The door opens to the cabin, and the witch looks at Stevie first before her gaze reaches mine. Her skin is a light brown and her hair is cropped short to her head. She’s wearing black yoga pants, and a cropped white t-shirt. Not the usual visual you would have of a fortune teller. But she’s the best at what she does on this coast. I just wonder how vague she’s going to be about the answers I need.

“I was wondering what time you would come,” she says.

“What, the cards can’t tell specific times?” Stevie mumbles next to me. Adelaide gives her a pointed look, and I want to poke her in the ribs. Why is she being such a little shit?

“I see you are still upset about your reading, Stevie,” Adelaide says as we both walk into the small living room. Adelaide gestures for us to sit on the cream-colored loveseat. There’s a square table with a black tablecloth between us as Adelaide takes a seat across from us. “I told you I can’t force a reading, Stevie.”

“That’s enough,” Stevie says, glaring at Adelaide. What the Hell happened between these two?

“Fine. Blair, you’re the one here for the reading, anyway.”

“Yes, I’m focused on the present and the future.”

“The present and future is nothing without the past.” She tsks as she shuffles the deck. The cards are gorgeous, hand painted. The backs are all black with foiled intertwined snakes. She shuffles as she hums, her deep gaze never leaving mine. Adelaide places three cards on the soft tablecloth in front of us.

Past. Present. Future.

I watch as her long, dark, purple nails flick over the first card. Indicating my past. “The Moon,” she says. It’s a beautifully detailed card, black with gold, just like the other side. A moon at the bottom and two koi fish circling each other on the top. The card doesn’t face me and I already know its significance. It’s negative. “Someone in your past has misrepresented something, or has created a misunderstanding. There’s a lot of fear and anxiety in your past.”

I nod my head, not wanting to say aloud how misrepresented I felt as a child and how much more needs to be cleared up for my past to make sense.

The middle card is glaring at me, the golden snakes taunting me, like I’m a joke. Adelaide flips the card.

“Justice,” Adelaide says, humming, her eyes gazing up at me. The black and gold card faces me, the sword prominent in the middle with scales equaling out to each side. “It seems the cards have not decided if your justice is validated. While karma is meant to be yours, accountability on your end needs to be the payment.”

“Well, that’s horseshit,” I grumble.