THE CHARIOT: Woahhhh! Slow down! Your chariot is about to veer off the track – or are you going so fast that it just looks like chaos to everyone else? Ask yourself whether you’re in control of your situation or not
THE TOWER: OK, I know this looks bad. Real bad. But sometimes old structures need to come tearing down so you can build something new.
I unpause the video, and Raya instructs me on how to put these three cards together. “Use your intuition,” she says breathily. “Let the cards talk to each other.”
I gaze at them, and ask myself how I’m feeling. The moodiness of the Moon has definitely been a thing for me lately. A profound loner energy has ruled over this year at school. The last two years, if I’m honest. It seems like everyone’s deeper in their cliques than ever, and I’m lagging behind, no best friend, no firm group, no academic success. Then there’s the Chariot, the guy trying to keep his cool while his two horses go crazy. Yeah, that feels like me.
“Speak your truth,” Raya says. Her voice is breezy, but her chocolate-brown eyes are focused and direct. “Speak it out loud.”
“I’m not very happy at the moment,” I say aloud, and to my complete surprise I feel a tiny hot tear come into the corner of my eye. I quickly blink it away. “And I’m trying to make out like I’m fine, but I’m not.”
“Go to your place of fear,” Raya Silver says, as though she can hear me. “Say what you’re afraid of.”
“If I don’t sort myself out, things are going to get really, really, really bad,” I say, and before I have a chance to get upset about it, Dad calls me down for dinner.
When I get downstairs, it’s just Dad at the table. Jo has gone out – probably to Sarra’s house – and Mum is correcting exam papers in Abbie’s old room, so she’s eating in there.
“I heard you were giving Joanne hell,” Dad says disapprovingly, shoving me a plate of lasagne.
“If that’s her side of the story…”
“You should be nice to your sister. She’s going through a hard time.”
“I am nice,” I say. “I can be nice.”
“You’re better than nice, Maeve. You’re good. There’s so much good in you. You just need to show it.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Nice people,” he says, stroking Tutu, who is pawing at his lap for scraps, “will smile and listen and say, ‘Oh no, how terrible’ when they hear a sad story. Good people do something about it.”
Dad is the youngest in his family, too, so he tends to have a bit more sympathy than everyone else. But he was the one genius in a family of idiots, and I’m the one idiot in a family of geniuses. It’s not exactly the same.
We talk for a while, and he asks me if school is going any better, and I lie and say it is.
“How’s Lily getting on?” he asks, pushing his food around. “Do you still talk?”
“We’re not friends any more, Dad,” I say quickly, and take my tarot cards out of my pocket.
“What are those?”
“Tarot cards,” I respond. “Do you want me to give you a reading?”
“I don’t know. Will you tell me nasty things about my future?”
“Tarot doesn’t tell the future,” I say, mimicking Raya Silver’s calm, guru-like voice. “They only help you analyse your present.”
“Jesus. Are you in a cult now? I heard on the radio that all the young people were joining a cult, but I didn’t think they’d nab you.”
“No. I’m just interested in the cards. They’re part of history, you know. They were used in Italy in the fifteenth century.”
“So you’re into history and Italian now? I think I like this cult.”
“Here,” I say, handing them over. “Shuffle these bad boys. Get your juice into them.”
“My what?” Dad looks appalled.
“Your energy! Get your energy into them! Cards are made of paper, Dad. Paper is made from trees. They’re conscious.”
“Uh-huh,” he says, clearly bemused. “And when did you get these cards?”
“Today,” I answer. I get him to shuffle and split the cards into three piles. Then I fan the cards out like Raya did. “Pick three.”
He picks three. Ten of Rods, Two of Cups, the Fool. I study them.
“It looks like you’re working really, really hard,” I say, pointing at the man with a bunch of rods on his back. “And that you might be neglecting Mum in the process. The cards are suggesting you go on a holiday or an adventure together so you can feel, y’know – in love again.”
My dad’s face goes dark. “Piss off,” he says. “It did not say that.”
“It did!”
“Has your mother put you up to this?”
“No!” I say, gleeful. “Why? Am I right?”
“Je-eeee-eee-sus!” He starts raking his hands through his thin, sandy hair. “Well, I guess we’re going to Lisbon then.”
“Lisbon?”
“Your mum has been on and on about us going to Lisbon. Flights are cheap at the moment. And I’ve been working like a madman.”
“Go!” I say, truly excited to have been right. “Go to Lisbon!”
“Who’s going to make sure you get to school every morning?”
“I’m sixteen! I can wake myself up for school. And Joanne will be here.”
He takes our plates to the sink and rinses them off. “My God,” he says, still dazed. “I guess I better check Ryanair.”
I shuffle the cards again, delighted by my success. “I find it very interesting,” he says, before leaving the room, “that you can learn all these cards in an evening, and still haven’t quite mastered your times tables.”
“Shut up! I know my times tables! I’m sixteen, Dad, not eight.”
“What’s sixteen times eight?”
“A million and three.”
“Wrong. It’s 128.”
“Oh, look,” I respond, drawing my cards. “It’s the Death card. I’d hurry up about booking those flights.”
He leaves, and I’m alone with my deck of Chokey cards. Thinking that, despite his stupid maths joke, it is a little weird that I’ve managed to learn the cards so well
