All Faculty Excerpts

The Moon, Her Crown

This is an excerpt from Christine Meade's recently released novel.

***

I stacked the deck of tarot cards between us on the small reading table in Martinique’s Mystics. The girl sitting across from me looked scared. Late-twenties with greasy black hair and this twitchy quality from either a mind-altering substance or fear that someone was following her. She looked to the door for the fifth time and my gaze followed hers. It was one of those rare, hot summer days in San Francisco, and the lack of a fan or air conditioning felt oppressive in the enclosed space.

“You expecting someone?” I asked. I resisted the urge to wipe the sweat at my hairline in fear of drawing attention to it.

“Oh, no. Well, yeah. I’m okay. You okay?” She spoke too fast.

“Um, I’m fine. It’ll be forty dollars,” I repeated.

Her fidgety hands pecked at her pockets until she threw a few crumpled bills my way. She paused, leaned back in her chair, and looked up at me. “Do you, uh, do you know what you’re doing?”

I bristled. Why couldn’t a twenty-year-old have natural intuitive talent? “You saw the sign outside, right? Martinique’s Mystics? Martinique is my grandmother. This stuff runs in families. I’ve been turning Tarot since I was in diapers.”

“Well, okay,” she said, looking doubtful. She glanced at the door once more. To ease her fears, I picked up the deck and shuffled, once, twice, and a third time, showing off. Martinique’s Mystics—which was really just the living room of my grandmother’s in-law apartment—didn’t have a pink neon palm lit in the window. No heavy red velvet curtains and Nag Champa incense burning in the corner. We tried to keep the vibe of our business comfortable, familial even, to lend ourselves credibility over the hokey places run by less- reputable San Francisco psychics.

“So what brings you here today? What is it you long to know?” I narrowed my eyes into what I hoped came across as a look of intensity as I took a long sip from my heavy chalice of Diet Coke.

“I need to find something,” she said. “Well, no. Someone.”

You and me both, sister.

I nodded and spread my palms over the small wooden table. “Shuffle the deck,” I said. I had performed this so many times, I could do it sleepwalking. Tilt my head like so, pause, gaze down at the cards, press a finger to my lips, and ask if there is any love in her life. I believed in the truth-telling of the cards, but I also knew this was a business and I was young and

had to work double-time to appear credible in front of clients. My grandmother had taught me well. There are only three things people are looking for, she always told me, love, money, or a combination of the two. You have to give them what they want.

***

Reprinted with permission from LitSet Books. You can learn more about Christine and her writing here.