The glow of my iPad cast eerie shadows across my face, reflected in the bathroom mirror I glanced at hours ago. I’d been sitting cross-legged on my bed since sunset, back aching, eyes burning, but unable to look away from the screen. The Shopify template stared back at me, blank and accusing, a digital canvas I had no idea how to fill. My finger hovered over the “website name” field, the cursor blinking with patient indifference to my paralysis.
What did I know about websites? About digital marketing? About reaching people through screens instead of across a table draped in velvet? The cursor continued its steady pulse, a metronome counting the seconds of my hesitation.
Outside, a siren wailed, rising and falling like a wordless lament. My apartment had grown dark around me, but I hadn’t bothered to turn on a lamp. There was something fitting about sitting in darkness, illuminated only by this portal to a world I barely understood.
I’d spent the afternoon watching tutorial videos, taking notes in a spiral notebook like a student cramming for exams. Words like “SEO” and “conversion rates” and “user experience” swam through my head, a foreign language I was struggling to translate into something meaningful.
The website name field waited, empty.
What should I call this new venture? “Rahel’s Readings” felt too generic, too much like every other online psychic promising unlikely fortunes for $3.99 a minute.
Not predictions. Not entertainment. But clarity. Direction. Power returned to those who felt powerless.
My fingers moved before I fully formed the thought, tapping out a name:
www.empowering-tarot.com
I stared at the words, testing them silently. Empowering dash Tarot dot com. Yes. The name of my former store, embedded in an URL. That name still captured the essence of what I’d always tried to provide—not answers, but empowerment. The tools for seekers to find their own paths, make their own choices, reclaim their own agency. And the best thing was, that it was still available.
A chill swept through the room, familiar now. The temperature dropped several degrees, and the light from my iPad seemed to dim slightly, as if something were drawing energy from it.
“A good choice,” Mister B. said from the corner of the room. His spectral form was less substantial than during our ritual—he was appearing of his own accord now, using his own energy rather than that of my candles and intention. “Direct. Purposeful. Nostalgic.”
I didn’t look up, my eyes still fixed on the screen. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“Few pioneers do,” he replied, drifting closer. I could see him in my peripheral vision now, his bow tie slightly askew. “The first telephone operators were making up protocols as they went. The first radio broadcasters had no format to follow.”
“This is different,” I said, though with less conviction than before. “This is spiritual work.”
“Is it?” Mister B. hovered at the edge of my bed, peering at the screen. “Or is it communication? Connection? Those things transcend medium, Rahel.”
I sighed, moving to the next field in the template. Business description. Another blank space waiting to be filled with words I wasn’t sure I had.
“What if no one finds me?” I asked, voicing the fear that had been growing since I’d started this project. “What if I build this whole thing and sit here watching an empty inbox?”
Mister B.’s form rippled with what might have been a gentle laugh. “What if the sun doesn’t rise tomorrow? What if gravity suddenly reverses? There are more productive fears to entertain.”
I shot him a look. “This is serious. I’m investing what little money I have left.”
“Indeed.” His translucent form moved across the room, observing my apartment with the detached interest of someone who no longer needed physical comforts. “Advance payments only,” he reminded me, his tone shifting to something more businesslike. “Your time is valuable.”
It was advice he’d given me when I first opened my shop, when I’d been too eager to help, too willing to extend credit to those who promised to pay later. I’d learned that lesson the hard way.
“No more free readings,” I agreed, navigating to the payment options page. “No more time-wasters.”
I selected the options that made sense—credit cards, PayPal, prepaid packages rather than one-off readings. My fingers moved with growing confidence, making decisions about pricing, about services offered, about the structure of this new digital space.
Mister B. watched with approval, occasionally offering a suggestion about wording or placement. Though he’d lived and died long before the digital age, he’d been observing its evolution through countless haunted screens, countless illuminated faces. He understood more than I did about how humans interacted with these glowing rectangles.
The night deepened around us. Occasional car headlights swept across my ceiling, briefly illuminating the water stain that resembled a map of some unknown continent. My eyes grew heavy, but my fingers kept working, arranging virtual cards where physical ones once lay.
I created pages: Services. About Me. FAQ. Contact. Each one a room in this new house I was building, each one requiring decisions about what to reveal, what to promise, what to offer.
For the About Me page, I uploaded a photo I’d taken last year—standing before my shop in a deep blue dress, smiling with the confidence of someone who believed in her path. That woman seemed a stranger now, but perhaps she was someone I could become again. Perhaps she was waiting for me on the other side of this transition.
“You need a photograph of your cards,” Mister B. suggested, pointing to an empty space on the Services page. “People are visual creatures. They need to see what they’re purchasing.”
I nodded, suddenly aware of how much more there was to do. Photos to take. Videos to record. Content to create. The digital world was boundless, expanding infinitely in all directions. My small shop had had four walls, physical limitations. This… this could grow beyond anything I’d imagined.
Or it could sit empty, unvisited, unnoticed in the vast ocean of websites vying for attention.
The thought sent a spike of anxiety through me. What if I was too late? What if the online market for spiritual guidance was already saturated? What if—
“You’re spiraling again,” Mister B. observed, his voice cutting through my mounting panic. “Focus on the task at hand. One step, then the next.”
I took a deep breath, returning my attention to the screen. He was right. One step, then the next. I couldn’t build Rome in a night, couldn’t possibly create everything this website would eventually need. But I could start. I could create the foundation.
My back ached from hours of hunching over the small screen. My eyes burned from the blue light. My fingers had grown stiff from tapping and swiping. But something was taking shape—a digital space that felt, if not like home, then at least like a structure that could become one.
Dawn was breaking by the time I finished the essential pages. Pale gray light seeped around the edges of my curtains, and birds had begun their morning conversations outside my window. Mister B.’s form had grown faint, harder to perceive in the growing daylight.
“It’s time,” he said, his voice distant now, conserving energy. “Publish it. Then rest.”
My finger hovered over the “Publish” button. Once pressed, this site would exist in the world, visible to anyone who found their way to it. It felt momentous, like opening the door to my shop had that first day fifteen years ago. Terrifying. Exhilarating.
“What if it’s not perfect?” I whispered, more to myself than to Mister B.
“Nothing born is perfect,” he replied, his form now just an outline, a suggestion. “Perfection is achieved through growth, through adaptation. Through beginning.”
I pressed the button.
A loading icon appeared—a small circle spinning, thinking, processing my request. Then a notification: “Your website is now live!”
A laugh escaped me, surprising in its genuine joy. I’d done it. Created something from nothing. Transformed idea into reality. The first step on a new path.
“Now we wait,” I said to the room, though Mister B. had already faded completely, exhausted by his extended presence.
I set the iPad aside and lay back on my unmade bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling. Waiting for the notification sound, for a customer to find me. For some sign that this leap of faith would be rewarded.
The room remained silent. The birds continued their conversations. Cars passed on the street below. The world continued its rotation, indifferent to my small revolution.
Exhaustion washed over me in waves, but my mind raced with next steps, with improvements, with possibilities I hadn’t considered before. This was just the beginning. There was so much more to do, to learn, to create.
The room remained silent, but the silence felt different now—pregnant with possibility rather than heavy with defeat. I closed my eyes, allowing sleep to finally claim me, the iPad still glowing beside me like a promise.
14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS3X7gk6vB1
Hello everyone and thank you for reading!
Alright, this one is breaking the fourth wall :D
www.empowering-tarot.com exists. You can visit, you can look around, and yes, you can book real tarot readings there.
If you know, you know ;)
Wishing y'all a happy weekend ahead!
ns216.73.216.179da2
and then Add to home screen.