“No fear in here,” she said as if she could read my thoughts.
“How do you know?” I asked, taking in the decorations around me. I was taking mental notes to outfit the apartment I shared with Adam with some of this calming hippie stuff.
Vikka smiled, and I was surprised to see that she had a mouth of sparkling white teeth. I’d expected her to have at least a few missing.
“It follows you,” she said.
There was a tension in my gut. At times, I did feel like the dark, nervous cloud in my mind was following me, tethered to me with invisible cables.
“It does,” I said. I didn’t know what it was about this place, but I felt like I could tell Vikka anything. She was just another stranger in New York City, a place where you could get murdered if you talked to the wrong person at the wrong time. But something was calming and trustworthy about her.
“I found you at the right time,” she said. “You were in my alley for a reason.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, wishing the tea was cool enough to drink so I could hide my face behind my wide cup.
“I’m here to do this for you,” she said, reaching under the table.
My heart clenched with panic, but what she put on the table was a deck of cards.
“Tarot?” I asked, skepticism invading my tone. I didn’t believe in any of that, but I didn’t want to be rude.
“This one for free,” Vikka said in her gravelly voice, eyeing me from across the table. “You relax, you sort into three piles.”
I did what she said, happy for this small oasis from the outside world. My life in New York with Adam had been a little stressful. Here, it felt like time had stopped for just a few minutes.
With only a few seconds of fumbling, I cut the deck into the three piles and set them between us.
“Very good,” she said, reclaiming the cards.
I crossed my legs, trying not to let my mind worry about Adam. With anxiety, it was like my brain was a very poorly-trained pet; without constant check-ins, it would run wild with the most obtuse scenarios.
He’s just at work, he’s just at work, I thought repeatedly.
Vikka interrupted my thoughts by laying a card on the table with a schlick.
I peered down and saw some writing — it had to be Russian with all those backward K’s — scrawled across a queen-looking woman.
“You are exactly where you need to be,” she emphasized, those green eyes peering into my soul.
I was about to open my mouth and say something, but she was already laying down another card.
This one had more writing I couldn’t read, so instead, I watched her face. Her thin eyebrows came together like she was concerned. The card she just laid on the table was the picture of some kind of prince-looking guy.
“Everything you need to be happy is almost there. You’re trying to pull it out of the invisible, but something is blocking you. A man in your past.”
I snapped to attention, and the image of my ex, Kirk, came to the forefront of my mind. The one who locked me in a basement and left me there for a few days.
But he couldn’t come into my life anymore — he was in jail.
“You need to forgive this person,” she said, poking to the card on the table with the tap of one of her long nails. “Otherwise, he will keep showing up.”
“He can’t,” I said quickly. “He’s in jail.”
“The universe will find a way to make him — or someone just like him — come into your life until you forgive him,” Vikka said with finality.
Something cold was planted deep in my gut. Something I didn’t like; something that felt like it was greedily spreading to my fingertips. Was there a way Kirk could break out of jail and come after me?
Then my rational mind kicked in, and I reasoned the thought away. There was no way he could come slithering back in; Adam would protect me.
Vikka paused, then laid another card on the table. This one had an image of a man dancing around in jester clothes.
“You’re at the beginning of something…” she said, her eyes looking just beyond my shoulder. “There is an element of naiveté to that. Enjoy it.”
The dark thing taking root in my gut woke up and stretched greedily. Did Vikka mean my relationship with Adam? New York City? Parsons?
“Is… is everything going to be okay?” I asked, my heat in my throat. Everyone went to tarot readers and intuitive to answer that question, right? That was the ultimate question.
She hesitated, and there was a sinking feeling in my stomach.
Then, she smiled a little too broad and said, “Yes, everything will be okay if you trust your instincts.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, trying to keep the fear out of my voice.
“Trust there,” she said, gesturing to my heart. “And everything will make sense.”
It was the most general advice of all time, and now my mind was spinning like a loom, knitting together a sweater of fear that threatened to choke me.
“Th-thank you,” I said, thinking of everything that could go wrong. Adam could break up with me. Kirk could somehow get out of jail and come looking for me. I could fail out of Parsons. Everything in my life could become a disaster!
But Vikka merely sat across from me peacefully, sipping on her tea.
I took a sip of mine as well, trying to will my mind away from the raging dumpster fire of fear twisting to life inside.
We finished the rest of the reading in peace, and she threw out some names that I knew. But I couldn’t let go of that seed of fear that had taken root in my mind.
Was the happiness I was enjoying right now only temporary? I’d had the
