One day in summer, when the heat was too heavy to play outside and the air too thick to do chores comfortably, Daisy and Sammie and Meli and Molly and Delphinium and Aster and Ruby, who refused to be left out of it, decided to make a tarot deck. Now, hobbit tarot decks are not quite like the ordinary sort, and feature cards whose meaning has been lost.

There was Desire, which Delphinium drew with careful charcoal lines. Cruel, beautiful, everything that the heart has ever wanted. It was Frodo, standing on the edge of a bright crack in a dark mountain, a gold ring held in one thin hand.

There was Destiny, fate that will eventually come and cannot be avoided (except, perhaps, that it can, really). Sammie took charge of that one, sketching the sad eyes of a Lorien queen who had sailed west years before his birth.

There was Dream, all things that the heart creates and strives for. Ruby drew her mother, telling a fairy story to the assembled little ones grouped around her chair.

There was Death, which means change and growth and life as much as it means endings. Meli drew that, for Meli had always loved to paint the dark curls of Queen Arwen's hair, the proud line of King Elessar's jaw.

There was Despair, and Aster insisted on taking care of that one. What she drew was simple enough, Sam watching the shore of the ocean. But all the things that this meant, the thought of a world without Frodo and dear Sammie, was enough to send a shiver of deepest Despair through all the children's hearts.

There was Destruction, Molly picked up her coloured pencils with a giggle and drew a very neat and realistic image of several extremely muddy hobbits with very large smiles.

And lastly, there was Delirium, the card Daisy spent the lazy afternoon absorbed in the creation of. Delirium could be a happy card or a sad card, halfway between dreams and despair, and Daisy wanted to make sure she got it right. Uncle Frodo felt the touch of Delirium on his bad days, but so did the children at their most creative and boisterous. The picture had to capture both these things, the duality of the emotion.

Then it started to rain, as it usually does after hot and heavy days, and the children galloped outside to frolic in the raindrops. Daisy shrugged, picked up a brown crayon and scribbled out a quick sketch of a clump of pipeleaf, and ran out to join the others. Perhaps it was better not to try and capture Delirium on card after all, since it was more fun to find it for oneself.

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Pretty Good Year | email Mary