The negative aspect was, of course, unbridled sensuality, but Eleanor felt herself very uncomfortable with sensuality of any sort.
"I don't see," she said to the Empress, in a voice that sounded rather high and nervous rather than confident, "what you have to do with me."
The three-moon headdress she wore as the High Priestess felt horribly heavy in that moment.
The Empress smiled a slow, languid smile, full of promises. "You don't deny you're a woman?" she drawled.
Eleanor tried not to squirm. "Not that it does me any good," she complained—the words jumping out of her mouth before she could think. "No one pays the least attention to me."
"That's your stepmother's doing," the Empress said, in a purr. "She doesn't want anyone to think of you as a human being, much less a woman. But until you reconcile yourself to the fact that you are a woman, and you can be bound by your womanhood or freed by it, you won't get past me."
"Freed?" Eleanor snorted. "Nobody is freed by womanhood! We aren't even allowed to vote! Why—"
"That has not always been so, and it will not be forever," the Empress replied, bending to sniff her roses. "That is not to the point—the point is you. You must embrace all sides of yourself to pass any card. Body as well as mind. What am I?"
"Umm—" Eleanor found herself blushing. "Ah—" "Sensuality. Rejoicing in the physical. If your head is strong and full of thoughts, but your body is weak, where are you?" The Empress tilted her head to the side. "Where is the balance in that, High Priestess? Or perhaps I should say—pretty Fool." And in that moment Eleanor's robes vanished and she was back in the garb of the Fool again.
"Weak? Me?" Eleanor snorted again. "With all the work I have to do?"
"Ah, but do you take pleasure in that fine young body of yours, or merely allow it to carry your head around?" The Empress yawned.
"And just what is there to take pleasure in?" Eleanor demanded angrily. Why this card made her so angry, she could not have said, but it did, and made her terribly uncomfortable as well.
"Please. Haven't you two working eyes, two fine ears?" the Empress replied with scorn. "There are meadowlarks by day, and the scent of flowers—by night, the moon and the cool, soothing breeze. Your body is healthy and strong, and work comes easily to it. You are young, and when the song of spring sings in your veins, you feel the quickening of the earth all around you. You have more, much more, than many of those that you know possess. You are not dead or dying, maimed or ill, how can you not take pleasure in these things?"
"Um—" well, she had been doing just that. "I suppose—I suppose you must be right—"
"And young men," the Empress persisted, looking both wise and sly. "Haven't you felt longing for—"
"No!" she exclaimed, feeling her face flush hotly.
"Too soon, too soon, you protest too much and too soon," the Empress declared, laughing, holding up the heart she held for Eleanor's inspection. "You silly child! Do you think I do not know?"
Her face flamed so redly it was painful. No! She hadn't longed after Reggie! Not really. After all, he didn't think anything of her, so why should she think of him? It wasn't even remotely possible, anyway. . . .
"And who does it harm to admit that side of yourself?" the Empress murmured, hooding her eyes with heavy lids. "Who is going to tell Reggie? Not I, certainly. My dear, my dear, these things must be taken from your path! I cannot give you the rose to let you pass until you examine and accept what is in your own heart! Who am I going to tell, after all?"
Her face burning, Eleanor opened her mouth, shut it, opened it— then turned and fled.
The little dog yapped at her heels, sounding angry at her. She ignored him as she ignored the roses whose thorns caught at her clothing and tried to stop her, as she fled out of the garden, out of the dream, and—
—and woke up with a start.
It was still dark. It had felt as if she had been in the garden for hours, but by the moon shining in her window, she knew it couldn't have been more than an hour or two.
She was panting and winded as if she really had run through that garden, and her heart pounded, the loudest sound in the room.
What was I so frightened of?
Not for the first time, she wondered just who—or what—the Tarot creatures really were. At first she had thought that they were images and archetypes out of her own mind, but she had shortly realized that they knew things she didn't. And they acted in ways that seemed entirely independent of her mind. Like the Empress, for instance.
Why was I so upset with what she said?
She did not like the Empress, not even in her proper position. She was too knowing, too lush, too—too sensual. Too much of everything, actually. The Magician had been a wealth of knowledge, cool and aloof after that first time of being Sarah, the High Priestess was someone that Eleanor could admire, wise, controlled, and ascetic. But the Empress! She was—she was—
She's like Alison, when Alison is in one of her queen-of-everything moods. . . .
And as she lay there, staring at the ceiling, letting her thoughts settle into a pattern again, she gradually understood what was going on. The key to the Empress, that had eluded her for several nights now, finally came into her grasp.
More than ever she wished she could stop with the High Priestess. And she knew that she couldn't, that she would have to dream herself back; not tomorrow or the next night, but tonight. She had to face this and face it now, with the knowledge fresh in her mind.
She closed her eyes, moved around on her lumpy mattress until she was completely comfortable, then began taking slow, even breaths. She concentrated, not on the dream she wanted to re-enter, nor her surroundings. She concentrated on herself, on relaxing every muscle in her body, starting with her face. She felt muscles let go that she didn't even know were tensed as she worked her way from her head, to her shoulders, to her arms . . . felt herself starting to drift, as the night-sounds faded away from around her, and she felt as if she was floating, and . . .
And she found herself back on the edge of the cliff, in the person of the Fool.
She stared down at the abyss below her for a moment. The bottom was lost in haze and darkness; she'd never been able to see it. Oddly, that made it seem less dangerous, as if she could throw herself over the edge, spread her arms, and fly.
And the Fool in her would have been willing to give that a try, for the Fool had no fear and not a great deal of good judgment.
Resolutely, she turned from the cliff and took the path into the garden.
The Magician was not waiting at his altar, but the accoutrements were still there. But this time, Eleanor took the dagger with her when she went on. The dagger—the representative of her own Element. She couldn't wield that power yet, but now she knew she had to have a channel through which to use it when she did master it. And this time, she didn't change to the Magician herself when she passed the altar.