The Lady of Situations

[Elliot Carmichael]

@'Temerita Reid'
@'Leander Grantham'
@'Elias Grimstone' might be funny if mamma reid showed up? 

Elliot did not frequently go to Salem Square, but being in Wales kept reminding him of the incident, and he preferred to think on such things as little as possible. So: Salem Square. It was a dreary grey day, and he sat at one of the tables inside the little cafe, spreading Tarot cards around his teacup.

He was not shuffling with any particular goal in mind; rather he found it rather soothing, and had come to the vague conclusion ages ago that when he spread out the cards and picked what felt right, it was a good gauge of how his hour/day/dilemma would go.

Will we get caught?

His breath caught as his hand hovered over a card that felt right in his chest. What would he do, then, if it were the hanged man? What could he do? The future could always be changed, but -

He picked it up. The High Priestess. Perhaps not the most useful card, and Elliot set it back down before the bell above the door jingled - "Miss Reid!"

  

[Temerita Reid]

It was largely guilt that sent Meri out on this dreary day. Being an apprentice was nothing like having a part time job at the shop and as such she wasn't spending nearly as much time on social things as most girls her age. And even worse: she'd been neglecting her mother something terrible. She was still trying to wrap her head around the idea of 'needing a day off' but the occasion didn't really arise. She found herself using all free time she had on social things to make up for all the time she was sinking into her lie.

She really liked having tea out for a change but something was bothering her and tainting the whole of it. She couldn't tell if it was just a sudden impulse to confess her new career to her mother that left a heavy feeling in her chest or if it was something else. Something more.

A small bell danced over head as she pushed open the door and stepped inside. She meant to hold it open but the unexpected greeting made her forget someone was following behind her. How did he always manage to surprise her like this?

"Mr. Carmichael! Hello." She took very brief comfort that it always seemed to surprise him as well, before she noticed the cards laid out in front of him and hesitated. "Are you... well?" she asked with some trepidation.

  

[Adaline Reid]

Adaline was quite oblivious to the weather, grey as it was. Weather mattered to the farm, and it mattered to her garden, but she was too used to being weathered by all sorts of weather to let it dampen a day of shopping or of tea. Getting to be out with Temerita ought to be enough to part the clouds, anyway: she missed this terribly, spending time with her daughter. Her mind was playing tricks on her, of course, because all of Temerita's time at school they'd spent apart, and if anything Adaline supposed she saw her more now, but there was still a difference now that she was a woman. She was all grown up, her life gradually spiralling out into new orbits, further and further from her parents' side.

Still, Adaline was doing her best to manage keeping up with giving her space, and on account of that she had succeeded in letting a door swing shut in her face. Quite cheerfully, she gave Temerita a few seconds of peace before she pulled it open again and stepped across the threshold of the little cafe.

He was seated at a table, busy with something, but it seemed he had spotted her first, and her daughter had stopped short. Adaline stepped up to her side, taking her time to survey the situation (and him). "Mr. Carmichael," she echoed, her eyebrows waggling in a very :eyes:-emote-like manner (purely for her daughter's sake) before she turned her gaze from Temerita to greet the young man - the Professor - with a smile.

"Indeed, we hope you are," Adaline added quite fervently, on her daughter's question of him being well. She didn't know quite what might be wrong with him - winter was a terrible season for health, though the question might have been of an alternate sort of wellbeing, or perhaps it was to do with the cards - but Temerita sounded a tad worried. Adaline, for her part, was quite excited to see the young man. Despite last year's tomato-sending, she was obviously not in contact with him - though perhaps her daughter still was - and so this was a rather unparalleled instance of opportunity.

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   Barnabas Skeeter

[Elliot Carmichael]

She could tell. Of course she could tell. Elliot didn't know if it was because of the Sight or because she knew him better than was, strictly speaking, typical. To make matters more interesting - he supposed, she was followed only a moment later by an older brunette woman who could only be her mother.

Elliot smiled his very best meeting-new-people smile, and said: "You must be Mrs. Reid! It's nice to finally meet you - well, outside of the tomatoes," he said, "I'm well. Testing the cards, I suppose."

He only did that when he was anxious, which was not particularly helpful nor a very good defense, but regardless.

  

[Temerita Reid]

Meri's mouth fell open at her mother's expression.  It may as well have been obscene for all that it conveyed and her eyes went wide as she shot back a sort of aggressive 'cut it out' look.   Still she could feel her mouth twisting compulsively into the sort of smile that always came with embarrassment when she turned back Mr. Carmichael.  Why was that?  In this particular instance, suggestive eyebrow morse code was not something Meri appreciated and yet she was fighting a nervous smile as she prayed he did not pick up on their exchange.  

She tried not to let her disregard for tarot cards show as he explained his motive.  Though she considered them less silly than most Divination techniques she still struggled with them.  Almost always, without fail, her own Sight would conflict with what the cards would convey and most readings left her wanting to throw things.  

"And have they shown you anything?"  

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   Cassius Lestrange, Elias Grimstone, Elliot Carmichael

[Adaline Reid]

Adaline wasn't at all put off by Temerita's shocked face - rather, she was quite amused - and retained the most serene of smiles on her face for her exchange with young Mr. Carmichael. He was a terribly handsome boy, wasn't he just? That had been quite the gap in her knowledge: evidently her daughter was neglecting to share important details! She could not remember her childhood teachers being quite so appealing; but then again, she supposed she couldn't quite picture Mr. Carmichael the Divination teacher placed in a tiny village school, either.

"I am! It's so wonderful to meet you at last!" She returned, beaming at the mention of the tomatoes, pleased that he remembered. (One could not trust young men to remember much of anything.) She might have added that she had heard a lot about him, if only Meri were more generous in her mentions of her old professor!

Whilst Adaline was perhaps still not the best-versed in all things Divination, what she had not gleaned from experience with her daughter's Sight, she had learned from some reading on the side, and her lack of expertise did not reduce her curiosity on the subject. She nodded along in echo of Temerita's question, peering over at the table, wondering whether perhaps that would count as prying, and thus as rude, but dreadfully interested all the same. "Pray don't let us interrupt you, of course," she insisted pleasantly, though she thought he had broken his own concentration first. Adaline wondered, a little selfishly, if he would be able to continue with an audience. She wouldn't mind learning how tarot worked a little better!

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   Elliot Carmichael

[Elliot Carmichael]

"Nothing of much use, I'm afraid," Elliot said to Miss Reid, holding up the High Priestess card. Perhaps it was a foretelling of her arrival - not that it had been of much use. Perhaps it spoke of something yet to come. Perhaps, he thought wryly, it meant nothing at all.

"Have you ever witnessed a tarot reading before, Mrs. Reid?" Elliot asked. He had not entered professor-mode, but was genuinely curious. Her daughter, after all, had never agreed with the cards - and Mrs. Reid was a muggle. Though muggles did use tarot cards, from Elliot's understanding, it was not nearly as common.

Besides, discussing the cards spared him having to think about his anxieties. 

  

[Temerita Reid]

Meri recognized the card easily.  She'd struggled with the technique enough to have memorized them even if her lessons hadn't required it.  She knew would it could mean, she was just vain enough to think it might signify her own arrival for example, but without the context of the reading as a whole she had no idea what he might have gleaned from it.  Perhaps he was expecting an aunt to come visit.

"I spent a good bit of Christmas break in my seventh year um... practicing." 'Practicing' being code for terrorizing her family with tarot cards. "You might recall my frustration at the time." Meri could feel her cheeks burning.  'Frustration' was a polite word for it considering she'd literally stormed his class room and insisted her cards were broken.  "My mother might not have an entirely fair impression of them."

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   Elliot Carmichael

[Adaline Reid]

She thought the two of them seemed to get on quite naturally (even with Temerita's present discomfiture). A rather unadorned rhythm, but they seemed to have something of an understanding: but of course they would, when Mr. Carmichael had been the only one remotely placed to comprehend any of her daughter's frustrations.

And Adaline did remember her daughter's frustrations all too well, though she had little enough idea how they were supposed to function, nor how she might have offered much consolation. Still, she looked back on it lightly, for the most part, her bright smile only tinged by a little of that lurking concern that she always felt for Meri and her Sight.

"But impressions are never set in stone," she said, once she had nodded along in answer to the young Professor's question and Meri's qualification. Adaline gave her daughter's shoulder a fleeting squeeze, but by the next moment, her hands had found the back of the chair opposite Mr. Carmichael, and she was leaning on it expectantly, as if to pull it out and sit. Which she did rather fancy doing - though she was trying to rein herself in, lest she be an embarrassment - and the sentiment extended to her next question. "I don't suppose you would be kind enough to indulge us, would you? I would just love to see what the cards can do in your hands." She beamed hopefully. She would be the perfectly unobtrusive audience, she swore!

  

[Elliot Carmichael]

Elliot could not help but smirk at Miss Temerita. Practicing. Frustration. He remembered very expansively her difficulty with the cards; her gift tended to interfere with them, whereas they bolstered his. 

"Of course, Mrs. Reid," his said. He gathered up all the cards with a sweep of his hand, and offered the stack to the two women. "Would one of you be so inclined as to shuffle these? And sit down, please." He gestured to the other chairs at the table.

  

[Temerita Reid]

Oh Merlin. Dat smirk tho. Clearly he still remembered. And she didn't get a casual brush off, no polite assurances that it had been nothing. No. She got a knowing smirk. It was equal parts embarrassing and painfully beautiful and she didn't think that was fair at all. She couldn't help but think how different it had been to talk to him in letters. There was so much more that could be said and she didn't end up nearly so flustered.

As conflicted as she felt and as much as she struggled with tarot cards the prospect of another reading with him was a little exciting. Opportunities like this with other Seers didn't happen often and it was nice to make that little connection with someone who was like her in that regard.

She took the offered seat with a murmured thank you. "Well, since it's your demonstration, maybe you should?" she said, turning to her mother. It saved her the turmoil of trying to figure out exactly how much eye contact she was supposed to be making with him. He was probably still smirking and everything.

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   Barnabas Skeeter

[Adaline Reid]

Adaline took the offered seat promptly, though dallied over taking the cards, a little. What if their magic did not work so well with muggle intrusion? For all she knew, she might have been half to blame for Temerita's tarot struggles, and wouldn't it be embarrassing if Mr. Carmichael's skill was upset by it?

Still, Meri had suggested it, so Adaline awkwardly took hold of the stack, taking a moment to eye the set's design. After a breath, she started shuffling, already feeling a little out of her depth, surrounded by the two talents she was! But curiosity overruled caution, and eventually she had a shuffling rhythm worked out. She quirked a brow at her daughter, as if to say, is this right? Still, shuffling was well enough, she supposed. It might still be rummy or whist, never mind Divination!

"Do you have many budding young talents in your class, these days?" Adaline inquired conversationally, glancing over at the young professor. She didn't know a great deal, but she was sure that Meri's gift was a rare thing, however much trouble that gift must have given her - them both, probably. (But surely it was more fun for a professor of Divination to have trouble to deal with?) She bet that he must miss having Temerita at school.

Smiling, she handed back the shuffled cards with a satisfied nod.

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   Kingston Shacklebolt

[Elliot Carmichael]

Elliot took the shuffled cards back from Mrs. Reid and spread them out across the table, earning himself a confused look from a cafe employee. "Well actually," he said, with a small smile, "I stumbled around a student having a vision, right before the break. A second year, I think."

He was hesitant to mention it; the vision had been close to what he was trying to hide, and who knew what the possible effects of his interaction with Meri's Sight last spring could be. Regardless, it was an interesting anecdote. "Other than that - well. The Sight is rare, especially when potent."

"Could you select three cards, Mrs. Reid, and flip them over? The three that feel most right to you."

  

[Temerita Reid]

It would not be the first time Meri felt like the odd one in a group but she really could not understand how people could talk so casually about 'other seers'. It was as if they were mentioning 'other people with green eyes'. Surely she couldn't be the only Seer who was curious about other Seers. There were days her Sight felt so strange even to her and surely she wasn't the only one curious if anyone else experienced what she did.

Now was the moment Meri realized she might have unfairly thrown her mother into the spotlight. She took for granted her mother's tolerance for magic and her own familiarity with Mr. Carmichael but it was too late to do anything about it now.

  

[Adaline Reid]

"Oh, how exciting!" Adaline exclaimed, at the news of the second-year. Exciting or terrifying, she imagined, but what it had been or how the poor child had taken it was too personal for her to want to pry further. And Mr. Carmichael had just confirmed what Adaline had long since learnt: that the Sight was a rare, rare thing.

Temerita had sunk into a wave of quietness, and Adaline glanced her daughter's way to scrutinise her swiftly. Perhaps it was all the talk of Seers? Perhaps it was Mr. Carmichael. (Perhaps it was having her mother here, cramping her style or trying to dabble in her own world!) Savagely, Adaline had the stabbing thought that she would like to see Sean - Sean, who shied away from all of this - floundering in this very situation. Perhaps she would invite young Mr. Carmichael over to dinner and force her husband to listen to another Seer talking about the sight. It would, she thought, serve him right for his whole attitude.

"Well, I'm glad the two of you keep in touch," she added, relieved that Meri had proper support in the field. She looked between them hurriedly, hoping. "You do still keep in touch?"

Realising belatedly that the poor fellow was trying to assign her another task, Adaline nodded. "Of course -" and she quieted down for a minute, lowering her gaze to the cards and trying to concentrate, remove herself from the room. Her hand hovered over one for a long time, considering, but the next two she snapped over, in unhesitating instinct. The two of them would know better what they meant, for they meant little enough to her, but Adaline peered down at her three selections anyway, lingering a little on the Moon card.*

*hmu if you want me to pick out the others xD

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   Barnabas Skeeter, Brian Pratt

[Elliot Carmichael]

Although not entirely sure that he was allowed to say so, Elliot nodded. It was normal that they still kept in touch, right? Elliot sent a quick, frantic glance Miss Temerita's way. He didn't want to get her in trouble, but her mother very much did not seem the trouble-giving type. (She'd sent him tomatoes! This surely created some bond of friendship.)

The prospect of divining something caught his interest, tearing him away from brief frantic anxiety, and Elliot grinned at Mrs. Reid's cards. "When the moon card appears, it's important for you to trust your instincts," Elliot said, "I don't suppose that you're in a time of uncertainty?"