Women of the Night—Tarot Fiction

Past — Seven of Cups
A time of many visions, dreams, illusions — possibly overwhelm, escapism, or difficulty choosing. The Seven of Cups is the card of "too many options, none fully real yet." Your past held a lot of longing, fantasy, maybe confusion about what you actually wanted versus what you thought you should want. Beautiful images, but hard to grasp.

Present — Two of Wands
You've picked up a wand. You're standing at the edge, looking out at the horizon, holding the world in your hands — literally planning. This is the moment before the leap, where the vision starts becoming a direction. You know something is coming, you feel the pull of it, and you're deciding how bold to be. There's courage here but also the last breath before the jump.

Future — Queen of Wands
She arrives fully herself. Confident, magnetic, creative, warm — she doesn't ask permission and she doesn't shrink. The Queen of Wands is the woman who walks into a room and the room changes. She's built her fire and tends it well. This is where you're headed.

Above, the moonlight and a cloudless sky. Below, a lake reflecting naked women sitting on the bank; both women and bank—hugged by a perpetual thick fog. They were once adored daughters but were since cast away, called loveless, cast away for matters of reason and treason to the ways of the world, because the heart of the casters was frozen, and it was easier to cast away those whose hearts beat (as they reminded those who remained in the cities of their own inability to love, feel, and be) and found each other in the forest. They walked to the lake together and settled there. They managed to build shelter with bamboo and palm leaves, gathered berries, set traps, provided for one another and over the years, grew comfortable by the lake. They were, however, removed from the world. Living as exhales—that which is expulsed and is not welcome back in—dreaming of one day coming back to the world of the living; but for now, they were exiled spectres of the past. Oh, ethereal beauties! How they longed to be part of the world once more…but all they did was spend their days by the lake, lamenting of a time when they lived with others, lamenting and dreaming of the lives they would live once they left for the real world once more. The fog kept them there, and if they tried to venture away from the lake, they would get lost in its darkness and find themselves back on the bank soon enough. It was the way of the world and it was the way of things. Those who were too much for society and its rules had to be cast away, or else everything would crumble and social orders would be defunct.

In the fog, were they to try and leave their settlement, seven figures would await them— Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath, and Sloth. Veronica was last to arrive at this village of women, and she had not yet fallen fully asleep, lulled by the fog, so she tried to get out on the very day we met her. But every time, one of the figures gently tricked her into walking back to the settlement, and it was such trickery (or it was the fog which blinded her so that she could not see the idiocy of the game) that she let herself be fooled by every seven of them.

When she met Pride, she saw a world where she was the grandest singer of all and walked towards that dream with a large heart and larger smile—right back home.

When she met Greed, she saw her father dead, his inheritance waiting for her, and she followed a phone, ringing, oh it was the lawyer announcing the news, she followed the ring-ring-ring—right back home.

When she met Lust, she found herself sleeping with a stranger and ran from him as she came to, his thrusting into her a wake up call, and she ran through the fog, you guessed it—right back home.

When she met Gluttony, she became so fat she could not walk anymore and sunk into the floor, again—right back home.

When she met Wrath, she came to with a knife in her hand and blood pooling by her feet, with her dear (imaginary savior and prince charming) lover dead in her arms, again, she ran—right back home.

When she met Sloth, she was nowhere, and floated without being able to move the air around her, advance, retreat, nothing would do, and she stayed like this for a very long time until she fell asleep after many sleepless days and woke up—right back home.

So, the women settled on dreaming of leaving instead of doing so. They gazed into the lake’s surface and watched their dreams painted there for many hours, then retreated to the makeshift houses for tea and supper. It was easier than having to confront the figures in the fog. Safer, more controllable. And after you have been cast away by a world who deemed you unlovable because of your very essence, it becomes of utmost importance to control everything around you so as not to see your world crumble once more.

They had, we must remind you, been banned from the other world, and it was only normal then that they feared it a little. Feared being wild women. Because that was what brought them here to begin with. So, even though they were alone, they were not free to be themselves, did not howl with the wolves, did not dance with the fireflies or splash about the water like they desired.

Veronica, however, had not yet given up on stepping back into the world, into the dream. There was a little voice inside of her, urging her to leave, urging her to live again, pass time with action and not let time pass you by.

So, she stood at the edge of the lake one day and gazed at the tree’s reflection in its surface. The tree was so full of fruits and leaves and branches, and she felt that the women had chosen to settle by this tree on purpose. They were at its base and outside there, in the open world, stretched the countless lives they could live (like the branches and fruits, had you not understood the metaphor). The tree branches could build something, she thought, a boat maybe, and instead of reaching into the water like other women had done before, instead of trying to grasp her dreams in its surface, she looked at the water and reached blindly until she felt and touched the tree behind her. It stood behind her back and her fingertips were on its coarse skin. It was soft and supple, surprisingly, and the edge of her fingertips caressed it like one would a love one. It was something real, the first real thing in this settlement, real because it was alive and had changed with the passing of time instead of wallowing, this willow tree had born fruits, a first of its kind.

Then, she jumped up, caught a branch, and broke off a couple of sticks. “Sorry,” she murmured to the tree as sap oozed from the wounds. These were the beginning she needed, the choices to make and paths to take. She knew that the women had to forsake the past and build anew. There was no point trying to get past the seven sins, they were only meant as keepers of the past, guardians, placed their for their own good, and I admit, it seems odd, guardians meant to push them forward. They had obviously not understood the assignment and had resigned themselves to a life of nothingness and dreams. It was time, she knew it, the tree knew it, the moon and the lake and the clouds knew it, to let go of what does not work and start again. Grow like the tree goes, and like the tree bear new fruits and let them perish, and follow the seasons instead of staying struck after being struck into winter. They had built homes to stay put; they could build vessels to leave.

She knelt and started to braid the branches until they became planches, and soon a boat. The other women stood by, watching. They thought her mad, thought her mad to do such a thing, and admired her at the same time. They were weary as there had once been a woman who had tried to build a boat and drowned, and others too who had drowned in the lake because they saw their dreams and plunged into the surface, wishing to rekindle with them but only meeting their demise.

It took her some years, some hours according to some stories, a lifetime, according to most; anyway, it took her some time and soon the boat was finished. Her sisters had joined and some had braided clothes; they now wore skirts and dresses and hummed and swayed with the wind as they braided the last of the mast.

“I call upon you, wolves, may you howl with us and protect us on this journey,” called out Veronica, knowing it were the words she had to speak.

She howled at the moon then, a deep guttural sound, emanating from her womb and her sisters joined her before they could think. The women stood, their voices thrown at the full moon, and the wolves joined them. And the oxes, the foxes, the mice, the ants, the snakes, the cats, all the animals living in the fog joined them and howled at the moon as the trance replaced the fog. They marched onto the boat and swayed with the waves on the wave-less lake, swayed to their own song and sung along—a prayer, an ode to the queen of wands! She, the one who reminds us we may dance freely! Through the power of the village, women reborn as wolves!

And all howled in unison as the boat departed with Veronica at the helm.