Join us for a weekly blog party in Six Sentence Stories, hosted by Denise and attended by some mighty fine, fun folk. Prompt word=OPTION. Read, write and come back for more SIX SENTENCE STORIES.  (Link goes active Wed night).

Before she, Esme, lifts the ivory linen that protects the remainder of the morning’s bread from the inquisitive, errant bluebottle fly, before she takes another sip of the water-wine mix that has settled and reached a cool room temperature in the chalice, the ewer now drained and removed by her sole servant, she reaches for the wooden box wherein the cards rest, awaiting activation by her thoughtful consciousness.

Intention precedes intuition to get a true reading.

Cat awakens as she shuffles and drops five cards—five  likely options—on the table, face down; he arches and digs his claws into the chair cushion, pulling back into a stretch and then rising into a swell that flows over her shoulder and on to the table beside his mistress, where he settles to a demure and elegant squat.

She strokes his fur from between his pert ears to the tip of his bushy black tail to compete the circuit, and he rises, reaches with his massive paw to push one card away from the grouping of five.

Sweeping the remaining four to the side, Esme flips the chosen card.

She smiles at the Ten of Wands, at its correspondence to The High Priestess visitations she’s drawn for the last month; she will continue to wait and watch, to gather intelligence as she recovers her health.

© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2026)