suit of cups | ii

It was your birthday deep in winter when Hawkins finally met the smelly old woman who supplied you with books.

"You can take a bath right away," you hissed. He was more annoyed that for the next six months you were only two years younger than him instead of three, but now dread filled him along with the memory of patchouli and mothballs from times you'd stuck a book on his sleeping face.

The old woman lived at the edge of town, still closer than either of you, and it was one of the few times you saw other children your age, including a few who he'd punched and been punched by for comments about his mother and about you, so Hawkins took your mittened hand in his, your stitches much neater than his own despite you only learning a few months ago. He didn't let go until you passed the iron gate of a row house and you skipped ahead of him to knock.

Besides loud makeup—dark lipstick, no mascara—the old woman looked much like any other on this island, and you hugged her around her waist like you were used to it, though Hawkins could tell you held your breath. He bit back his smirk at that before you introduced him, and he managed to keep his distance with a polite bow of the head. You kicked him in the shin under the table while your hostess rifled around for something, and he tutted you for almost disturbing the tea.

She left you in a sort of drawing room, whose one complete wall was lined with tall bookshelves, including a few spines he recognized from your voracious intake. Incense puffed off a brass holder shaped like a sea king, and Hawkins couldn't excise it from the cocktail of other scents that was surely embedding itself in his hair and clothes.

"Now, darling," the woman said on return, sitting across from the pair of you at the round table. "How old are you this year?"

"Nine," you answered guilelessly.

"Mm. And you?"

He tried to hide that he was startled at being involved. "Eleven, now."

"Hawkins is a Virgo," you explained.

"Ah. I see." She nodded like you'd exchanged a larger volume of information than he could hear. "Birds of a feather."

With that, she held out a tall deck of cards toward you, and pressed your palm on the top before she shuffled them overhand like any of the men on the docks Hawkins had seen playing cards to pass the time. After a good long while, she set them in front of her counter-clockwise in a large wheel. There were twelve of them, and you made a noise of recognition.

The old woman grinned. "Sharp one, you are. Like him." She tapped the card that was at 9 o'clock from your shared point of view, one manicured fingernail on the crown of an enthroned old man, under which read "King of Swords."

You wrinkled your nose. "How is that my first house?"

"Where is your helmsman, dear?"

"Aquarius... oh."

Hawkins had no hope of following what seemed like an entirely disparate topic, the astronomy you read religiously, so he nursed his tea and inspected the rest of the spread. The deck was more colorful than the playing cards his mother had, with thick swathes of blue, red, green, and yellow and more proper illustrations than theirs. He counted two different kings on the table, and realized he'd never looked too closely before, taking for granted that every suit had two monarchs and a jack. But now that he looked, he wondered if his mother's deck wasn't a version of this with the more mystical cards missing. Why, though?

"Swords on three of your four angles," the woman tutted. "You're going to get yourself into many conflicts, and become known for it."

"By who?"

"Only another diviner would argue this much."

"I don't think I like tarot," you said sullenly. "It's not specific."

"Swords, dear."

Privately, Hawkins was impressed. He often found himself dragging you away from your family or other children by the scruff of your neck, how you challenged them as boldly as you did this woman who clearly found you amusing instead of abrasive.

The woman pointed at the third card, counter-clockwise. "Justice. Maybe you can use that tongue of yours to help the Marine."

"As my third house? I'm supposed to make propaganda?"

"Oi," Hawkins said, only half-offended. It was a familiar point.

"And I'm delighted to meet this young man of yours," the woman continued, and you audibly opened your mouth to contradict her, "but I think you should try to make some girl friends." The fifth card looked like three women clinking chalices together in the air.

"He's like a girl."

Hawkins had heard that before, but none of those who said it were you. If there was something girlish about him, whatever that meant, there was as much boyish in you, and you were each something closer to each other than anyone else.

For the next hour of your asking questions and picking the answers apart, Hawkins itched to take notes like when you read your astronomy books, or ask for the rest of the deck to flick through, and eventually he started speaking up himself, trying his hand at interpretation.

"It feels right for you to have The Star," he said carefully.

"It does. I like you, kid," your mentor—because that's what she was—said with a satisfied nod. You stuck your tongue out at him. "The Star as your eighth house suggests you'll be involved in political upheaval of some kind." Hawkins read headlines, at least, about the Revolutionary Army, and the thought of you dying for such a vague cause was laughable. "Or you will have close contact with someone who disrupts the status quo, violently."

You frowned. "I don't see how. I have Mars there, and it's undignified."

"The Six of Cups for your ninth house..." She looked at Hawkins then. "You two will travel together. I'm sure of it."