running from corner to corner.
“You’re the only one who knows,” he laughs. “What a silly question.”
His laughter echoes and I startle awake.
It takes a minute to digest the dream, to come to terms with the fact that somehow, I was running from time.