A month later...

Olivia was waiting for her when she walked into Metropolis Metaphysical. "Joan! Petra, can you watch the front, I have a reading."

"Liv, you know I don't believe..." Joan started to protest but her high school bestie dragged her into a strongly sage-smoke and patchouli-oil scented room then hug-mauled her.

"I know you don't, but last night I dreamed that I was supposed to read for you today so just sit down and take it like a good sport." Liv waved a smudge stick around her and scowled, "Oh, your aura has so much anger in it. It needs a good cleansing."

"Please stop," Joan begged futilely.

Then she held out a tray with eight decks of cards on them. "Pick one."

Joan stared at her. "Can we just go to lunch?"

Smirking Liv shook her head. "Nope, the Fates have a message for you. Love is waiting. Pick a deck."

"I don't believe in fate or love anymore," Joan declared but a dark deck caught her eye. A stylized almost Art Deco marigold with a frond of leaves on each side. It gave her the odd sensation of swirling like the twisting eye of a hurricane or curving arms of a spiral galaxy with a flower at the center. It was dramatic beauty in black and gold and appealed to her viscerally.

"It doesn't matter, Fate believes in you, and you deserve to find love again."

Joan started to get up, but Olivia put down the tray and pressed her shoulders down with a gentle touch. "You and Paul haven't loved each other in a long time. Familiarity breeds contempt is a colloquialism for a reason. You both stopped trying because it was more comfortable for the days to be shampoo."

"What are you talking about? Shampoo days?" Joan muttered angrily but Olivia didn't move or speak again until Joan looked up at her.

"Lather, rinse, repeat, like shampoo... You deserve better, now pick a deck and shuffle them."

Joan glanced back at the tray and picked up the black and gold marigold cards. "This one."

Olivia's eyebrow went up on the left side, but she picked up the tray and set it on a sideboard table as Joan side-shuffled the cards. The thick cardstock and almost canvas texture felt appealing in her hands as she repeated the movements Olivia taught her in high school. Shuffling was oddly calming. The metallic gold edges of the cards felt glossy and cool leaching the heat of her perpetual state of grief and anger away. Soon, Joan felt her annoyance fading. She glanced at Olivia.

"Do you want me to stop?"

"No. Stop when you feel ready to stop." Olivia sat down across from her with a smug smile as Joan shuffled the cards one last time then held them out.

"Are you sure the cards are ready?"

"Just deal them," Joan groaned.

"Tarot cards aren't dealt. They are pulled. The Marigold Tarot deck is more about self-reflection and meditation than divination." Olivia quickly laid the cards out in two rows of three cards and one above. Slowly, she turned the cards over. At the first card, she grinned. "This is your past relationship, the reversed knight of rings or pentacles. This is Paul."

As Olivia explained the meaning, Joan studied the card in horror. The upside-down skeleton drawn in stark white lines on the black card was wearing a gold-embellished tunic and sash, with a sword at one hip and a golden ring clutched in the other bony hand.

"In traditional tarot, this card in this position signifies someone of inconsistent efforts who doesn't pull their own weight and pushes their responsibilities off onto others while maintaining appearances. Oh, and here's the next one, The Tower. A dramatic and catastrophic change that comes unexpectedly."

Joan rolled her eyes. "You're just saying that because you hated Paul and he died suddenly."

"I'm not saying it, the cards are. Here's you, the queen of wands. It really is a perfect card for you, representing a kind woman who is practical, talented, accomplished, and loyal. The kind of person who gives good advice but doesn't always listen to it," Olivia revealed as she held up the card, another skeleton in a hooded dress tending giant sunflowers.

It was beautiful and horrifying at the same time. "Why am I a skeleton too? I'm not dead."

"This deck deals with life and death, you picked it or rather it picked you," Olivia announced as she turned over another card. "And when you were with Paul, you acted dead on the inside."

"I picked it because I thought it was pretty and golden flowers and, and artsy," Joan objected, ignoring the jab.

Flipping another card, Olivia began to talk about new beginnings and rebirth while Joan stared at the inverted image of death on a bicycle.

Tapping the card, Joan demanded, "What the actual hell does that mean?"

"The Chariot in the reversed position means a lack of forward progress and loss of control."

"My life is a roller coaster right now and I don't need the universe to tell me this," Joan announced with a scowl.

"Yes, but there is something else. The reasons for this card in this position are pride, arrogance, ego, stubbornness, but none of those you have problems with, so it could be talking about difficulty while traveling." Olivia stared at the card contemplatively. "Are you planning a trip."

"Not after the last one... There was nothing humorous about going to the Appalachians and losing Paul to red tide." Joan suddenly felt very guilty again about her plans to leave him after that trip because she was mad about how much it cost him or rather didn't cost him.

"How did his favorite team kill him? I thought you said he got bad food from the buffet and crapped himself to death in the bathtub." Olivia's bluntly worded response made Joan cough a laugh uncomfortably as Olivia smirked, "I'm not wrong."

"It wasn't the Crimson Tide that killed him, though he was listening to the Tide playing someone when he died. It was red tide and botulism together. We won the case barely, but the guy will be in jail for a few decades." Joan revealed. "Can we just finish and go to lunch? I don't want to talk about Paul."

"Really?" Olivia turned over the next card, an anatomically drawn human heart with three golden swords stabbed through it. "Because the cards think his sudden death revealing his betrayal and deceptions are all you are thinking about."

"Fine, I'm moping. Does fate or the universe have any good news for me?" Joan glanced at her watch and wondered if she could hurry her friend along.

The next card turned over was a skull with the top cut off. A horn seemed to be pouring oil into it as drops like tears dripped out of the side of the face turned away. Olivia's oh made Joan glance at her.

"Why are you smiling? This image is sick."

"Perhaps or perhaps not. Have you recently met someone who you felt a connection to?" Olivia asked, "Someone who flirted with you?"

Suddenly, Joan remembered Hades. In the trauma of the case and after math of Paul's death, she hadn't thought about him beyond checking to make certain he and his sister weren't on the victim list and being relieved they weren't affected. She blushed slightly at the memory of him watching her lick her lips.

"Oh, my goddess! You have! Olivia flipped the last card and grinned. "The Lovers. Spill because he is your next boyfriend."

"Don't be ridiculous. I am never dating again." Refusing, Joan groaned. "Can we go to lunch now?"

"Nope, spill. Is he hot? Where did you meet?" Olivia put her chin in her palm as her elbow rested on the table. "You know The Lovers isn't just about sex, its about companionship and having a true connection." She held up the card with the other hand. One robed skeleton was holding flowers while the other was tipping its skull face toward it with gentle bone fingers. To Joan, it looked like the moment before a kiss, if they had lips or skin.

"What do you see. Joan? Friends or lovers?"

"I see dead people," Joan answered wryly. She didn't believe in any of this, but it did all seem oddly specific to her life the last few months. "Can we please go to lunch, Liv? I'm starving."

Her friend eyed her then pulled a card from the bottom of the deck. A bleached skeleton looking contemplatively at a golden skull, it reminded Joan of Hamlet.

"What does this card say to you?"

"I'm to contemplate my own mortality and that of those around me, right? I've been doing plenty of that."

"This is Strength but not the physical kind." Olivia fanned the cards. "Pick one more."

Joan knew better than the just snatch one, which was what she wanted to do. She ran her fingers over the edge of the cards then back, pulling one, it had lots of swords.

Putting the two cards side by side, Olivia looked at her with sadness and hope. She tapped the second card. "The Ten of Swords indicates and end of troubles or a difficult struggle. The moments after a defeat of some kind... The cards are telling you it's time to let go and move on from the negative emotions associated with your struggle, it's time to forgive, release, and begin a new journey because your last one ended in defeat or futility. It's time to stop dwelling on Paul."

She overlapped the Swords card with the Strength card. "You have fortitude and compassion to endure the struggle behind and meet the man of your dreams ahead." She finished by laying The Lovers on top of the other two.

"Shall we get a clue to your mystery man?" Then she held out the fanned deck back to Joan, who sighed and pulled another card out and laid it down. Death.

"Interesting..." Closing the fan, Olivia drummed on the deck in her palm with her other hand's fingertips.

"So, I'm going to start dating Death?" Joan asked dismissively.

"The Death card isn't about literal death. It's a turning point card. A time of transformation and a suspension of disbelief as one season ends, and another begins. This card is about endings and new beginnings, it's about renewal and change." Olivia scanned the table then smiled at her childhood friend. "Once you get past grieving that shallow, selfish prick and raging at about everything he did, you're going to be with someone special. Love is waiting around the corner."

"You sound like a fortune cookie, and his name was Thane Hades." Joan answered smugly at Olivia's shocked face. "But I have no way to contact him. I lost his card while all the insanity during the... After the poisoning, when the investigation was going on. He saved my life."

"Thane like Thanatos, Hades?" Olivia suddenly seemed very serious. "Death saved your life?"

"He gave me a bottle of water and my favorite protein bar, so I didn't have to eat anything from the buffet... If we go eat now, I promise to tell you about him," Joan bargained.

Olivia nodded as she looked at the spread of tarot cards again. "I'll get my bag."

Standing, Olivia paused to look at the candle in front of a carved statue that reminded Joan of a Greek goddess surrounded by flowering vines, then left. When Olivia came back, she took a picture of the spread, sent it to Joan's phone, and then gathered the cards and put them in a matching box. "Promise me you will put these on your table at home and consider it."

"I am not taking those home with me. You know I don't believe in any of it." Joan walked toward the front area.

Frowning, Olivia looked at the statue. "I'll keep trying, my lady." She tucked the box into her bag. She blew out the candle before she went into the main store with a bright smile for her coworker. "See you tomorrow, Petra." She looped her arm in Joan's. "So, who's driving?"

Sighing, Joan shook her head. "I had to turn the Lexus in. I haven't found another one. I use Catherine's car sometimes, but I don't want to take advantage. I rode the subway from the High Street Station."

Olivia side-hugged her, assuring her, "Then we'll take the Beetle and I'll drive you home. How do you like living in Brooklyn Heights?"

"I love it," Joan smiled then added, "But the house is too big for just me. I need a roommate or something."

"Where's Catherine?" Olivia unlocked the doors and they got in.

"She went to spend her last few months with her sister in the Shetland Isles, she's got cancer." Joan admitted so sadly, "I wish I had the money to join her. I miss her so much. I didn't realize how much I loved spending time with her until Paul died. I honestly feel like he tried to keep us apart so she wouldn't spill his secrets."

Olivia reached over and squeezed her hand, changing the subject. "So, tell me about this guy named after death's incarnations who saved your life and everything since, and not the abridged version."

"It will take a while."

"I've got all afternoon cleared for you," Olivia revealed. "How about we stop and get some dumplings to go?"

"Sounds great." Joan smiled a genuine smile for the first time in months. It was nice to get to see Olivia more than once a season or so. She realized that because of Olivia and Paul's issues, she missed a decade of lunches like this with her oldest friend and she regretted it.