Sweet Unrest Read Online Free PDF Page B

got more sense than that. You been growing up with the past since before you was born. Cain’t have no future without no past.”
    “You sound like my dad,” I muttered, a bit unnerved at how close she’d come to describing my childhood.
    “He’s a smart man, then,” she said matter-of-factly. “Now, as I was telling you, this here card represent your past.” She flipped it over and showed me its face. Unlike the back of the card, the picture on the face was stunning. It was printed in surprisingly lush colors, with iridescent ink that didn’t show any signs of wear from age. When the light hit it, the picture seemed to be in motion.
    Mama Legba didn’t bother to explain the strange card, just flipped the next card, and the next. “This is your present and this show your future.” She sat and looked at the cards, making a soft rumbling noise deep in her throat that sounded like an admonition. The corners of her lips twitched again as she looked up at me with amusement in her eyes. “You gonna be an interesting one to watch, Lucy-girl. You drew yourself some very powerful cards.”
    “That’s good, right?”
    She nodded. “Look here.” She pointed to the overturned cards, tapping two of them with her long finger. “You drew mostly the major Arcana. That’s rare. They only—maybe—a third of the whole deck. But they’s the most important cards. The trump cards. They mean your life’s gonna be of major importance. You gonna have yourself a higher purpose than most in this world.”
    Well, that at least sounded promising. I could live with a higher purpose, as long as that purpose didn’t require me to stay in Louisiana.
    “We start here.” Mama Legba pointed to the distant past card. It was a picture of a woman with long, raven hair sitting in a chair and holding two long broadswords in a defensive cross in front of her.
    “The Two of Swords. This here card shows me that in the past, you blocked your emotions and avoided the truth because you refused to see what was right in front of you.” She glanced up at me with a look that said she wasn’t surprised.
    “See here, how the woman is blindfolded? She don’t see the truth. The swords she holds is crossed over her heart, because she won’t allow herself to feel the truth. You kept someone or something out because you didn’t trust in your own heart,” she told me, reaching across the table to tap lightly on my chest.
    She moved on to the next card. “This here card, the Fool, is your present.”
    I snorted back a laugh. “Figures.”
    “Girl, the Fool don’t mean that you foolish.” Mama Legba paused for effect. “Though maybe you is. Look at the card. Tell me what you see.”
    I looked at the card. At first glance, it looked like a Joker, but when I looked more carefully, I saw something more in the picture. The fool wasn’t wearing the usual court jester hat, as I’d originally thought. The hat was actually his—no, her— hair, blowing wildly in the wind as she seemed to leap onward. She carried a brilliant crimson bag and was accompanied by a sleek, Whippet-like dog.
    “She seems so free,” I said, reaching out to touch the card. As my fingers brushed its worn surface, I swear I felt a breeze ripple through my hair.
    Mama Legba clucked approvingly. “See here, girl, this card mean that you starting something—a journey or quest. It’s signifying new beginnings and new challenges.”
    “No offense, ma’am, but it doesn’t take a fortune-teller to know that I’m starting something new,” I said. “We just moved here.” But I felt a niggling doubt.
    “True enough. But the move is only part of your quest. See here, how the card be facing away from you?”
    I nodded.
    “The fool usually be telling you to follow your heart, but the position of this card is closed. It means you is reluctant to give yourself that freedom.”
    I didn’t understand how the idea pertained to my life, but Mama Legba didn’t give me time to think