Meredith looked back down at the green-backed cards shot through with gold and silver. ‘Someone did a good job.’
Laura made a fan of the suit of pentacles, facing Meredith on the table, starting from the ace at the beginning to the king at the end. Then she dealt a few cards from the major arcana at the head of the deck.
‘See the difference between the two styles?’
Meredith nodded. ‘Sure, although they’re pretty similar, the colours in particular.’
Laura tapped one of the cards. ‘Here’s another unique modification in the Bousquet Tarot. As well as the names of the court cards having been changed - Maître and Maîtresse, for example, instead of King and Queen - there are personal touches in some of the major arcana too. This one, for example, card II, is usually called the High Priestess. Here, she has the title La Prêtresse. The same figure appears here in card VI too as one of the lovers - Les Amoureux. Also, if you look on card XV, Le Diable, it is the same woman again chained at the demon’s feet.’
‘And that’s unusual?’
‘Many packs link cards VI and XV, but not usually II as well.’
‘So some person,’ said Meredith slowly, thinking aloud, ‘either independently or on instruction, went to a lot of trouble to personalise these cards.’
Laura nodded. ‘In fact, I’ve sometimes wondered if the major arcana of this deck might actually be based on real people. The expressions on some of the faces seem so vivid.’
Meredith glanced down at the image of La Justice on the front of the brochure.
Her face is my face.
She looked across the table at Laura, on impulse suddenly wanting to say something about the personal quest that had brought her to France. To tell her that in a matter of hours, she was heading for Rennes-les-Bains. But Laura started speaking again and the moment was lost.
‘The Bousquet Tarot also respects traditional associations. For example, swords is the suit of air, representing intelligence and intellect, wands is the suit of fire, energy and conflict, cups is the suit associated with water and the emotions. Finally pentacles’ - she tapped the card of the king sitting on his throne surrounded by what looked like gold coins - ‘is the suit of earth, of physical reality, of treasure. ’
Meredith scanned the images, concentrating hard as if committing each to memory, then nodded to let Laura know she was done.
Laura cleared the table, leaving only the major arcana, which she dealt into three rows of seven cards facing Meredith, lowest number to highest. Le Mat, card 0, the unnumbered Fool, she placed alone at the top.
‘I like to see the major arcana in terms of a journey,’ Laura said. ‘They are the imponderables, the big issues of life that cannot be changed or fought against. Laid out like this, it’s clear how these three rows represent the three different levels of development - the conscious, the unconscious and the higher consciousness.’
Meredith felt her sceptical gene kick in.
This is where the facts run out.
‘At the start of each row is a powerful image: Le Pagad, the Magician, at the beginning of the first row. La Force at the beginning of the second. Finally, at the head of the bottom row, we have card XV, Le Diable.’
Something stirred in Meredith’s mind as she looked at the image of the twisted demon. She glanced at the faces of the man and woman chained at the devil’s feet with a spark of recognition. Then it faded.
‘The advantage of laying the major arcana out like this is that it not only shows the journey of the fool - Le Mat - from ignorance to enlightenment, but it also makes explicit the vertical connections between the cards,’ Laura continued. ‘So, you can see how Strength is the octave of the Magician, and the Devil is the octave of Strength. Other patterns also leap out: both the Magician and Strength have the infinity sign above their heads. Also, the Devil is raising his arm in a gesture reminiscent of the Magician.’
‘Like two sides of the same person.’
‘Could be,’ Laura nodded. ‘Tarot is all about the patterns, about the relationships between one card and another.’
Meredith was only half listening. Something Laura had just said bugged her. She thought a moment, before she got it.
Octaves.
‘Do you usually explain these principles in terms of music?’ she asked.
‘Sometimes,’ Laura replied. ‘It depends on the querent. There are lots of ways to explain how Tarot can be interpreted; music is just one of them. Why do you ask?’
Meredith shrugged it off. ‘Because it’s my area of work. I guess I was just wondering if you had somehow picked up on that.’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t remember mentioning anything about it, that’s all.’
Laura gave a slight smile. ‘Does the idea bother you?’
‘What, that you somehow picked it up, no,’ she lied. Meredith didn’t like the way it was making her feel. Her heart was telling her she might learn something about herself, about who she really was. So she wanted Laura to get things right. At the same time, her head was telling her it was all nonsense.
Meredith pointed to La Justice. ‘There are musical notes around the hem of her skirt. Weird, huh?’
Laura smiled. ‘Like my daughter said, there’s no such thing as coincidence.’
Meredith laughed, although she didn’t think it was funny.
‘All systems of divination, like music itself, work through patterns,’ Laura continued. ‘If you’re interested, there was an American cartomancer, Paul Foster Case, who came up with a whole theory linking particulars of the major arcana to individual notes of the musical scale.’
‘Maybe I’ll check that out,’ Meredith said.
Laura gathered up the cards and tidied the deck. She held Meredith’s gaze, and for one clear, sharp moment, Meredith was certain she was seeing right into her soul; seeing all the anxiety, the doubt - the hope too - reflected in her eyes.
‘Shall we make a start?’ Laura said.
Even though she knew it was coming, Meredith’s heart lurched.
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Why not?’
CHAPTER 15
‘Shall we stick with the Bousquet deck?’ Laura said. ‘You clearly feel some connection with it.’
Meredith looked down. The backs of the cards put her in mind of the woods around Mary’s home in Chapel Hill. The colours of summer and fall all mixed up together. So different from the quiet suburbs of Milwaukee where she’d grown up.
She nodded. ‘OK.’
Laura removed the other three decks from the table, the brochure too.
‘As we discussed, I’ll do a general reading,’ she said. ‘It’s my own spread based on a version of the Celtic Cross, a ten-card reading using the whole pack, minor as well as major arcana. It will offer an excellent overview of where you are now, what has happened in your recent past, and what the future might hold.’
And we’re back in crazy territory.
Except Meredith found she wanted to know.
‘At the time the Bousquet Tarot was printed, the end of the nineteenth century, Tarot reading was still mysterious, dominated by cabals and elites.’ Laura smiled. ‘Things are different today. Modern readers seek to empower people, to give them the tools, the courage if you like, to change themselves and their lives. A reading is more likely to be of value if the querent confronts their hidden motivations or unconscious patterns of behaviour.’
Meredith nodded.
‘The downside with this is that there is an almost infinite variety of interpretations. Some people will tell you, for example, that a majority of major arcana cards coming up in a reading indicates that the situation is outside your control, whereas a majority of minor arcana suggests that your fate is in your own hands. All I can advise before we start is that I see a reading as a guide to what might happen, not what will happen.’
‘OK.’
Laura put the deck of cards down on the table between them. ‘Shuffle them well, Meredith. Don’t hurry. And while you’re doing it, think of what it
is you most want to discover, what it was that brought you here today. Some people find it helps to shut their eyes.’
There was a light breeze coming in through the open window, a relief after the earlier humidity. Meredith reached out and picked up the cards and began to shuffle. Slowly, the present started to recede from her conscious mind as she lost herself in the repetitive motion.
Fragments of memory, images and faces, floated into her mind in tones of sepia and grey, then melted away. Her beautiful, vulnerable, damaged mother. Her grandmother, Louisa, sitting at the piano. The serious-looking young man in military uniform in sepia tones.
All the family she had never known.
For a moment, Meredith felt she was floating, weightless. The table, the two chairs, the colours, herself, all seen from a different perspective.
‘OK. When you’re ready, open your eyes.’ Laura’s voice was very distant now, heard but not heard, like the sound of music after the note has ended.
Meredith blinked as the room rushed back to meet her, blurred at first, then somehow brighter than before.
‘Now put the deck down on the table and cut it in three, using your left hand.’
Meredith did so.
‘Put the cards back together, the middle pile first, then the top, then the bottom.’ She felt Laura waiting until she was done. ‘OK, the first card you’re going to draw is what we call the significator. For this reading, this is the card that will represent you, the querent, the person you are now. The sex of the figure on the card isn’t important because each card carries within it archetypal masculine or feminine qualities and characteristics.’
Meredith slid out a card from the middle of the deck and laid it face up in front of her.
‘La Fille d’Epées,’ said Laura. ‘The Daughter of Swords. Swords is the suit of air, remember, of intellect. In the Bousquet deck, the Daughter of Swords is a powerful figure, a thinker, someone strong. At the same time, she is someone perhaps not fully connected to others. This could be because of her youth - the card often indicates a young person - or because of decisions taken. Sometimes it can indicate someone at the beginning of a journey.’
Meredith looked down at the image on the card. A slender and petite woman, wearing a knee-length red dress, with straight black hair to her shoulders. She looked like a dancer. She held the sword with both hands, neither threatening nor as if she herself was under threat, but as if she was protecting something. Behind her, a jagged mountain peak was set against a fierce blue sky dotted with white clouds.
‘It is an active card,’ Laura said, ‘a positive card. One of the few unequivocally positive sword cards.’
Meredith nodded. She could see that.
‘Draw again,’ said Laura. ‘Put this next card beneath La Fille d’Epées to your left. This second card denotes your situation as it is now. The environment in which you are working or living at the present time, the influences working on you.’
Meredith placed it in position.
‘The Ten of Cups,’ Laura said. ‘Cups is the suit of water, of emotion. This is also a positive card. Ten is the number of completion. It marks the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. It suggests that you are standing upon a threshold, that you are ready to move on and to make changes from a current position, which is already one of fulfilment, of success. It’s an indication of changing times to come.’
‘What kind of threshold?’
‘It could be work, could be in your personal life, or both. Things will become clearer to you the further on in the reading we get. Draw again.’
Meredith took a third card from the deck.
‘Place this below and to the right of the significator,’ Laura instructed. ‘This indicates any possible obstacles in your way. Things, circumstances, people even, that might prevent you from moving on or making changes or achieving your goal.’
Meredith turned the card over and placed it on the table.
‘Le Pagad,’ said Laura. ‘Card I, the Magician. Pagad is an archaic word used in the Bousquet Tarot and not in many other decks.’
Meredith looked hard at the image. ‘Does it represent a person?’
‘Usually, yes.’
‘Someone to be trusted?’
‘It depends. As the name suggests, the Magician may be on your side, but he - or she - may not. Often he is someone who acts as a powerful catalyst for transformation, although always with this card there is a hint of trickery, of balancing judgement with intuition. The Magician has control over all the elements - water, air, fire and earth - and the four suit symbols, cups, swords, wands, and pentacles. Its appearance indicates perhaps someone who could use their skills, with language or knowledge, for your benefit. Equally, the person might use the same gifts to obstruct you in some way.’
Meredith looked at the face on the card. Piercing blue eyes.
‘Is there someone in your life you feel might have this role?’
She shook her head. ‘Not that I can think of.’
‘It could be someone from the past who, although not in your day-to-day life, still has some sort of influence over how you see yourself. Someone who, despite his or her absence, is a negative influence. Or someone you’ve yet to meet. Equally, someone you do know, but whose role in your life has not yet become central.’
Meredith looked down at the card again, attracted by the image and the contradictions contained within it, willing it to mean something. Nothing struck her. No one came to her.
She drew another. This time her reaction was quite different. She felt a rush of emotion, of warmth. The image was of a young girl standing beside a lion. Above her head was the infinity symbol, like a crown. She was wearing a formal, old-fashioned green and white dress with mutton sleeves. Her copper hair tumbled in loose curls all the way down her back to a narrow waist. Exactly the way, Meredith realised, she’d always pictured Debussy’s La Damoiselle Élue, the chosen maiden, half Rossetti, half Moreau.
Remembering what Laura had said, Meredith had no doubt that this illustration might have been based on a real person. She read the name on the card: La Force. Number VIII. The eyes were so green, so vivid.
And the longer she looked, the more sure she became that she’d seen this image - or one real similar - in a photograph or a painting or in a book. Crazy. Of course it wasn’t possible. But still, the idea took root.
Meredith looked across the table at Laura.
‘Tell me about this one,’ she said.
CHAPTER 16
‘Card VIII, Strength, is associated with the star sign Leo,’ said Laura. ‘The fourth card in the reading is taken to indicate one single, overriding issue - very often unconscious, unacknowledged by the querent - that has influenced the decision to seek a reading. A powerful motivator. Something guiding the querent.’
Meredith immediately protested. ‘But that’s not—’
Laura raised her hand. ‘Yes, I know you told me it was chance - my daughter pressing a leaflet into your hands, you being in the area today and having time to come up - but at the same time, Meredith, might there also be something more to it? The fact that you are sitting here?’ She paused. ‘You could have walked by. Not chosen to come in.’
‘Maybe. I don’t know.’ She considered. ‘I guess.’
‘Is there a particular situation or person you might associate with this card?’
‘Not that I can think of, although . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘The girl. Her face. There’s something familiar about her, although I can’t pin it down.’
Meredith could see Laura was frowning.
‘What?’
Laura dropped her eyes to the four cards laid on the table. ‘Readings based on the Celtic Cross spread mostly have a straightforward sequential pattern.’ Meredith could hear the hesitation in her voice. ‘Even though it’s early in the reading, usually by this time it’s clear to me which events belong to the past, the present, and the future.’ She paused. ‘But here, for some
reason, the timeline is confused. The sequence seems to be jumping backwards and forwards, as if there is some blurring of events. Things slipping between past and present.’
Meredith leaned forward. ‘What are you saying? That you can’t interpret the cards as I’m drawing them?’
‘No,’ she replied quickly. ‘No, not quite that.’ She hesitated again. ‘To be honest, Meredith, I’m not entirely sure what I’m saying.’ She shrugged. ‘Things will fall into place if we keep going.’
Meredith didn’t know how to react. She wanted Laura to be more explicit, but couldn’t think of the questions to ask to get the answers she needed, so said nothing.