Perigee [bxb] | Bad Moon Book II

27; {Sadie}: the tower

AN; just a brief chapter. I'm trying to haul ass to get back on the plot but there's a lot of substance to cover between all of the characters kms. We're almost there though.

Sadie watched his eyes turn gold in the gray morning light as Matt shuffled the deck in his hands and cut it in two.

"Now what?" he asked.

Sadie held out a hand. "Give me the bottom half." And as he did, she dealt the first three cards, face down upon the floor. "You thought of your question while you shuffled, yeah?"

"Yeah," Matt said. He looked bored, all slouched to the side. She'd practically had to beg him to let her do a three-card spread so early in the morning. His coffee still sat steaming, fresh from the pot.

"Well, tell me the question," Sadie said.

"I don't wanna."

"Matt, I can't translate the cards if you don't tell me the question."

"Fine, I'm starving anyway." He started to get up, but Sadie caught him by the shirt and heaved him back down.

"Matt," she said firmly, and he let out a deep, nervous sigh through his nose.

"What's my part in all this?" he said. "That's my question. Why am I here, involved in this mess? And what the hell am I supposed to do?"

"I can work with that," Sadie mused. She turned the first card over and laid her hand upon the elegant hunchbacked man, carrying a lantern.

"Who's that?" Matt asked.

"He's your past," said Sadie. "The hermit."

Matt gave an insulted snort, but Sadie admired the card he'd chosen, tracing all of the hermit's jagged edges with the tip of her fingernail.

"It's a good card, Matt. It means wisdom, preparation. But it can also mean that you're on some kind of journey to self-understanding. That isolation is just another means of soul-searching. You were trying to find yourself."

Then Sadie moved onto the next. At the flip of the card, a tower shown—flames blooming from the top where a lightening bolt had struck. She made an unsure sound and Matt looked as if he might slide right out of his skin

"What?" he asked. "What is it?"

"This card is not so good," she admitted. "But this card is the present, Matt. Meaning it's happening now. Don't freak yet, alright? If it's happening now, then you already know."

"What's it mean?" he asked.

"The Tower signifies destruction, disaster. Or sometimes... a sudden epiphany. A flash of truth. But it's not all bad. It can also mean it's time to forfeit your old truths."

"My old truths?" asked Matt, fingers tucked in the loop of his mug. He looked like such a boy in the mornings—hair all lopsided from sleep, lounging about in nothing but his boxers and a t-shirt. Matt had a lot of old truths. Even Sadie knew that.

"Ideas you have built on foundations that aren't exactly right anymore," she explained. "I guess it makes sense that you'd get this card. Disaster has been all around us. But maybe The Tower's a way of saying that you were meant to experience it. Maybe you were... you know, needed the other night. I think this card is telling you to move on from your old life. To face the fire."

She could tell by the frustrated look on his face that Matt wasn't putting the pieces together. To her, both cards made perfect sense. Matt had done more growing than all of them combined; he was a boy from a home of close-minded principals. A home that fed on hate and habits. Matt broke free from that—he was putting himself in a more positive place. Understanding what he really wanted from life. If there was a card to signify his past, the hermit was it.