CW: This chapter contains some technical descriptions of nudity.

  The Seer / Mother Fortune / The Fortune Teller

  During my travels with the vampire Grant Sender, we found ourselves in a small bar somewhere in the world on New Years' Night a few years from the turn of the 19th century. It was about 3 in the morning, having spent the night drinking our sorrows away at the loss of the cat we'd adopted after our mutual friend, the witch Garden Stern, had died fighting a demon with us. Saying goodbye to both the elderly cat, and a final goodbye to Stern, had left the both of us in agony. We were at long st kicked out of the bar, and in a drunken stupor found ourselves wandering through the streets, unsure of where we'd put our lodgings. At some point, Grant realised how early it was and sought out any kind of shelter before the sun would come out, but I was so drunk I hadn't even noticed him leave.

  I won't pretend that what happened next is in any way verifiable by fact, however I would not be writing it if I didn't find the events strange, even for this book. I seemed to walk on forever, through pces that shouldn't have been accessible to me. I could swear I was walking through a city scape one moment, then being carried a forest filled with hundreds of springs the next. I wasn't sure if I'd been dunked in the water, in some strange form of baptism. My body felt tired, yet energised in a way that I couldn't expin. By the time my mind came into focus, I was sitting on the floor across from an older woman dressed in a beautiful traditional-feeling gown. She didn't speak English, but that didn't matter to me at the time. My own body felt strange, and just as I questioned it in my mind, she handed me a mirror and I saw why. My movements were not my own, nor were my clothes, nor was my face. I looked as though I could be her daughter, my slender form a far cry from the masculine body I had been raised in.

  Before I could process the change, she said something to me in a nguage I do not know, which I understood perfectly somehow. She pulled out a deck of tarot, that cssic Italian variation on the pying card deck, and began to read my past, present and future. For the past, she pulled a striking image of a figure with an engorged face, an almost skeletal body, and a rge red scythe which it dragged along the bck ground, filled with various body parts, two of which were the head of a boy and a girl. There was no text, but the roman numerals XIII. Thirteen. This was Death.

  Around this point is when my brain started to regain some sense of sobriety. I realised she'd forced the card, which I found odd. There were, of course, supposed fortune tellers around who cimed to see the future, and this was a common trick. Researching a mark prior to reading the fortune, using simple sleight of hand techniques to ensure the future you read them aligns with their views. It was a swindle. If you can make a person believe in the magic of your cards, you can tell them what they want to hear, and they're more likely to spend money with you again. But I didn't know who she was, where I was, or even who I was, really. I'd started to suspect I'd been abducted by the fey, but outside of the passage I had taken to arrive here, nothing about this pce was off like it was in my dealings with fey.

  Then she opened her mouth. Death. Who I was in my past had died, long ago, and I was trying to smooth over the decay with busy work. Not a far cry from the prediction I would expect from someone who had researched me thoroughly... assuming they had the capacity to do so without Grant realising we were being watched, which was almost impossible. Not only that, but there was something else strange about her predictions. This was not just something which had reflected aspects of my life thus far, it was only as she spoke that I realised her words were true. A piece of my soul had died, and now I felt bereft, wandering the earth looking for anything to fill the void in my heart.

  My body swelled up with emotions I had never felt before almost immediately. I felt tears stream down my face, and she smiled warmly at me. She told of the future next. XV. Le Diable. I couldn't even read the English letters on account of the change, I couldn't understand what the words meant at the time, but I have come to research them and found that this card was, in fact, The Devil. Only the card was upside-down. She consoled me, and told me 'do not worry, my girl, for your future holds release'. The mere utterance of her words sent a shockwave through my body, filling me with a joy I had never felt in all my life. The card depicted a creature with golden hair, bat-like wings, carrying just the bde of a sword. These cards had fairly graphic depictions of the creature's body, which had both a woman's breasts, and a phallus. On either side of it, there stood two faun-like creatures tied to the red plinth it stood upon, one male, one female. She told me that this card meant good things for me. That I would soon be freed from my shackles, and I would be able to live my life unbound from the pain of my past. It was at this point, I felt my own control over my body return, and as soon as it did, she gave me a strange look."Let us resume in a moment," She said, "For now, let us have some tea."

  Outside her home, there was a magnificent view of a forest. I wasn't sure if this was close to the city I'd been in, in the same country, or even on the same pnet, but having regained my senses, that question was not quite as important as the countless others I had."Who are you?" I asked, "Why have you brought me here?"She ughed, "I am your mother."I shook my head, "You lie.""No, you lie. To yourself. What is your name?"I said a woman's name that wasn't mine."You see?" She said, chuckling, "Even now, you don't know who you are.""This is not funny.""But it's nice, isn't it?"She passed me a small cup, and we sat on the porch, our feet dangling as we gazed into the woods. I brought it to my lips and took a sip. It was my mother's tea, as she'd always made it. But that wasn't right."No..." I muttered, "This isn't who I am..."She nodded, "I know. But again, it's nice, isn't it?"I looked into the woods, and rested my head on my mother's shoulder, and she started to pat me."It is nice."I won't pretend that this was responsible. I won't pretend that I didn't let a thousand questions buzzing around my head about what she'd done to me, how I was here, where we were, what had happened, or why she'd done any of this hang in the air, unanswered. I failed you, reader, for I do not know what this creature was that kidnapped me. I do not know through what means she could read my fortune. To tell the truth, I'm not even sure this was real. It felt real. I felt light. I felt loved.

  We went back inside, and she pulled the final card. XII. Le Pendu. The Hanged Man. A man, with his legs crossed, dressed in colourful attire, hanging upside down from a rope. What struck me as odd was how both the man and the devil together looked, both upside down, both roughly the same size. It was like they were twins, of a sort. My mother smiled.

  "This card represents the journey through which you must go in order to find yourself freed. It shows a transition, a change you must make in your life, because your life is presently stagnated. You are on the verge of a great discovery. It also shows a life in suspension. You are afraid to admit to yourself what has been staring you in the face this entire time. You hide it, because you don't want others to know what you are, but the truth is you have known for a very, very long time. You may have even done something about it. But you still hide."

  Everything about what she said hit me with waves upon waves of emotion. I wasn't sure what she'd meant. But it resonated me in a way nothing ever had. Except for the st two things she said. Strangely, they didn't connect at all, and she nodded at me the moment I considered that."Not to concern yourself with. I have another fortune to read."She picked the cards back up, and began to shuffle the deck. She drew The Hanged Man again, pcing it on the table in front of me. Then she drew another copy of The Hanged Man, in the exact movements as before. Then she did it again. I tried to speak, to ask her how, why, but my voice was stolen from me. She drew a fourth Hanged Man. It was like a dream, pying on repeat. She drew a fifth.

  I woke up soaking wet in my bed, in my body, in the lodgings we'd arranged for ourselves, across from Grant's coffin. An extreme wave of sadness washed over me. My mind pulsed with confusion over whatever had just occurred, and as I sat up, five cards fell from me. Five copies of XII. Le Pendu.

  That is all I can expin of what happened that night, dear reader. Grant had no such experience. The world was much the same as I left it. But my recollection of what had occurred faded as memories would, not dreams.