"'Tis a question that only your friend could answer," Granny Meg replied. "Although 'tis possible that she may not know the answer."
Elizabeth frowned. "You speak in riddles, Granny Meg. I beg of you, speak plainly. Please tell me what you mean."
"Your friend's grief may be her struggle for the answer that she seeks," Granny Meg replied. "Or else it could be her struggle to avoid facing it. Betimes, when faced with a trying situation, one may already know the answer, but be unable to accept it."
"And what would happen then?" Elizabeth asked.
'The answer would not change," Granny Meg replied. "Nor >would the situation, unless one accepted it for what it was and faced the answer."
"So then, you mean that unless she can accept this thing she does not wish to face, then she will be ever thus, trapped within this struggle, within her grief for this young man? Oh, but that is terrible, Granny Meg! What if she can never bring herself to accept it?"
"Sooner or later, Elizabeth, all people must accept their fate, for refusing to accept it shall not change it."
"What, then, is the remedy for my poor friend?"
"Time," said Granny Meg. "Time is often the best remedy of all. Time, and patience, Elizabeth. Your patience. The patience of those who care for her."
Elizabeth shook her head sadly. "I think that I may be the only one who truly cares about her, Granny Meg. Her father has already made another match for her, it seems. And the man with whom this match was made…" She shook her head. "Well, the less said of him, the better."
"If her father truly cares for her, then he must give her time to accept that which she must face," said Granny Meg.
"And if he cares less for her than for himself?" Elizabeth asked.
"Then in the end, he shall fail both his daughter and himself," said Granny Meg.
Elizabeth nodded. "'Twould seem clear, then, what I must do. I must speak with him and make him understand his daughter's plight."
Granny Meg smiled and shook her head. "You cannot make him understand, Elizabeth. He must choose to understand. In the end, we must all make choices for ourselves. Even when it appears that we have no choice, the truth is that a choice always exists."
"I must present him with that choice, then," Elizabeth replied, "and do all that is within my power to see he chooses wisely. Thank you, Granny Meg, for your good counsel"
"We are not yet done," said Granny Meg, as Elizabeth started to get up. "Sit down, Elizabeth." She pulled out a soft leather pouch and opened the drawstrings.
Elizabeth swallowed nervously, her gaze fixed upon the deck of cards that Granny Meg withdrew from the bag and placed face-down upon the table. "Perhaps now is not the time…" she began.
"Shuffle the cards," said Granny Meg.
Elizabeth moistened her lips and reached slowly for the cards.
She half expected to feel some sort of jolt when she picked them up, but she did not. They felt like a perfectly ordinary deck of cards, even though she knew otherwise. Slowly, purposefully, she shuffled them.
"Place them down upon the table whenever you feel that you have shuffled them enough," said Granny Meg.
She did so.
"And now cut the cards."
She picked up approximately half the cards and cut the deck, making two neat little stacks.
Granny Meg picked them up and put them together once again, then started to deal out the cards, face up, in a ten-card spread known as the Celtic Cross. The first card she placed face up was the Wheel of Fortune.
"This indicates your present," she said, as she put down the card. "The card of fate and changing fortune."
"We were just speaking of fate," Elizabeth said softly.
Granny Meg smiled. "Indeed." She placed another card down, laying it across the first one. It depicted a woman with her arm around a lion. "The card of Strength. It speaks of courage and conviction. And this card crosses you."
"What does that mean?"