A Tangle of Knots

by Lisa Graff

  Zane shrugged, eyes still on his book. Out the open window behind him, a thick blanket off fog rolled peacefully across the sky. “I can’t believe you think something you got out of a gumball machine will actually help you find your Talent,” he said.

  “I did not get it out of a gumball machine,” Marigold growled. “For your information, I got it at the state fair last week, and the man said it had a ninety-nine percent success rate for helping people discover their Talents within one year.” She rubbed the stickiness out on the edge of her T-shirt. “It cost three whole months’ allowance.”

  Zane turned a page in his book. “You’d have better luck with a gumball,” he replied.

  Some kids had older brothers who were friendly, Marigold thought. Supportive, even. “I’m going to tell Mom and Dad you spit at me,” she retorted. But she knew it was useless, like a poodle puppy yipping at a full-grown rottweiler.

  “If you do that,” Zane told her, the skateboard whirring under his feet as his eyes scanned his book, not even the least distracted, “I’ll tell them you haven’t practiced oboe in a week.”

  Marigold fought the urge to stick her tongue out at him. She wound her bracelet around her wrist again, fingering the knotted red thread, the three sparkly silver beads. Ten years old and no Talent, that was Marigold Asher. No one in the Asher family could possibly understand what it was like to still be searching, to constantly worry that you might be Fair. After all, weren’t the majority of the people in the world without any Talent middle children, just like Marigold? Middlings, that’s what they called them.

  Well, she wasn’t. Marigold had a Talent hidden somewhere deep inside her, she was sure of it. All she needed to do was find it. So what was the use in wasting time at something you knew you stunk at—like practicing the oboe—when you could be discovering your one true Talent?

  “I’m going to look for Will,” Marigold said, shooting Zane a final glare as she left the room. “Try not to kill anyone, all right?”

  If only she had known what a wise warning that would turn out to be.

  4

  V

  FOR A SINGLE BRIEF SECOND, SHE’D THOUGHT SHE’D DIED. Total blackness, total silence, swallowed by nothingness. And all she could think was, Caroline. If she were dead, she could see her daughter. Talk to her again.

  But she was not, as it turned out, dead.

  When she came to, she was lying on her back in the middle of the highway. There were people looming over her—four of them, a woman and three men, strangers all—peering down, blinking, looking concerned. And there were cars stopped still in the street. The red and blue lights of a police car whirred in circles. She could just barely make it all out through the thicket of fog.

  But what was truly unnerving was that the people around her were not speaking any language she’d ever heard before. When they opened their mouths, the noise that came out wasn’t words. It was the clamor of bees buzzing, or horns honking, or waves crashing against the shore. Not a language at all.

  English, she tried to tell them. Speak English.

  But what she spoke wasn’t English, either. It certainly wasn’t words. She could hear the noise, with her own perfectly functioning ears, escaping her perfectly functioning mouth. She was speaking gibberish, too.

  A stroke. She’d had a stroke. It was her brain that wasn’t functioning properly. She’d spent the majority of her sixty years cooped up in her house, and then the day after her doctor told her she better start getting more exercise—for her health, he said—that’s when she went and had herself a stroke crossing the wooded highway. And now she’d lost her words.

  One of the men was bending down, pointing to his driver’s license, a question painted on his face. Her name. They wanted to know her name.

  She did not have any real identification. (Who carried identification when they were off for a short, pleasant stroll in the woods?) So, by way of an answer, she showed them the locket. The silver one she wore around her neck. There was no picture inside, not anymore, not since her Caroline had left, but there was one clue etched on the outside. She could see it herself with her perfectly functioning eyes, although she found it difficult to read (she supposed she had lost that, too—reading): two straight lines inscribed in the center of the silver oval, meeting at a sharp point.

  V

  The man bent down and inspected the locket, grasping it between thick fingers. She waited, holding her breath, to see if perhaps he was Talented at solving mysteries. But he only looked up at the others and shook his head, confused.

  They did not know who she was. Perhaps if she found a map somehow, she could show them where she lived. Or if there was a book she could get her hands on, she might . . . She squeezed shut her eyes as they lifted her onto the gurney. What was the point? First she’d lost Caroline and now, her words. And without those two most precious things, there really was no point to much of anything at all.

  5

  Zane

  NORMALLY ZANE WASN’T MUCH FOR WORDS ON A PAGE. HE’D rather be skateboarding, or spitting, or sticking gum on the floor 9 elevator button so that cranky Mr. Watkins had something to give him the stink eye for. But Zane’s father always said that reading a good book helped take your mind off your problems, so here Zane was. Reading. Face Value, that was the book, a mystery novel by Victoria Valence. He’d found it in his mother’s knitting basket.

  It wasn’t helping.

  WORTHLESS.

  That was the noise Zane heard as he turned the page. He pressed it flat and did his best to focus.

  The plot was interesting, at least, about a rogue treasure hunter with a Talent for changing his face—a chameleon, he was called. Right now he was posing as the Egyptian detective assigned to gather information about the museum heist the chameleon himself had pulled off in the first chapter. (As sneaky and shifty as the chameleon was, he had a charm about him that people couldn’t seem to resist.) Juicy stuff, and yet Zane couldn’t keep his mind from wandering.

  WORTHLESS.

  It might be nice, Zane thought, to be able to change your face whenever you wanted, to start fresh, just like that. And if the stupid principal ever sent a stupid letter to your parents, you could just slap on a new face and no one would even know it was you the letter was about.

  WORTHLESS, Zane Asher, that’s what you are. A delinquent. A waste of a perfectly good desk. I’ll be writing to your parents and letting them know as much. If you come back to this school again next year, God help me, Zane Asher, it won’t be me who has the problem.

  Zane tossed the book across the room. What did Principal Piles know, anyway? That old bat was the one who ought to be sent to boarding school.

  He turned his attention to the fog out the window and aimed a spit attack at an unsuspecting pigeon passing by the fire escape. Ptew! Right in the beak. Spitting was one thing Zane never failed at. If only he could spit that letter right out of the mailbox.

  WORTHLESS.

  Until he could grow a Talent for making mail disappear, Zane decided he should probably work on a good lie to tell his parents when they actually did open the mail. Because sooner or later, that stupid letter was going to arrive, and if Zane didn’t have a plan, he was done for.

  6

  Miss Mallory

  “CADY! THE MAIL’S HERE!”

  Jennifer Mallory hadn’t noticed the mailman arriving through the fog, but nevertheless the mailbox was full. She clicked shut the mailbox door and headed through the damp gray air to the picnic table by the front door, settled between the carefully groomed bed of petunias on the left and the meticulously weeded pansies on the right.

  “Here’s one from the Sunshine Bakeoff,” Miss Mallory told Cady, who was busy making preparations for the party. Little Amy would be arriving with her new parents any moment. Miss Mallory pulled the thick envelope
from the stack.

  “The tickets!” Cady squealed. And sure enough, there were three tickets inside, just the same as there were every year. One ticket for the baker, and two for her guests. (Since there was never anyone at the orphanage who stuck around long enough to attend special events, it had always only been the two of them—Miss Mallory and Cady—attending every year. Which meant that every year, one of the guest tickets remained, unused, inside its envelope.) “You don’t mind going again this year, do you, Miss Mallory?” Cady asked in that shy, thoughtful way of hers. “It must get awfully boring sitting there, watching cakes bake.”

  Miss Mallory put a hand to her chest, where an unwelcome tug had been growing all morning. She had a sinking suspicion that sooner rather than later there wouldn’t be an extra ticket left in that envelope at all. If Miss Mallory was correct about the tug in her chest (and she worried that this time she was), Cady’s perfect family was right around the corner.

  “There’s nothing I’d rather do in the world than watch you knock everybody’s socks off with one of your cakes,” she told Cady truthfully. Cady smiled her shy little smile. “I’ll come to watch you bake as long as you’ll keep inviting me.”

  “You know I’ll always invite you,” Cady replied. “Every single year.” The tug in Miss Mallory’s chest jerked a little harder, but she said nothing.

  While Cady strolled back to the table to straighten out the polka-dot cloth, Miss Mallory stuck her nose inside the Sunshine Bakers information packet.

  “There’s a change to the judging procedures,” she told Cady, crossing the fog to read to her. “‘This year, for the first time, the Sunshine Bakers of America Annual Cake Bakeoff will be judged by not one but—’”

  Without warning, Cady snapped her head up from the table. “My cake’s ready!” she announced, as though a buzzer had gone off in the kitchen. But of course, there had been no buzzer. Cady seemed to be able to sense things about her cakes, deep in her bones, the way Miss Mallory could with her orphans.

  Cady dashed off into the empty orphanage.

  Eleven years ago, the orphanage’s upstairs rooms had been practically bursting with girls. Girls giggling, girls fighting, girls making messes. Miss Mallory had never been happier. But as she grew more accustomed to her Talent, Miss Mallory had become faster and faster at matching orphans, and these days, she felt lucky if a girl stayed with her for a handful of hours. Day in and day out, the only constant Miss Mallory had come to count on was Cady.

  Precious Cady.

  From the instant Miss Mallory had held the sprite of a child to her chest on that foggy morning eleven years ago, she’d known the girl was special. The tiny little thing had wrapped her arms around Miss Mallory’s neck and shaped her body into Miss Mallory’s curves. And all at once, it had become clear to Miss Mallory that the child’s heartbeat matched up precisely with her own. Tra-thump. Tra-thump. Tra-thump. They were beating in time together, a perfect rhythm.

  Miss Mallory had named the girl Cadence.

  “Who braided her hair?” Miss Mallory had asked, marveling at the intricate, almost unearthly weave in the girl’s remarkable head of fine black hair.

  “It’s been like that since we took her on,” the couple who brought her told Miss Mallory. “We don’t know much about the girl, quite honestly. Between a batch of misfiled paperwork and a fire at her previous orphanage, we’re not sure if she was picked up one week ago or twenty, down the block or halfway across the world.”

  The foggy air grew rich with the scent of cinnamon as Cady pulled her cakes from the oven. Miss Mallory breathed it in, deep and deeper, trying her best to quiet the ever-insistent tug in her chest. She straightened the corners of the polka-dot cloth. Today was an Adoption Day, she reminded herself. A happy celebration. And the future, well, that was still unknown.

  7

  Mrs. Asher

  DOLORES ASHER GLANCED AT THE CHART THE ATTENDING DOCTOR had just placed at the foot of the newest patient’s bed.

  Name: UNKNOWN

  Age: UNKNOWN

  Talent: UNKNOWN

  Gender: FEMALE

  “Isn’t that just the saddest thing?” a nurse asked, noticing Dolores’s gaze. “She had a stroke, poor dear, and can’t speak a word. She won’t even have a place to stay when she gets out of here, if no family or friends come to claim her.”

  Dolores plucked a cozy purple shawl from the pile of knits she’d brought in. “May I?” she asked the nurse, then reached to drape the shawl across the patient’s shoulders. The woman was lost in a fretful sleep. What a lot of stories she must have to tell, Dolores thought, and who knows if she’ll ever be able to tell them?

  “Oh, careful there, honey,” the nurse exclaimed, throwing a protective arm over Dolores’s head to block her from a nearby IV stand. Dolores heard a soft clack as something dropped to the floor. “Your hairpin,” the nurse told her, snatching up the object.

  “Thank you so much,” Dolores replied, taking the hairpin from the nurse. She whisked her limp brown curls off her shoulders and wound them quickly into a bun, exactly the way she’d done every morning for the past eleven years. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost this thing.” She pierced her mound of hair with the pointier end of the hairpin. It was an unusual piece of decoration, that was for sure—beige and cracked and knobby, as wide as a rib of celery and as long as a pencil. (“It looks like someone dug it out of the dirt!” Will had once exclaimed. And indeed it did.)

  “Thanks again for the blankets and things,” the nurse told her. “You’re so lucky to have a Talent you enjoy. Could’ve been stuck with plant-watering like me.” She laughed.

  Dolores nodded and smiled, because it was the sort of thing a person nodded and smiled at. But the truth was, there were times Dolores didn’t feel quite so lucky. There were times when she found herself thinking longingly of the days before three kids and her own yarn shop, when she’d worked at the Poughkeepsie Museum of Natural Sciences on a scholarship for Fair students. Dolores adjusted her hairpin slightly and glanced at the woman’s chart again.

  Talent: UNKNOWN

  Sometimes that didn’t seem so terrible.

  * * *

  As Dolores slid into her car, she spied the papers strewn across the passenger’s seat, the mail she’d grabbed from the box on her way out of the apartment. There was one envelope that seemed to be screaming to be opened. MCDERMOTT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, printed in the upper left corner in fat red letters. Dolores had a sinking suspicion that whatever was in that envelope was not going to make her happy.

  Dolores slammed her door shut. Best to head home and worry about unpleasant letters later. She’d been away long enough, and there was a good chance that Will was lost in the apartment walls by now.

  She drove off into the fog.

  Will’s S’more Cake

  a cake that always disappears quickly

  FOR THE CAKE:

  small spoonful of flour, for preparing the cake pan

  14-oz package of graham crackers (about 26 crackers)

  2 tsp baking powder

  1 cup butter (2 sticks), at room temperature (plus extra for greasing the cake pan)

  2 cups granulated sugar

  5 large eggs, at room temperature

  2 tsp vanilla

  1 cup milk, at room temperature

  FOR THE FROSTING:

  1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

  3/4 cup butter (1 1/2 sticks), at room temperature

  1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

  1/3 cup sour cream, at room temperature

  pinch of salt

  FOR THE FILLING:

  1 cup marshmallow fluff

  FOR THE TOPPING:

  extra graham crackers and/or mini marshmallows (optional)

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease the bottoms
of two 8-inch round cake pans with butter. Using the cake pans as a template, trace two circles onto wax paper and cut them out, placing one wax circle in the bottom of each pan. Grease both pans with butter again, covering the wax paper as well as the sides of the pan. Sprinkle the inside of the pans lightly with flour, and tap the pans to distribute it evenly.

  2. Place graham crackers in a blender or food processor, and grind until crushed to a fine powder. (Alternatively, place the graham crackers in a plastic ziplock bag and crush them with a rolling pin.) Measure out 3 cups of the graham cracker powder into a medium bowl, and mix with the baking powder. Set aside. Reserve the remaining graham cracker powder to decorate the top of the cake, if desired.

  3. In a large bowl, cream the butter and granulated sugar with an electric mixer, starting on low speed then increasing to medium-high, until light and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Blend in the vanilla.

  4. Reducing the speed on the mixer to low, add about a third of the graham cracker mixture to the batter, combining well. Add about half of the milk and combine. Then add another third of the graham cracker mixture, the last of the milk, and then the last of the graham crackers, combining well each time.

  5. Pour the batter into the two pans, smoothing the surface. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let the cakes cool completely before frosting.

  6. While the cakes are baking, make the frosting: In a double boiler or a heatproof bowl fitted into a saucepan of simmering water, carefully melt the chocolate chips over low heat, stirring often. Remove from heat and allow to cool, about 10 to 15 minutes.