God of Tarot Read Online Free

was certainly afoot! He studied her before he answered, trying to judge the appropriate response.
    The Reverend Mother Mary was actually a young woman no older than himself, whose meticulous Order habit could not conceal her feminine attributes or render her sexless. She wore her dark brown hair parted down the middle, cupped to conceal her ears on either side, and pinned firmly in back—yet it framed her face like a mystical aura. Her reversed white collar clasped a very slender white neck, and her cross hung squarely on her bosom. Her robe was so long it touched the floor, concealing her feet. Occasionally it rippled and dragged behind her as she turned. Her personality, he knew, was sweet and open; she was severe only in dire necessity. It would have been all too easy to love her as a pretty girl, had it not been essential to love her as a responsible woman and a fellow human being. And, of course, as the Reverend.
    So it was best to allow her to unburden herself without concern for his feelings, which in any case were not easily hurt. Obviously she believed that what she had to say would cause him distress, and perhaps it would—but he was sure he could bear it. “Please speak freely, Mother.”
    The Reverend stepped to her desk and seemed almost to pounce on something there. “Take these, if you will,” she said, proffering a small box.
    Brother Paul accepted it. He had almost to snatch it, because her hand was shaking. Though her competence and position made her “Mother,” at times she was more like a little girl, uncertain to the point of embarrassment. It had occurred to him before that an older person might have been better suited to the office of Reverend. But there were many Stations, and age was not the primary consideration.
    He looked into the box. It contained a deck of Tarot cards, in its fashion the symbolic wisdom of all the ages.
    She seated herself now, as though relieved of a burden. “Please shuffle them.”
    Brother Paul removed the deck from the box and spread several cards at the top of the deck. They were in order, beginning with the Fool, or Key Zero, and proceeding through the Magician, the High Priestess (also called the Lady Pope), the Empress, the Emperor, and so on through the twenty-two Trumps or Major Arcana and the fifty-six suit cards, or Minor Arcana. The suits were Wands, Cups, Swords, and Disks, corresponding to the conventional Clubs, Hearts, Spades and Diamonds, or to the elements Fire, Water, Air and Earth. Each was a face card, beautifully drawn and colored. He had, like all Brothers and Sisters of the Order, studied the Tarot symbolism, had high respect for it, and was well-acquainted with the cards. One of the Order’s exercises was to take black-and-white originals and color them according to instructions. This was no child’s game; it was surprising how much revelation was inherent in this act. Color, like numbers and images, served a substantial symbolic purpose.
    While he pondered, his fingers riffled the cards with an expertise that belied his ascetic calling. He had not always been a Brother, but like the Apostle Paul to whom he owed his Order name, he had set his savage prior life behind him. Only as a necessary exercise of contrition did he reflect upon the mistakes of his past. One day—when he was worthy—he hoped to seal that Pandora’s box completely.
    He completed the shuffle and returned the deck to the Reverend.
    “Was the question in your mind the nature of my concern with you?” the Reverend inquired, holding the cards in her delicate fingers.
    Brother Paul inclined his head affirmatively. It was a small white lie, since his thoughts had ranged in their unruly fashion all around the deck. Of course he had wondered why he was here; he had not been summoned from the midst of his class merely for chitchat! Still, a white lie was a lie.
    “Let us try a reading,” she said.
    How quickly he paid for his lie! Her intent had been obvious when she gave him