In the evenings Scout and I went for walks. I felt guilty leaving her at home alone all day and made up for it with long walks on the beach. My back door had a smaller swinging door in it for her to go in and out to the backyard, but home alone was home alone—except that I loved being home by myself, so maybe Scout didn’t mind it, either.
She was good about walking on the leash, never pulling, though she’d eye the birds on the sand and I knew she wanted to chase them.
“Wait a minute,” I said one evening, and dropped down beside her to unhook her leash. There were a few people out enjoying the last of the day, but not so many that I thought anyone would mind a loose dog. Scout sat in the sand and looked at me.
“You poor thing,” I said. “What life did you have before this that you don’t know how to run free?” I shooed her with my hands. “Go! Run!”
I swear she smiled and then jumped up and ran at a small flock of seagulls resting one-legged on the sand. The birds rose into the air as Scout came near them.
Good, I thought. Fly off, seagulls, and tell your goblin master there will be no peace as long as Cassie and Scout patrol the sand.
Scout ran down to the shore and along the water’s edge, barking at something only she could see. I shaded my eyes, trying to determine what she was barking at, and spied a lone seal swimming parallel to Scout’s run on the shore. The seal swam away from me, toward the cliffs of Palos Verde. Scout ran alongside—the man at the pound had been right; she was very fast—until she was far enough away that worry tightened my chest.
“Scout! Scout!” I called, running down the beach after her. I ran until I was out of breath and had to stop. I bent over, breathing hard. What if Scout chased the seal into the water and a wave knocked her down? What if she was caught in a riptide? What if she left the shore and ran up to the Strand and then into some street? She’d never find her way home.
When I’d caught enough breath to finally straighten up again, my heart soared to see Scout still running along where the seal swam, but heading my direction. When she reached me, the seal dove under the water and disappeared.
“Thanks for bringing my dog back,” I said, as if the seal could hear me. After all, wasn’t the seal my spirit animal?
*
Scout was snoring lightly at the end of my bed. I stared into the dark, thinking about Jimmy. It’d been seven months since he disappeared and three months since I’d first gone to the finder woman to learn just enough magic to bring my brother home. How much longer could Mother stand not having Jimmy back? How much longer could I?
Twelve
Hermosa Beach, California
April 1924
The moment Diana let me into her house, in the foyer, before we’d even gone into the parlor, I said, “I need an answer from you. When will I be ready to go after the sea goblin, break the curses and save my brother?”
Diana gave me a level stare. “When do you think you’ll be ready?”
I squared my shoulders. “I’m ready now. I know every spell I’ll need by heart. I’ve proved that I can do them, and that they work. I know more than I’ll need to capture the gremhahn and rescue Jimmy. All this extra rigmarole, knowing how to throw fire balls or levitate, it’s unnecessary. Even though I asked to learn those things, it’s wasting time. Jimmy is stuck in that shell.” I drew myself up as tall as I could. I was taller than Diana on any day. Now I wanted to tower over her. I wanted her to see how strong I was.
“I know how to walk, Diana. I’m ready to run.”
“The same way you were ready before when you couldn’t even call the sea goblin to you?” she said.
My cheeks flamed. It was true I’d jumped too soon then, but I knew so much more now. I’d thought through every step, every situation I could conceive of, and asked Diana for a spell to turn every one of those situations to my advantage. If the binding spell didn’t work, what secondary spell would accomplish the same thing? If the sea goblin didn’t come in human form, what spell would change him to it? Except for needing three to break the curses, I was as prepared as I ever would be.
“Have you found your ally yet?” she asked quietly.
I folded a little. “You never said I needed an ally.”
“So, no,” she said. “You haven’t.”
I cleared my throat, buying a little time before answering. Was it sheer arrogance that made me feel ready? I didn’t think so.
“I guess not,” I said a bit haughtily. “A human ally, or something like the seal?”
“If you don’t know the answer to that, you certainly are not ready to seek the goblin.”
You’re wrong, I thought. I am ready. I’m going to do it.
Judging by the way Diana’s mouth pinched, she knew exactly what I’d been thinking. Must have been the set of my face and body.
Or mind reading? Could she teach me a spell that would let me read the goblin’s intentions? What if the goblin could read mine? Clearly I hadn’t thought of every eventuality yet.
“Go home, Cassie,” Diana said. “Come back when you’re ready to learn.”
“But—” I said, afraid now that she’d not let me come back.
She shook her head. “Just go home.”
Fury pounded through me. I was ready. I was.
“Cassie,” she said softly, “be careful of yourself.”
What did that mean? Did she think I was like Mother, that magic was unhinging me?
Was magic unhinging me?
Fatigue hit me suddenly. All these months, all the worry—it’d worn me out. I wasn’t unhinged, I was exhausted. Diana saw that. Saw it before I had, certainly.
I turned and went out the door and down the walk. Scout would be glad to see me. A long nap and a walk on the sand—that’s what I needed. And maybe we’d run into Pax on the beach.
That thought surprised me, but really, when I considered it, it shouldn’t have. Paxton Yeager had come into my mind more than a few times lately.
I reached up under my hat and touched one of the stars in my hair. No romance for you, Cassie Goodlight. Not unless you break the curses. If they can be broken.
Exhausted or not, undoing Mother’s curse and saving Jimmy were what mattered. I’d find a way to make Diana understand that. A way to make her stop throwing roadblocks in my path. Maybe find a workaround so I could force the gremhahn myself to unhex Mother. I would bring Jimmy home.
S
It seemed prudent to stay away from Diana for a few days—let it seem I was contemplating all she’d said to me. And in truth, I had slept through most of my first day off and it had helped. I’d also thought of a few more things I probably should know before I took on the gremhahn, and that revelation made me consider that I’d never think of everything, and would never be ready.
On Wednesdays I did my shopping. It seemed to me that fewer people chose that day, and I liked a less-crowded store. I was walking north on the Strand, up to Santa Fe Avenue, the wicker picnic basket I used to carry groceries over my arm, when I saw Pax come out of the Berth Hotel. The two-story whitewashed stucco building, with its large windows facing the beach, accommodated the growing number of visitors coming from as far away as other states now for vacation.
Pax stood a moment, looking first one way and then the other, up and down the Strand. His hair was wet, I thought, so he must have just come from a bath. I waved when I caught his eye. He smiled and walked toward me.
My stomach suddenly clenched and an odd fluttery feeling ran through me.
“Good morning, Miss Goodlight,” he said in that honey-butter voice of his. He spied the basket over my arm. “On your way to a picnic?”
“Shopping,” I said. “There’s a grocery around the corner on Santa Fe. I buy my victuals there.”
He nodded as if storing the information away for later. “Mrs. Berth sets a good table, but I’m a bit tired of the same thing every day. I’m on my way to lunch out. I hope I’m not being too forward, but would you have time to join me?”
&nb
sp; “I’ve eaten,” I said, “but a cup of tea would be lovely. It’s chilly this morning.”
That odd fluttery feeling sped through me again as he offered his arm and I took it. I felt the starfish at my throat wriggle slightly and worried first that Pax might see it move, and then that I was simply imagining things and needed to get a firmer grip on myself.
We turned up Santa Fe Avenue to Kerwin’s Bakery and Lunch Room. Inside the red brick building, the two oldest Kerwin boys sat coloring at a table near the kitchen. Baby Ted lay in a basinet next to the table. The scents of fresh-baked bread and cookies were heavenly. I was a little sorry I’d already eaten.
When our order came, Pax ate his meal with good manners but also with gusto. I mostly stirred my tea and asked, “What sort of work do you do?”
Pax set down his fork. “I’m teaching a course on folklore at the University of Southern California.” He laughed under his breath. “It’s not a very popular course, I’m sorry to say. I doubt I’ll be invited to stay on for the next session.”
My attention was piqued by his specialty, but what I asked was, “Aren’t you a little young to be a professor?”
He half-shrugged. “Perhaps.”
I smiled. “Are you a prodigy of some sort?”
“I wouldn’t say prodigy—more impatient than anything. I finished my master’s degree at nineteen. My book, English, Scottish, and Irish Folklore in the United States, gave me a bit of notoriety. Surprised me, to tell you the truth. It’s rather academic for the casual reader, but it was enough to get me invited to this teaching position.”
I cleared my throat, my mind racing. “Have you ever heard of a gremhahn?”
He nodded. “Is your family Irish? The story of the gremhahn is fairly common in Irish folklore.”
“Someone in town told me the story. I suppose she might be Irish, though she doesn’t have an accent. I went to the library downtown to learn more. One book said the gremhahn steals children and eats them.” I paused a moment. I hadn’t read any versions that told the tale the way it had happened to Jimmy, but I wanted to see Pax’s reaction. “Another book said that a stolen child could be kept in a seashell.”
Pax raised his eyebrows. “I’ve never heard either of those versions of the tale. I’d like to talk to your friend. In all the stories I’ve heard, the gremhahn—there’s only one, you know, not like giants, fairies, or ogres. The gremhahn doesn’t eat the children it steals. It turns them into seals. The selkies—do you know about the selkies?”
My heart beat like a wild horse racing in my chest. The seals are your friends, the Japanese man had said. Was one of them also my brother?
“Yes,” I said, keeping my voice even. “My mother told me about selkies.”
“The selkies,” Pax said, “care for the children turned to seals and try to find their families so they can be returned. There’s a time limit. If a child isn’t returned within a year, he or she remains a seal.”
My heart pounded so hard I thought it might break out of my chest. Jimmy had disappeared last July 17. Three more months and he would stay a seal forever, if Pax was right.
My mind twisted in so many directions at once, it was hard to grab a single thought and see it through. I wanted to move—to walk and think. Four months left in which to learn everything I needed to know, to break the curses on Mother and myself, to save Jimmy from the sea goblin.
“Thank you for the tea,” I said. “I should be on my way.”
“Of course,” Pax said, rising from his chair.
He gave me a piercing look as he stood, and I wished I could see into his mind, to what he was thinking. I wished I didn’t feel as though he could see into me quite clearly.
*
I lit the lantern to provide more light than the sliver of moon offered. Scout darted ahead, her head high, apparently hearing something beyond the fence at the east end of the property. An alley ran behind there, but the fence was seven feet high, so I couldn’t see what might have caught her attention. I’d not noticed it before, but realized at that moment that Father had highly prized privacy.
Scout sniffed along the edge of the fence, her hackles raised. I watched her with wary eyes. I’d long since asked Diana for a spell of protection that I’d cast over my house and Mother’s. I trusted it worked, but unless I saw the goblin try to breach it and fail, I couldn’t know for sure. Scout gave a last, loud snuff at the fence, the hair at the back of her neck went down, and she trotted back to me, evidently having decided that whoever or whatever was moving down the alley posed no threat. I cast another protection spell over the house and yard anyway, visualizing layer upon layer of invisible shield, just to be on the safe side.
Diana insisted Mother still wasn’t ready to help with the curse breaking. I didn’t want to ask Mother myself. It wouldn’t matter that she’d said she wanted nothing more to do with magic. I knew she’d try to help, whether she was ready or not. I also knew Jimmy’s time was running out. I wasn’t sure why I took Pax at his word that the gremhahn had lied about Jimmy being in the shell, that my brother was now a seal and would remain one if we didn’t get him back before his year was up, but I did.
Which meant, now that I thought about it, that the binding spell hadn’t worked on the gremhahn, if he could lie. What good was a spell that wouldn’t work? Maybe Mother hadn’t done it exactly right. Maybe she’d only partially enchanted him, so that some of what he said was truth and some a lie.
Which meant I had to be perfect with my spells.
I didn’t want to call anything obvious, especially if people were going to be walking by my fence, even if it were night. A flock of crows suddenly descending on my yard or the neighborhood cats disappearing and then reappearing here might be a little too noticeable. I closed my eyes and visualized a couple of gophers popping their heads out of their holes. It’s likely Scout would go for them, but I wouldn’t bind the animals and they could hie back into their dens quicker than Scout could get them. Besides, how many gophers could live in my yard? Not that many.
I opened my eyes and pronounced the calling spell.
The yard was instantly overrun with gophers—dozens of them scurrying this way and that. Scout was barking and chasing after first one, then another. One ran straight toward me and I jumped to avoid it. These weren’t just the gophers from my yard—those dove quickly back into their dens—but probably half the gophers in Hermosa. I quickly sent them back whence they’d come.
Scout padded up next to me and sniffed at my leg. I knelt beside her and scratched behind her ears. My pulse was hammering. I couldn’t make mistakes like this when the day came to save Jimmy.
“It’s a good thing there’s only one sea goblin,” I said to her. “If there were more, I’d likely wind up calling them all at once.”
She licked my cheek, giving me a dog kiss. Funny how something that simple made me feel much better. I kissed her back on the top of her head.
“What shall we try next?” I said, pulling myself to my feet. “How about opossums? Have you ever seen a ’possum? So ugly they are cute. But let’s not bring a mob this time. One might do.”
I cast the spell. The moment the last word left my mouth, Scout bolted for the back gate, barking, but wagging her tail in the same happy way she did when I came home. Had I drawn the possum to the alley rather than my yard? That was worrisome.
I followed Scout to the back gate that opened onto the alley, cracked it open enough for me to see, my body angled so Scout couldn’t run out. She pushed at my legs trying to get through, distracting me, so I didn’t see Pax for a moment.
“Good evening,” he said, tipping his fedora to me. He was dressed casually but well, in a new-style loose-fitting dark navy suit. The slightly nipped-in waist of the jacket drew attention to his broad shoulders.
Magic was still zinging through me, and I suppose it was surprise at seeing him that made me demand, “What are you doing here?”
Pax actually smiled at my harsh tone.
&
nbsp; “Passing by,” he said. “I heard there was a good Italian place on Second Street. I was on my way there. Would you care to join me?”
I drew in a breath and pulled myself together.
“I have dinner cooking on the stove,” I said, “but thank you for the offer. Perhaps another time.”
Pax dipped his head but lingered.
“There’s plenty,” I said, rather surprised I was inviting someone who was mostly a stranger into my home. “If you like shepherd’s pie.”
“One of my favorites,” he said in that honeyed voice.
Scout had switched her attention from Pax to something behind me.
Pax followed her with his eyes. “You seem to have some critters in your yard.”
I swung around and saw Scout slowly stalking a possum family. I’d seen her stalk before, her head down, taking slow, small steps. In a moment, she’d bolt for them. She was fast. She could catch the mother or one of the babies if it fell off. Without thinking, I said the spell to send them back from where they’d come from.
“Whoa,” Pax said, and I swung back to face him.
He was looking at me as if I’d suddenly sprouted an extra arm or my hair had turned to grass.
“You’re a witch.”
Thirteen
Hermosa Beach, California
April 1924
“Mage,” I said, relieved somehow to have it out in the open.
Pax nodded slightly, acknowledging my words.
“Witches are born with their magic fully formed,” I said, repeating something Diana had said. “A mage learns to cultivate and grow innate talent.”
A slight smile curved his lips, but I didn’t feel he was humoring me. It was more like he was pleased.
The alarm I’d set to go off when the pie was finished dinged in the kitchen. “Shall we go in?”
I set the table, lit the candles, and brought out the shepherd’s pie I’d planned on eating for the next few days, along with two cups of tea. I wanted to know what he thought about my announcement, but didn’t ask. It felt comfortable having him in the house. Maybe I didn’t want to know he was secretly laughing, or thought I was a little crazy, or saw me as a story to be collected for his next book.
The Girl with Stars in her Hair Page 12