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[ A handmade cardboard sign goes on the podium: 3 CARD TAROT READING: FINAL CHANCE. The wobbly card table with a Tarot pack waiting goes in front. The Boy Detective himself, pasty white and raccoonishly hollow-eyed as ever, stands beside both table and podium. ]

What do you consider a rite of adulthood?

If you want a reading, an answer is my final price. But —

[ So generous a tone here. ]

— if you only want to answer, I won't force one on you. I mean, I'm practically dying and it might be the best reading of the rest of my life and you'd be wasting the special spiritual insight my hovering on the precipice between worlds grants me, but I won't make you.

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I don't.

[ He tucks his bag of cards into an inner pocket of his jacket. Perhaps it's an evasion of the question, but he sounds very certain. ]

[ He gathers the cards back together, the touch of his hands encouraging the design to shift once again. He keeps them moving, the shuffle now slow and simply something to do with his hands. ]

Able to see themselves in each other, and vice versa. [ He says by way of agreement. ] Oh, uh, not really, no. I usually don't have the money.

Everything lands.

I think that's your lesson, not mine.

[ this had become so haunting. He gently lifts his hand to tug on his coat near his heart. Ah, sweet misery. ]

I think you're right.

The first time you puke in public. From drinking. Also in public. Do those Tarot cards actually do anything? Because I'm prrrretty sure it's bullshit.

[she sits down at the table anyway. Hi, deal with her now.]

[ The look the Boy Detective gives him is full of apology, but if there's anything else — compassion, for example — he holds it back. This guy is a slightly ominous stranger, and the Boy is on his way out. Nothing more can be done for either of them. ]

[ The Boy raises his eyebrows and does one of those card shuffling things you generally only see in cartoons. Aside from being visually ludicrous it's not too far from what stage magicians can do, though. ]

Usually it's total bullshit. But today, like I said, I'm on the threshold of death. I've got a special pass to stare into the [ dramatic voice ] worlds beyond [ and back to normal ] and tell you secret stuff. Mystical bullshit.

Also your answer was awful, so that's what you're gonna get anyway. Go on, pick three cards, any three cards.

[ The Boy presents her with the deck, fanned out. When he was shuffling, the cards had some kind of gold and pink rococo pattern thing on the back; now, spread out before her, the background has gone black and there seems to be a single symbol in white, something that looks maybe like a broken stick. A broken ruler, in fact, but it's probably harder to see with the other cards on top and the Boy's fingers in the way. ]

[And suddenly, she's smiling despite herself.] Either of those could work.

[It's Scott all over, isn't it, one of the best and worst things about him. The perfect leader, the good soldier, a role he never escapes. Not for long.

She wonders if that's what attracted Emma, too. She wonders if she'll do better.]

So, how's my future?

[ He would feel guilt, if this weren't his last reading. Not necessarily justified guilt, even; the reader's projections and biases always influence the reading, so if he'd wanted to please this woman where he wanted to confound the other, or where he wanted to find the best truth for Gisela versus the truth that the man didn't want — those things do matter. Psychologically, if not mystically.

It's just nice sometimes to have hope for good things to happen. ]

The same as any future: variable.

[ The final card is also the Moon, though only the Boy would know that hers is different from Gisela's. This moon has an upside down crescent inside its full circle, embracing a smaller spiral. The dog and wolf are less emphasized, almost hidden by their respective towers, and they stare at each other across the river instead of the moon in the night sky. A shadow lurks in the waters. ]

The Moon is classically interpreted as a card of intuition and the unconscious. Some cards put a little lobster coming out of the water, to represent whatever fears and weirdness everyone has swirling around beneath our conscious thought, but probably whoever drew this card thought that was too silly. They're there, though. The Moon is about these kinds of fears, and about illusion and deception.

Given your past and present cards, I think this card suggests your fears aren't as bad as you think they are. Bigger than a lobster but smaller than a leviathan. The Moon also suggests that these fears are making your journey difficult — that reason can only take you so far, and that even though it's scary and maybe even dangerous, you may need to follow your intuition, to accept your own instincts as valid.

[ Her attention lingers on the shifting design of the cards. It does not unsettle her, precisely, but anything so ambiguous stirs up thoughts of family (not home, as she's never had such a thing). Now she looks more clearly at the boy. ]

But you're not asking for money when you read. Of course, money might be a little less valuable to the dying.

Excuse you, that was a dead serious answer. I knew I was truly a woman when I woke up on a stranger's lawn with someone else's puke in my hair for the first time. Truly left my childhood behind that morning, that's for fucking sure.

[That's a little creepy! But somehow, so very appropriate for Penelope. She selects three cards.] Good thing I love mystical bullshit. Wow me, kid.

[ The way he looks back at her is a little wide-eyed, as if he forgot that part. It's not that, though, he's only prone to a certain ingenue slant of persona. ]

I used to, but yeah, not this time. Plus all those other times were practice, and it's not fair to charge a lot for that.

It worked out, though, I think I did good this time. I think I understand better.

Oh, well, I can't argue with experience.

[ Not terribly sassy. The Boy isn't naturally so, and besides, he has a job to do. A non-paying job. Okay it's not a job. Whatever he sets the deck aside on the table and takes her three cards. ]

So you know how this works, right? The past, present, future thing? Here we go-o...

[ He turns the first one over. A blindfolded and bound woman with dark hair stands amid a cluster of swords stuck blade first in the ground. She seems to be on a beach, or some setting with a mingling of water and earth. ]

Mystical bullshit tells me that your past, represented by the Eight of Swords, was full of frustration and fear. Like this woman, you were trapped in this situation by your circumstances, by others — and you didn't really fight back, maybe because you didn't know you could. That's what the blindfold means.

However, the card is also defined as a temporary situation. The water is disrupting the earth beneath her feet. Soon she'll realize she's surrounded by weapons, weapons she is free to use. The Eight of Swords is not a strong card. This part of your past doesn't define who you are, though it's had its influence.

Yeah? I'm glad. [ It worked for her, at least. ]

They're very unusual, those cards of yours. I hope you plan to hang onto them for as long as you can.

Flashy, right? But that's what I wanted for this time. They're — on loan, though.

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