It turns out that Mother Earth Occult and Antiques is appropriately labyrinthine, a collection of narrow rooms filled with all kinds of oddities and accursed items. We decided to split up and explore before converging on the tarot reader’s room at the back of the shop, so Cleo and I wander from space to cramped space.

We walk around a pile of dusty books and come face to face with a wall of framed paintings based on the tarot. I see Cleo’s eyes light up. She’s our resident artist, always doodling colorful, one-frame snapshots of events from our days.

“Gran Flo would’ve loved this one, huh?” Cleo says, adjusting the straps of her mini-narwhal backpack, which is always filled with charcoal pencils and flare pens.

The painting is a wheel of the tarot’s most iconic symbols, linking them to their world cultures and religions of origin. My eyes well up because Cleo is right. Grandma should be here to see this herself, but I press my eyes shut before any tears can escape. This trip is supposed to be a celebration and a tribute, a step forward in the journey, not back into the past.

Still, before moving on, I reach into my pocket and run my fingers over the locket I carry with me everywhere. It holds a picture of Grandma when she was in her twenties on one side and a current picture of me on the other, the two of us looking very much like sisters. I trace the grooves of the symbol engraved into its enamel surface: the Hebrew letter Dalet, which represents a door opening to potential. Grandma gave me this locket because Dalet is traditionally associated with The Empress. After all, there are twenty-two characters in the Hebrew alphabet and twenty-two cards in the tarot’s Major Arcana.

Just as this thought settles, I notice a particular symbol on the painting.

“Yep. Especially that symbol for The Fool,” I say.

“Really?” Cleo asks. “Why The Fool?”

“In the tarot, The Fool is the first figure, embarking on a journey to learn an essential lesson,” I begin. “She steps into the unknown blindly, ignoring potential dangers in order to learn from the guides of the Major Arcana. This journey might seem naive or reckless to others, but The Fool knows if she takes the harder path—the one lined with uncertainty and self-reflection—she’ll learn something vital. Grandma always said we should all be lucky to find that brand of foolishness.”

“In that case, Gran Flo was right,” Cleo says, rubbing my shoulder with a soft smile.

I nod and offer a smile in return, because forward we must go, just like The Fool. So I peer around the fronds of a fake purple palm tree beside us, finding a hall that leads to two adjoining rooms.

Earlier, I decided to lean into my Queen side, so I lead us left.

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