“Another lesson,” Diana said. “Never waste your resources.”
She screwed the lid back on the jar and returned it to the cupboard. She brought back a jar of seawater that she set on the table in front of me.
“Now,” she said, “what will you do with the impurities? The water must be clean for this to work.”
“We could strain it through cheesecloth,” I said.
Diana said nothing, but she’d given me a look that said that wasn’t the sort of answer she was looking for.
“Oh,” I said. “I need to do it with magic.”
And with the right magic, I thought. I ran a list of spells through my mind, spells to make the sand heavy so it stayed in the bottom of the jar and the clear water could be poured off. A gathering spell that might draw the sand and silt together into a solid form, like a rock. But nothing seemed the right solution.
Then I knew. It wasn’t a spell at all that was needed—it was the purest of pure magic, done with the heart alone. I picked up the jar and held it to my chest. I closed my eyes and visualized the silt, sand, tiny sea organisms, whatever might be in the water, disappearing one by one, returned to the ocean from which they’d come, until the sea water was as clear and clean as a baby’s first thought.
I felt the job was done, but fear slithered in and I didn't open my eyes. What if the seawater was as murky as ever? What if I could cast spells all day long but pure magic was beyond me? How would I ever get Jimmy back if magic was in my head but not my heart?
I had to know, didn’t I?
I opened my eyes.
The water in the jar was so clear that it was only the weight of it that told me something was inside the glass. I grinned, rather proud of myself.
“Pour it in the bowl,” Diana said. Impatience rode in her voice and knocked my pride to the floor.
I poured the water in slowly, then set the empty jar on the table. I didn’t need to be told again to look into the bowl.
It took no time at all, and I guess I wasn’t surprised.
“A fur seal,” I said.
“Interesting.” Diana rested her chin on her fist. Her eyes were far away. I poured the seawater back into the jar—never waste your resources—while I waited for her to decide whatever it was she was ruminating on. She was taking a while, long enough for me to realize the seawater I’d returned was still crystal clear—not at all the murky water I’d first poured out. I closed my eyes and thought the sand, sediment, and bits of whatever had been in the water originally back into the jar, wondering briefly where they had been while they were gone. I opened my eyes and was fairly surprised to see that it had actually worked.
Diana cleared her throat. “I’ve been thinking and thinking about an object of power for you.”
I didn’t know what an object of power was, but guessed it was like the compass or Mother’s ring—a thing to help me know when I was near my quarry.
“It’s all ocean for you. The sea goblin. The shell. The goblin using gulls as his surrogates. The seals that clamored to get your attention at the cove. A seal as your guide animal.”
I nodded.
“Well,” she said brightly, “there’s really only one object that makes sense for you. Hold on a moment while I fetch it.”
She returned carrying a thin silver neck chain with a small silver starfish hanging from it. She motioned with her head for me to turn around, and she fastened on the necklace. It hung next to the locket with my parents’ portraits inside.
“Never take this off,” she said.
I fingered the small starfish. “How does it work?”
“On its own,” Diana said. “Which is why you must always wear it. You never know when it will be needed and you want to be sure to have it on when you do.”
“What does it do?” I said.
“It’s a weapon. If you’re lucky, you’ll never find out what it does.”
I swallowed, thinking things were suddenly moving a little faster than I liked.
Eleven
Hermosa Beach, California
March 1924
The sun sank toward the horizon, lighting the clouds pink, orange, blue, and yellow. The tide was out and the ocean calm. I loved the beach in late winter and early spring—the summer tourists not yet descending, the sand stretching on with only the occasional person for as far as I could see. The waves rolled in, their soft melody soothing.
Somewhere out there, my little brother was stuck in a seashell.
I tried the calling spell, feeling the words roll through my lips, listening closely to the sound to hear any imperfections. There was one, maybe.
My heart lurched. I wasn’t ready to capture the gremhahn, I knew that—not until Diana and Mother could help me break the curses—but how could I know if I could do it if I didn’t do a trial run? I’d call him, and when he came, tell him—what? This had been a stupid thing to do. I needed an undo spell, but I didn’t have one. Oh God, I thought, let me fail.
Please let me fail.
Please.
No sea goblin appeared.
Relieved, I had turned to walk back to the house when I saw a man staring at me. I stared back, a tactic I’d found usually scared off men who were rude enough to keep their eyes on me.
My breath caught in my throat when I recognized him—the beautiful human. It’d been a while since that night, but I’d have recognized him even if it had been ten years. No one had any right to be that handsome.
“Please excuse the stare,” he said in that voice like honey-butter as he walked up to me, “but have we met? You look familiar.”
“We have,” I said, taking in the loose cut of his navy-blue trousers, white shirt, and light blue sweater, the way they fit him. “Very briefly, at Mimi’s, downtown. The party broke up because word came the place was about to be raided. You offered my friend and me a ride, but our car was nearby.”
“Ah,” he said. “I don’t remember the incident but I knew I’d seen you before. Do you live around here?”
I felt suddenly wary and I swear the starfish at my throat wiggled slightly. “No. I live in Wilmington. I’m just here for the day.”
“Ah,” he said again and doffed the posh flat cap he was wearing. “Well, it was a pleasure to see you again. Have a lovely evening.”
He turned and walked south on the beach, in the direction my house lay. I stood a while longer, staring out at the waves, only occasionally sneaking a peek to see if I could still spot him. When he’d gone from my view, I headed home.
*
Diana drew her lips together and then let out an angry huff of air when I told her I’d tried to call the sea goblin, just to see if the spell worked, but had failed.
“You can’t run before you learn to walk, Cassie,” she said. “You’re lucky the spell didn’t work. What did you think you would do it if did?”
“Ummm. I would have cast a binding spell and captured him in the same burlap bag Mother used. I would have kept him captive until we could work a spell to break the curses on Mother and me and then made him return my brother.”
“Three spells,” Diana said, “and you so sure that you could do each one correctly when you couldn’t even get the first one right. And what on earth made you think you could hold the gremhahn captive for any length of time? Where were you going to put him?”
Heat warmed my cheeks. I was seated on the claw-footed yellow couch in her parlor. I looked down at my hands folded in my lap. “I got ahead of myself.”
“Yes, you did.”
I’d never heard her voice be so hard and cold. I deserved it, though. She was right and I’d been wrong. I cleared my throat and looked up at her. “I’m very sorry.”
“Well, perhaps we should break it into its individual pieces. First, the gathering spell.” She glanced around the room. The gathering spell only worked with living things, not objects, so there was nothing in the room for me to bespell.
“Outside,” she said and rose from the sofa and headed towar
d the back door.
I followed her out to the yard.
“My neighbors have a cat,” she said. “A Siamese called Ting-a-ling. Call it to you.”
I visualized a Siamese cat in my mind and began muttering the spell.
“So I can hear you, Cassie. How will I know if you’ve got it right if I can’t hear the words? Plus, the living thing you’re calling won’t hear it unless it’s said clearly.”
I touched the starfish and began again, still low but loud enough for Diana to hear. I finished and waited, but no cat appeared.
“Not gown-long-in,” Diana said. “Not gown like you wear to a ball. Gown like own with a soft g in front.”
I closed my eyes and tried again, carefully pronouncing each word. My eyes flew open when I heard a soft meow at my feet. I clapped my hands, pleased with myself.
Diana didn’t give me so much as a small smile. “Now, that sparrow there in the orange tree. Bring it here.”
For the rest of the afternoon I fetched two more neighborhood cats, a finch, a large black crow, three earthworms—I failed on earthworm one and Diana made me do it right twice before moving on—and a rather angry raccoon that Diana immediately sent back where it came from.
“Getting tired?” she finally asked, as the sun was sinking quickly westward.
I nodded. My eyes burned, my head ached, and my spine had curved into a slump. I’d been concentrating hard for hours. I was exhausted, hungry, and ready to go home.
“One more,” she said. “I have a nephew who lives in Gardena.” She reached into her pocket and drew out a photograph. I was pretty sure Diana didn’t carry his photo in her pocket at all times and wondered if she’d somehow known of my failure with the goblin and what today’s lesson would be, or if she’d done some spell I’d completely missed that put the photo in her pocket. “Bring him to us.”
“Won’t he mind being snatched away from whatever he’s doing?” I said.
“No,” she said. “I phoned him.”
“When?”
Diana smiled slightly. “I have my secrets, Cassie. Lessons you are years away from learning.”
Was that so? I thought. Well, watch this. I spoke the spell loudly and clearly and was not at all surprised when Diana’s nephew—a rangy boy, younger than me, with wild, curly yellow hair—materialized in the backyard.
“How was it?” Diana asked her nephew.
“A bit bumpy,” he said, “but effective enough.”
“Does your aunt often summon you this way?” I asked.
He nodded and grinned. “Auntie Di is a teacher, so I help out with student spell-castings when she needs me. She’s my teacher, too. I get extra lessons in return for playing the guinea pig.”
“Andrew has been training in magic since he was seven. He’ll make a fine mage one of these days.”
I judged Andrew to be fourteen or so now. Seven years he’d been training. Would it take me seven years before I could bring Jimmy back? I couldn’t bear that.
Andrew gave his aunt a hug. Diana kissed his cheek and said, “Thank you.” She muttered something and made a swirling motion with her hand, and the nephew was gone.
Diana dusted her hands together. “All right. That’s enough for today. Tomorrow at ten.”
“I have something I need to do in the morning. Can we make it noon?”
Diana sent me a harsh look but said, “Noon will be fine.”
*
As soon as I finished breakfast I took the Red Car to the dog pound in Carson. Part of me was hesitant to love a dog again, but I knew that a heart that didn’t love shriveled and died. Getting a dog would set two lives on a happier road—mine and its.
The pound was as sad and depressing as I’d thought it would be. I walked through the kennels peering into every cage, some dogs barking, some standing, their tails wagging hopefully, and others cowering in the back as if afraid every moment that a blow would fall on them. Just when I thought I’d never be able to choose only one, I spied a medium-sized yellow dog with one ear that went up and one that flopped over, and I knew. This was my dog.
“She’s a girl but we call her Scout,” the pound worker said. “Like the motorcycle.”
I looked at him blankly.
“The Indian Motorcycle Company, do you know it? No? They make a model called the Scout. Seems to fit her.”
I continued my blank stare.
“Because she’s really fast,” the man said, emphasizing the last word. “She’s got some Labrador retriever in her, obviously, and who knows what else. She’s small for a Lab. Probably won’t get bigger than forty, fifty pounds.”
“I’ll take her,” I said.
The man tied a rope around the yellow dog’s neck, brought her out of the cage, then handed the rope to me. We went up front so I could complete the paperwork and pay the fee. Scout had trotted up right beside me and sat calmly at my side while I took care of the business side of the transaction.
“Could you call a taxi, please,” I asked the man. “Be sure to mention I’ll have a dog with me.”
“Cabbies all know this address,” he said. “They’re used to happy people having dogs with them, or people without dogs, with glum faces or tears streaking their cheeks.”
I reached down and scratched Scout behind the ears. I’d be one of the happy ones.
*
I’d gone to the pound so early that after we returned home I still had an hour before I needed to be at Diana’s.
“What do you think, Scout,” I said, addressing the dog. “Shall we have a walk on the beach?”
Scout cocked her head and listened, her tail wagging slowly, puzzling out the meanings of the words, I supposed.
I changed the rope to Molly’s old collar—it was too big and I had to punch a new hole for the buckle with a knife—and Molly’s leash, and we headed for the sand.
We walked along the shore. Scout was a dream on the leash, trotting at my heels, her head swiveling this way and that, taking it all in. I supposed she’d never seen the ocean before.
I thought how foolish I’d been to try to call the sea goblin to me. Diana had shown me how much more I needed to learn before I tried anything like that again. Next time I would be completely ready.
“A long way from home to be walking your dog,” a voice like melted honey-butter said next to me.
I swung my head and looked at the owner of the voice—that beautiful human again.
He smiled. “If you live in Wilmington, seems there would be closer places for a walk.”
I laughed under my breath. I’d been caught out in my lie and we both knew it.
“I live a ways down the Strand,” I said, watching Scout sniff at the man’s pant leg. Dogs seem to know instinctively if someone is a good person or not, and I was curious what Scout would make of him. She seemed a bit confused as she sniffed, then looked to the ocean, then sniffed him again. In the end, she must have decided he was all right, because she didn’t object when he sank down over his ankles and scratched her under the chin.
“Her name is Scout,” I said.
“Like the motorcycle?”
It must be a male thing, I decided. All males instinctively knew the names of motorcycles, a thing about which I knew absolutely nothing.
“Because she’s fast,” I said, and glanced at my watch. Eleven thirty. I needed to turn back now and take Scout home and get her settled if I was going to arrive at Diana’s at noon.
“It was nice to meet you again,” I said and started to walk away.
He nodded. “Would it seem very forward of me to ask to walk with you a bit?” He bowed slightly when I turned back toward him. “Paxton Yeager, Pax, at your service.”
He’d introduced himself at Mimi’s and I’d remembered his name. Who could forget the name of someone who looked like he did?
“Oh,” I said, realizing he meant for me to introduce myself in return. “Cassie Goodlight.”
“A pleasure,” he said. “You have a lovely name. Goodlig
ht is unusual.”
I laughed slightly. “Family lore is that when Great-Grandfather came from France, the only English he knew was hello, goodbye, please, thank you, good morning, and good night. After handing over his papers at Ellis Island, when the clerk asked his name, Great Grand-Pere thought he was being told to go on through, so he said what he believed was proper at parting—he said, “Good night.” The clerk didn’t even get it correct though, writing down Goodlight. Which is how we went from being DuPont to the name we have now.
“Or I could be a descendent of the famous Indian princess Morning-Star Goodlight of the Swirling Waters tribe.”
I was babbling. Something about Paxton Yeager made me wary and giddy in the same instant.
Pax smiled. “A lovely name, however you came by it.”
“Thank you.” I turned and walked toward the house.
He didn't try to make further conversation as we made our way, first by the shore and then across the sand and then to the concrete Strand and finally to my house. I appreciated his silence, especially after my inane prattle about my last name. I was never one of those girls who could giggle and bat their eyelashes at any boy who came near. Moira often said I’d never get a boyfriend, much less a husband, if I didn’t learn how to, in her words, flirt and listen.
“Men love to talk and love an appreciative audience even more,” she’d said.
A small lump formed in my throat. There’d be no boyfriends and certainly no husband for me if I couldn’t break the sea goblin’s curse.
*
I spent every weekday at Diana’s perfecting my spells—not only the ones I’d identified as important, but more that Diana said I needed. I didn’t know when I’d crossed the invisible border that allowed Diana to suggest spells, but one day she simply did, as if she had been doing so all along. I’d shot her a look of curiosity, but had gotten the distinct feeling I shouldn’t actually mention the change. Evidently there were rules to this magic business that Diana followed but I was not to be privileged to know. That was fine with me, so long as I broke the curse on Mother and got Jimmy back.
The Girl with Stars in her Hair Page 11