Pall in the Family Read Online Free PDF

enough to give myself some ammunition. I should have known better than to let a relative with a blazing agenda read my cards, but I’d been doing it all my life.
    â€œLet’s move on to the question of Sara,” she said. “The Page of Cups represents Sara, she was developing psychic talents.” She took a moment for a meaningful glance in my direction.
    I was focused on the Death card in the “outcome” position. A skeleton in black armor rode a white horse through a devastated landscape. It didn’t indicate Sara’s death; this was another death or change to come. There were also Judgment and the Moon; the cards indicated I was fighting my psychic abilities to my own detriment. I was beginning to think Mom had stacked the deck. Good thing The Tower—people leaping out of a burning building—was absent or I would have locked myself in my room until the whole thing was resolved.
    â€œOkay, that’s enough. I really don’t need to hear any more about my place in the universe according to the cards. I’ve always done the wrong thing in relation to the tarot.”
    She held up her hand.
    â€œWait, it shows the King of Wands in the near future. Honest, optimistic, a stern and strong-minded leader. You’re going to have to deal with him.”
    â€œWhy don’t you finish up later, okay? Let’s go check on Tuffy.” I couldn’t get away from the cards fast enough. The rest of them did not tell a tale I wanted to hear—fighting your inner self, psychic talents, all leading to death. It was always the same gloom and doom. The only good card was the Three of Cups—three people dancing and holding goblets overhead. At least I would have friends.
    â€œYou know, we wouldn’t have to resort to tarot if you’d allow your own natural abilities to come forward, Clyde.”
    â€œNot again, Mom.” I sighed.
    â€œI just don’t understand why someone with a gift like yours would choose to ignore it.” She gestured at the cards.
    â€œWe’ve really done this enough, don’t you think? It doesn’t seem like much of a gift when all you see is death and destruction. I’m happier not knowing what will happen.”
    â€œThat was a long time ago. You can learn to control it.”
    â€œLet’s go check on Seth and Vi.” I pushed away from the table.
    * * *
    We found them in Violet’s apartment, a three-room annex off the main level of my parents’ living area. The house had originally belonged to my grandmother and when she died, she left it to her daughters. Thanks to Grace, my parents had lost their house when the market crashed in 1987. Grace had one “talent” and that was the ability to predict the stock market. She claimed she saw letters and numbers in an almost constant stream and once she realized what they meant she began investing. In a snit over some fight with Mom, Grace chose not to warn my parents to dump their stock and they ended up losing everything, including their house. Aunt Vi was living with my grandmother at the time, and they had plenty of room. When Mom, Dad, Grace, and I moved in, we got the larger half and the upper floors. Everyone shared the kitchen.
    In the end, I was glad we lost the house. Spending much of my adolescence living with my grandmother had been wonderful. She’d had a calm, serene presence that she hadn’t passed on to her daughters. Unfortunately, she also had psychic talent that she passed on to me. She understood, better than anyone in my family, why I would want to block the messages coming to me.
    Violet had not continued the Victorian theme in her area of the house. Claiming that her clients didn’t need all that “claptrap,” she decorated in a more modern, but just as colorful, fashion. Tuffy was sitting on one of the many client beds Vi kept scattered around her living room. Seth was sitting next to him and petting him