Evidence Locker: The High Priestess Returned My Lost Keys Backwards
I want to start by saying I am not afraid. I have never been afraid, not once, not even when the toaster made that noise that sounded like a goat, and I think that is important context for what I am about to tell you. Because what happened last Tuesday in the Evidence Locker—which is what I call the drawer where I keep old grocery lists and one very sad cactus—was not scary. It was helpful. It was the most helpful thing that has ever happened to me, and I think we should all be grateful.
It began when I lost my keys. Again. I lose my keys a lot, but this time it felt different because I had just cleaned my apartment, which means I had moved the keys somewhere intentional, and intentional places are the hardest to find because they are usually inside a book you were pretending to read or in the freezer next to the peas. I looked everywhere. I looked under the couch. I looked in the couch. I looked through the couch, which is how I found a quarter from 1987 and also a piece of popcorn that had achieved sentience. But no keys.
So I did what any reasonable person does when the material world fails them: I consulted the tarot. I have a deck, but I don’t use it the way other people do. I use it the way you use a magic eight ball, except the cards are heavier and sometimes they get stuck to the butter on my fingers. I shuffled, I breathed deeply, I asked the universe, “Where are my keys?” and I pulled a card.
It was The High Priestess.
Now, I know The High Priestess is about intuition and secrets and the moon and all that, but I’ve never really understood her. She sits between two pillars, which I always thought was just a nice architectural choice, like having a fireplace. She holds a scroll that says “TORA,” which I believe is a misspelling of “TORE,” like she tore something, maybe a piece of paper, maybe a receipt. She is very calm. I am not calm. I am the opposite of calm. I am the person who claps when the microwave beeps.
But I wasn’t afraid. I was excited. Because here’s the thing about The High Priestess that nobody tells you: she doesn’t give you the answer. She gives you the feeling of the answer. And the feeling I got was… backwards. Like I had put my socks on inside-out, but for my soul.
I decided to interpret this literally. If The High Priestess was telling me to go backwards, then the answer was behind me. Not behind me like “in the past,” but behind me like “physically behind my body, possibly in the laundry hamper.” So I turned around. I walked backwards into my kitchen. I walked backwards into my bedroom. I walked backwards into my closet, where I discovered I own three identical gray sweaters, which is not a mystery but a lifestyle.
And then I felt the pull. It was coming from the Evidence Locker.
The Evidence Locker is not a dramatic place. It is a shoebox that I have labeled “EVIDENCE” in permanent marker, because I once watched a crime show and thought it would be fun to have a place for clues. Inside the Evidence Locker are: a receipt from a gas station in Ohio (I have never been to Ohio), a single earring that looks like a tiny chandelier, a note that says “CALL BOB” but I don’t know Bob, and the aforementioned sad cactus. I opened the Evidence Locker, and there, sitting on top of the sad cactus, were my keys.
But here’s the part that made me gasp, and not because I was scared but because I was delighted: the keys were facing backwards. The keychain—which is a small plastic fish that used to have a whistle in it but now just makes a sad squeaking sound—was pointing toward the back of the shoebox. The teeth of the keys were pointing toward me. It was as if someone had placed them there with the intention of them being pulled out from the other side. Like the keys were not for me. Like the keys were for the cactus.
I picked them up, and I turned them around, because that’s what you do with keys. But as soon as I turned them, I heard a sound. It was a soft sound, like a door closing in a room that doesn’t have a door. And I realized, in that moment, that The High Priestess wasn’t telling me where my keys were. She was telling me how to find them. She was telling me that the answer was not in front of me, not behind me, but sideways. She was telling me that all lost things are found when you stop looking in the direction you think you’re looking in, and instead look in the direction you aren’t.
I have no idea what that means. But I found my keys. So I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid of the Evidence Locker, or the sad cactus, or the tiny chandelier earring, or the fact that the note still says “CALL BOB” and I still don’t know Bob. I’m not afraid because I’ve learned something important: the universe doesn’t hide your keys. It just puts them in a place where you have to be willing to see them from the other side.
And if that means walking backwards through my own life, tripping over my own feet, and occasionally pulling a card that looks like a woman who knows more than I do, then so be it.
I am not afraid.
I am just very, very turned around.