“She never lived there,” I said. “She made it up.” All these years of pulling up the image of that guesthouse in the library, I had been hovering over someone else’s life. The Wisdom of Tarot was splayed on the floor where Des had thrown it, but I didn’t move to pick it up. The book felt more dangerous than comforting now. I had so wanted to believe that my mother had magic, that she had grace. That, once I found her, she could teach me how to redeem myself. Instead, she was a warning. I could end up the same way she did.

“You see? You want to find her, you go ahead. You think that’ll make you happy? That’s fine. But let me save you a little time. You’re not going to like what you see. Check the homeless shelters and the park benches, okay? My guess is that she’s standing on a street corner, shouting at nothing.”

I couldn’t see straight. I felt like someone had knocked the wind out of me. Was I like her? Would I go insane? Maybe it had already started—all the ways I couldn’t trust my brain. Was that what the vision on the boardwalk was about, all of those women dead in the marsh? The flies? The crying child? Was it just something horrible and ugly that my mind had turned over and spit out, the way the ocean churned up driftwood and bits of glass?

Des stood and pushed her shoulders back, lifted her chin in a mean tilt. “Now excuse me,” she said, walking past me and out the door, her shoulder almost brushing mine. I still thought, for a moment, that she might hug me. That she would soften and feel sorry that I had found out about my mother this way. That there might be a similar fate awaiting me, or maybe it had already begun.

I stayed up late and forced myself to look at the returned letters I’d written. They were full of bargaining, pleading hope. If you let me come, I’ll always clean my room. If I can visit you, you won’t even know I’m there. Why don’t I come help you with your clients? I see things, too. Poor, stupid little girl.

THE NEXT morning, I sat in the shop, my eyes swollen with tears, turning over a few cards, tracing my fingers over the rivers, the stars. I tried to form a question in my mind, something I could ask the tarot, but couldn’t come up with anything. For the first time I could remember, I didn’t want to know what the universe had in store for me, what my future held.

My phone chimed. Lily: Text me back! What’s going on? We were supposed to talk …