Magical Me

by Rose David

I stared at the spread of cards, the thickly inked illustrations nudging at my psychic powers. “I’m sensing a lot of conflict in your life right now,” I said. “A lot of people going through changes.”

My sixteen-year-old cousin’s eyes widened. “Yes. That’s exactly what’s happening.”

I nodded sagely and plucked another card out of my deck. Breathing deep, I turned over its blue-and-black patterned surface to reveal--

Oh, I forget which card.

I had realized my incredible psychic powers a few months before, a little while after I bought a deck of Tarot cards at the mall.

Why my strict, Filipino parents had let their fourteen-year-old daughter start dabbling in the black arts, I have no idea. These were the same people that had forced my sister and me to return a Milton Bradley Ouija board after a particularly insightful slumber party.

I’d wanted to get my cards at a mysterious magic shop, kind of like the one I had seen in The Craft. But it turns out, suburban Oklahoma isn’t the best place for that. Instead, I went to the mall and bought a deck at a now-dead bookstore chain.

My first act was to read my sister’s future.

“Let’s see... The Tower...” I read alound from the little booklet that came with my cards. “‘This denotes sweeping and sometimes difficult changes, either for you, or those around you.’”

“That’s nice,” said my sister, her eyes flicking to me for half a second before returning to the television. “But you could say that about anyone.”

“Oh,” I said. “Right.”

I went on with the reading, but it was clear that I had lost her interest. Obviously I needed to hone my psychic abilities.

So I bought a book about the Tarot. For several weeks, I studied it with the same zeal I had once devoted to the sex scenes in a dog-eared copy of Billy Bathgate I’d borrowed from my friend, Marcie.

In the meantime, I didn’t have any willing clients at home, but I had plenty of interested parties on the internet. This was the nineties--before Facebook and before a lot of other stuff. But chat rooms were already a thing, and the best part was, my parents were so non-tech-savvy that they didn’t see anything wrong with their unattended teenage daughter staying up late to talk to strangers.

At my busiest, I was giving three, sometimes four readings a night. And with each successful session (success being measured in how effusive the praise was), my psychic abilities seemed to get sharper and sharper.

Maybe the anonymous nature of the then-internet was why I did so well. I had more time to think--and to look up any wayward card definitions that had escaped my memory.

And people were surprisingly forthcoming with information. Once, while I gave a reading to someone in a chatroom, they asked about what might happen with their new screenplay.

Hmm. A screenplay.

I considered all the implications of that. I didn’t know much about Hollywood, but I had seen enough movies to make an educated guess about what to say.

“Be careful out there. It’s a dog-eat-dog business,” I told him.

At which point he asked me if I had always been psychic, or if this was something that I had been working hard to hone.

“I’ve always felt pangs of intuition, sometimes very intensely,” I answered. “But I believe the cards guide me, and I’m simply open to what they have to say.”

That summer, we went to Florida to visit some relatives. My extended family was fine to get along with, and most importantly, they were so unaccustomed to me that most were amused, instead of annoyed, by my constant offers to divine their fates.

“Can you teach me how to do that?” my cousin asked. This was after I had foretold all the most important aspects of his future, specifically whether his cry-baby friend would get his just comeuppance (he would) and whether said comeuppance would involve my cousin de-pantsing him in the near future (oh, hell yes).

“Sure I can teach you,” I said. I had always imagined myself as someone wise beyond their years, and patient, too. I was now auditioning fo the part of Spiritual Guru, and I felt pretty good about my chances. I took a deep breath, folded my hands in my lap and wondered, “When did you begin suspecting you had psychic powers?”

“What? No. I just want to like, do it at parties and stuff.”

What?

My psychic powers, a parlor trick? The very idea was insulting. “Well, this is really important stuff. You’re predicting the future. Not everyone can do that.”

If my cousin noticed my agitation, his only response was to shrug. “I don’t know. If I just got a book that told me what all the cards meant, couldn’t I just bring it and read it out loud?”

My mystic aura popped like a soap bubble.

I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t just the definitions of the cards. It was what they showed you. The images they ignited in your imagination. The intuitions they inspired in your gut.

And, of course, how nicely these intuitions jibed with the personal information that clients almost always supplied.

As a serious card reader and genuine psychic, I opposed my cousin’s request on ethical grounds. No way was I going to help him make a mockery of this most precious of supernatural gifts.

...was what I thought for about a day.

But since we were in Florida for another week and my desire to be liked pretty much trumped every other concern, I relented. I let my cousin practice with my Tarot deck and skim through my manual, because what the hell.

Besides, I was in a new state, doing new things. I was busy, going to fancy, Florida malls, where the New Age sections were much more robust than those in Oklahoma. On one such trip, I picked up a really fancy deck, one with lush, gorgeous artwork and a striking Renaissance Angel theme.

I used the last of my trip money to buy it.

Back at home, my summer returned to its usual routine of long, slow, sunny days at home, undercut by canned laughter from bad reruns. My jet lag wore away quickly. I stayed up late and hovered around my computer, offering to do card readings for anyone on the internet who felt doubtful and needy.

Not surprisingly, I got a request not two seconds after I pressed ENTER.

I shuffled my beautiful, new deck, breathing deeply and letting my psychic powers course through me. Then I drew the first card.

It was beautiful--a golden-haired woman swirling her hands in a sparkly pond, staring into its depths. I assume she had angel wings, too. Or at least a halo.

I stared at the card, waiting for my powers of divination to reveal the future.

And waiting.

And waiting.

I fumbled through my still-packed bags for my how-to Tarot book until I realized--Oh, crap.

Crap. Crap. Crap.

I had forgotten the book in Florida.

And not just the book; I’d also left behind my real Tarot deck, the one that had taken me through dozens of readings.

On the computer screen, my client registered her impatience by typing a string of question marks, followed by exclamation points, followed by actual curse words, misspelled though they undoubtedly were.

But none of these protestations were going to call my psychic powers back from the ether, or my old deck back from Florida.

Oh, my old deck, which was imbued not only with my unique psychic energy, but with a thousand mnemonic devices that I didn’t even realize I had created.

My tarot skills had returned to what they were on that first, pitiful reading--rote and dull, lacking the psychic insight of a cleverly turned phrase.

And that was that.

Instead of giving away Tarot card readings, I spent my nights writing Buffy fanfiction and eating too much iced cream.

It’s been years, but sometimes I think about my old Tarot deck. I consider emailing my cousin to ask if he still has it. But I never do. Instead, I imagine the cards gathering dust in a storage box, my supernatural greatness sandwiched between a pile of sun-colored participation awards and a pair of worn-out sneakers.