It’s been hell this week, and I’m really tired of hell.

I should be looking forward to the weekend, but I’m not. I’ve brought paperwork home with me, and I have spiritual work to do as well, spiritual work I’d far rather be doing. I’m too far behind on too many projects, and spending most of the week having medical tests run didn’t help my schedule one bit.

But the odd lump under my arm seems to be a little less likely tonight to be cancerous than it did last night. The phone’s ringing before I can drop my purse onto the sofa and pat the puppy on the head. I can sense that the girls have come by on their way to their dad’s for the weekend and that, as usual, they weren’t too happy to have to spend time with him. I do my best not to feel guilty. I fought as hard as I could, but the court says he gets the minimum time with them, and even that’s more than they want to see him.

 It’s Jan. My best friend for the past decade and more. I know it before I even pick up the phone or glance at Caller ID. We have that kind of connection, and she’s been with me in many past lives. She’s Christian with New Age tendancies and I’m a Christian-converted-to- Wicca, yet we’ve found plenty of common ground and continue to learn from each other. She’s one of the few people I trust with my life or with my kids, and I’m not sure I would have made it through my divorce without her emotional support.

 “It’s not cancer,” she tells me. “Some kind of infection, but it’s not life-threatening. Just painful and annoying.”

 She’s an empath and a talented psychic, tapping directing into St. Germaine, Mother Mary, Archangel Michael, and—often—Jesus Himself, but she still worries over me as fretfully as my own mother. Worse…because I actually tell Jan what’s going on in my life.

 We’ve both had a rough week full of health challenges, but they seem to be more related to this strange shift in energies that we’re both feeling. It’s like our vibrations are being raised or tweaked or toyed with. Ever since a couple of days before Samhain, or Halloween, everyone’s been feeling the energy shift. People are bursting into tears for no reason or they’re cranky and downright mean for no reason. Jan and I seem to be getting the brunt of the emotional, as is my former High Priestess, Donna, who now lives in California—at least this week, she does. With all the crabbiness and tears going on, it’s a good time to be a hermit.

 But if Jan isn’t particularly concerned about my cancer scare, she’s very concerned about what my ex-husband is up to, and so am I.

 I’ve had that antsy feeling for days now. Something’s up with Quentin, and it’s related to finances, the kids, and me. He’s eight months behind on complying with a court order to return half of the girls’ college funds to their accounts. Lots of promises and posturing, but no money yet in spite of the fact that he walked away from our marriage with close to a million in cash and stocks, and that’s just what I know of. I think his penchant for hiding money from lawyers, judges, and me is coming to an end.

Jan’s had a couple of visions lately of him and his dad with big red IRS flags over their faces. To comply with the court order, he’ll have to bring some money out of hiding, and that’s likely to trigger some attention. Quent hid money during our divorce—the reason I’m paying him alimony—but my guides tell me that it’s soon going to end and everything he’s hidden will be exposed. And that includes whatever money he’s hidden behind the façade of his father’s business.

What scares me most is if the offending lump under my arm is cancer, will he be able to wrest away custody of the girls and regain control of my assets? It was always my financial assets he loved most about me. He didn’t value me for my ideas or talents or me, but he did value my income-earning potential and my knack for investments.

 He knows I’m scared. My fifteen-year-old let slip that Mommy was having an emergency mammogram done and suddenly I’m getting various emails from him saying he’s made me the beneficiary on various accounts of his, the expectation being that I’ll guiltily reciprocate.

Like hell.

 I’d thought the piggy bank was his totem animal, but the vulture seems to be more appropriate right now.

 He’s being superficially nice this week, and that alone bears watching. He doesn’t believe in God or ghosts or angels or anything he can’t see and touch and taste, and he still thinks that if he smiles and extends his hand, that those of us with “sensitivities” he doesn’t believe in won’t detect the nature of the beast behind the toothy pleasantries.

 He doesn’t know that every lie I’ve discovered him in has been shown to me either through my own intuition or delivered to me by my friends with psychic gifts. How ironic.

 While Jan and I talk, I make a quick dinner, feed the puppy, haul dirty towels to the washing machine, and dress a candle in rose oil on the Light Altar for Jesse, sending my unconditional love for him out into the Universe, whether or not he ever returns. After only a few chores, the lump under my arm is hurting fiercely, and I want more than anything to talk to Jesse and tell him about it and feel his emotional support and hear his opinions on it, but that’s not going to happen. For now, he’s lost to me on the physical plane, and I’ve been blocked from communicating with him both here and in the Ether. I can’t even think about it without a huge knotting in my throat and a burning in my eyes. I don’t need a man, but I sure want one in particular, and it’s Jesse Matthews.

 I barely hang up the phone before it rings again.