PROLOGUE

The Fool (Reversed)

October 31—Samhain

Loneliness. It had been Shana Morland’s companion for so long that she rarely noticed the emotion. Tonight, however, it was suffocating her, closing in on her as tightly as the thick Pennsylvania forest surrounding her. She tried to shake off the feeling, but it clung to her tenaciously.

With a heavy sigh, she leaned a shoulder against the tree beside her. As she watched the festivities taking place in the meadow buried deep in the woods, her loneliness became more unbearable. It was Samhain—All Hallow’s Eve—and the members of her coven were gathered around the bonfire in celebration of the beginning of winter. Families were clustered on blankets and laughing together. Lovers were dancing around the fire or lingering in the shadows, sharing surreptitious kisses.

Shana knew she could approach any of the families and they would welcome her into their circle. But being welcome wasn’t the same as belonging, and she hadn’t felt this alone since her parents’ deaths ten years ago. With another sigh, she pushed away from the tree and decided to go home. Her shoulders sagged at the realization that no one would even miss her.

"Stop wallowing in self-pity," she chided herself as she headed into the forest and began the short walk home, "Life is going to get better. Soon, you’ll find a mate, and with any luck it will be a mortal who will take you away from Sanctuary. You’ll finally be able to see the world, and you’ll build a new life for yourself. You’ll be a part of a family again, and you’ll be deliriously happy,"

Unfortunately, her pep talk didn’t bolster her spirits, because she recognized the inherent problems in it. Although the council of high priests had recently given permission for members of her coven to seek mortal mates, unmated witches were still not allowed to leave coven boundaries. The only mortals with whom she came into contact were tourists visiting Sanctuary, and most of the men were married. She knew her chances of finding a mortal mate were serendipitous at best.

But if she couldn’t find a mortal with whom to share her life, she would have to mate with a warlock. Unfortunately, the chances of that happening seemed just as slim. Most of the warlocks in her age group were already mated, and those that weren’t simply didn’t appeal to her.

By the time she arrived home, she concluded that she would be alone forever. She wanted to rant and rave at the unfairness, but she was too depressed to summon up the energy to do so. Instead, she wandered through the house, trying to remember what it had been like when her parents were alive and she had belonged. But the memories she sought had faded with time and were as elusive as her dreams.

"I wish there was some way I could know the future," she murmured as she stood at the kitchen window and stared morosely at the full moon. "Am I going to fall in love? If so, will it be with a mortal who will take me away from Sanctuary? Or will I spend the rest of my life imprisoned in this miserable monotony of coven life?"

If that is your future, can you face each day with the knowledge that this is all there will ever be? an inner voice asked.

She raked a hand through her hair, rattled by the question. Could she deal with that knowledge? Yes, she grimly decided, because not knowing was worse. She was almost twenty-seven years old, and she was tired of living in limbo. If there was just some way that she could find out what the future held, then she could come to grips with her life. But there was no way to determine the future.

The thought had come from nowhere, and it startled her that she could even think something so blasphemous. Even more disturbing, however, was the titillation the thought evoked. If she did use the enchanted Tarot deck, it would tell her everything she wanted to know.

"Don’t be ridiculous," she scolded herself. "The enchanted Tarot deck is cursed!"

But the curse will only go into effect if the deck is used by someone in love. Since you’re not in love, it wouldn’t apply to you.

"I couldn’t possibly use the deck," she told herself firmly. "It’s against coven law."

Temptation stirred inside her. Did she dare use the deck?

"Surely one quick peek at my future wouldn’t be dangerous," she assured herself. "And I am the caretaker of the deck. If nothing else, I should check to make sure it’s still in its hiding place."

She headed for the special room in her home that served as the coven’s repository. When she entered the room, she was barely aware of the hundreds of items cluttering tables and filling display cases. Her attention was focused on the fireplace, where the enchanted Tarot deck was hidden.

As she approached the fireplace, she nervously rubbed her hands against her thighs. What she was about to do was against coven law, and if she was caught. . . She closed her eyes, refusing to think about the harsh penalty that would be imposed.

"All I’m going to do is use the deck to learn my future," she stated, hoping that by saying the words aloud it would ease her worried conscience. "It isn’t as if I’m going to endanger anyone."

Shana involuntarily shivered at the reminder. Then she gave an impatient shake of her head. "For the curse to work, I have to be in love, so it doesn’t apply to me."

With newfound determination, she slid her fingers across the cool bricks of the fireplace until she found the trigger for the secret panel. When she pressed it, a stone in the hearth slid open, revealing a palm-size wooden box.

Staring at it, she caught her breath in awe. Its surface was engraved with symbols so old she suspected no one remembered their meaning. But it wasn’t its beauty that captivated her. It was the magical power she could feel emanating from it.

Tentatively, she touched the lid, and she immediately snatched her hand back. The wood felt oddly warm—almost alive—and she would have sworn she felt a heartbeat.

"You’re being silly," she mumbled, chafing her hands against her arms as goose bumps scattered across her skin. "It’s impossible for inanimate objects to have heartbeats."

Her declaration didn’t alleviate the eerie sensation. As she continued to stare at the box, she knew that the sensible thing to do was close the secret panel and forget the Tarot. Everyone else had to wait for their future to unfold. Why should she have an advantage over them? The answer, of course, was that she shouldn’t have an advantage.

"But I’ll go crazy if I don’t have some indication of what I can expect in life!" she fretted. "And even if there is something strange going on here, I don’t meet the criteria to fulfill the curse. What could it hurt to just take a peek? I won’t do a full reading. I’ll only do enough to find out if I should resign myself to spending the rest of my life in Sanctuary. Once I have the answer, I’ll put the Tarot away.

"But I have to hurry!" she reminded herself as she felt the magnetic pull of the witching hour. All the coven’s members were at the festival bonfire, but they’d soon gather for their midnight ritual. Once their power combined, they would learn what she was doing and stop her.

Despite her urgency, she cautiously trailed her fingertips across the lid of the box. It still felt oddly alive, but there was no sensation of a heartbeat. She sighed in relief. It had only been her imagination.

Lifting the box, she quickly carried it to the center of the pentagram, which was built into the hardwood floor. After setting the box down, she hastily gathered the sacred candles that were stored in the hiding place with the box. Then she lit and placed a candle on each of the five points of the star forming the inside of the pentagram. When she was done, she returned to the center and sat cross-legged beside the box.

She drew in an excited breath. Tonight the veil between this world and the spirit world was at its thinnest. All she had to do was summon the spirit of the ancient witch, Moira, who had cast her spell over the Tarot more than five hundred years ago. With Moira present, the cards would accurately foretell her future.

Drawing in another breath, she opened the lid and reached for the deck, which was wrapped in white silk yellowed with age. When she touched the silken packet, she was hit with a surge of energy so strong it felt like a high-voltage electrical shock arcing up her arm.

Jerking her hand back, she rubbed at her tingling arm and eyed the deck warily. What had happened? It felt as if the Tarot had power, and until she summoned Moira that was impossible. Was there a spell over it to keep it from being read? Recognizing that was a good possibility, she mumbled a frustrated curse. She couldn’t come this close and fail!

Hesitantly, she reached for the packet again, expecting another jolt. When nothing happened, she couldn’t decide if she was relieved or alarmed. Obviously, there wasn’t a spell in place, so what had caused that surge of energy?

Though she wanted to attribute it to an overactive imagination, she knew it wasn’t true. She was also forced to admit that whatever had happened was beyond her realm of experience. She was, after all, dealing with magic that hadn’t been practiced in hundreds of years, and only a fool would use the Tarot. She had to put it away.

Wistfully, she ran her fingers over the silk. Like the box, it felt oddly alive. She couldn’t help wondering what the cards looked like. Since they were so old, they wouldn’t resemble a modern deck. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to take a quick look at them before she put them away.

Just a look, she promised herself as she carefully unwrapped the silk and removed the deck.

Fanning the cards out in her hand, she frowned. Their backs were solid black. When she turned them over, she discovered that the faces were also black. Even more puzzling was that the stack was so small she automatically counted the cards. There were only twenty-two instead of the seventy-eight needed to comprise a full deck. Where were the remainder of them?

Shana started as the order echoed in her mind. Suddenly, the cards seemed to move in her hand, and a shudder of alarm raced through her. She looked down at them, and they moved again, a slithering, sinuous motion that reminded her of a snake. As the hair on the back of her neck prickled, she realized that there was only one reason for the cards to come alive. Moira.

"That’s not possible!" she gasped, fearfully glancing around the room. She hadn’t summoned Moira, and a spirit couldn’t come without a summons.

As the demand again flashed through Shana’s mind, the flames on the candles flared higher and began to undulate. The air seemed to crackle with expectancy. Even as fear threatened to overwhelm her, excitement stirred inside her. If Moira really was here, then so were the answers to her future.

Her common sense insisted that she put the Tarot away before it was too late, but she reminded herself that she was protected by the pentagram. No one—not even a powerful spirit witch like Moira—could enter it uninvited. As long as she remained within its boundaries she was safe, so what would it hurt to lay out a couple of cards?

She began to shuffle the deck. When she was done, she turned the first card over and her heart skipped a beat. The face of the card was no longer black. She was staring at an image of herself dressed in a black robe and wearing a strange peaked cap. Resting on her shoulder was a bundle suspended from a stick and she carried a blood-red rose in her hand. She was standing on the edge of a cliff and staring rapturously up at the sky, as though unaware that her next step would take her over the edge. There were no words on the cards, but she didn’t need words to know she was being depicted as The Fool, and the card was in the reverse position.

She tried to give it a positive reading, but she knew instinctively that the real interpretation was folly—an imprudent venture that would have disastrous consequences.

New fear began to bubble inside her as her self-protective instincts screamed, Put the deck away!

She wanted to do exactly that, but her hands seemed to have become spellbound. No matter how hard she fought against them, they continued to lay out the cards. When they finally stilled, she had lain out the remaining twenty-one cards in an unfamiliar spread resembling an inverted pentagram. Even more bizarre, however, was that except for The Fool, the other cards remained black.

Before she could speculate what that meant, the air outside the pentagram began to shimmer and a form began to take shape. It was as dark and faceless as the cards; yet, it was as incorporeal as a ghost.

Her fear escalated to terror. Moira was here. But how had she come without a summons? Even as Shana asked the question she knew that how it had happened wasn’t important. What mattered was why Moira had come, and there could only be one answer. Moira was here to lay claim to a soul so she could again exist in this world. Since Shana was the person who had brought her here, it stood to reason that it was her soul the ancient witch wanted.

But she can only claim the soul of a person in love, Shana reminded herself, trying to curb the panic exploding inside her. Since she wasn’t in love, Moira couldn’t harm her.

"Don’t you want to know why you can’t read the cards?" Moira suddenly demanded, interrupting Shana’s frightened musing.

Don’t answer! Shana warned herself. If I pretend that she doesn’t exist, maybe she’ll leave. If she doesn’t, it won’t be long before the coven meets. They’ll figure out what’s going on and send her away.

Even as she offered herself the reassurance of a rescue, she realized that it might not be true. Moira had been the most powerful witch who had ever lived. Since she had been able to cross over without a summons, it was possible her magic was greater than the coven’s. As much as Shana wanted to ignore her, she knew she was better off knowing what she faced.

With a frightened gulp, she proposed, "I can’t read the cards because they belong to you?"

"So does the future, and now yours will be mine!" Moira replied triumphantly, pointing a shrouded arm toward the cards.

There was a brilliant flash of light, and Shana reflexively closed her eyes against it. When she opened them, both Moira and the cards were gone.

Wrapping her arms around herself, she fearfully whispered, "I’m not in love, so she can’t hurt me. She can’t!"

At her words, an unearthly cackle filled the air, and the card of The Fool appeared above her head. It hung suspended for several seconds, and then it drifted down to fall at Shana’s feet.

"