The crystal ball sat unblinking on the table, which was dressed with black silk, I moved to alleviate my discomfort on the the hard backed chair. She was sitting peacefully in front of me, meditating or in some kind of trance I suppose, and I waited, looking at her and around at my surroundings. What was I doing here? Why had I decided to do something like this? My varicose vein was killing me.
Eventually she came out of her reverie and her eyes opened and settled on me. I shrank back a bit and held her gaze momentarily before looking away and coughing gently. I glanced back and she was still staring at me. What did she want from me? Hells bells!
Madame Shantelle was a large woman in a purple velvet dress, which clashed with her lined, tired skin creating an interesting textured effect of wrinkles and worn fabric. She had long painted nails, purple again, and fat fingers with multiple rings, all glinting with costume jewellery intensity. Her hair was dyed henna orange and permed into a fiery frizz, which sat about her head like a halo. This was definitely not my usual scene.
“Hello love and what can I do for you today? Come for a bit of a reading have we, to consult the cards?”
Her voice was like golden syrup bubbling in a fry pan with some animal fat.
“Have you had a tarot reading before?”
She wet her lips with a greyish pink tongue, which peeked out between her purple lip sticked lips.
I saw my brief life fast forwarded in quick review and came up empty.
“nnn…no, I hhhaven’t,” I managed to get out.
“Never mind put yourself at rest, it is nothing to fear and much to profit from.”
The cards in a deck, shabby and well thumbed, sat disconsolately on the silk clad table. Her fat old fingers soon found them in a familiar caress and stroked their tired surfaces as she shuffled. Murmuring some mantra or tune.
“I will get you to have a bit of a shuffle with the cards, so’s you can get to know each other like.”
She extended the pack to me and I reached out, avoiding the sharp edges of a ring or two, and took hold of the cardboard cards. I looked down at the design on the back of the cards and noticed a swirling tail of some creature or another. I fumbled the largish cards and had to steady myself with my other hand to avoid dropping them and scattering a mess of them everywhere.
“sorry!”
“No problem love, take your time.”
“how shuffled do you want them?” I queried.
“Just a little more and perhaps have a think about what you would like to ask the cards dearie.”
Her powdered cleavage rose up as Madame Shantelle took in breath and a slight wheezing emanated from her. Purple velvet stretched across a vast expanse of chest and it shook with the effort of each breath.
I finished with the cards and proffered them back to her and prepared myself for the next instalment of this strange process.
“I want you to close your eyes now and think of your question. Take a deep breath and focus on your desires for the cards to answer.”
Still holding the deck I did as she asked and shut my eyes, hoping that I wouldn’t be assaulted or something worse.
“Now put the deck down on the table, still with eyes shut, and carefully cut the deck into three piles, using just your left hand.”
I felt for the table surface and found it, still there, and like a blind person I sensed the cards and separated sections into the requested amounts. I waited for what was next and took another unasked for deep breath.
“Now put the deck back together in any order you feel to, just let it happen when it feels right.”
I felt around again in the dark and my hand made contact with a small pile of cards. I reached further and felt the second and third groupings of tarot cards. Time seemed to be painfully slow and I thought that I better get on with it, and so pulled and piled cards together in to one formation.
I felt her hand brush mine and confidently grab the newly arranged deck.
“Righteo you can open your eyes and we shall begin.”
She turned the top card over and revealed a king, whose feet were immersed in water, within a stream.
“I see a tall dark stranger…”
