The Shadows' Child

A Reading

Okay, so Liam was a self-confessed sceptic. There was absolutely no reason to feel so nervous about going to some damn hippy shop to have an idiot in patterned head wrap tell him he was in grave danger and that time he stepped in chewing gum was a bad omen. No, no reason to be nervous at all. Besides, it had been Johnny who had recommended this place after all. It was probably harmless. Probably.

"I just need to go to the doctors', get some sleeping pills and-"

"No, man, wait," Johnny had interrupted from his seat atop the coffee table (looking for all the world like The Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland, only with more facial hair), "you need, like, a more organic approach."

Liam had watched suspiciously as Johnny took another drag on his very...organic looking roll up, holding the smoke before letting it billow out into the air.
Liam wrinkled his nose, "I'm not gonna get stoned with you if that's what you mean."

"No, dude," Johnny snorted, smoke puffing out of his nostrils. He gave a cough and cleared his throat, making a an elaborate gesture with his hands. "Y'just need to get some guidance-"

"I don't do religion, Johnny."

"Jeez, so close minded...I mean like...the mystic side of stuff." He considered for a moment, then snapped his fingers suddenly in a movement that seemed to surprise himself as much as it did Liam. "I got it!"

"What?" Liam asked, folding his arms and leaning his head against the back of the sofa.

"Tarot reading! You should get a tarot reading!"

"I don't need a bloody psychic, Johnny! Are you completely-"

"No, no, hear me out, man. If you go to this reading, right? It'll totally give you closure on whatever you're worrying 'bout or what's keeping you from sleeping. Then boom!" He wiggled his fingers enthusiastically, giggling. "You'll sleep like a baby! It's genius...and I know just the right place!"

Johnny was surprisingly good at persuading people to do things when he was off his face, or that's what Liam kept telling himself anyway. Why else would he be standing in this weird little shop with all its drapes and hanging baubles and-
"Can I help you?"
Liam jumped about a mile into the air at the sudden appearance of man dressed completely in black. He was as tall as Liam was, perhaps a little taller, lean, with dark hair and eyes. He raised an eyebrow at Liam, the start of smirk twitching at the corners of his mouth. "Are you alright, sir?"

"Y-Yes," Liam swallowed, "I'm fine. Um, I'm here for a reading?" A shadow passed over the man's face only briefly before he smiled, flashing white, even teeth. The smile, which was probably supposed to be friendly, just sent a shiver down the back of Liam's neck and caused an unsettling prickling to spread over his skin.

"Yes, sir," the man said, extending one pale hand towards the end of the shop, beyond the counter, "just through here." He led Liam to a a deep, red velvet curtain and pulled it back, sticking his head into the room beyond. "Ceara? Your reading's here," he said, his voice sounding a little odd, a little strained.

"Send them on in please, Tristan," came a disembodied voice from behind the curtain.

The man, Tristan apparently, turned around to Liam and gave him another one of those inexplicably disconcerting grins. "Go on in."

Liam nodded and gave a tight smile. "Thanks." Tristan nodded back in acknowledgement and returned to the front of shop leaving Liam to linger in front of the red drape. Why did he feel so nervous? This was just a load of mystic mumbo jumbo anyway. He gave deep exhale, pushed the curtain back, and went inside.

This room was quieter than the rest of the store, the lively chatter of customers' voices and the mellow sounds of Bob Dylan on the radio in the main shop were muffled by the heavy wall hangings. The light was softer here too, the space being lit only by a Tiffany floor lamp in one corner and a number of candles on the small round table in the middle of the floor. The glow of the candles caused the numerous trinkets and beads hanging from the low, fabric draped ceiling to twinkle. It all felt very far removed from the dingy side of the city in which he found the shop. He felt as though he was somewhere warm, exotic and far away.

So distracted was he by the room itself that Liam barely noticed the slip of a girl who was sitting at the table opposite the empty chair, slowly sifting a deck of cards through her hands. Liam wasn't sure what he had been expecting this...fortune teller to look like, maybe some middle aged, heavily-set old woman in a head scarf. Whatever he had imagined, it most certainly wasn't this. This girl was young, her hair was a dark red, almost auburn colour, it fell long and heavy down her back and the rest of her was pale and delicate looking; like frosted glass. Her eyelashes were dark and cast long shadows on her cheeks as she continued staring down at her cards, still shuffling. Hesitantly, he made his way over to the chair and sat down across from her. He fidgeted.
After what felt like years, she raised her gaze from her deck. The polite smile she'd had on her face flickered for a fraction of a second as she met his eyes.

Her eyes were grey and silvery, not a hint of blue at all. As soon as he saw them, he realised that there was something else about her. Something familiar almost, like he'd seen her passing on the street or through the window of a coffee shop; he'd glanced her face once before, he thought, if only for a second. The maddening familiarity of those eyes made his stomach churn uneasily. She broke the stifling silence. "Hello." The smile was back in place and her hands stilled on the deck of cards.

For a minute, Liam just stared, and then realising what he was doing he stopped and blurted out a quick, "Hello," in return. The girl's eyes glittered a little with uncertainty and she paused before appearing to gather herself.

"My name's Ceara, and you are...?"

"Liam?" He said a little stupidly, like it was a question, he cleared his throat. "Liam. My name's Liam." To her credit, Ceara's face remained entirely composed, not even a hint of a smirk on her face.

"Well, Liam, what can I do for you today?" She folded her hands together over her cards.

"Um," he thought for a minute, trying to come up with a viable reason for being there. In the end, he just told her the truth, it seemed easier. "I'm having trouble sleeping."

Ceara seemed to consider this for a moment, starting to handle her cards again before answering, "Trouble sleeping, huh?"

"Yeah," Liam rubbed the back of his neck, the rest of his words came out in a rush. "I would've just got some tablets or whatever but my friend was kind of...insistent on me trying this first to see if it could sort me out so..."

"So you decided to give it a go?"

Liam felt himself colouring a little, his cheeks getting hot for no apparent reason. At least the lights in here were dim. "Uh, yeah."

Ceara gave a nod of understanding. "You've never had a reading before?" She held her deck in her hands and closed her eyes.

"No," he shifted a bit in his seat.

"Hmm," she said, then her lips moved silently for a moment, she kissed her deck and then set it down onto a cloth on the table. Her eyes opened and she looked at Liam, her stare piercing though him. He shifted again.
"The three card spread, I think," she murmured.

She sifted her cards between her hands gently, her eyes becoming glazed. Once, twice, three times, four times, five times and then, on the sixth shuffle, she set the cards down suddenly and cut the deck. In a seemingly involuntary movement, she flipped three cards off the top of the deck in quick succession. Liam just stared as she came back to herself and began to examine the cards. She tapped the first card with a slender finger. "Past," she said quietly, then held up the card for him to see. "The Nine of Swords. It means that you've been having bad dreams," Liam thought this was pretty obvious, but he listened she carried on, "you've been the victim of violence or great confusion in the past. But things will improve for you with perseverance." Liam's mind drifted back to that night. The night he'd woken up in a pool of blood and snow. Violence and confusion. His mouth went dry.

"The present card," Ceara's finger travelled over to the second card, a bright yellow affair with a man carrying a knapsack, a small white dog yapping at his ankles, "The Fool."

"The Fool?" He repeated.

Ceara smiled. "It can mean a few things," she explained, "that you are doing something out of the ordinary," Liam couldn't argue with that, fortune tellers weren't usually his thing, "or that you are beginning a journey. It could be physically or mentally. It also means that you are entering into this journey with a great deal of innocence and," she paused, "naivety." Before Liam had time to digest this information, she had moved on to the final card. A small line of concentration appeared between her brows.

"The future card," she said softly as her fingertips brushed the illustration a man and a woman standing side by side. She didn't meet Liam's eye. "The Lovers. This card," she tapped it, "means that you have an important decision to make in the future. You shouldn't take this decision lightly, but don't think logically about it, use you intuition. Do what feels right, not what reason dictates is right." With that, Ceara let out a breath then and started to put her cards together again.

Liam watched her silently, then he heard himself say, "That's it?"

She gave a soft chuckle and shrugged. "That's it. I can't give you definite answers, just guidance."

"Yeah," Liam answered, "I know."

Ceara watched him as her hands unconsciously shuffled the cards into a deck once more. She rapped her knuckles gently against it. "So, did it help any?"

"I," Liam stopped.

The truth was, he wasn't sure. Before all this, he would've laughed at the thought of going to a tarot reading, but now Ceara's words were echoing through his head. Violence, confusion, a journey and a decision. It was a lot to think about. Maybe it was all coincidence, all made up; but there was this tiny voice in the back of his mind that said What if it's not? He shook his head, trying to clear it, he chose his words carefully. "I think it gave me some things to consider."
Ceara nodded as if this was the answer she had been looking for,then she picked up her cards and began wrapping them tenderly in a glittering cloth. Liam rose from his chair, suddenly feeling as if he was intruding on something personal. Ceara looked up,

"Goodbye then," she said pleasantly.

"Goodbye," Liam replied before slipping out of the room and heading to the till, where Tristan was still standing, to pay for the reading.

As he left The Velvet Star that day, the seed of an idea planted itself in Liam's head, even though he was unaware of it as yet; the idea that maybe, just maybe, not everything was as black and white as it appeared in this world. Maybe not all was as it seemed.

♠ ♠ ♠

Longest chapter yet I think. I've been in the middle of exams recently and on top of that I had some serious writer's block going on for a while there, so I'm sorry for the delay. Comments would be lovely. ;)