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On the floor of Camilla's dorm room lies an oriental rug, something she has had sent over from home. On this rug lies a pattern of playing cards in a deliberate array. And in front of this array sits Camilla herself. Though the unfortunate enchantment brought on by charmed chocolates has dissipated, reverting Camilla to her proper age of twenty-eight years, to look at her you'd think her younger. Maybe it's only that she's wearing a pair of pajamas much too big for her, fine dark-dyed Egyptian cotton with someone else's initials monogrammed on the breast pocket: HMW. Camilla wouldn't tell you that the M stands for Marchbanks, and she certainly wouldn't tell you whose initials they are, even if you told her flat out that you knew, even if you named the name. She'd tell you she had a lot of old clothes sent over from home along with the rug, and some other things, old things that don't matter very much to anybody, but isn't it nice to have familiar things around you?

There are eight cards. Charles dealt her seven, and she gave him one back, when he asked for tens, because she had a single ten in her hand; but then he gave her two, when she asked for kings. So she has eight cards in all, three of them kings. You can do more with playing cards than play Go Fish.

Not many arrays call for eight cards. Camilla has shuffled, and shuffled again, and laid out the cards in one of the few such arrays she knows. She's sitting crosslegged before them now, looking and looking as if something more will make itself known if she only looks long enough, or as if there'll be a nicer answer. As if the cards will rearrange themselves. As if the spades will turn to clubs, the clubs to diamonds, the diamonds to hearts.

Once at Hampden, years ago, in a passing complaint about his then-employer (a psychology professor), Camilla's friend Richard told her something Julian had said to him. Julian had said: "It seems to me that psychology is only another word for what the ancients called fate." Now Camilla contemplates the hand her brother dealt her, and considers fate.

The first two cards in this layout signify what is perceived by the querent. She finds them odious. The first card, the King of Diamonds: A bitter rival, a dangerous competitor, for women it can mean an abusive man or a deceitful lover. The second card, the Nine of Clubs: Trouble: Represents arguments with good friends. A loss of a relationship, a dispute that will remain unresolved.

The second two cards in the layout signify how the situation is perceived by others. These cards Camilla resents. Here is the Seven of Diamonds: Bad luck on an enterprise or idea. A man who is unreliable, a gambler or drinker. And here, the Queen of Spades: A cruel woman, one who interferes. For women, a betrayal by a good friend. For men, a woman who will use them for their own gain.

The third pair of cards signify the querent's desires -- how she wants things to turn out. Camilla is frankly baffled by these. The juxtaposition of the two makes no sense at all. This is where the two remaining kings of the three have clustered. The King of Spades: A man who will cause problems in marriage or relationships. One who will get in the middle, divide and conquer..and then destroy. Beside him, the King of Clubs: Represents a very good friend. A lifelong companion, someone who can be trusted and counted on during times of need and sorrow. You can't want both those things at the same time. She's sure that Henry is the King of Clubs. Just as she told Richard before everything went truly askew, Henry has never let her down. Not even by dying -- that wasn't his fault. And he came back.

The final pair of cards signify potential. It's not the way things have to turn out, but it's where things are headed; what seeds are being planted, what seeds are germinating. The two cards laid out here offer nothing like hope. The Five of Hearts: Indecisiveness: The querent's inability to make up his/her mind on a subject. A tendency to make and break plans with others. After that, the Two of Clubs: Bad luck. Being let down by those around. Opposition from friends and family. Do not count on others.

Camilla believes in divination. In this she follows Henry's example -- Henry, always superstitious, always given to the reading of omens. As much as she may dislike what the cards are saying to her, as much as she would like to call them a lot of nonsense, she simply can't brush it aside. It's this that keeps her staring at the cards well into the night, until the candles start to gutter and flare out. Only then does she scoop them up and sort them into a neat stack again. She wraps them in the ruined robe she'd cut up to wear that improbable afternoon when she'd been a child again. She shoves the whole bundle into the bottom of a trunk. She won't look at it again.

She doesn't have to. She knows the cards by heart. She knows, too, what she'd like even more to forget: the card she gave Charles when it was his turn and he asked. It was a ten, what he asked for. The Ten of Spades: A very unlucky card. If near a good card, it can cancel it out. If found with bad cards, makes them twice as bad. She wonders what cards it's nestled next to now -- what its immediate neighbors might be. Part of her hopes they're good cards. Part of her hopes they're very, very bad.

She thinks about sending him back his eight cards. The deck will be useless without them, and God knows Camilla doesn't want them. They're the one reminder she has that the entire encounter really happened, not something she dreamed up while running around drugged with the magic chocolate.

For several reasons, she won't send them back.

She can't just leave the deck incomplete that way, though. It's not right. It's unlucky. So she thinks a while, and she sends away for something. It doesn't take long to arrive. When it does, she wraps it up in a careless lopsided little package -- Camilla forever unskilled in the domestic arts -- and mails it off to Charles by way of a school owl, with no note, nothing even to say who it's for. She's whispered the recipient's name to the owl. It'll know where to go.