Mina rolled down the window car, enjoying the warm cool breeze on her face even though it was four in the evening. The sky was a clear, brilliant blue and the temperature was perfect. This weather definitely warranted a walk.

Maybe I was too hard on myself about the book thing, she thought. Maybe I should tell Jihyo just now. She’ll feels suspicious if she found me with the book. Besides, it’s her book. I’ll get mad if someone touch my stuff, too.

“Is this your first time coming to Bukhansan, Mina?” Dahyun asked, looking at her through the rear-view mirror. Mina nodded. It had been a long time since her last time to the countryside, and it was her very first time to the mountain area in Seoul.

Dahyun to Jingwan-Dong Street, Bukhansan’s main highway. She only took twenty minutes to reach Goyang, a part of the Seoul Capital Area. Goyang was a cheerful, busy street, lined with coffee houses, restaurants, book stores, boutiques and cute specialty shops. Plenty of window shopping here, Mina thought, eyeing a display of whimsical kitchen utensils and antique shops.

“How about we go to the park before we send you home, Mina? It’ll going to be great!” Sana turned her body and looked at Mina. Sana urged Dahyun to drive straight to the park without waiting for Mina to voice out her mind. Dahyun turned down a tiny alley that ran between two stores on Jingwan-Dong. It was the only way to Ilsan Lake Park.

As the ice cream van drifted past them in the parking lot, they could already glimpse the sight of children tugging their parent’s limbs towards the van. The children with money raced after the belching fumes to be first in line. As the white van came to a halt, a skinny hand flung the window open and played the merry tune. Swarms of children surrounded the van, waving their money in the air. Smaller kids squeezed through to front of the queue, whilst the bigger kids frantically shoved their way in.

“Do you want to get one?” Dahyun asked. “We can chat while eating ice-cream.” Mina smiled at the idea. Sana sheepishly smirked to the youngster and pointed her purse. “The one who suggest the idea should contribute their best to the end. I didn’t bring my wallet. You paid for us.”

“Okay. Okay. My treat.” Dahyun volunteered, bringing Sana along with her to the van. “I don’t have three hands to hold the cone.” Mina followed the duo behind and smiled just by looking at them.

“What should we do next?” Sana quickly the ice-cream to right it, it had begun to slump precariously to one side.

“Maybe she can tell us the next plan,” Dahyun said, nodding to a young woman talking to a couple at a nearby table.

Mina turned her head slightly and saw a young woman Dahyun was motioning toward. She was wearing a skirt made of coloured scarves sewn together in a patchwork pattern. Her flammable hair flowed across still more scarves that draped over her shoulders, wrapped around her body, and tucked into a wide sash at her waist. Silver rings set with large stones adorned her fingers, and heavy silver bracelets clanked against her wrists. Even from a distance, Mina knew enough about antiques to know the jewellery was ancient.

The red-haired woman began to lay cards on a nearby table occupied by a young couple.

“She’s giving a tarot reading,” Sana whispered.

“You should get one, Mina. To know if you should live with us or go back to your home,” Dahyun joked.

Mina looked at Sana and Dahyun. “I know that I should go back to the shop–”

“Let’s all get a reading,” Sana suggested. “What better time than the last day of hang out to find out what the future holds?”

“But I don’t believe in something uncertain. Tarot reading is a cheap trick,” Mina voiced out. “She will going to tell you something vague, and then, when something happens, you’ll think ‘Oh, that’s exactly what the cards meant.’ ”

“Don’t be so serious, Mina. Let’s do it. Just for fun. You don’t have to believe in it.”

“I don’t want to do this,” Mina said, feeling a foreboding that she couldn’t explain. She knew only that she didn’t want anyone telling her what would happen to her. With all the twist story of her present, she knew the tarot reader – or ‘witch’ as what her mother called them when she was young – have the ability to see glimpses of the future. Mina loved surprise and suspense but met with spirit from her dream was never written in her list. At all.

“Oh, come on, Mina,” Dahyun urged her. “We’ll all going to do it.”

“Pretty please?” Sana smiled.

Mina gave a sigh of resignation. Her new friends were not about to let go of this idea. “All right,” she agreed.

Holding her cards, the tarot reader rose from the table, and her glance went directly to Mina.

Mina felt an icy shiver race along her spine. Her reaction made no sense. The woman wasn’t threatening me, Mina thought, trying to stop herself for being ridiculous. She did not even knew her. It was her first time met her. Even though the customers came and ate in her workplace, for sure she will remember a customer, a woman customer, wearing a patchwork pattern clothing, exactly like the person who sat right in front of her.

I hate my instinct.

With a knowing smile, the tarot reader waved them. “You wish me to look into your future with my cards? It is 5, 000 won each.”

Mina started to reach into her purse. Sana grabbed her hand. “It was my idea. I’ll pay.”

“With what?” Dahyun asked, staring at her.

Sana grimaced. “Right. I didn’t bring my bag.”

Sana had yet to find a job or decide what she wanted to do with her life except helping Jihyo to fight in the middle of the night almost every full moon. She planned to work in the daytime but Dahyun protested it. “You’ll soon get exhausted for not getting enough rest,” her Master said.

During her study, Dahyun worked as a shop assistant in a supermarket before offered work in Daikin, an air conditioner and refrigerator company for a position of Quality Assurance Executive after her graduation. At the end of the month Dahyun will give ‘allowance’ to Sana ‘for taking care of her and working so hard to protect her for every match.’

However, this fellow named Sana always thought that the ‘allowance’ given by Dahyun was too high if compared to her job as a Guardian. She kept on thinking how to give her back as a token of thanks. Once, she brought a carcass of reindeer that she caught right behind Nayeon’s house whilst all of them – Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Jihyo, Tzuyu and Dahyun – hanged out in the house.

“You caught one of the protected animals listed in the law?” Dahyun hit the panic button soon after she learnt the location Sana caught the animal. “And it was right from Bukhansan National Park? Now how do we want to hide the bones?” Dahyun frightened. Well, they did eat the venison. All of them in the house. Soon after the mealtime, Sana, Jeongyeon and Jihyo brought every single piece of bones to the wild back, arranging the part ‘as scientific as possible’ under Dahyun’s surveillance.

“I convinced Mina to do it, so I’ll treat,” Dahyun told them.

“No argument there,” Mina said as Dahyun dug some money out of her purse.

Dahyun handed fifteen thousand won to the tarot reader. Mina watched her slip it between her scarves, no doubt into a hidden pocket.

“I’ll said with the one who paid,” the tarot reader said. She began to lay the tarot cards on the table in front of Dahyun in a pattern that resembled a cross.

Mina seen the tarot cards. The deck was definitely old – the colours of the images were faded and the corners of the cards were cracked with use. There were some images that seemed familiar – a court jester or fool, a king, an old man with a beard – like an old European decks but many more that weren’t.

“What kind of deck is this?” Mina asked, curious.

The tarot reader shrugged. “A fortune-teller’s deck. The cards reveal the future.”

“Right.” Mina said. “But that’s not what I want to ask. I’m curious about the deck’s history.”

“The cards are very old,” the tarot reader said as she continued to slowly lay them in front of Dahyun. “For generations, within my family, they have been passed from mother to daughter,” she went on.

“How many generations?” Mina asked, cynical but still interested.

“Too many to count,” the tarot reader replied.

Mina watched the tarot reader smiled at Dahyun after she laid down the final card.

“Ah,” she murmured. “It is your time to be noticed.”

Dahyun grinned. “Me? The dateless wonder? That’s a nice change.”

“Your life is indeed changing. In the future – the near future – many will notice you,” the tarot reader assured her. She gathered up her cards and turned to Sana. “Are you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Sana said.

Mina leaned forward as the tarot reader laid out the cards for Sana. Though the cards were faded, they were beautiful – edged in silver and gold and illustrated with highly detailed images. Mina tried to fix the design of the border and the cards itself. Maybe she could find some information about this particular design when she returned to her home.

“Where does the deck come from?” she asked.

“Somewhere in Russia,” the tarot reader answered, never taking her eyes off the cards. “It was always whispered in my family that one of our ancestors, a man who practiced The Black Book, created the cards.

Sana and Dahyun went a little pale. They knew what The Black Book was. It was Vampire’s Holy Book. “The Black Book?” Sana talked. “Maybe we shouldn’t be messing with something created by a guy who was into The Black Book.”

The tarot reader’s eyes held hers. “The cards themselves are neither good nor evil. What matters is the intention of the one who reads them.”

“And your intention is . . . ?” Dahyun asked.

“To tell the future, to entertain you and to make my living,” she replied smoothly. She smiled at Sana. “You will come into money.”

Sana grinned. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”