"I see a chill in your future..."
“Where did you even get a wizard hat?” Aria groaned.
The living room of their apartment had been shrouded in dark blue bedsheets stolen from Adagio’s bed. Little plastic stars hung from the makeshift tent, and several different scented candles fought over which would be the most cloying.
At the center, seated at their coffee table which had been similarly draped and decorated, sat Sonata Dusk. If a thought ever entered her vacuous head, it just as quickly died from solitary confinement. How and why she had done up their apartment like some fortune teller’s shop was beyond Aria.
Sonata shook her head, her long ponytail rustling the bells ringing the conical hat’s lip. In a ridiculous voice like the fortune tellers from those terrible vampire movies Adagio loved so much, she said:
“The spirits do not hear such, um, frivolous questions. Sit, wary traveler. Rest your tired feet.”
“Wary. Yeah, wary of this nonsense. You mean ‘weary.’”
Sonata puffed her cheeks out and frowned. “This disrespect, um, endangers your session, traveler. The spirits don't like being corrected or made fun of.”
Aria sighed and slipped onto a cushion. Her pigtails brushed on the tent flaps as she entered. “Then tell the spirits to read a frigging book.”
Sonata pulled a tassel near her head, and the tent flaps closed behind her. The candlelights flickering around them bathed them in a sickly yellow glow.
She then thunked a wooden box against the table and tapped out a deck of cards. Their well-worn edges stuck to the side of the box and they fell out in a trickle instead of as a solid unit.
“Where did you—?” Aria started.
Sonata shot her a surprisingly intense look, a plea for silence and respect.
Aria watched as the shuffling of the old cards made the candle flames dance on their wicks. For a moment, she remembered another tent, another camp, and another fortune cast long ago. The rattle of bones replaced the riffling of cards, and she could almost feel the Phrygian night wind buffeting the canvas.
With an adept flourish, Sonata fanned the cards before her and ran a manicured fingernail over them with a soft rhythmic click.
“Choose, traveler.”
Aria felt a chill run down her spine before she stifled it with a grimace. She planted her finger on a card and slid it out.
Sonata flipped it over. The Page of Swords.
Aria’s eyebrow raised a fraction of an inch.
“The spirits say you are quick to action, even to the point of, uh, recklessness.”
Aria rolled her eyes.
Sonata slid the pack over. Aria shuffled it a few times.
In a thin, reedy voice, Sonata said, “Now, draw—”
“I know what I'm doing, dork.”
She pulled a card off the top, slapped it on the table face-down, shuffled the pack, and repeated this three more times. Four face-down cards arrayed around the Page of Swords at the three-, six-, nine-, and twelve-o’clock positions.
Trouble, opposition, guidance, and outcome.
Sonata began again in her fortune teller voice. “This accomplished, now begin to—”
“I know!” Aria snapped. “I've done this a million times!”
Sonata sighed, and bit her trembling lower lip. “Yeah, but can't you play along just once?”
Aria groaned. “Alright. But keep it short.”
“Yay!” Sonata leapt up and threw her arms in the air, her costume’s sleeves billowing out and blowing out a couple of the smaller candles. She danced in place for a moment, and then sat back down.
With a clearing of her throat, she continued in her fortune teller voice. “This accomplished, now begin to think on—"
“Shorten it, nerd.”
Sonata huffed, but kept going. “Hold your question in your mind and flip the cards over, starting with—"
They finished the sentence together, Sonata in her affected voice and Aria with a thick dollop of sarcasm: “—your rightmost and moving around as a clock turns.”
“... idiot,” Aria finished.
Sonata stuck her tongue out at her sister.
Aria wondered silently why Sonata had gone to these lengths. What the heck was she doing?
She turned the first card over. The Eight of Cups.
“This speaks to a challenge to be learned from. One that may not be, um, beaten by, uh, punching it.”
Aria’s frown deepened. That was the basic symbolism, but there was a deeper underlying meaning to this. One that echoed with the Page at the center of the reading.
Her.
“When you are properly prepared, you—”
Aria flipped over the next card
“—Oh, sorry. Yes.”
In opposition sat the Nine of Wands.
“Ah, yes…” Sonata intoned. “A weary, backbreaking defense of your material holdings has left you drained.”
Aria bit the inside of her cheek. Again, Sonata had the face of it right, but the whole picture was beginning to come into focus.
Not for the first time, she missed the clarity of the Delphine vapors.
She reached for the third card, which would hopefully offer guidance.
And hesitated.
“Do you fear what the spirits may offer, traveler?”
Aria’s eye twitched, and she flipped the card over with a snap.
The Lovers.
“The road forks for the wary— weary!— traveler. You have a choice to make, and it's a doozy.”
Aria blinked, a little confused.
Desperate to get this over with, Aria snatched up the final card, the outcome, before Sonata could start in with her patter.
She slapped it down and stared.
Seven of Swords.
“The spirits say you will know the answer when it is time.”
Aria leaned back, and considered.
The tent, such as it was, held the heat of the candles in as they burned low.
Sonata sat, looking imperious.
Aria turned the spread over and over in her mind.
“Did the traveler want one more card? For context?”
Aria pursed her lips, and tugged on a pigtail, lost in thought.
Sonata cleared her throat, and tried again. “Does the traveler have all she needs, or did she need one more card?”
Aria kept staring at the cards. She hadn't heard. The candles had doused themselves in warm, molten wax.
Sonata sighed, and dropped the pretense. “Ari! One more, or nah?”
“What? Oh, uh. Sure.”
Sonata giggled, and slipped back into her fortune teller persona. “The spirits request you to shuffle again, until you feel you should stop. Then, place the top card across yours. This is the path card, and will show you the best way to start towards your outcome.”
Aria furrowed her brow in thought. She'd never heard of this before.
She shuffled once. Twice. Four times. Eight...
She stopped, slid a card off with her thumb, and set it on top of the Page of Swords, rotated ninety degrees.
Sonata’s face twitched oddly. “Do you dare reveal the path the spirits have chosen for you?”
Aria closed her eyes, took a breath, and flipped the last card over.
The card was weathered, just as the rest of them were. It had the same worn edges and faded colors. Even the art and lettering style were the same.
But this very old card was equally new to her.
Seated around a white table were the three of them, Aria, Sonata, and Adagio, each clutching a dish. Behind them, a white-shirted man held a silver scoop.
Below the picture sat the words, “ICE CREAM.”
Aria groaned as Sonata cracked up in a gale of laughter. Aria pushed her sister, and they fell over in a tangle of limbs and bedsheets.
After a moment, they pulled themselves free from the entangling fabric, their hair frizzy with static electricity.
Aria tried to keep her frown on her lips, but it was a battle.
Sonata hadn't stopped laughing. “So can we?”
Aria lost her battle with the impending grin, and let it stake its claim.
“Yeah, let's grab Dagi and go. But you're putting all this junk away first. And how'd you do that?”
Sonata only laughed harder.
Author's Note
Thank you to Heartshine for the prompt.
Thank you to Amber Spark for the opportunity.
