After her roommate moves out, Paige Latimer finds a deck of tarot cards in her apartment. It seems like the perfect side hustle for her busy life. She manages to score her first gig at an office party, where she does a reading for Saul Wexler.
Saul, an aging yet still attractive insurance salesman, is desperately trying to seek some sort of guidance as his wife dies of cancer. As Saul addresses the cards, he rediscovers his lost sense of sexuality, gone during years of chemo treatments for his wife. He also finds himself falling for Paige in all the ways he does not want, especially as his wife remains alive.
When Paige’s business takes off, she leaves behind everything she thought she knew about the everyday world, including what to do when she also starts to fall for Saul. Their attraction reaches an apex on Halloween, the time when the barriers between the worlds are the thinnest.
Can Saul continue to live his life by other people’s guidelines and blot out his own feelings? Will Paige continue to predict the lives of others while ignoring herself? Both turn to the cards to see if love, regardless of any barriers, is worthwhile.
Paige’s head was full of sand. She turned against her pillow at night, but it felt like she was stuck. Heavy. She was washed up on the shoreline, her body stacked next to sharp rocks and wet sand. She was covered in granules, each one like diamonds under the sunlight. She sat up, but the sun made her dizzy. Everything was hot.
She looked down at her blue dress, now torn to shreds from the ocean’s waves. The tides rose to her toes, her knees, and lapped up her waist. She felt the water like a strong hand on her thighs. She let the waves spread her open. The water filled her, engulfed her. She lay down on the beach and let the rough sand beat her into submission. Her torn dress was barely over her breasts. She pulled it down and away. The sunlight, hot against her skin, marked her body with sun kisses. She tugged on her own nipples and felt the radiant light run along the surface, adding pleasure upon pleasure.
The water pried her open even further. Paige groaned under the hand of the earth. She opened herself more and more, stripping away every last thing that held her back from her own naked desires. She writhed on the sand and added her own hand alongside the ministrations of the water. She let herself explore before she exploded. She felt herself fill and soon empty out.
The night sky turned black once she opened her eyes again. She stared off at the water. Flames were in the distance. Without understanding how, she knew that an oil tanker had exploded. It coated the water with something that could not mix, would not allow it to penetrate. Then it exploded, making the once rushing waves nothing but flames. The ocean would burn. It would burn and burn and burn without anyone to put it out. The water was of no use anymore, and neither was the earth.
Paige touched herself again. She was all she had in this scary realm. She felt the heat inside of herself. She was going to come. Her dream self watched the water before diving under. She swam and swam until she could feel the heat from the flames. She wondered if this was a past life she was exploring. Was she a surviving member of the Titanic, or someone crushed by the boat’s hull? Was she saving her first love? It didn’t seem possible, because the water was so hot. It was boiling. She felt as though molten at her core. She was exploding, now, again, the fire as part of her skin. As she looked up, she saw the familiar constellation, the one that made her burn, burn, burn all night long.
She came once again as the flames lapped her skin. She was still part of the water. She knew that to be true, but the oil coated her, too. She was burning, and she was floating. She was living, and she was dying. She was sleeping, dreaming so intoxicatingly, and then, just as suddenly, she was awake.
