There was an overwhelming majority in the spread, that much he could tell on first appearances as everything pointed to some change, some transition, that waited in the wings of understanding as if something to eventually reveal itself from the shadows; and, for the moment, he paid little mind to the card resting just in front of his right hand by the time the straight across spread was laid out. It was the first four that seemed to chime in unison like a high choir of enlightened hopes that seemed to reach up into the cosmos, and the fifth operated in tangent, a dimmer tune found in the undertow that took an outlandish aura of optimism and gave it a realistic edge.

It may have done him well to dwell on the events of last year in comparison of the cards spread out before him, picking up the adorned skull of Death to twirl it around in his fingers for a moment. His gaze cast on it in careful consideration, pinning it eventually between his index and middle finger.

Once upon a time, it might have been aligned with misunderstanding, Henry holding no knowledge – distant or otherwise intimate as it had become – of what any of the cards might have meant; but he knew now it was rarely the physical rather spiritual, a transformation of self that took someone on a new path that may have been difficult, may have been unexpected or sudden, perhaps even traumatic, and no means an absolute end. Just an ending in part, layman thought echoing a death of former self for something new; of former associations and relationship for something new; of, as the rest of the cards had preceded it, what had been in exchange for a new, most positive direction.

What that direction may have been, he couldn’t say, but then again, such changes were never so black and white or posted big and bright in front of one’s own two eyes; but his focus had shifted, the card settled back down onto the table so he could focus on the sixth in the draw.

Justice – reversed, which held little of the same optimistic charm of its predecessors.

If Death had been the realism, Justice had been the identifier, zeroing in on a moment in time that lived in bits and pieces of his own memory, blocked off by mental manipulations and perhaps his own unwillingness to focus attention on something he knew, that in this world of volleying from one identity to another, would either be forgotten or moved on from. It did little well to dwell on aggressions made in those weeks no one was really quite in their right minds, and while he had enough experience to understand such a thing, there was still room to reflect on what injustices had been found in the lives of others – an island under siege, many lost to the ire of a woman scorned, and his hand not at all unclean of it.

But was he really trying to hide from it? Was he really trying to avoid it?

Eyes narrowed as he regarded the card further, picking it up as he sat back in his seat behind the front counter of Arcana which, for the moment, was quiet in those late hours when the doors were closed up from potential customers who likely didn’t have picking up magical wares on their evening agendas to begin with lest they had found some power in the witching hour and distractions from the swirl of his psyche would be limited, perhaps even non-existent – until it hadn’t been.

With a simple ring of a bell as if a door had opened and just as quick departure, a package had been left on the counter next to him, spied only when he had turned his attention to the spread once more. Card set back into order with the rest, he reached out for the parcel, opening it up only to spy another set of cards within and a simple note, not embellished with words but a symbol: A sparrow.