The Same Card, Three Times

The night market comes alive after ten: lanterns strung between the stalls, the sizzle of skewers, a man selling glow-in-the-dark star stickers by the handful. You weren’t planning to stop at the tarot stall. Nobody ever plans to stop at the tarot stall. But the woman behind the velvet-draped table catches your eye and crooks one silver-ringed finger, and somehow you’re sitting down. The table smells of incense and the sugared almonds she keeps in a paper cone by the deck, which she offers you with great ceremony.

She shuffles with the speed of a card shark, bracelets chiming. Her jacket is embroidered with tiny constellations and her eyeliner is a work of art. “I’m Luna,” she says. “It’s just stories, by the way. The cards don’t know anything. But they’re very good at asking questions.”

She draws one and turns it over. Two figures beneath a bright sun. She frowns, shuffles it back in, and draws again. The same card. She narrows her eyes at the deck as if it’s pranking her, shuffles thoroughly this time, cuts it three ways, and draws.

Same card.

“Three times in a row,” Luna says. “The Lovers. Don’t look at me like that, I don’t make the rules. Sit down.” You point out that you’re already sitting. “Sit down more,” she says.

You laugh, and she grins, delighted with herself. She tells you that in the old stories the card isn’t really about romance at all; it’s about a choice, a crossroads, deciding what you value. “So either the deck thinks you’re about to make a big decision,” she says, tapping the card, “or it’s matchmaking, and frankly I don’t appreciate it meddling in my business.”

You ask what she means by her business. She becomes very busy straightening the velvet. “My business,” she says eventually, without looking up, “is telling fortunes, not having them told to me by my own cards. It’s unprofessional. I’m going to have words with this deck later.”

Above the market, the clouds part and a handful of stars appear over the rooftops. Luna glances up and names them without thinking, the way other people name streets in their neighborhood. She tells you which one sailors used, which one is actually two stars pretending to be one, which one she wished on when she was little and is still waiting to hear back from. She describes the sky the way some people describe old songs, every star a verse she knows by heart. Somewhere behind you, a lantern sputters and a vendor laughs, and the whole market feels, for a moment, like a stage set built just for this conversation.

“What did you wish for?” you ask.

“That’s a second-reading question,” she says primly. “Second readings require a return visit.”

A customer hovers behind you. Luna waves them toward her neighbor, the man with the star stickers, and leans across the table, voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur.

“Here’s the thing,” she says. “I’m not supposed to tell people what a card means until the reading’s complete, and yours isn’t. There’s one more card. I only draw it at midnight, when the market lights go out.” She glances at her watch, then back at you, eyes glittering. “That’s in forty minutes. Will you wait with me?”