I could first feel the shock, followed by disbelief and then finally the dread that Echo felt all in the space of a few seconds after Clarisse had finished what she was saying. Something about what Clarisse said felt familiar, not to me, but to Echo.
Oh—no. This is freaking fantastic. I could hear the sarcasm in her every word. Miss ‘one with nature’ is either a Druid or a Bard. If she’s not a Druid or Bard, at the very least, she follows and believes in their ways. Given that she is doing a reading like this, I am going with Druidry. As soon as she said Awen…
I felt Echo retreat further away from the forefront of my consciousness and realized she was trying to hide. There was only so far she could go though, after all, she was trapped inside my body.
Echo, how do you know about this? I was answered with stony silence. I could feel the anger and resentment she harbored for Clarisse rolling from her consciousness. Fine, suit yourself. Don’t tell me then.
Drew sat beside me, quiet, and I could tell from his rigid silence that he was not buying into a damn thing Clarisse had to say. He sagged in his chair with his arms folded over his chest and stared at the ceiling with extreme interest. I glanced at him long enough that he finally looked at me. “What,” he asked defensively.
“Could you try to act or at least look interested, please? This is important to me, Drew.”
He let out a heavy sigh, and his expression softened as he regarded me. “Okay,” He faced Clarisse. “Mind telling us who Awen is?”
“It’s not a who, but a what. Awen is the force of inspiration, balance, and harmony, being able to tap into the energies of everything around you, and them into you. It embodies the flow of spirit and energy, but you have to be open to it to experience it,” Clarisse explained, watching Drew closely.
He didn’t say anything but seemed to let the idea roll around in his head. To me, it made perfect sense. I looked at the imagery on the card and wondered how the hell something so positive could be depicted in such a negative way.
“I understand your confusion, Eden. Sometimes the cards’ images can be confusing, especially when the connected message is revealed. However, the message and meaning are not the same things, and only the Major Arcana have a distinct message attached to them.”
“So, what does the Tower mean when it is upside down like that?”
“You seemed to have been in a place where being too open to the forces became toxic. So toxic in fact that you were not able to break free from the limitation that openness caused. Maybe it was instinct keeping you from doing so to protect your soul from what truths might have been revealed if you escaped that limitation. Even when freedom was attainable, you avoided it to remain in a personal prison and held on to the idea that a beneficial change would come eventually.”
So that was what she’d read about my past, and it left me confused. I couldn’t think of a time when it had been like that for me—unless. Maybe she was referring to me skipping my medications, so I would continue to hear Echo even though she made me miserable at times. I could feel Echo trying to recede further into my mind. She wanted no parts of this reading. To say she was upset would have been a gross understatement. Clarisse moved onto the next card without missing a beat and flipped it over.
“The five of swords represents your present. This is a Minor Arcana card, and it’s associated with defeat, blame, and failure to communicate. The number five in general, where suited cards are concerned, represents change, challenge, disaster, and wellbeing.”
Clarisse was explaining what I could only assume was the basics of the card. My confusion over the reading got worse as she continued, and I was starting to wonder if I’d put too much faith in this process.
“You are in the midst of a quarrel and feel like you are on the losing end. You have been the victim of malicious underhanded acts, and they've left you bitter. There is a fair amount of jealousy and envy but whether that is sourced from you or someone else is unclear to me, but it is definitely there. As I indicated before with the tower card, the negative precedes the positive. Often things need to get worse before they can get better.”
I could tell she was in her zone now because she didn’t so much as look up from the table as she moved on to the final card and flipped it over. The first thing that stood out to me was the bright red blanket; an old hooded hag had draped over her arm. She was also holding a human skull—at least that’s what it looked like. The hairs on my arm stood on end and my skin prickled with gooseflesh as a shiver ran the length of my spine. But what was more is that Echo had an identical reaction to the one Drew had just a millisecond later as the dread rolled forth from Echo’s emotions. I heard Drew's sharp inhale as Clarisse announced the card I had selected to represent my future.
“The Death card represents your future. This is another Major Arcana card, and its message pertains to the new replacing the old in preparation for a transformation you will be very passionate and or emotional about. You will have to experience death to begin anew and open to the life your future holds for you. It doesn’t mean you will die but rather that you will have to let go and let your old ways of thinking, or even being, perish so that
