On the evening of May 3, 2007, three-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared from her family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal.

Madeleine had been sleeping in the apartment with her younger twin siblings while her parents ate at a nearby restaurant with friends. When her mother returned to check on the children, Madeleine was gone.

What followed became one of the most recognizable missing-person cases in the world. Portuguese, British, and German authorities have all investigated the disappearance. Searches have continued, suspects and theories have come and gone, and almost every detail of that night has been pulled apart more than once. Still, Madeleine has never been found, and no one has been charged in connection with her disappearance.

Nearly two decades later, Madeleine’s face is still recognized around the world, but what happened after she vanished from Apartment 5A remains unknown.

This tarot reading is not an attempt to solve the case. I wanted to see what story unfolded across the cards, what details repeated, and where the spread left room for possibilities that have never been fully explored.

If you’re interested in how disappearances and unanswered questions are explored through fiction, you may also enjoy my list of Gone Without a Trace: Missing Person Thriller Books.

About This Reading

This reading uses tarot as a reflective and symbolic tool. It is not evidence, and it cannot identify a guilty person or establish what happened as fact.

This is part of my ongoing subscriber series, where I share full tarot readings on unsolved mysteries, historical enigmas, and stories that refuse to stay buried. A new reading is published every Tuesday at 10:00 AM Eastern.

I went into this spread without trying to prove any particular theory. What emerged was a repeated pattern of comfort, access, planning, travel, a possible male-and-female presence, and something tangible that may still exist.

What makes this reading so strange is the way certain images keep passing from one card to the next. It feels as though the spread is showing us a path while refusing to reveal where it ends.

If you enjoy tarot readings that examine what may have been overlooked in an unsolved case, you may also want to read The Axeman of New Orleans Tarot Reading: The Letter, the Jazz, and the Unfinished Story. That reading raised its own questions about hidden identities, missed connections, and why the truth remained buried.