The High Priestess
Sparks from the fire pitch like smelted gold toward the embrace of the full moon. It is a cloudless night. The woman is no longer surprised to hear footsteps approaching her camp, but still reaches behind her to rest a hand on the familar curve of her bow and quiver. He emerges from the darkness surrounded by a pack of black dogs. She nods acceptance, and her guests settle around the fire. The dogs wait patiently for her to cut glistening strips from the spit, their dark eyes reflect streaming fire. She sees her image mirrored in the wells of his black eyes. She thinks to reach out and stroke his face, smooth his beard, trace her fingers along the ridges of his horns, but it is too soon to express her gratitude with such intimacy. There will be another moonlight night for this, another time after the dogs have returned from hunting, bringing her their fresh kills.
The Magician
The wind is speaking in a low voice through the small spaces between plaster and leaded glass. It's breath forces the thin cotton curtains to expand and bunch with each exhalation. She listens while stirring the contents of her large copper pot, one hip cocked in defiance. The wind is speaking. She taps the wooden spoon against the pot's lip and rests it, unwashed, on the nearby sideboard, tears her apron from her waist and leaves it where it falls. The door is battling against the wind's hard fist. The woman opens the door and the wind grasps her by the hair and flings her into the sky. She grows wings and flies along the rolling railway tracks of a radiatus cloud converging on the horizon.
The Fool
The sky is littered with the spent shells of small humilis clouds. It is a humble day, despite the boast of the afternoon sun. She is cooling herself under the wide expanse of shade the Russian Olive provides. Her feet are swollen and she has unfastened the leather laces and the top five buttons of her blouse. She is free of those she has left behind: the man and the sleeping child. She has been granted permission to step out of the life given her to stealth through alfalfa and wheat fields and alongside creeks swollen with mountain water. The mountains to the east still hold snow in their creases. She has not slept or eaten in three days. Bird chatter seems to her like a chorus chanted from a Greek tragedy. She remembers the stew and its potatoes and hank of pork she left simmering on the cook stove. The clouds remind her of the smoke symbols she read about in a book on the New World. She tries to decipher their meaning and finds in the bumpy cauliflower shapes a warning from the ghost of her mother.
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