Down on the Charm

by E L Wilder

  “You would know what to do,” she said. “I should have listened more when you were here. You tried, but I wasn’t ready.” She set the frame back in its place.

  A knock sounded at the door. Hazel sat up straight and proper and looked at the door, not directly but via reflection—just as Gammy had always poised herself when granting entrance. “You’ll find it open,” she called out, echoing Gammy’s standard line.

  The door opened a crack, and her mother’s tear-streaked face appeared. “I thought I’d find you here,” she whispered. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

  “Not hungry.”

  Her mother entered, meeting her gaze in the mirror and lightly running her fingers through Hazel’s curls. “May I?”

  Hazel nodded.

  Her mother opened the top drawer, where Gammy kept her grooming kit—an antique set of tortoiseshell and silver hairbrushes, hand mirrors, hairpins, and nail files, all nearly as old as the farm itself. But one spot in the case was conspicuously empty. “Gammy’s brush . . .” her mother murmured, her voice tinged with pain and panic. She frantically pawed through the other drawers, but when she came up emptyhanded, her shoulders slumped and she started sobbing.

  “There haven’t been any formal charges filed,” she said between sobs. “But they want to hold her for further questioning.”

  Hazel turned on the stool to face her. “Can they even do that?”

  Her mother nodded mutely. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll get her the best lawyer Bennett money can buy.” She laughed humorlessly. “And if need be, we’ll sell the farm to pay the bills.”

  “I have money,” said Hazel.

  “Hazey—”

  “It’s my money,” Hazel snapped. “I’ll use it how I want.” She’d spoken more forcefully than intended. Never mind that she didn’t actually know how much was sitting in her bank account—only that it was an overwhelming amount that she had barely dipped into. By Hollywood standards, she had lived modestly, letting the money sit idle, despite her accountant’s advice. She knew it was stupid. She should have been investing it. But why? To have even more money that she didn’t know what to do with?

  “I’m not going to tell you what to do,” said her mother. She managed to smile, despite the tears, and added, “Like I ever could. I was never very good at this mothering thing. I was always too much of a free spirit, and I’m afraid you’ve inherited it.”

  It was the first time Hazel had ever heard her mother draw a connection like that between them. It always you and Gammy this and you and Gammy that.

  “You can still do my hair if you want,” said Hazel. “I could get the brush in my bag . . .”

  Her mother smiled. “Let me.” She ducked out the door and reappeared a minute later with a bedazzled unicorn brush in hand that Hazel must have missed in her rage cleaning. “It’s no antique tortoiseshell,” her mother acknowledged, “but it’ll have to do. I’ll put the kids on the task of finding Gammy’s brush—it’ll give them something to do once they’re done their school year.”

  She silently set to work on Hazel’s hair, teasing out the tangles in her curls with well-practiced strokes.

  Hazel finally broke the silence. “I feel so helpless. I want to do something.”

  “I know,” her mother said softly.

  “I get what it looked like, but Juni is innocent!”

  “I know,” she said, even softer.

  Hazel fell silent again and listened to the shushing of each brushstroke.

  “You do look just like her,” her mother said, now gathering Hazel’s hair and attacking the stubborn tangles with an unapologetic ferocity that only a mother could get away with. Not this again. “You’re strong like she was. She wouldn’t have taken this lying down either. She’d probably be out in the barn with a magnifying glass in her hand and a cork pipe in her mouth.” She stopped brushing and touched her fingers to the nape of Hazel’s neck, tracing her birthmark. “And she would have used her other gifts too. Anything for family.”

  Hazel stayed silent.

  “But I’m just your mother,” she said, again perfectly intuiting Hazel’s thoughts. “You shouldn’t take my word for it. You should ask her yourself.”

  “Mom . . .” she started, wondering if her mother was cracking under the stress of the situation.

  But her mother proceeded, undaunted. “She used to have this book. Called it the Book of Bennett. But I heard her call it other things. The tome. The grimoire. The Great and Sacred Doorstop. And a few things not fit for human ears.” She smiled wistfully. “She was always consulting it, writing in it. It was something that the Bennett women have passed down for generations. Well, women with the Knack anyway.”

  If this book was so important, why had Hazel never seen Gammy with it?

  Her mother continued. “It had a variation of the Bennett family crest on the cover.” Hazel, of course, knew the Bennett family crest well. Her mother had forced a yearly lesson on heraldry so that she and Juniper could better appreciate the symbolism behind their own crest. Juniper had cared little for the lesson and had learned it quickly, if only so she could get back to the farm work that so captivated her. But her mother, perhaps sensing Hazel was the only one of her two daughters that held a modicum of interest in the subject, had made the lesson particularly unbearable for her. Hazel could still remember her recitation for that lesson and her mother’s stern corrections.

  “The Bennett crest features a white sejant, gentle cat. A cat for vigilance, farsightedness, and courage. White—”

  “No no, argent.”

  “Fine. Argent for peace and sincerity. Gentle because it is domesticated. And sejant because people needed a fancy word for sitting.”

  “And the rosebuds?”

  “Red rosebuds—”

  “Sanguine.”

  “Sanguine rosebuds. Rosebuds for grace and beauty, and sanguine for patience in adversity. And thorns to represent the barbs inside every Bennett.”

  “Stop ad-libbing, Hazel. Improving will get you nowhere.”

  “Fine. And last but not least, the Bennett family motto: amore non fortuna. ‘By love, not by fortune.’ ”

  “Which means . . .”

  “That learning Latin won’t pay the bills, but at least we can carpe diem.”

  “Hazel . . .”

  Yes, she knew the crest a little too well. What was this variant crest that her mother was talking about? That was news to her. But her mother didn’t seem to be in the mood for history lessons. She stared dreamily into dead air.

  “God how I wanted that book,” she said, running the brush through Hazel’s hair a little too hard now. “But Gammy was stingy with it. I wish we could find it now. There might be some answers in there. Just wish I knew what happened to it. That and the stupid brush.”

  “Mom what about—”

  “But what do I know?” she said, cutting her off. “I’m just your Knackless mother.” She had tried to pass it off as a joke, but there was an undertow in her tone, a powerful and frigid force that had dragged all the emotion out of her mother’s face.

  “Mom . . .”

  Her mother fell silent for a moment as she continued to brush, seemingly deep in thought.

  “I tried to call her once,” she said suddenly, with the sort of casual tone reserved for discussing the mundane details of one’s day. “Right after she died . . . and after you left.”

  Hazel bit her lower lip. She felt like she was bearing witness to nothing short of a confession of madness. She had called Gammy? What next? She’d also exchanged letters with Abraham Lincoln and texted John Lennon?

  Her mother looked up from her work and must have seen Hazel’s thoughts on her face, because she hastily added, “Cold-called her,” as if somehow that explained everything.

  “Mom . . .”

  “The phonebooth,” said her mother. “The one in the library.”

  The booth in question had always stood enigmatically in the corner of the Bennett family lib
rary, just another oddity alongside the taxidermied grizzly bear and the weathered totem pole. Hazel had no idea how that provided any clarity, as the phone booth had never been hooked up.

  “It’s a knicked-knack, Hazel. It makes long-distance calls. Only the longest of distances, actually. Dead people.”

  “A knicked . . . oh.” The reality of the situation dawned on her. It would still take some time getting used to being home, to the folksy Bennett family vocabulary, but sometimes she was floored by her own blindness. In the real world, phonebooths were phone booths and knickknacks were tawdry decorations purchased at garage sales, but on Bennett Farms, even a teaspoon could be more than it seemed. Knicked-knack was just Bennett-family parlance for magic item. These objects were not to be taken lightly, they were difficult and dangerous to make and just as difficult and dangerous to use.

  Which begged the question, why in the name of all that was holy had there been one just sitting in the library for decades? She and Juniper had played in it countless times as children—it made an excellent spot for hide-and-seek or for making pretend calls or even for a couple of rounds of imaginary Dr. Who.

  “Mom!” she exclaimed. “Whose idea was it to leave a knicked-knack in the library?”

  “Oh don’t get your panties in a twist,” her mother said, waving her hand dismissively. “It doesn’t work without a few Charon’s obols.”

  “Come again . . .”

  Her mother pointed to the plastic tumbler on the vanity. Gammy’s bingo buy-in money?

  Hazel fished out a few of the coins and inspected them. George Washington stared back at her. “Mom, these are quarters.”

  “Not just any quarters,” her mother corrected. “An obol is an ancient Greek coin and, in Greek mythology, Charon was the ferryman who transported the souls of the dead to the afterlife. They paid passage with the coins that loved one’s placed on their eyes or in their mouth.”

  Hazel flung the quarter across the room and wiped her hand furiously on the vanity doily.

  “Stop being melodramatic,” her mother chided.

  “I’m not being melodramatic. I just picked up a dead man’s taxi fare, so this is a very. reasonable. reaction.”

  “It didn’t work, of course,” her mother proceeded, ignoring Hazel’s complaints. “Though I did manage to kill the potted plant and the antique table it was resting on. That would have ticked your Gammy right off. I’m surprised she didn’t call me back right then and there, if only to tear me a new one.”

  Hazel remained silent for a moment, listening to the rhythm of the brushing. If this went on much longer, she wouldn’t have any hair left to brush.

  “What are you saying, Mom?” she asked.

  “I’m just saying that if you’re not sure what to do next, maybe I’m not the right person to give you advice,” she said. “Who knows what you might learn if you’re willing to reach out and touch somebody.”

  “Does it still work?” Hazel asked, despite her own misgivings.

  Her mother shrugged. “Who could tell except for your grandmother? And maybe somebody with the Knack. But maybe it could help.” She shrugged again. “Couldn’t hurt.”

  “Mom,” she said. “I’m not like Gammy. Magic isn’t going to save Juniper. We have to get off our butts and do something.”

  “Of course we do. We’re family, Hazey. If we stop taking care of each other, what chance do we have?”

  Her mother touched the birthmark again. She sighed and shrugged one last time before reaching over Hazel and setting the brush down on the vanity. She withdrew one of the tortoiseshell pins from the top drawer—a long skewer with the silhouette of a cat carved at one end. Hazel felt a rush of excitement. It was Gammy’s finest pin—and she had let Hazel touch it only once, when she’d gone to her senior prom. That night, Gammy herself had done Hazel’s hair and set the masterpiece in place with the pin.

  “Mom,” says Hazel, unsure Sunday-night family dinner was the occasion for a sacred family heirloom.

  Again her mother seemed to read her thoughts, saying, “My Hazel has come home. I can’t think of a more important occasion.” Hazel heard the unspoken subtext: And my other daughter has left, so don’t even think of giving me grief.

  Her mother twisted Hazel’s hair into an artful arrangement and then skewered it with the pin.

  “There,” she said. “Now come down for dinner. Harper and Link could really use their aunt. Then you can get back to moping.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Her mother’s words had gnawed at her insides all through dinner, even as she had put on her best strong-woman façade for the sake of the kids, and for Juniper’s husband, David, who had appeared just long enough to wolf down a plateful of her mother’s meatloaf before heading back out to work the farm. Without Juniper, his workload had just doubled, and when Hazel had asked how she could be of assistance, everyone seemed to indicate that she could spend time with the kids.

  So that’s what she had done—calling for an emergency sleepover in her room. They played board games and watched movies until well past midnight, when Link and Harper had finally succumbed to exhaustion. But there was no way sleep would come to Hazel tonight. Even between her turn in Smash Up, she had turned it over in her head. We’re family, Hazey. If we stop taking care of each other, what chance do we have?

  So, as soon as the kids were asleep, she snuck downstairs, creeping through the darkened house like a burglar.

  She’d only just reached the bottom of the stairs when her confidence started wobbling. Growing up here, as a kid with an overactive imagination, nighttime in Bennett Manor had been fraught with peril and anxiety. By night, all of those wondrous nooks and crannies became the burrows and haunts of monsters and spirits. Even with her rebellious streak, she’d never been the kind to sneak out of the house after everyone had fallen asleep. If only because she didn’t have the guts to brave her way past the marble busts and oil portraits of Bennetts past that even in the daylight had given her the willies.

  Bennett Manor was composed of three portions—the North Wing, the Hearth, and the South Wing. The only part that had really been inhabited in Hazel’s lifetime had been the Hearth. It included the kitchen, the drawing room affectionately called Little Hearth, the highly depressing dining room that nobody used (and Hazel was certain was haunted), the upstairs bedrooms, and the most-definitely haunted attic space.

  The other wings were kept locked most of the time. This was an infuriating reality for a young girl with an adventurer’s spirit. Everything tantalizing and worthy of exploration was kept in those other wings. Not that a locked door had been a deal-breaker. It had merely presented a challenge. So she had spent much time and energy finding and maintaining access to the wings, which initially amounted to stealing keys from the caretaker hut and leaving windows unlocked. But Gammy had given her the most reliable means of accessing both wings: secret passages. “If these walls could talk,” Gammy had said upon revealing the first passage, then pressing a finger to her lips conspiratorially, “the things they would say. But they stay silent.” Then, with a wink, she’d added, “And so should you.”

  Hazel was headed to one of those passages now.

  She entered the certainly haunted dining room and picked up her pace a bit. She couldn’t remember a single time that the family had ever eaten there. The table was too big, the room too long, the ceilings too high. It wasn’t a place for family to dine, and all they had ever used it for as a station for completing schoolwork and for making epic blanket and pillow forts. But only during the day. Once the sun had set, Hazel had avoided it, and just being here now made her skin prickle.

  She hurried to the far wall. A massive clock was built directly into the structure of the house, the most exquisite woodwork touched with gold leaf, crafted to look like a blazing sun. Even the clockface was unconventional, not the standard twelve-hour dial, but all twenty-four. Standing now in silence, she could hear the guts of it ticking behind the wall, like a gigantic mouse gna
wing through the woodwork. She shivered.

  Keep your head in the game, she scolded.

  She ran her hand along the clockface until she found the thirteenth hour. Lucky thirteen. She didn’t need to see what she was doing. Even after all these years, muscle memory guided her. She found the groove in the elaborate woodwork and pressed firmly. The small square of wood beneath her finger yielded and she heard a sharp click on the other side of the wall. She grabbed the hour hand and tugged until the whole clockface swung outward like a bank vault, silent except for a gentle whoosh of air that tickled the crystal chandelier behind her. She ducked into the dark and cold space beyond, pulling the clock shut behind her.

  Only now did she dare to fish her phone out of her pocket and turn on the flashlight.

  She stood in a narrow space carved out amidst the guts of the clock. When the door was open, the clock disconnected from the giant pinion that turned the clock’s hands. When it closed, it reconnected, and the clock resumed telling time, which meant that she was now sandwiched between the wall and the guts of the machine, a tower of gears and moving parts that clicked and creaked. She dropped to her knees, just to be sure the fancy hairstyle her mother had given her didn’t wind itself around a gear.

  Once she was clear of danger, she stood back up and made her way to the end of the passage—this one was relatively short. A lever protruded from the wall. From the inside, the mechanisms were always easy to spot and to operate. She pulled the lever and pushed the wall open, emerging from behind an inset bookcase and stepping into the Bennett family library.