'Great. Now you have to concentrate on the question you want an answer to. Are you facing a great change?'
'Jesus, you know I am,' Annika said sharply.
'Okay, then I'll do a Celtic cross.'
Patricia laid out the cards all over the table.
'Nice pictures,' Annika said. 'Weird-looking creatures.'
'The deck was designed by Frieda Harris, after sketches by Aleister Crowley. It took five years to finish the whole deck. The symbols have their roots in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.'
'Whatever that is,' Annika said incredulously. 'And now they're going to show me my future?'
Patricia nodded gravely and pointed at a card that lay underneath another. 'Here, in the first position, is the card that represents your present situation. Tower Struck by Lightning, the sixteenth card in the Major Arcana. As you can see, it's falling down. That's your life, Annika. Everything that has stood for security in your world is crumbling- I don't need to tell you that.'
Annika gave Patricia a searching look. 'What else?'
Patricia moved her finger and pointed at the card that lay on top of the tower. 'Five of Disks crosses your present situation, obstructing or promoting it. The card signifies Mercury in Taurus- depression and fear.'
'And?'
'You're afraid of the change, but there's no need to be.'
'Right, and then what?'
'Your view of the situation is what might be expected, Aeon, the twentieth card, which stands for self-criticism and thoughtfulness. You feel you've failed and are searching yourself. But your unconscious interpretation is much more interesting. Look here, Knight of Swords. He's a master of creativity. He's trying to break away from all the narrow-minded idiots.'
Annika leaned back in her chair, and Patricia continued, 'You come from the Seven of Disks, limitation and failure, and you are moving toward the Eight of Swords, interference.'
Annika sighed. 'Sounds like hard work.'
'This is you. The Moon. That's funny- last time I told my own fortune I also got the Moon. The female sex, the final test. I'm sorry but it's not a good card.'
Annika didn't reply. Patricia looked at the remaining cards in silence, then said, 'This is what you're most afraid of. The Hanged Man. Rigidity, that your own spirit should be broken.'
'But how's it going to end?' Annika sounded a little less dismissive.
Hesitating, Patricia pointed at the tenth card. 'This is the outcome. Don't be afraid. It's only a symbol. Don't take it literally.'
Annika leaned forward. The card showed the figure of a black skeleton wielding a scythe. 'Death.'
'It doesn't necessarily signify physical death but rather a radical change. Old relationships need to be dissolved. Death has two faces. One that tears down and destroys, another that sets you free of old bonds.'
Annika stood up abruptly. 'I don't give a damn about your cards. It's bullshit,' she said, and marched off to her room, shutting the door behind her.
Part Three
September
Nineteen Years, Two Months, and Eighteen Days
Monday 3 September
The landscape didn't materialize until about a minute before the plane touched the ground. The clouds hung just above the trees, spreading a fine mist of rain.
I hope the weather's been this bad all the time, Annika thought. It would serve the bastards right.
The plane taxied to Arlanda Terminal 2, the same one they'd taken off from. Annika had been seriously disappointed that Terminal 2 was only an annex to the real international terminal, with hardly any duty-free shops. It was where the marginal airlines carried on their business, international and domestic, charter and scheduled. No glamour whatsoever.
At least no customs agents were around.
It's something, she thought as she walked through the green channel.
Of course, her bags came last of all. The airport bus was packed, and she had to stand for the forty-five-minute journey into central Stockholm and the City Terminal. When she stepped out on the Klaraberg Viaduct, it was raining properly. Her cloth bags absorbed the rain and her luggage got soaked. She swore under her breath and jumped on the 52 bus on Bolindersplan.
The apartment was quiet, the curtains resting peacefully in the morning light. She put her bags on the rug in the hall and sank down on the living room couch, groggy with fatigue. The plane had been scheduled to leave yesterday at four in the afternoon, but for reasons that were never disclosed, they had spent eight hours in the Turkish airport and another five in the plane itself before they finally took off. Oh, well, that's the kind of thing that happened on last-minute trips. It wasn't as if she was in a hurry to get anywhere.
She leaned back on the couch, shut her eyes, and allowed the unease to come to her. She had suppressed it during all those hot days in Turkey, focusing on absorbing the Asian sounds, the light, and the smells. She had eaten well, salads and kabobs, and she'd drunk wine with her lunch. Now she felt her stomach tighten and her throat constrict. When she tried to visualize her future, she saw nothing. Blank. White. Empty. No contours.
I have to forget, she thought. It begins now.
Annika fell asleep on the couch but woke up after ten minutes, freezing in her wet clothes.
She undressed and sprinted down to the communal bathroom in the basement.
When she returned upstairs, she tiptoed into the kitchen and popped her head around the door to Patricia's room. No one was in. It was both disconcerting and surprising. On her way back to Stockholm, she'd been annoyed at the thought of Patricia's being there. But she'd been wrong to think she wanted to be alone. The absence of her black mane on the pillow filled her with a sense of loss; it wasn't a good feeling.
She restlessly paced the apartment, from one room to another. She made coffee that she couldn't drink. She emptied out her wet clothes on the floor, then draped them over chairs and on door handles. The rooms filled with a sour, damp smell, so she opened a window.
Now what? she thought.
What am I going to do with my life?
How am I going to make a living?
