38
By the time I’ve finishedcleaning up, a game of Monopoly is well underway. I usually love Monopoly, but tonight I have a headache, and it’s no fun jumping in after people have already snatched up property. I linger in the kitchen and mix up a fresh pitcher of sangria. I love the idea of sangria. Wine and juice. It sounds like they wouldn’t work together, but they’re absolutely perfect. Chelsea wanders in as I’m slicing the apples and hangs her head over my shoulder.
“Careful. Sharp knife.” I lay it down and turn around to face her.
She leans into me and sighs. “Everything feels off tonight.”
Understatement of the year. “It’ll be fine.”
“Ryan and Chase got into a fistfight.”
“Slapfight.” I wipe my hands on a dishcloth and comb her thick, frizzy hair with my fingers.
“Emily literally smashed a mirror on your head.”
“She didn’t mean to.”
Chelsea pulls back and studies my face. Her dark eyes are unreadable. “I think she did.”
“She shoved me. That’s all.”
“Into a pane of glass.” She glances over her shoulder at the living room. “Everything is falling apart. I just have a badfeeling. I wish we could read the cards or something.”
“The cards are a game.” I wish they weren’t, though. After Emily’s claim about Chelsea and Ryan, there are a few things I’d like to know too.
“They’re tools,” she insists. She looks so earnest. “They show us what we already know. Instinctively. Knowledge we feel but can’t access. I know you’re not a believer. But you not believing something doesn’t make it not true.” Chelsea sighs and looks toward the stairs. Then her eyes light up. “Let’s do it,” she whispers. “No one will think anything of us going upstairs. They’ll think we’re going to your room. Which we will. Emily’s cards are still in the attic.” She nods with big eyes.
I look at my half-finished pitcher of sangria. “I’m busy.”
Chelsea lifts the handful of apple slices and dumps them into the pitcher. “Done.”
“You didn’t wash your hands. Now I have to start over.”
“Kennedy, none of us need to be drinking tonight. Come on.”
I sigh and follow her up the stairs. “Emily is the reader,” I whisper. “You’ve never done it.”
“I have the sight.” She closes my bedroom door behind us and locks it. “Remember?”
I remember her as a child again, sitting in the attic with her teacup, looking so lost. Seeingnothing.“Of course. How could I forget. Still, isn’t there an art to reading tarot cards? Doesn’t each one stand for something specific?”
“Yes.” Chelsea lowers the stairs to the attic, and I follow her up. “But I remember some of them. We’ve been watching Emily for years. Haven’t you been paying attention?”
“Sort of.” Not really. When we were little, it was fun to haveEmily predict who liked us and what we were going to get on our birthdays, and if we were going to be in the same classes. That sort of thing. But why would I bother listening to the drawn-out explanations about what exactly each card meant andwhyit indicated that we’d all end up with Mrs. Oglebie, or that Chase was secretly in love with Emily? This result came up repeatedly, which was mostly why I thought the cards were full of shit. I honestly don’t know why Chelsea has any faith in them. Maybe she has her own read on them and thinks Emily’s interpretation is skewed by what she wants to see. But when I look at the cards, all I see are pretty pictures. A game.
We tiptoe across the floorboards and arrange ourselves in front of the cards, and Chelsea gathers them and begins to shuffle them carefully, almost reverently.
“They’re not going to turn to ash if you bend one,” I say as she meticulously slides one half of the deck into the other, making sure to keep the cards perfectly straight. She’s touching them like they’re made of glass or something.
She glances up at me. “You want Emily to know we were up here messing with them without her?”
I sigh. “Just hurry up.”
She presents them to me. “Cut the deck.”
I divide the cards twice the way Emily always has us do it. “We haven’t thought of a question.”
Chelsea chews her lower lip. “Will Emily and Chase end up together?”