The Flower Bowl Spell

by Olivia Boler

  I sit on the bed and try Auntie Tess’s phone, hoping she hasn’t left yet for the Mellora Islands. But it goes straight to voicemail. I text-message her: What do you know about Familiars? Like ducks? She won’t be able to answer for a while but I feel better knowing the message is out there for her.

  My heart rate is starting to rev up in panic. I dial Gru. It’s late—she’s most likely home. But her answering machine picks up, to my relief, I must admit. After the beep I take a breath to leave a message, but change my mind and hang up. It’s Viveka that stops me: Please don’t tell her about this. She was so adamant. Also, I’m just not ready for Gru yet. I’m not ready for the tone she’ll give me: understanding mixed with sage, smug triumph. I take deep breaths, willing my heartbeat to normalize, and it does.

  Cleo and Romola have claimed the bed near the window—“So when the monsters come through the door, they’ll get you first, Memphis,” Cleo tells me, then adds, “Ha, ha! Only kidding.” I wonder if she means real monsters and study her face, but it’s free of any genuine qualms.

  “That’s what I’m here for,” I say. “Monster meals.”

  The girls climb aboard the mattress and start trampolining.

  “We’re going to the concert,” Cleo sings as her mahogany-colored curls bounce in the air. For a split second, she has the look of zero gravity. I wouldn’t be surprised if the girl really could fly. “We’ll go see Ty play the guitar!”

  “I don’t think your mom would approve.”

  “Mama thinks you’re smart,” Cleo says. She starts to jump more slowly and with more force. “And—Ma—ma’s—al—ways—right!” She leaps backward and falls on the pillows, her hair grazing the headboard. She stands up and begins jumping once more.

  “If you say so.”

  “It’s true,” Romola says, and is instantly thrown off balance by her sister’s acrobatics. Her legs buckle and she lands on the bed on her side and starts cracking up. One of her front adult teeth has only grown in halfway. It’s a charming, disconcerting look, as if she’s not quite all there. Soon she’ll be a teenager, and who knows what bit of the sweet, practical little girl will be left by then? All, I think. All of her, if we can just get through this.

  “Your mother really said that?” I ask.

  “Uh huh,” Cleo says, still jumping.

  “So that’s why she left you with me?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Why…why not with your dad?” I haven’t wanted to ask before, but they seem in good moods, at ease, the most they’ve been since we met.

  “Daddy’s at a conference,” Romola says as she stands up for some more jumping. “It’s for, like, a month in Belize.”

  “What kind of conference?”

  “The Conference of the Saved,” Cleo intones in what I take is a sonorous announcer’s voice she must know from Pastor Dick’s radio show, or some such place. “We have to stay with you no matter what.”

  Whatever. More toddler nonsense. “Does he even know you’re gone?” I try to ask this casually, without judgment.

  Romola shrugs and Cleo imitates her. Jump, jump, jump.

  “Girls!” I almost shout. They stop bouncing and look at me. It’s now or never. “Do you know where your mother is?”

  A frown mars Cleo’s sweet face, but is gone in an instant and she stares off into the middle distance. Romola shifts her eyes away from me and shrugs again.

  “Maybe Grandy’s,” she says, looking suddenly irritated and uncertain. She flops back on the bed. “Memphis, I’m hungry.”

  “I’ll order some room service.” I start hunting in drawers and on the desk for a menu. The girls don’t know what room service is, so I explain it to them.

  “After you order room service, you’ll have to go to Ty’s concert?” Romola asks. “We can do our schoolwork there. We can sit in the car.”

  “Hm.” That sounds like something my mom would have suggested back in the day. But I’m pretty sure that’s a big fat no-no now. There’s got to be something else we can do. I look at my reflection in the mirror, but there are no answers there. Just a bleary-eyed woman. “I think I’ll just call them and cancel.” I hate to do it, and I try not to think about having to pay for this hotel room on my own, and the gasoline for the car ride. Especially after the call with Ned. He might kill me, then fire me.

  And then it comes to me, a last-ditch possibility. I pick up my phone and dig through the press kit until I find the number for Chad Beane, Arsenic Playground’s manager. Even if he’s not the one who loved my writing enough to get me this gig, he can point me in the direction of Yeah Right’s manager, who does love it. And if he does think I’m so great, maybe he—or she—will have a solution.

  The phone rings a few times and I’m ready for voicemail when someone answers.

  “Memphis?”

  It takes a second. “Tyson?”

  “I recognized your number. Chad left his phone in my room. He’s actually unavailable at the moment. I hope he knows to light a match. I left them on the sink.”

  “Over-share, Tyson. Over-share.”

  “Sorry. What’s up?”

  “Are you at the LeRoy Hotel?” I ask.

  “Yeah. You?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “What room?”

  “Six two five.”

  “We’re four zero eight.”

  “I’m higher up,” he says.

  “That’s no surprise, being the talent and all. Listen, I have a problem.” I explain to him my dilemma.

  “Is that all?” He laughs with the reassurance of a confident lead singer. “Cheradon’s drummer is a baby-daddy and he always brings his kids to the shows. There’s someone with them. Bring the girls. They can hang out.”

  “Someone?”

  “A—what do you call it, nanny goat? Wet nurse? You know what I mean. Babysitter.”

  I look out the window, my fingers playing with the locket around my neck. I feel the weight starting to lift from my shoulders. It’s too good to be true. “Are you sure? It’s going to go so late. What about all the boozing and coking afterwards?” I say this hoping he’ll give me that laugh again and tell me no such things ever happen at his concerts.

  “We can skip that,” he says. “Come on, give the chiquitas a night of fun. One late night won’t corrupt them.”

  “Right. A late night that happens to be comprised of hanging out backstage at a rock concert. Do you or do you not recall that they are home-schooled? Home-schooled!” I glance around at the girls who are busy poking through the contents of the minibar. I snap my fingers and gesture to Romola to toss me a packet of M&M’s.

  “All the more reason,” Tyson says, his voice low, “to show them the dark side of the moon, Memphis.”

  “The moon has nothing to do with this,” I say with a tart little bite, trying to ignore the husky sexiness in his voice, but I stop, distracted by something else. Maybe the moon does have something to do with it. We’re still in the waxing phase, which means all the little sprites coming out of the woodwork makes a different sort of sense. I can check my online almanac for details. “Okay, fine. Will there be a place for them to sleep if they need to?”

  “Bring them in their PJs. It’s what Rob does.”

  Rob. As in, Rob Duffy, Yeah Right’s drummer. The baby-daddy. Viv’s girls are going to get to hang with Rob Duffy’s kids. I feel like I might squeal like a tweenager. It’s a surreal notion, even if it doesn’t involve fairies. Calm down, I command myself. You’re a professional reporter, not a groupie.

  When I get off the phone with Tyson I see that the girls have created a fortress out of soda and beer cans and are using tiny liquor bottles as characters in their version of The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy is a miniature bottle of Curaçao. I locate a faux leather binder on the vanity that contains the room service menu and get down on the carpet next to them.

  “So, who’s up for some chicken tenders?” I ask.

  “Me.”

  “Me!” Cleo smiles at me and her eyes focus
on my necklace. She points to it. “Mama has one like that.”

  I touch it. “Like this?” I look at Romola, and she nods.

  “She keeps baby pictures of us in it. She wears it a lot.”

  My mouth is dry and my heart is beating a little faster again. I can feel it against my hand. I look down and open my locket and gaze inside. I haven’t had time to put a picture in it, but there’s one thing I know—the fuzzy face briefly reflected back at me in the cloudy silver isn’t mine.

  Chapter Twelve

  Room service will have to wait—the girls are munching on the contents of small packets of Pirate’s Booty and almonds, healthy enough for the moment. I lock myself in the bathroom. After a quick search of the room, even up the bathtub and sink faucets, down the drains, in the toilet, and the trashcan, it’s obvious I’m alone. I look in the mirror for anything, anyone. No one here except me.

  I close the lid on the toilet and sit down. The locket against my skin grows warmer as my fingers fumble over the clasp. Once it’s off, I place it next to the sink. I close my eyes and wait. With a few deep breaths, my heartbeat is steady and my mind is clear. I open my eyes and hold my hands over the locket.

  “Show me,” I say.

  It takes a while, but the buzz coming off this thing is strong. It’s an energy I could use right now, a reinforcement. I put my index fingers on it, just lightly, and there are flashes, so quick I wonder if they are my own thoughts or actual visions. A tree in the light of day, then in the dark. The turning profile of a woman, her hair blond or maybe gray, and thick, obscuring her face. A ring of lights—candles?—with a large gap so that the circle they make appears broken. Then darkness.

  That’s all I’m going to get. I open my eyes and look in the mirror. My cheeks are flushed but the skin underneath my eyes looks dark and bruised. I open the locket. There’s nothing there, not even the smear of my own face. I need to call it back, to say the words out loud. I was never good at this, the mumbo jumbo. Maybe it’s my generation, but I prefer plain words. I take a big breath and try to get in the right frame of mind.

  “Who was there?” I say. I gaze down into the locket. I wait. Nothing. I can answer on my own: Not me. Not Viveka. Yet—she owns a locket like this one. Not that the locket is so out of the ordinary.

  But still. Wouldn’t a woman like Viveka wear a crucifix? Not necessarily. A woman like Viveka would—should—wear her daughters’ baby pictures. The daughters she leaves in the care of a virtual stranger while she goes off to parts unknown for who knows how long.

  I wish I had a candle, but the heat lamp over the bathtub will do. I breathe in and out and concentrate, blocking out all thoughts, going empty, and soon I sense that Smarter Memphis is there.

  She looks around the bathroom, wearing an outfit I’ve been coveting from the September issue of Vogue.

  Well, this is an odd choice for a consultation.

  “Not my first choice,” I say. “Sorry I didn’t have time to project to a babbling brook.”

  Maybe you’re just not as creative as you used to be now that you’re caring for two little girls.

  What a smartass.

  The maiden and crone always have it a little easier. The mother… She waves a hand to indicate not so much.

  This place is a hot spot, you know.

  “This—this hotel?”

  Well, the land it’s on, of course. It’s always the earth, not the building. Hm. If we were outside I bet we could find a babbling brook.

  “Never mind. Look, what is going on?”

  Yes, let’s get to the point. Light on her feet, Smarter Memphis rises and looks through a basket full of complimentary shampoo and lotion as if she’s browsing in a shop. If only you were more specific.

  “Who was in in the locket?”

  In the locket?

  “You know. A fairy or something?”

  She fingers her own butterfly locket. No. Not a fairy. That’s not the way they play. I would be careful of this bauble if I were you, Memphis.

  This is alarming. “I didn’t sense anything dark. I mean, I saw darkness, but nothing threatening.” I think for a moment. “Are you saying my own boyfriend is trying to hex me and I can’t even tell?”

  No. Cooper knows nothing. That much hasn’t changed. It can help you. You just need to take what you learn from it with a grain of salt.

  “I don’t have any salt.”

  She shakes her head. Oh, Dumber Memphis. You’re a witch, you should always have salt. How hard can it be?

  “A nonpracticing witch.”

  Is that what you’re calling it these days? She turns away from me and scrutinizes her image in the mirror, turning her head this way and that. Smarter Memphis is pretty damn vain. Dabbling with telepathic manipulation. Reading auras. Calling on yours truly. Seems pretty practicing to me.

  “So, now you’re judging me?” This is getting us nowhere. “What about the ducks?”

  Grim, weren’t they? Ducks, they have minds of their own. Kind of flashy—

  “What was that all about?” I interrupt. “What were they trying to tell me?”

  She puts her hands together, as if in prayer. I’m not withholding. I’m not speaking in riddles. The ducks were a reassurance and a warning. Be alert. Keep your eyes open.

  “You don’t have any idea what the ducks were about, do you?”

  If I knew everything, these visits wouldn’t be any fun. You have an appointment tonight, right? She smiles sympathetically. We’ll talk more. You’d better go. And try to get some sleep after the concert. You look pale.

  “What about what Cleo said? About it being dangerous here?”

  Her vocabulary is limited, but she means well. If you believe in fate, it’s real. She steps behind the shower curtain. I think she has left, but her head pops back around. The locket. It’s not the only one out there.

  “There’s the one Viveka has.”

  Elsewhere are others. A part of the past. A beacon. Remember, be careful.

  “Are you sure you aren’t speaking in riddles? That sounds rather riddleish to me!”

  She disappears again. The curtain rustles for a moment before going still.

  I look in the mirror. Smarter Memphis is right—I am pale. I could easily curl up on the tile floor and take a nap. But sleep, like food, will have to wait.

  ****

  The concert is on the UC Santa Barbara campus in a large auditorium. I’ve got my notebook, my press kits (I have one on Yeah Right, too), my microcassette recorder, a bajillion blank tapes, extra batteries, and pens. My press pass dangles from my neck on a soft cotton cord with the logo of a local radio station emblazoned all over it. Rock and roll!

  I call Cooper before we go, but there’s no answer. I leave a message, bland and rambling and uncharacteristically sentimental.

  It’s much chillier in Santa Barbara than I would have expected, as if Indian summer has already made its merry way down the coast and moved on. I’m bundled up in a gray cashmere turtleneck and jeans. The girls wear their nightclothes, per Tyson’s suggestion, but I’ve made them wear jeans too, and tucked in their flannel granny nighties decorated with old-fashioned prints of forget-me-nots and roses. The collars of their nightgowns are high and ruffled, peeking out atop their coats. Cleo holds a porcelain baby doll with a chipped nose.

  A rotund, goateed security dude lets us through the back door of the auditorium. I’m prepared to explain my charges, but he barely glances at the girls. He points us down the long hallway, which is just as it is at other concert venues I’ve attended—crowded with people. They lounge against the walls, drinks and cigarettes clutched in their hands. All kinds of junk is piled up in the corridor, which just makes it more crowded—folded-up tables, stacks of dried-out water-cooler bottles, cardboard boxes of toilet paper. Here and there, the stacks of crap break off to allow room for doorways. Most are open. Some are closed, vibrating with bottled-up noise. These are labeled with hand-lettered signs declaring the names of people or things:
guitars, foam cores, gus.

  Cleo has wrapped one of her arms around my leg, her doll smashed to her chest, and Romola holds my hand as I pause in front of each room to inspect its sign and peer inside.

  Someone calls out, “Yo, Memphis!” from down the hall. It’s Tyson, hanging onto a doorjamb with one hand and waving with the other. He’s wearing sunglasses. These are much darker than the ones he had on in San Luis Obispo.

  “It’s him! It’s him!” Cleo cries and detaches from me, burrowing through the crowd of adult legs like a mole through dirt. I’m afraid, for a second there, that she’s going to jump into his arms and that I’ll feel something sappy in my heart, but when she stops, she simply hops up and down in front of him, her curls bouncing. He stands with his hands in his pockets and bends forward a little to talk to her. Romola drags on my hand and I give some hipsters a good shove with each of my shoulders, apologizing under my breath.

  As we approach, Ty straightens up and grins. “All right.” He holds out his hand for Romola and she slaps him five. He holds it out to me and I oblige. “You made it.”

  “We made it.”

  “Come on.”

  We follow him into one of the rooms. Along one wall are mirrors banked by a low counter, which holds trays of cheeses, crackers, and fruit, as well as juice boxes. The sockets for the light bulbs are empty. There are two couches, one against one wall, one in the middle of the room next to it, and a not-very-clean-looking shag carpet in front of them. In between the couches is a coffee table piled with games, books, pens, crayons, construction paper, glue, glitter, and a big bowl of candy. There’s a TV against one wall and a loveseat on the other side of the door. At the back of the room, several cots are lined up with sleeping bags laid out on top.