A certain calm comes over the room, a nearly stifling calm, or the room is too warm, thick and humid like the swamp. The rain outside becomes white noise.

“I want you to think about what’s been bothering you,” she says as wind berates the shuttered window. “The first card represents your present position.” She flips it over.

The moon gazes somnolently down at a dog, a wolf, and a lobster between two towers.

“The Moon,” she says, “is a card of intuition, alienation, and the unconscious. There are two sides to this card: on one side insight and clarity, and on the other confusion and anxiety. I suspect you’re somewhere in the middle, searching for answers.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“Hush. The next card represents your present desires.” The card that appears displays six golden cups of white flowers and two children before a medieval castle, all bathed in a happy yellow glow. Agnes smiles. “The Six of Cups. Nostalgia, memories. You have a desire to return to happy times from the past.”

Unfortunately, I lack my mother’s rose-colored glasses. What the house shows me often destroys even my tempered memories with the harsh light of truth, of how things really occurred. I’m not sure I can believe this card’s assumption of the endless supply of happiness that the past delivers. The past is no different from the present, as dark or as light.

Is it my desire that the past be granted that happy glow? Or that my experience of the past be like everyone else’s—that softly filtered recollection afforded by memory, and memory’s ability to alter perception, to smooth out the rough spots? Do I wish, perhaps, that I did not have to live with actual recreations of the past wandering through the house, ruining the perfect nostalgia that comes with no longer having to experience it firsthand?

In any case, I wish it were a seven instead of a six. Seven is a much better number, round and whole. Six is too symmetrical.

“The next card represents the unexpected.” She flips the card and frowns. Landing upside down, it depicts a man on a gray throne in the middle of a crashing sea. “Typically the King of Cups represents balance and control.” She taps the card with her finger. “But when it’s reversed like this, you see, it embodies emotional manipulation and volatility. While many of the cards relate to your inner life, the Court cards usually indicate someone else’s involvement—in this case, a man in a position of power, most likely.”

“Not my division chair, I hope. He is a royal prick, although you can’t argue that he isn’t as predictable as a cup of coffee.”

She shakes her head. “No, I feel it must be either the appearance of someone you haven’t met yet, or someone you haven’t thought about in a long while. Watch out for someone who seems calm on the outside. He is not what he appears to be.”

Her expression has become one of unhappy contemplation, and the candle flickers and fills me with its heady, cloying scent.