I finish my list, and he blinks out and takes the book with him. That’s okay. It’s probably easier to talk to Mrs. Meriwether without him there.
I take one final sip of my coffee and put my mug in the sink. I walk out the back door and onto the grass toward Mrs. Meriwether’s. There’s always the chance Jaxon’s asleep.
I knock on the back door. It only takes a moment for her rosy cheeks and warm smile to greet me. “Top ’o the mornin’ to ya,” she says in a playful Irish accent.
I smile, and step through the doorway. “And the rest of the day to yourself.”
Mrs. Meriwether lights up. “How’d you know that was the right response?”
“I went to Ireland with my dad when I was a kid.” I listen for Jaxon as I follow Mrs. Meriwether down the hall, but everything’s quiet.
“Come in and sit awhile.” She walks through the arched doorway and into the kitchen.
I take a seat at the island, which is once again covered with beautiful desserts. She offers me my pick, and I gladly accept.
“I was wondering if I could have a few things from your garden?” I ask between bites.
“Of course you may! What is it you’re looking for?”
Her enthusiasm makes this all a little easier. I pull the list out of my hoodie pocket.
“Wild leek. Checkerberry. Fiddlehead.” She reads to herself and then looks at me curiously. “What are you using these for?”
“Uh…a recipe I found.”
“Did you know that these are all native New England plants?”
That makes perfect sense if the spell book was from Elijah’s time. The witch it belonged to would need to use local ingredients. “No. How funny.” My voice is higher-pitched than usual.
“Checkerberries are found in the forest.”
That’s not good. “So you don’t have them?”
She smiles. “Actually, I do. I use them for a Native American medicinal tea. The thing is, that besides tea, I’ve seen only one other recipe that calls for them—a seasonal muffin.”
Crap. She knows this is a weird ingredient. I should’ve taken a few minutes to research before marching over here. This is where impulsiveness gets you. “Oh.”
Mrs. Meriwether walks to the island. “Samantha, leek and checkerberry do not belong in the same recipe.”
I look at the desserts, hoping they’ll provide me with some advice. “I’m afraid you’ll think I’m crazy.”
“You would be surprised at the things I can accept, especially if they’re the truth.” She’s so calm and nonjudgmental that I feel awful.
What made me think I would sneak this one past a woman who bakes for a living? “They’re for a spell.”
To my great surprise, she laughs. “You sound so much like your father. We used to spend hours raiding our parents’ gardens trying to mix together any magical concoction. I half thought that was why he grew up to be a spice importer and I, a baker.”
I almost choke on my pastry. My dad, mixing spells? That seems like the last thing in the world he’d do. He wouldn’t even let me get one of those fortunes out of a vending machine at a carnival. I suddenly see his spice business in a whole new light. How many things did he change about himself after my mother died? “Did the potions ever work?”
“Oh no, not exactly. But it didn’t stop us from trying.” She laughs again. “You cannot imagine how angry Charlotte was the day we used up all the mint she liked in her lemonade.”
I smile now, too. “So you don’t think I’m nuts?”
“I live in Salem. There are ten stores within walking distance that have tonics and potions for true love and any other thing you desire. Everyone swears by my happy cakes. Nothing like the magic of triple chocolate to perk a body right up.” She winks.
I never considered that spells could be part of the culture here. “I’m sorry for not telling you. I really am.”
“Not to worry. Trust is grown over time. You’re still just planting your first seeds.” She brushes her hands on her apron. “Shall we get what you need?”
I shove the last bite of a cinnamon and sugar challah knot into my mouth. She leads me out the door and down a small stone pathway toward her enormous garden. Part is enclosed in a greenhouse, and a short stone wall surrounds the rest.
Mrs. Meriwether points to the stones. “My mother always told me stones like these were New England’s winter crop. Because every year when the snow left there would be loads of them sticking out of the ground. Only made sense to build walls.”
She brings me to the checkerberries first and hands me a wooden bowl to collect them. She urges me to try one, and they taste just like wintergreen. As we move through the list, she explains the plant flavors and shows me which plants can be used to treat anxiety, illnesses, or even be used for beauty products.
My bowl fills quickly, and I’m strangely satisfied with the experience. As we walk back to the house, I find myself smiling. I can see why she was my dad’s best friend. She’s one of the most good-natured people I’ve ever met.
“Now, Samantha,” Mrs. Meriwether says as we return to the kitchen. “Would you like to bring over that spell so I can help you with it?”
If I do the spell here, there’s no risk of Vivian coming home and finding out. Also, the instructions looked complex, and it would be nice to have help. But I’ll have to explain what the spell is for.
“Oh, come on. It’ll be fun. And when Charlie wakes up, we can tell him all about it. I’m sure we’ll all have a good laugh.” She looks so happy about the idea.
The bit about my dad tips the scales. I’m not sure he’ll find it funny, but I do like the idea of him waking up and us all laughing together. “Okay. I’ll be right back.”
I put down the bowl and run next door through the grass. When I open my back door, Elijah’s standing there. “I heard,” he says.
I’m not sure if he means that as a good or a bad thing. He hands me the book. I open the door again, but he doesn’t follow me. I stop. “You coming?”
“I will be along in a while. I am searching for something.”
By his vagueness, I’m sure it has to do with his fiancée.
“Okay. See you soon. Good luck with your search,” I say, and head back out the door.
I return to Mrs. Meriwether’s kitchen and place the old book on her counter.
“Isn’t this something? This must be two or three hundred years old.” She examines the leather. “I would’ve loved to have this when I was a girl.”
She flips through the pages, oohing and aahing at the spell names. “Which one are we doing?”
“ ‘Origin of a Spell,’ ” I say, and she waits for an explanation. Might as well just dive in. “I don’t know if Jaxon told you, but I got blamed for the rash at the party. I’m trying to figure out who did it ’cause I think that person set me up.”
I remove the tiny piece of parchment from my wallet and hand it to Mrs. Meriwether. “This was found at the party.”
She unrolls the paper as I flip the pages of the spell book. “And here I thought we might be doing a true love spell,” she says, looking more serious than she did a moment ago. She examines the spell I’ve chosen. “Well, it’s certainly worth a try.”
“Mom…Sam?” Jaxon enters the kitchen in his pajamas, his blond hair messy and falling in his eyes.
My heart gallops, and I instinctively block his view of the spell book. I yank back the wave of emotion that threatens to crash. He looks from one of us to the other suspiciously.
“Breakfast, Jaxon? There’s some lovely warm broccoli-and-cheddar quiche, and your orange juice is in the fridge.”
Jaxon stares at me. “What are you guys doing?”
“A spell,” Mrs. Meriwether says matter-of-factly.
Watching the shock register on Jaxon’s face is uncomfortable. “You’re definitely not doing a spell in my kitchen, Sam.”
I set my jaw and stare at him.
“You may help if you like, dear,” hi
s mother continues. “But otherwise, will you please take your quiche into the dining room? I suspect we’ll have to concentrate.”
“Mom! I’m not kidding!”
Mrs. Meriwether pauses. “Okay, sweetheart. What’s bothering you?”
“You know what. For years everyone thought you were crazy because of her…” He looks frustrated.
“My grandmother,” I guess, and I know I’m right. He told me his mother was shunned because people thought she was crazy. He said there were “other reasons” besides depression. I just never put it together till now.
“It’s finally blown over, and now you’re doing spells? And you—” He looks at me but doesn’t finish his sentence. His eyes are accusatory.
Mrs. Meriwether watches her son wrestle with his emotions. “I’m in my own kitchen. You shouldn’t worry so much about what other people think. Besides, you know Charlotte was as much my mother as my own. I don’t regret one moment I spent with her, no matter what the small-minded townspeople thought. I raised you better than that.”
Jaxon looks straight at me. “You were right. You do hurt the people around you.”
“And what about you?” I mean this to sound confident, but my voice falters. “Helping the Descendants crucify me.”
He looks down and shakes his head. “I knew you’d think that was true. I don’t know why I bother.” Jaxon’s look makes me wish I could take it all back. He turns and walks away.
“Jaxon,” I say, but he keeps walking.
Mrs. Meriwether stops me before I chase after him. “Give him time. Jaxon’s one that needs to process. If you push him now, it will only get worse.”
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Meriwether.”
“No need for apologies. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
Yes I have. I’ve thought the worst about someone who was nothing but nice to me. I turn around and look at everything she helped me pick and just feel rotten. “I’ll leave.”
Her expression softens. “You’ll do no such thing. We have a spell to do. No sense in everyone being unhappy.”
“What about Jaxon?”
She smoothes her apron. “I know you’re worried about him. It’s sweet of you. My Jaxon is a very practical soul, bless his heart. Just like his father. But sometimes people need to be believed in more than they need to be told what is so. In time, he’ll learn this. Just be patient with him, Samantha.”
Does she mean he needs to believe in me or I need to believe in him? “Thanks for being so nice.”
She reties her apron. “Alrighty now. What do we do first?”
I turn to the book and try to ignore my sadness. “We have to boil the berries.”
Mrs. Meriwether gets a small but heavy-looking pot. “This is called a chowder. It’s where they got the name for the soup.”
She fills it halfway with water and puts it on to boil. Then we drop the checkerberries in, which makes the whole room smell like minty gum. We read the directions together. Thankfully, she understands, because I have no clue how to “finely shred” leafy greens.
Mrs. Meriwether gives me a cutting board and a knife. “First, cut the root off the leek. Like this. Then slice it lengthwise. Now brace it with your fingers and chop it in nice even pieces.”
I’m amazed at how fast her hands move. I take the knife and try to replicate it. Unfortunately, I’m at twenty percent her speed and zero percent of her finesse. Together, we cut all the greens into their proper forms and place them into the chowder pot.
“Whoo. That is one strong smell,” Mrs. Meriwether says as we watch our ingredients boil together in a thick soup.
I double-check the instructions, and Mrs. Meriwether pulls a small baster from a drawer. We clear a portion of the counter near the pot, and I carefully unroll the tiny piece of parchment paper. There’s something exciting about doing this with her. It’s how I always imagined some kids baked cookies with their moms.
I take a deep breath and concentrate on the words. “What is hidden, come to view. Make plain the hand with which you drew. Your magic mark I wish to see. With these three drops reveal to me.”
I pull the hot liquid from the pot into the baster and squeeze three red drops onto the parchment. We both stare at it, afraid to blink. The red liquid coats the tiny piece of paper, causing the remaining black ink symbols to bleed. Then, all at once, the red potion moves to the center of the parchment in a concentrated dot. It slowly curves and winds itself, like there’s a pen instructing it where to go. After a moment of this, it makes an elegant red feather.
I stare at it, trying to will it to turn into something else. Anything but a feather. My stomach twists in on itself, and I almost drop the baster on the floor.
“The crow woman,” Mrs. Meriwether says in a hushed voice.
I grab the edge of the paper, trying to touch it as little as possible. “I’m really sorry, but I have to run.” I pick up the book. I need Elijah. Now.
“What does this mean, exactly?” Mrs. Meriwether looks serious, with none of the bubbly sweetness of her usual demeanor. “Your grandmother said—”
I cut her off. If I don’t go now, I’ll have a panic attack. “I’m not sure. If I can explain, I promise I will. I’m sorry again for taking off like this.” I run out of the kitchen before Mrs. Meriwether has time to respond.
“Elijah,” I say as I sprint across the grass.
When I open the back door of my house, he’s in the hallway. I hand him the parchment. His face shows more than surprise. He’s angry.
“Not possible,” he says to himself. “Turn around, Samantha. We are leaving.”
The front door slams shut. “Sam?” yells Vivian.
If I run now, she’ll see. I stand still, unsure what to do. “Yeah?”
Elijah grabs the book and the parchment from me as Vivian appears in the hallway.
“Where have you been? I called the house and your cell three times. I think we—” She sees my face and stops. “Did something happen?”
“Um, yeah.” I know she’ll never believe that nothing’s wrong.
“Quickly, Samantha,” Elijah urges. “I will carry you out of here if you do not find another way.”
His insistence makes it harder to think. “I forgot that I have a paper due on Monday.”
The worry leaves her face. “I thought we could go visit your father. And on the way, we can talk about all the fighting we’ve been doing lately. I know this hasn’t been easy for you, and I know I’ve been on edge recently.”
This surprises me. She never tries to resolve things like this. But then again, we’ve never fought this badly, either. Part of me really wants to say yes, wants to forgive her and believe there is an explanation for that medical bill. But I need to go with Elijah and figure out what this feather means. “I have to meet my group at the library.” I turn toward the back door. I hate to leave, but I can’t stay.
“Here I am trying to do something nice when really I should be the one mad at you for the way you acted. And I didn’t say you could leave this house,” she says, the hurt in her tone turning to anger.
I reach for the door handle and grab it. I take one look at her. She’s fuming mad. I run.
“Don’t you dare run from me!” she yells so loudly I hear her from the driveway.
I don’t look back. It’s too late to change my mind. But part of me worries that shrugging off Vivian’s offer might have broken our relationship for good. My dad always softened me and Vivian, like a disk between vertebrae. Now we’re just rubbing together in the worst and most painful way. Maybe we don’t work without him.
“This way,” says Elijah, keeping pace with my sprint.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
* * *
There’s No Way Out
I wipe sweat from my forehead as I enter a small cobblestone street just outside town. I stopped running five blocks back, but my body didn’t get the message.
“I’m in so much trouble.”
“I could not risk you staying there,
” Elijah says.
“Okay, but why?” I stop, not wanting to leave this sleepy street, where I can talk to him.
“You called attention to yourself with that spell today. My fiancée’s attention.”
I feel exposed. “So she knows where I live now?”
“I imagine she already knew where you lived. After all, you live in the house that used to belong to me. What she would not have known is that you could do spells.”
“You’re saying I just announced myself as a threat?”
“I would think so.”
If I wasn’t a threat before and she was already casting spells, I might as well paint a target on my forehead now. “But you told me spirits can’t do spells.”
“They cannot.”
“Am I missing something?”
He nods, looking uncomfortable.
“Sam?”
I whip around as Jaxon turns the corner. I’m partly relieved and partly terrified that he’s seeking me out. Did he see me talking to Elijah? “You followed me?”
“I know you like this boy, but there is no time for this. I must tell you something,” Elijah says, and I get the feeling I’m not going to like whatever it is.
Jaxon walks up to me. “Yeah, well, you saw someone die, then you levitated onstage. I find you doing spells with my mother, and then I see you running full sprint down the street. I think it makes sense that I followed you.”
“You never told Lizzie about me biting John’s hand, did you?”
“What do you think?”
“Jaxon, I…I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
“Why don’t you start by explaining.”
“Samantha,” Elijah says. I don’t need to look at him to know this isn’t a good idea.
“I don’t have time.” It’s the most truthful thing I can say.
“Why?”
“You wouldn’t understand.” I twist my fingers together.
Jaxon waits for me to continue. When I don’t, he asks, “Why don’t you trust me?”
My heart aches. “It’s not that.”
Elijah throws his hands in the air.
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