“You’re right. I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s look at the cards on the right. The Eight of Swords at the top. This means, the decision you feel you must make, if you feel trapped, that is of your own making. You must explore why you feel this way.

“Below it, the King of Rods, this is who you could become. Ambitious. Successful.”

“If I follow my husband?”

“That I don’t know. This is only a future-you that is in you already.”

“And the last cards?”

“The Empress and the Ten of Pentacles. These show great stability in the home. Wealth. Security. Love. You are a mother?”

“Yes.”

“You are a good mother.”

Izabel nodded, unsure whether thanking her would be like thanking a card.

“That’s what’s important, isn’t it?” Maris asked.

“Yes,” Izabel said.

“Then follow your husband. That’s what the cards say.”

“And go home straightaway?” Izabel said.

“Hmm, that might be me saying that,” Maris said. She smiled, but like she was hiding a sharp pain.

    Chapter Twelve

For some reason Izabel didn’t move to get up like she should have. She felt sick. She felt the presence of danger. And she felt concern, too, because instead of fear, she was feeling a kind of power. Izabel wondered if she would ever understand herself.

“Look, let’s do something else,” Maris said. “We have time. Do you want to pick a totem?”

“What?”

“Like an animal guide.”

“Okay,” Izabel said.

“It works the same, but we’ll use this deck.” Maris led her on another mini guided meditation as Izabel held the deck. She was glad that this time the cards didn’t feel like before, like they were going to burn her.

Maris fanned the cards out again. “Just one this time.”

Izabel picked one—the coyote. Maris got out a book, Medicine Cards, and read to her.

“If you have pulled this card, you can be sure that some kind of medicine is on its way—and it may or may not be to your liking. Whatever the medicine is, good or bad, you can be sure it will make you laugh, maybe even painfully. You can also be sure that Coyote will teach you a lesson about yourself.”

Izabel was starting to forget how sick the first reading made her feel.

“Coyote has many magical powers, but they do not always work in his favor. His own trickery fools him. He is the master trickster who tricks himself. No one is more astonished than Coyote at the outcome of his own tricks. He falls into his own trap.”

This is the killer, Izabel thought. He was the coyote influencing her life.

“And yet he somehow manages to survive. He may be banged and bruised by the experience, but he soon goes on his way to even greater error, forgetting to learn from his mistakes. He may have lost the battle, but he is never beaten.”